What the Past Was Like--59 Years Ago

I stumbled across the program for the 12th Youth Forum, held in NYC in 1954.  The first pages are the text for a speech delivered by Mayor Robert Wagner.  Beginning at page 11 is the actual program.  Panel subjects were:

• How can the United Nations be improved to deal with the problems of international peace?
• How can the United States strengthen her policy toward her friends, her foes and neutralist nations?
• How can the United States best protect itself against the dangers of subversion and still maintain civil liberties? (The panel chairman was a 15 year old Martin Peretz, I assume the Peretz who went on to fame as owner of New Republic.)
• Do current educational practices prepare youth for effective participation in American democracy?
• How can youth and adults meet the challenge of juvenile delinquency?

The panel chairs and co-chairs were balanced by sex, and the panel leaders seem to have been as well (though some unisex names).

Among the speakers and guests were the Philippines envoy to the UN, Wagner, the heads of NYC police, education, and schools, Sam Levenson, a comic, and representatives of three of the NYC sports teams (Jackie Robinson, Whitey Ford(!), and Kyle Rote, plus media types. There were delegates from youth organizations (Scouts, Boys Club, CYO, PAL) and religious organizations, and delegations from high schools in the city.

What struck me?  The seemingly inclusive nature, at least for 1954, more inclusive than I think the time is given credit for.  The prominence of religious organizations.  The seriousness of the subjects--I doubt there's any comparable youth level discussions today.  The dominance of a "communitarian" agenda and the absence of any libertarian one.

A USDA Benefactor of Humanity Dies

Bet you didn't think anyone in USDA ever benefited humanity?  Well, Ruth Benerito was the scientist who's given credit for permanent press.  Link is to her NYTimes obit at age 97.   Wikipedia said she had 55 patents.

I can't resist noting that USDA laboratories are now shutdown, thanks to a certain party.

Healthcare and the Amish

Always fascinated by the Amish, who are exempted from ACA (Obamacare) because they were exempted from Social Security way back in the last century, as this article describes.

The article doesn't mention the Amish occasionally being medical tourists--i.e., traveling to Mexico for some operations, something about which I've read in the last couple years.

Ezra Klein Differs on ACA Software

Kevin Drum and Ezra Klein are notably more damning of the Obama administrations healthcare exchange software than I have been.  This from Klein:

'But the Obama administration did itself -- and the millions of people who wanted to explore signing up -- a terrible disservice by building a Web site that, four days into launch, is still unusable for most Americans. They knew that the only way to quiet the law's critics was to implement it effectively. And building a working e-commerce Web site is not an impossible task, even with the added challenges of getting various government data services to talk to each other. Instead, the Obama administration gave critics arguing that the law isn't ready for primetime more ammunition for their case.

John Boyd Takes a Half Victory Lap

In this Huffington Post piece.

Farmers Didn't Improve Their Fields Until the 20th Century?

One meme of a few in the food movement, Prof. Pollan I'm looking at you, is farmers began industrial agriculture in the 20th century, specifically when nitrates left over from the military started to be used on our fields.  (That's my memory of Omnivore's Dilemma.)

Low-Tech Magazine has a long post on lime kilns  (all that rain in the British Isles tended to acidify the fields, thus creating a demand for lime to counter it).   Wikipedia cites usage of lime for agricultural purposes in the 13th century.  It's easy to underestimate the brains of our ancestors.

I've memories of our whitewashing the stable walls, and using lime on the concrete behind the cows to keep it dry and prevent the cows from slipping.

Obama's Open Government Fail--on Obamacare

I just love to tweak IT types and goo-goo types about openness, and occasionally I like to tweak my liberal friends.  In that spirit, let me quote this from the NYTimes post on activity on the healthcare exchanges:

"It is unclear what the [healthcare] exchanges meant in citing heavy volume; most did not provide numbers, or even return phone calls in the first hours of operation. It is also unclear to what degree problems with the Web sites were due to the kind of technical hurdles that supporters of the program had warned about and that opponents had predicted would demonstrate its unwieldiness."

 Too bad HHS didn't require each exchange website to post their count of unique visitors.

More seriously, I expect the dust to settle and the glitches to get resolved (mostly) in the next few days or weeks, just as Medicare Part D did back in the Bush days.

3 Minutes for Food?

Via Marginal Revolution, a USAtoday story on how the universe is gradually slowing down, in the inevitable triumph of entrophy.

Actually, it seems that fast food outlets are having trouble maintaining their speed of "drive-thru" visits.  I don't patronize such lines, so I was struck by the fact that McDonald's fills orders in about 3 minutes (the current figure is 9 seconds slower than it used to be).

Good Advice from Joel Achenbach

This is directed to all you baby boomer youngsters:

"Those of us staring into the gaping maw of degeneration, senescence and ultimate obliteration are often driven to take on new activities and interests. You could make the case that Walt went overboard.

If you find yourself with an urge to try something new, my advice is to steer clear of anything that might create a problem for which the activation of a remote-controlled machine gun would potentially be the solution.

Pigford II Payments in the Mail

That's according to this Hattiesburg article.