Race, Gender and Ethnicity Data Collection

USDA has its request for comment on its collection of data on its customers race, gender and ethnicity published here.  Deadline is September 21.  So far there have been no comments.  As an exercise in willpower I'm withholding comment on that.

From the notice, an explanation of why:

Summary of Collection: Section 14006 and 14007 of the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008, 7 U.S.C. 8701 (referred to as the 2008 Farm Bill) establishes a requirement for the Department of Agriculture (USDA) to annually compile application and participation rate data regarding socially disadvantaged farmers or ranchers by computing for each program of the USDA that serves agriculture producers and landowners (a) raw numbers of applicants and participants by race, ethnicity, and gender, subject to appropriate privacy protection, as determined by the Secretary; and (b) the application and participation rate, by race, ethnicity and gender as a percentage of the total participation rate of all agricultural producers and landowners for each county and State in the United States.

Correcting Tocqueville

This Post Monkey Cage piece claiming Americans get more involved in politics than others includes this:

As Alexis de Tocqueville put it, “Americans of all ages, all conditions, and all dispositions constantly form associations. … Wherever at the head of some new undertaking you see the government in France, or a man of rank in England, in the United States you will be sure to find an association.”

That makes it sound as if our associations come from the grassroots while in Europe they come from the top.  I think that exaggerates a bit.  I've looked at some of the early associations promoting agriculture in the U.S.  The pattern seems to be we had our  "rainmakers"  back then.  "Rainmaker" here meaning an illustrious personage, in these cases often a veteran of the Revolution and/or Founding Father, whose prestige attracts other members.

Trouble with Homophone: Significant?

I'm noticing more and more I've trouble with homophones (i.e, for those who have forgotten high school English, words with the same pronunciation but different spelling and meaning, like "its" and "it's", "knew" and "new") and with completing words correctly (i.e., by writing "ful" at the end of "meaning" rather than the "less" I intended, or, as just now, typing "the" when I meant "than").

A quick google brings up this research but doesn't confirm my layman's belief that such a decline in functioning is significant, at least of old age if not of dementia.  But whatever.

I bring this up because our illustrious President has caught some flak over a tweet in which he spelled "heal" as "heel".  I don't know whether he can't spell, whether he's getting old, or showing early signs of dementia.  None of the alternatives are correctable at this point.

The Big Sick

Saw the movie the other day and enjoyed it, although I really do need to get a hearing aid. 

The plot rests on the well-established phenomena (which I remember from my college days)--it's not knowledge of the "other" which reduces prejudice, it's cooperation and suffering together in quest of a goal.  I'm reminded of that truth when I see this report on Houston Muslims and the flooding.

The Dilemma Will Hurd Poses

Run across the Republican Congressman from Texas Will Hurd a few times in the media.  He seems impressive, human, ex-CIA, not too partisan (he was half of the two Congressmen driving from TX to DC and recording it on social media).  But he's a Republican, and vulnerable.  His district is the Rio Grande area of TX, heavily Hispanic (opposes Trump's wall despite having the longest section of US-Mexican border of any Congressman).

So, on the one hand I want the Republican party to have more such representatives, rather than the Cruzes and the Gowdys, the wing nut.  On the other hand, I want the Democrats to take control of the House in 2018, and Hurd's seat is a good target.  Unfortunately I can't donate to the DCCC and specify--don't fund Hurd's opponent. 

So I'm torn.

Special Envoys and Monuments

Secretary Tillerson is looking to eliminate dozens of "special envoys"; liberals are looking to eliminate dozens of memorials and monuments to flawed people of the past.

What's the similiarity?  For me, I'm assuming many of the envoys are more symbolic than functional.  There can be an advantage to appointing a coordinator-type person to try to break down some bureaucratic silos.  But often they have the weakness of their position--outside the chain of command where "real work" (real at least in the eyes of the bureaucrats in the organization) gets done.  So their ideas are not invented here, and they just serve as a symbol for the outside organizations which sponsored the creation of the post, a sort of flag of attempted conquest planted on the foreign continent of the bureaucracy.

Memorials and monuments are also symbols, more important to a small group than most people going about their business.

Prediction: Classic Logroll--Harvey Aid Plus the Wall

A politico piece rehashing the NY/NJ grievances with TX Congress people, especially Sen. Cruz.  Since Harvey relief will be must-pass legislation, many people (i.e. me) predict that money for Trump's wall will be folded in with it, and Dems will vote for it.

The Uses of Violence?,

Josh Marshall has a post discussing violence against the alt-right.  He's against it, arguing that it's works to the benefit of the far right and undermines the rule of law.

While I'm with him on that, he doesn't pay enough attention to the seduction of violence, although he does admit he enjoys seeing a Nazi punched.  Most any football fan will say they enjoy a "good hit" on the opposing quarterback, running back, or receiver.  That's human--we like violence against our opponents (though we'll be sure to call for a flag if our quarterback, running back, or receiver is on the receiving end of a "vicious, illegal hit").

The antifa types seem to be much the same demographic as the alt-right: young males, though perhaps with a few more females and a sprinkling of people of color you wouldn't see in the alt-right.  But extremism attracts the similar people on both ends, although the left perhaps has a more intellectual gloss to their actions.  I suspect if you could do a brain scan of either group in the midst of an action, a march or a counter-demonstration, you'd see the same areas of the brain activated, areas which have little to do with rational thought.

Memory and Action

One of the problems we old geezers have is memory.  Not only are we losing it, particularly the short-term variety, but to the extent we retain some, we can be immobilized by it.

Maybe that's the problem with the controversies over memorials.  Memorials are signs, and important. but devote too much concern to the past and the future evades your grasp.  Much better in my mind to err on the side of focusing on the future, than the past.  (Yet, and yet, I tried to be a historian once--how does that fit?  Don't know.)

Bad News for Organic Farmers

Now that Amazon's acquisition of Whole Foods has been approved, Bezos' first step was to cut the prices of some organic produce, probably signalling an emphasis on lower prices in the future.  IMHO that's bad news for organic farmers, who will face pressure to take lower prices, also meaning they will face their own pressure to enlarge their operations and/or cut corners in order to survive.  So the long summer  of years when organic farmers could ask for and get a sizable premium for purity is drawing to a close, and they face a turbulent fall and then: "Winter is Coming".