Questions To Live By

 Reading a recent bio of Ben Franklin.  IIRC we had to read his autobiography in my college course on American Intellectual History.  I've read other books on him, a very engaging figure.  But I'd forgotten these questions which were prerequisite to someone joining his Junto Club, an early do-good nonprofit:

Have you any particular disrespect to any present members? Answer. I have not.
Do you sincerely declare that you love mankind in general, of what profession or religion soever? Answer. I do.
Do you think any person ought to be harmed in his body, name, or goods, for mere speculative opinions, or his external way of worship? Answer. No.
Do you love truth for truth's sake, and will you endeavor impartially to find and receive it yourself, and communicate it to others? Answer. Yes.

Wikipedia tells us that a possible predecessor was a British club, which included John Locke.

I observe the third question is relevant to the so-called "cancel" culture.

Harris for VP

 I'm surprised at the emotional reaction to the nomination expressed in the papers and by one relative.  I'd assumed that we'd had a woman Presidential candidate and a black President, so the combination wouldn't be that significant.  It seems it is, which is a reminder that putting yourself in others' shoes is difficult and often misses. 

More "Crops" Added to CFAP

 USDA announced more "crops" for CFAP.  I put crops in quotes because some of them I"ve never heard of.  Back in the disaster days ASCS had to deal with a lot of new crops, because the program covered vegetables and nursery.  Now FSA has:

• yautia/malanga (a type of taro root)
• cherimoya ("custard apple") praised by Mark Twain as the most delicious fruit.
•  carambola ("star fruit")
• mamey sapote ("red mamey")

Blacks as Central to American Popular Culture?

 Prof. Appiah writes a NYTimes review of Isabel Wilkerson's new book: “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents,” I'll read the book because the concept is interesting, but I was struck in the review by this:

 The place of Black workers in the American economy is surely part of the racial story, and it’s notable that the word “capitalism” doesn’t appear in Wilkerson’s book. Low-status jobs are generally low-income jobs; both income and status matter. Nor can we turn to the caste model in explaining the centrality of Black people to American popular culture.

I'm working on a post on the differences in American society between 1950's of my youth and the 2020's of my old age, but I hadn't yet touched on that. 

It's true--I could probably count on both hands the number of blacks in the culture who seemed significant to me:

Jackie Robinson

James Baldwin

Nat King Cole

Thurgood Marshall 

By the end of the decade MLKing but not Malcolm X.

Sidney Poitier

no singers that I remember.

I expect an 18 year old me in today's world would have a much longer list of singers, actors, writers. etc.  

Part of the difference between then and now is blacks coming to the fore.  But it's also true that part of the difference is the decline of hierarchy/or the multiplication of niches. 

 

 

 

Selma

Finally got around to watching the movie Selma Friday night. It was well done. It's been criticized for the portrayal of the LBJ-MLK relationship as more confrontational and less collaborative than it was.  

The DVD included two newsreel clips from the time of the marches.  There was an interesting contrast between what the movie showed and what the newsreels provided.  

• In the first newsreel, the focus was on the death of Rev. James Reeb, a white minister, was beaten and died after participating in the first march.  He became a martyr and triggered an  influx of whites to participate in the second march.  The movie shows him, his beating, and the results very quickly; understandably because the focus is on MLK. The newsreel people likely didn't have access to the internal deliberations of the marchers so they went with the most drama.
• The second newsreel shows the second march.  Where the movie portrays the marchers approaching the line of troopers, the withdrawing of the troopers, and MLK's prayerful decision to turn around very dramatically, the newsreel says there was a consultation between MLK and the major commanding the troopers and a previous agreement that the march would not proceed.  In this case the movie went with the drama, possibly or likely distorting the true history.

Women Wore Hats Too

 I think I've blogged about the photos showing men in the 1920's-1950s wearing hats.  It seemed to be universal, not an indicator of class.

In an attempt to be fair, I want to link to this tweet, with a photo showing 1920's women wore hats as well. Apparently the  gender difference was that women wore hats everywhere, but men only outdoors?

 

Aug 7, 1920 - William Hays, Chairman of the Republican National Committee, and a delegation of Connecticut suffragists at Republican National Headquarters in New York City #100yearsago pic.twitter.com/FTAoinFuKY

— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) August 8, 2020

 

National Black Growers Council

 Hadn't heard of this group before.  There seem to be several groups of black farmers, with John Boyd's getting the most publicity (or maybe I say that just because I set up a Google alert for him).

This one is supposed to be for row crop growers.

Immigration and Rationing by Friction

I'm reading "The Strange Death of Europe" by Douglas Murray.  As you can  guess from the title it's anti-immigration but its European focus provides a bit of perspective on the US problem with immigration.

Some bits which have struck me so far:

• he asserts something about people never assimilating, totally ignoring the American (Canadian, Australian, etc. ) experience which shows me that some groups do assimilate.  Not all.
• when people are divided on the policy, as in Europe between human sympathy with boat people fleeing from the "Arabian spring" of 2011 and fear for the impact of the influx on their nation, it makes it impossible for government to do a job.  The result is decision making by friction, by the accumulation of individual choices.
• from a 30,000 foot perspective, as long as there are differences in wealth, opportunity, and particularly stability among nations, there will be migration. 

Vertical Farming of Wheat

This was a tweet which attracted attention.

Vertical farming is my favorite solarpunk invention.

Imagine humanity using less and less of the land, allowing it to revert to nature as we stack our farms to the sky. All powered by solar energy, of course. https://t.co/ZZEIQ0oYFJ

— Noah Smith 🐇 (@Noahpinion) August 3, 2020

The link is to a study of really intensive wheat farming under lights.  It got very high productivity.   From the study summary:

Here we show that wheat grown on a single hectare of land in a 10-layer indoor vertical facility could produce from 700 ± 40 t/ha (measured) to a maximum of 1,940 ± 230 t/ha (estimated) of grain annually under optimized temperature, intensive artificial light, high CO2 levels, and a maximum attainable harvest index. Such yields would be 220 to 600 times the current world average annual wheat yield of 3.2 t/ha.

The writers admit it's not economically feasible now or in "near future".  Since they're talking 20+ hours of lighting and boosting CO2 levels and temperature-controlled (i.e., air conditioning) IMHO it's not likely to be feasible until we get electricity from fusion.  I'd assume inventing the equipment to plant and harvest the wheat would be relatively easy, but their 10-layer farm assumes 1 meter separation between layers and super dwarf wheat, so rather cramped quarters.

The study turns out to be a computer modelling exercise, based on extrapolating from one real-life experiment in growing wheat and estimating theoretical maximums. 

 

FSA Sees the Light of Feminism?

Back in the day, when I moved from Directives to the program side, roughly 1978, there were three broad classification groupings: clerical, technical, professional, with the "program specialists" being in the last group.  In the division of maybe 50 people, IIRC we had two women professionals, both of whom worked in the branch which did policy analysis and statistics. The old allotment programs for wheat, feed grains, and cotton had been suspended in recent years, although they were still on the books.  Developing the allotments and quotas had been the original raison d'etre for the branch, meaning they were heavily into statistics and this, if I understood correctly, was the way the women had climbed the ladder to the professional tier.

As the years passed, one woman retired and one died of cancer so it was 1983 or 4 before I remember new  female professionals joining the division. As time passed there was more and more difficulty in recruiting county executive directors to come to DC because of the growing difference in livestyle/cost of living between a rural county and a DC suburb. So recruitment turned to the clerks in county offices, then called "program assistants" and now "program technicians". CED's had been predominantly male, PA's were predominantly  female.  So when FSA was hiring in the mid-80s in connection with installation of IBM System/36's most of the new hires were women.

By the late 80's we had the first woman branch chief: Sandra Nelson Penn, By the time I retired Diane Sharpe was my division director.

Today I see a notice of the current (I don't know if any or all are new) division directors in the Farm Programs area:  DAFP Announces Division Directors and Deputy Directors.  As far as I can tell all four are women.

Congratulations