Bureaucracy Extremes

Started reading "Midnight at Chernobyl" today.  It's been around the house for a while since we saw the TV series based on it,  but hadn't gotten to it until today.

Then I just got off the Facebook group for current and retired FSA employees (mostly field employees but some DC and retirees). I like to keep up with what's happening there. 

There's a big contrast between the rigid bureaucracy of the Soviet Union and the more free floating discussion of issues and techniques in the Facebook group. I wonder how much of that is American versus Russian and how much is technology enabling exchange of ideas. 

I think it was true in the old days of ASCS that there was pretty good sharing of ideas within a state, and perhaps some across state lines based on personal connections.  Back in the 90's we tried to develop the sharing by having "train the trainer" courses with county people mixed in with the state people.  Having the internet and Facebook now facilitates the exchange even more.  

The Price of Your Daily Bread (Vertical Farm)

 ". As a result, 91 m2 of artificially produced wheat is necessary for each person, with a total cost of 125,680 euros per year."

That's from a critical analysis of vertical farms at Low Tech Magazine.

The Role of Government Regulation

 Over the last year or so the role of government regulation has been in the headlines:

• Boeing's 737-Max suffered two fatal crashes. The conventional wisdom now is that FAA failed to exert enough oversight of the process of redoing the 737 into the Max.
• The development of vaccines for Covid-19 has been controversial.  Alex Tabarrok and Tyler Cowen  at Marginal Revolution in particular have pushed for faster approval and looser regulation of the various vaccines. The FDA's process has been contrasted against the process in other countries.  Alex, I think, has come out for reciprocal approval--approval by the regulatory authority in any (big, developed) country should be enough for FDA.
• The Trump administration pulled back on various regulations.  Today's Post  says the changes in inspection of pork processing plants have lead to more contamination in the ultimate products.

I always remember the thalidomide problem when the Republicans start pushing looser regulations.

Having said that, I wonder whether in the process of redoing the regulations which were undone in the last 4 years the Biden administration will find some things which should be changed.  I think anything a group does is going to have some flaws. In the usual course of events it's often easier to work around the flaws than to change them. But since the Biden people will have to go through the regulation process anyway, there's no added cost to fix problems.

IMO there's often a fine line between not enough regulation and too much, so a feasible solution can be an alternation between the two.

Ice on the Mississippi

 Am I remembering things.  Just caught a snippet of news about ice on the Mississippi, near Natchez I think, along with a statement it was interfering with shipping and was rare.

Seems to me I remember that the Mississippi used to shut down in the winter, at least upper reaches, because it was ice covered.  

Though I might be conflating the Mississippi with the Great Lakes.

Covid-19 Statistics--North Dakota

 I check the Bloomberg site for tracking vaccinations.  Today I note that North Dakota has given out 102 percent of the vaccine doses delivered.  It seems to be the only state with this anomaly.   

Pan-African Identity

 Henry L. Gates on PBS points out there were 50 ethnic groups in the enslaved people brought to US.

From other reading I know Africa has more ethnic diversity than the other continents; I believe much more than the other continents put together.  That means if history had worked out differently we might now be discussing 10 races, 8 of which were African and 2 of which covered the rest of the world. 

I think ethnic diversity maps to some genetic diversity, although not on a one to one basis. But the key for most discussions is what I'd call "social diversity", meaning the way one's culture/society identifies ethnic/identity groups.  For example, in the US we lump Hispanics/Latinos together, sometimes differentiating white as a separate group, but lumping in groups which are relatively unchanged since before Columbus.

We're now in the process of redefining "Orientals" as "Asians".  (Meanwhile, in Britain "Pakistanis" seem to be a separate ethnic group.)  

In the colonies and early national period enslavers knew different African ethnicities, and thought there were cultural differences (perhaps physical as well). Some were valued more than others.  We--the US--created "African-Americans", partly by the process of intermarriage among African ethnicities and mostly because that's the way we deal with diversity--we can't handle a multitude so we stereotype until we get down to a manageable number.

Aggravations of Aging

 Some gripes, now I'm officially a geezer. (I wrote "old geezer" at first, but then discovered "old" redundant.)

• Losing the ability to grasp small or tricky objects, like some sealed plastic bags where there's about 1/8" which you can grab. Or prescription pills which fall on the floor and have to be picked up.
• Losing muscle memory at the keyboard.  In the good old days I could rest my hands on the laptop keyboard, or in front of the desktop keyboard, and my fingers would find the home row and the home keys--I could start typing and have it make sense on the screen, or if not making sense, at least form English words.  These days I'm not able to do that.
• Loss of hearing.  I do wear hearing aids in the evening.  I've this odd mixture of disability--can hear some sounds with my left ear and others with my right.  Hearing has slowly declined over the years, slowly, for which I'm grateful.  My uncle was quite deaf when he was still in his 60's, but I'm far from that bad.

The "Original Sin" of the U.S.

 CNN has an opinion piece by James Goodman "It's time to stop calling slavery America's 'original sin.'"

It turns out his problem is with "original sin" as a metaphor.  As I read his analysis I realized it really doesn't have that much to do with the religious doctrine. Instead it's a way of saying something really bad was done in the past, while the doctrine says humans are fated to do bad now.  

Goodman makes a point towards the end, with which I do agree: the first "sin" in the creation of America was the dispossession of Native Americans. 

The Party of Reagan or Trump?

I saw a poll the other day showing that lots of Republicans now believe that Trump was a better president than Reagan.  

I didn't like either president, but Reagan had an emollient quality which was the opposite of Trump's abrasive mode.  It's the difference between the man whose Eleventh Commandment was: speak no ill of any Republican and the man who accused his vice president of lacking courage on Jan. 6.

Why Didn't Trump Go to the Capitol?

 Sometimes what doesn't happen is more informative than what does.

Take Jan. 6.  Trump promised his people at the rally that he would walk with them down to the Capitol.

He didn't?  Why? Why lie to his devoted followers who'd come from all over the country to hear his words and support his cause?  Why take the risk they'd turn on him for lying to them?

If the gathering at the Capitol was going to "peacefully and patriotically make their voices heard" there wouldn't seem to be much reason for Trump to cop out, to be a p***y as he calls his critics.

Just maybe he suspected that it wouldn't be peaceful? Just maybe he thought there might be some danger there? Just maybe he knew there could be violence and he was fine with that?  Or just maybe he's a coward?