Hard Working Row Crop Farmers

 This is dedication, or perhaps just the usual spring-rush routine. Never lived on a row crop farm so I don't really know.

What Are Socially Disadvantaged Farmers?

 CRS has an explanation which should cause every reader to shed a tear for the poor FSA personnel who have to deal with the different definitions.

Here's a table showing the numbers:

The Pull of the Familiar, the Push of the Foreign

Both the Post and Times  had Sunday articles discussing the Asian American community in Atlanta. The Post had a map showing its recent growth, which was concentrated in certain areas.

What struck me was the likelihood that the concentration mostly reflected the choice of the immigrants, the desire to live in areas with people with whom you might share something.  (Since "Asian-American" covers some 20 countries or so, you might not be able to speak your neighbor's language, but presumably you might have neighbors more accepting of you than in a 95 percent white, or 95 percent black, community.)  

It's always hard to untangle the factors behind residential concentrations (I almost wrote "segregation" but concentration is the better term.)  All other things being equal, a person might decide where to live based on the likelihood of finding people with similar backgrounds, tastes, opinions, values, or based on the fear of having to deal with strangers. 

Then moving from the viewpoint of the person moving into a residence to the viewpoints of the potential neighbors you bring up other factors.  I'd venture that in most cases in today's America the weight of the emotion involved is heavier on the side of the mover, than on the side of the neighbors.

Back in the day we had "lily-white" areas, so someone moving in of a different race could cause the potential neighbors to have a lot of emotion.  I don't think we have "lily-white" areas much these days, so there's less emotion.  Where you get emotion is NIMBYism, questions of zoning in particular.

Fox Versus Hedgehog; Goats Versus Sheep

 The philosopher Isaiah Berlin made his name with the essay The Hedgehog and the Fox, where the hedgehog has one big idea, the fox knows several smaller ideas.

Someone has investigated sheep and goats--turns out goats are better problem solvers than sheep, possibly because goats forage for their food, exploring everything which might be edible, while sheep specialize in grass., even though they're related species and both were domesticated early.

Congressional Review Act Not Used

 Apparently the Biden administration is opting for slow and possibly sure over fast and challengeable.  That is, rather than using the Congressional Review Act to undo last minute Trump regulations they're using the Administrative Procedure Act process--notice of proposed rulemaking, etc. The CRA could be done, but it has a kicker that when used, the agency can not later issue new regulations the same or reasonably similar to those which were killed.  

In a sense, a CRA kill is a permanent veto unless a future Congress enacts a new authority.

The Intelligence of Sperm Whales

Apparently sperm whales were intelligent enough to change their living patterns in response to humans hunting them in the 19th century.  Instead of gathering together, they learned to hightail out of Dodge when hunters appear.

It seems to me that one of the gradual changes in culture/science over my lifetime is the erosion of the boundaries between humans and animals.  It used to be a high wall, but these days we more often view humans as animals and animals as intelligent, whether it's sperm whales, ravens and other covids, octopus, etc.

1988 and 2016 in Broome County

 This site has maps of how each county voted in presidential elections from 1820 to 2020.  Naturally I looked at Broome County.  I was aware it was solid Republican through the years. It was back and forth for a while, but in 1856 it went Republican and continued for over a century.  In 1964 it voted for LBJ, but returned to the Republicans through 1984. Beginning in 1988 it went Democratic, with the exception of 2016. 

Trump and Goldwater are the two outliers in its history.  Interesting that Broome disdained the second and liked the first.

One Day

 Gene Weingarten, the humor columnist for the Post, wrote One Day describing events on one random day (Dec. 28, 1986 as it happened), specifically what some people did and what happened to people on that day, with the ramifications down the line.

The top two reviews on Amazon are 4 stars, which reflects the fact that in a group of stories, some will not appeal to some people, perhaps particularly the downers.

I'd give it 5 stars, just for the story telling and Weingarten's style. Because the stories are selected, they don't fit standard narratives--the wife-beating ends happily, for example.

Vertical Farming and Pot as an Example

 I think I'm now using "vertical farming" as a label for any high-tech growing system under artificial lighting.  In that regard. this Modern Farmer piece notes the environmental impact of growing pot indoors. Whether it's marijuana leaves or lettuce leaves, there's a tradeoff. 

Protecting Our IT Infrastructure--and Bureaucracy

 Fred Kaplan has a Slate article on the problem of preventing attacks on IT infrastructure.  NSA has the charter to prevent attacks from foreign countries, but is prohibited from handling attacks based in the US, which is the loophole used by the recent Tradewinds attacks

Secretaries Gates (DOD) and Napolitano (DHS) had a plan to fill the hole, but Kaplan's piece gives the sorry history of how the workings of bureaucracy, NIHism, and different policy outlooks made the plan fail. 

Working across organizational divisions is always problematic.  VA and DOD have the problem of health records between active/reserve military and veterans; the FBI and NSA have the problem in counter-intelligence operations; State and DOD have the problem of state-building (e.g. Iraq, Afghanistan); SCS and ASCS had the problem in handling sodbuster/swampbuster problems. 

Silos.  You can't live without them, you can't live with them.