The Return of Plain English Regulations

 Not sure what this tells me, except I'm old, as if the mirror doesn't remind me daily.

Back in my ASCS Directives Management days, my branch was responsible for processing ASCS and CCC regulations to the Office of Federal Regulations.  We had to ensure proper format, conformed (carbon) copies, official signatures, the correct set of documents (i.e., the regulation itself, the transmittal memo, and others). The regulation package would circulate among the offices in a special folder, with the routing sheet stapled to the front, ending up with the Administrator, ASCS or Executive VP, CCC as applicable.

Among the many goals of President Carter  were several aiming to improve the federal government (notably Senior Executive Service and the sunset law). Theoretically of similar importance was the "plain English" initiative.  Regulation writers got some classes in how to write, and agencies got instructions for their heads to certify that regulations were written in "plain English".  In reality, all that meant after the first few months was the addition of another document with multiple copies to be included in the regulation folder.  The document just read something like": "I certify the enclosed regulation is written in plain English".

I think the Reagan administration may have continued the requirement, at least for a whole, but it didn't last much longer than that.

But it's back!! Govtrack.us has an article with a title which tells us all: 

Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act would require 100-word plain English summaries of each new federal rule or regulation

 It's been introduced in both House and Senate, but no co-sponsors as yet.  Cynically I want to note that where Carter wanted the whole regulation to be in plain English, so far this effort is just to have a short summary in plain English, leaving the actual regulation to be inscrutable, or not, depending on the ability of the regulation writer and the environment in which she is working.

The Vaccination Race

 We used to follow the race among companies and nations to get the first covid-19 vaccine.  We've lost interest in that one as the world has gotten several vaccines of varying efficacy.

Then in the US we had the race among states to vaccinate their citizens. 

Remember when West Virginia jumped out to an early lead.  It seemed so unlikely, but turned out they had relied on their pharmacies and a reasonably centralized model.  But WV has faded.

Four days ago Politico noted that New Mexico was leading. Again they were using a centralized registry system.  Both WV and NM were working against some unfavorable demographics: older people in both, Hispanics in NM, etc.

For a while the Dakotas were right up there near the top, but I don't remember a news piece on that.

Today the Northeast seems on the verge of taking the lead, at least according to this. You can click on the column headings to sort.  Maine, New Hampshire, and Connecticut lead NM, with Vermont, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island filling out the top 7 states.

I know my cousin, a MA resident, has had problems with the way they've handled registration and vaccination.  Extrapolating that to the rest of New England with any additional facts to support my theories, I'm guessing that New England's general  advantages have enabled their recent gains, overcoming some early problems in organization. 

I'll be waiting to see how the states have done after the dust settles, and how their accomplishments compare to their work on other vaccines.

Washington's Mall in Wartime

 Doing some research for my cousin who lived outside DC during part of WWII.  

I remember the temporary WWI buildings along Constitution, now the site of Constitution gardens, but I didn't realize how fully the Mall, at least west of the Washington monument was built. (There's problems with accessing the website, but here's the url: http://www.columbia.edu/~fdc/family/dcmall.html )  I didn't realize part of the buildings were dormitories for workers.

[Updated for official photo.]

I'm Not Surprised: Trump Disorganized with Transcripts

 There was a memoir written by a stenographer who worked recording and transcribing events in the Obama White House. It was pretty good.  One thing I remember from it was the work needed so that everything was recorded. It was impressive.

When I read that Trump made a practice of tearing up the papers documenting his meetings I knew he wasn't good news for historians, even though he was worth a lot to journalists.  That's now confirmed by this report of the missing transcripts of 8 percent or more of Trump's speeches.  It's not a loss to the history of oratory and given his incessant repetition of his best hits probably not a big loss to history of his presidency, but it's a loss.

Damnit--presidents are supposed to follow the law.  And Republican presidents are supposed to be organized. 

The Decline of Mainline Religion--How McDonalds Killed God

 Rural Blog has a piece by a minister on the many reasons for the decline of religion in the U.S.  Ross Douthat has a piece on the same subject in the Times, focusing mostly on how the intelligentsia are divorced from religion.

Given my religious ancestors and my own atheism I'm interested.  I've watched from the outside as my sister was heavily involved with her Presbyterian church.  The other day I came across a newspaper report of a lecture my grandfather gave in 1902, describing his (and his wife) visit to Jerusalem.  The newspaper found this noteworthy, presumably because grandfather was prominent in the West Pittston-Wilkes Barre area, the subject was somewhat exotic, and the lecture drew a good audience. 

How often today, even before the decline of local city newspapers, did the media pay attention to clergy as authoritative figures?  It seems most media stories deal with political/cultural/religious controversies.  Back in 1902 churches/ministers filled a need for entertainment and instruction, a need 20 years later to be filled by radio, 45 years later by television, and today by the internet.  

I grew up before McDonalds had spread to New York, so church suppers were an occasion. But church suppers can't compete with McDonalds, nor can slide shows/travelogues which I remember compete with TV. 

"The Situation" (Good Money-Losing Movie)

 According to IMDB this movie had a $1 million budget and made $48,000 at the box office. That must be close to a record for losing money on a film which actually made it to the theater. 

It's a lot better than that, at least if you can get past the lousy sound job (very uneven but often the music/background obscures the dialog),  It would be redeemable if it had captions, but it doesn't. Having said that, most of the reviews at IMDB are respectful.

Anyway my wife and I stuck it out.  Perhaps our receptivity was enhanced by having been watching the first 23 episodes of Fauda (season1 and part of 2). "Fauda" seems to equate to SNAFU.  It's based on an Israeli special ops unit fighting against Hamas and eventually ISIS with a reasonably balanced view of both the Israeli heroes and the Palestinian villains.  It describes a complex situation in the West Bank, a complexity which is related to the complex situation of the American-Iraqi relationships in "The Situation".

The Situation was written and produced by Wendell Steavenson, a (female) war correspondent based on experiences in the Iraq war.  It was released in 2006, perhaps just as the US was turning against the war, so it should have done well. It really would be worth someone's time and effort to fix the sound.  

That Demon Rum, Updated

 My mother was death on drinking.  She would be pleased by this post.

It's strange how things have changed.  I clearly remember Mr. Youngstrom, our science teacher for one year in HS (unless he was a substitute--the school had problems keeping science teachers) being very emotional when telling the class never to smoke marijuana.  I think the reason was it was a gateway to hard drugs, but it could have been because it was evil in and of itself.

60+ years later Virginia has legalized marijuana, and there's a push for decriminalizing hard drugs.  It seems libertarian philosophy has conquered much of American life. 

Not Enough for the IRS

 That's my reaction to this request from President Biden which was included in his 2022 budget outline:

 Supports a Fair and Equitable Tax System. To ensure that all Americans are treated fairly by the Nation’s tax system, including that the wealthy and corporations comply with existing laws, the discretionary request provides $13.2 billion for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), a $1.2 billion or 10.4-percent increase above the 2021 enacted level. With this funding, the IRS would: increase oversight of high-income and corporate tax returns to ensure compliance; provide new and improved online tools for taxpayers to communicate with the IRS easily and quickly; and improve telephone and in-person taxpayer customer service, including outreach and assistance to underserved communities. In addition to increases for base IRS enforcement funding, the 2022 discretionary request provides an additional increase of $417 million in funding for tax enforcement as part of a multiyear tax initiative that would increase tax compliance and increase revenues. Altogether, the 2022 discretionary request would increase resources for tax enforcement by $0.9 billion

I'd prefer a multi-year plan for 50 percent for more. 

Inflation Ahead?

 I'm seeing media reports of a looming labor shortage--restaurants are reopening but can't find help.

My local supermarket seems to be having staffing problems as well. 

This raises the possibility of inflation coming.  If the labor supply at the low end has been disrupted by the pandemic and possibly the Trump crackdown on immigration, wages will have to rise at the lower end.  Perhaps that will diminish our inequality, or perhaps the better paid among us will try to maintain the wage gap and push for more pay themselves.

We'll see. 

Blasts from the Past

Two things, unconnected except they both recalled my past:

The Post is running "Classic Doonesbury". In a recent one Alex, the daughter, is giving her father her Christmas list.  She wants a Pentium PC so she can keep up with her classmates, and a 288 modem.   I want to say I remember my first modem, but I don't.  Could it have been 120/240 baud or 1200/2400 baud?  I definitely remember the big advance up the ladder to a 28.8K baud modem.  I suspect these days few people remember a "baud" (1 bit per second, where 8 bits equal one byte, which was one character).   Back then I was going on-line through Compuserve.  So much has changed since then.

Going back even further in time, at some point in the 1940's-50's our poultry flock was hit with Newcastle disease. We had a run of diseases at that time, leading us to change the hatchery supplying our chicks, so I don't remember how bad it was, how many hens it killed, how many eggs weren't laid.  I do remember the death toll one of the diseases took, taking the dead hens out and tossing them off a hill into a swamp (I know, not good, but that was another time).  

The NYTimes had a Science article on virologists being able to use the  Newcastle virus as a means of inserting a vaccine into humans.  (Newcastle doesn't do much to people.)