The Bureaucrat's Necessity: Forms in the UK

 I designed and redesigned a fair number of forms during my career. We had a Forms Management Branch in ASCS when I started.  The program specialist would take his problem to them and together they'd work together to get a master for the printer. 

Overtime I started to design forms in Wordperfect tables.  Got quite good at it, if I do say so. I think Forms eventually got most forms converted to Wordperfect. I haven't checked the online forms in years so I don't know whether they've now converted to PDF fill-ins or to HTML.  

Anyway, the UK also has forms.  This post says they're doing 6 percent a year (I hope that's not true, though if they have the sort of expansion of programs we've had in agriculture in recent years they might be expanding the number that fast).  They would like to have all HTML forms.  It's interesting to see how differently their government works than ours, as I believe I've noted before. 

Great Awakening and Wokeism

 "Great Awakenings" in American history are periods of religious revivals. Wikipedia says: "The Awakenings all resulted from powerful preaching that gave listeners a sense of personal guilt, their sin, and the need of salvation by Christ."

There are some parallels between such awakenings and the current enthusiasm for woke.  

This was stimulated by Ross Douthat in the NYTimes who wrote:

What's really inflaming today's fights, though, is that the structural-racist diagnosis isn't being offered on its own. Instead it's yoked to two sweeping theories about how to fight the problem it describes.

First, there is a novel theory of moral education, according to which the best way to deal with systemic inequality is to confront its white beneficiaries with their privileges and encourage them to wrestle with their sins.

That's a similar strategy to the revivalist appeals prominent in the Great Awakenings--you convince the sinner of his depravity and the essential need for repentance as a prerequisite to God's grace.  A further step is to examine your actions every day to determine if you are following a righteous path--for predestinarians that's the way to feel some confidence that you're one of the "elect", that you're saved from hell.

FSA Employee Is Credited

Politico has a long piece on FSA loans to black farmers.  It's not full of praise, to say the least.  Not sure whether I'll come back to it, but it does end with this nice bit

What helped Cleaver was a woman in the FSA office who took the time to explain the processes.

“She was like an angel. I had been going through the loan officers and the HBCU [historically Black colleges and universities] that was here and they couldn't get anything done,” he said. “[She] held my hand and she told me everything step by step. She was patient, she was polite.”

I'm sorry Politico doesn't provide email addresses for its reporters so I could compliment Ximena Bustillo for including this.  I think in years of following reporting on FSA and race it's the first time I've seen a compliment published.

Collecting Statistics: Problems and Progress

GovExec had an article on the problems with data collection during the pandemic from the Covid Tracking Project.

Above and beyond any individual reporting practice, we believe that it was the lack of explanations from state governments and, most crucially, the CDC that led to misuse of data and wounded public trust. We tried our best to provide explanations where possible, and we saw transformation when we were able to get the message across to the public. Data users who were frustrated or even doubtful came to trust the numbers. Journalists reported more accurately. Hospitals could better anticipate surges.

If we could make just one change to the way state and federal COVID-19 data were reported, it would be to make an open acknowledgment of the limitations of public-health-data infrastructure whenever the data is presented. And if we could make one plea for what comes next, it’s that these systems receive the investment they deserve.

[Updated: Technology Review describes   a consortium to collect and standardize covid data into one database for research purposes. It sounds a bit klugey but that's the penalty for prioritizing privacy and silos over a rationalized centralized system. The question is whether we'll wake up and fund continuing efforts of this sort.}

Not Race, Sex, Class; I'm a Power Guy (Much Revised)

 I see a lot of posts on various sites about critical race theory (CRT).  I'd like to see someone first define it, then do a translation of the theory into "critical gender theory"; "critical class theory"; "critical caste theory"; "critical religion theory"; "critical color theory"; etc. etc.  My point here being I suspect when you try to apply CRT to many societies/cultures you'd find a lot of parallels: think India for caste, Northern Ireland and Israel for religion; many cultures for color, etc. etc.

Myself, I think I'm a power guy, by which I believe Lord Acton's observation that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely is key.  I'm not denying the power of the factors I've listed above, nor that of other factors I'm forgetting or don't know, but in life I think the key is who has the power and who doesn't.  "White privilege" is a way of saying whites have power even when they don't realize it, perhaps especially when we don't realize it.  But the same applies (sometimes, in some situations, but not all) to men, to the rich, to members of a majority religion, to members of a majority, period.  

That's what I believe, at least today.

[Among other factors, colorism, ageism, handedness, height, disability/ability, looks...]

[[Add colorism--see https://www.vulture.com/2021/06/john-m-chu-and-in-the-heights-cast-address-casting-colorism.html]]

[[[Add--lookism--see ]]]

[[[[Add "heightism" ]]]]

[[[[[Add "ableism" ]]]]]

Our Responsibility for America's Past?

 One of the complaints the right has against liberals and progressive is that we make them feel responsible for America's past. Since they weren't living then they had no participation in the misdeeds.  When the subject of reparations is raised, many point out their ancestors came to the country after the abolition of slavery. 

Two thoughts:

• the same conservatives are usually eager to affiliate themselves to the history of a glorious country.  I don't think you can pick and choose--if you love the country you have to take the whole thing; you can't have just the steak and ice cream without the vegetables.  (I realize that sentence isn't politically correct in these days of enlightened nutrition, but it makes the point, as well as comparing conservatives to children.😉)
• Carolyn Hax is the advice columnist for the Washington Post.  Her recurrent theme is you have to deal with your (spouse, significant other, relative, fried) as they are.  I think the same is true, in part, for your country. You didn't choose the country, someone choose it for you.  You can decide to leave and find one more to your liking--that's fine.  But if you remain you have to acknowledge the realities of the past.  (Hax often counsels against trying to change the person, or hoping for them to change. Obviously you can and should try to change what you don't like about America, but as with people you should be realistic.)

Bowling Alone and the Condo Collapse

 My knee-jerk reaction to the condo collapse in Florida was to think of my experience with my homeowners association, where this is also true.

As nearly everyone who has ever owned an apartment in a large building knows, however, rare is the condo owner who’s attuned to this duty, and rarer still is the one who attends association meetings, let alone serves on the board of directors.

 And I linked it to Putnam's "Bowling Alone" book, arguing for the decline of voluntary associations and the development of social capital.  But the Atlantic article piece from which the quote comes argues that states, particularly Florida, have been effective in regulating the operation of condominiums. 

So I don't know what's true.  Are homeowners associations and condo boards modern examples of building social capital, or are they due to have problems because modern America lacks social capital?

Maintenance Is Not Sexy

 I may have blogged this before, particularly in connection with maintenance of computer software, but it applies broadly, as witness the collapse of the Florida condominium.  It's a lot easier to get humans, particularly American humans, excited about doing something new, creating something, than in keeping things operating. 

How To Unite the Country: a Common Foe, Like the Pope

 The Post's Made by History series included this piece. Before the Revolution the anniversary of the discovery of the Guy Fawkes conspiracy as Pope's Day--many Protestants feared Catholicism and the Pope as tyranny. (Those who remember Rev. Ian Paisley in Northern Ireland know the modern day relics.) The prejudice was rooted in the religious wars of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. It was, according to the piece, one thing which crossed colonial lines and united Americans. 

But come the American Revolution, with the new common foe of Britain and the need to enlist American Catholics and try to appeal to the French Canadians to join the cause, George Washington banned the celebrations.  (It didn't eliminate anti-Catholic feeling; my mother was still very suspicious of the church.) 

The Federal Government and Racism in Housing.

I think one general pattern in the development of government is evolution from the bottom, consolidation from the top.  British history has the problem of over-mighty subjects I think they're called--nobles who have their own entourages wearing their own livery carrying weapons and posing a threat to the monarchy.  Gradually their power is whittled away and the state assumes a monopoly of violence.  In the South especially there's a pattern of private and quasi-public enforcement of laws and mores, which shows most clearly in lynchings and jury nullifications.  That's been changed.  In the North roads were often developed as private enterprises, eventually to be taken over by the state. 

I could go on, but let me get to the subject: the New Deal and the federal housing agencies are commonly blamed for establishing red lines and refusing to finance housing loans in areas of the city.  IMO it's true that's what they did, but it's not true it was dreamed up in the pointy heads of Washington bureaucrats and New Dealers.  I've held that opinion all along, but it doesn't fit with the  way I see the world operating.

Now my opinion, which was based only on feelings and not on facts, is reinforce by a scholarly article in the Journal of American History.  Unfortunately it's paywalled but it includes a discussion of the development of the real estate industry. I'll quote a paragraph:

" Fisher emphasized the importance of NAREB's Code of Ethics, first created in 1913. He summarized the code and the commonsense nature of advising clients and customers on matters of value. However, he failed to mention its soon-to-be-finalized Article 34, which became one of the organization's most controversial statements: “A Realtor should never be instrumental in introducing into a neighborhood a character of property or occupancy, members of any race or nationality, or any individuals whose presence will clearly be detrimental to property values in that neighborhood.” Thus racism was already well established in NAREB by the time that Ely and Fisher reached out."

"Ely" is Richard Ely, the founder of the American Economics Association, and Fisher is one of his students who worked for what became the National Association of Real Estate Boards, now the National Association of Realtors.

The article's theme can be summarized here:

?The Federal Home Loan Bank, the Home Owners' Loan Corporation, the Federal Housing Administration, and their restructuring of the real estate sector were outgrowths of the network of academics, private sector professionals, trade organizations, and lobbyists that Ely assembled in the 1920s. "

To paraphrase the now deceased Rumsfeld, "you write the laws with the society you've got".  The New Deal solidified and rationalized racism in housing, racism that pre-existed the New Deal.