What We've Lost--LWV and Local Papers

 My cousin, Marjorie Harshaw Robie, is recalling her days on the Ipswich School Committee by a series of posts Facebook page. 

Her initial run for the  committee was aided by two institutions which have faded since then: the League of Women Voters, which did two questionnaires of the candidates, and the local newspapers, which did interviews.

I assume it's not just Ipswich which has seen the fading, but general phenomena. 

EWG on Crop Insurance on Mississippi Flood Plain

When I first started working on the program side, ASCS had a disaster payment program, covering low yields and prevented planting for its then-usual crops: wheat, barley, oats, corn, sorghum, rice and upland cotton. The auditors had been critical of its administration, saying that the way the program operation ended up paying the same farm in multiple years. 

From what I remember the problem was a combination of legislation and human nature, or rather legislation and administration reflecting human nature.  Farmers are optimists, they have to be to survive the disappointments, so they remember the good years and not the bad.  That means the laws they supported provided for "Olympic averaging", ignoring bad years but usually not the great years. So the resulting payment yields were high, too high if you agree with the auditors that disaster payments from the government should be unusual.

The further problem was variability--optimistic farmers grow crops on marginal and hazard-prone land.  They've done that forever--much of the Great Plains in the 19th century.  Sometimes farmers are able to modify geography, using irrigation, levees, drainage, or terraces depending on the problem.  We're finding the limits to such measures, as now in the Central Valley of California.

Anyhow, this ramble was set off by a new EWG report on crop  insurance payments on flood prone land. 

Returning Lost Property

 Via Kottke, this article on return of lost property in Japan.  I'm reminded of some experiments done in this country--IIRC some involved leaving a wallet containing the owner's phone number with some money and seeing whether the wallet was returned, with the money. 

I think maybe it ties in with my recent reading of McManus on the Army's war in the Pacific--how was it possible to motivate Japanese soldiers to die rather than surrender--partially a concern for reputation in the community?  

The last thing I would think of if I found a wallet is whether my actions would be condemned or praised by the community. 

Commercial Airlines Using Electric Planes in 2026?

 United has contracted for such planes for 2026. At 19 seats they aren't going to be flying between major cities, but rather out to small cities.  I find that I flew in a Beechcraft 1900D which has 19 seats when I flew into Goodland, KS in 1992 or 3.  Goodland has since lost air service. 

KISS and the Constitution

 Reading Woody Holton's "Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution".

I'm about halfway through but already have a reaction.  It's KISS, meaning "keep it simple, stupid'.  And that's what the Constitution did, at least partially. Holton's describing the conditions of the 1780's, and the conflicts which led to the writing and adoption of the Constitution.  Holton describes things, but doesn't see them as follows:

• the state of the currency and of state finances was poor, meaning that state legislatures had tried many measures to obtain money to pay off the obligations from the Revolution and to maintain the government.  While Holton is a good writer, I found the overall picture very confusing.  
• Americans found it hard or impossible to borrow money from the British or on the Continent.  They blamed the devaluing of bond issues and paper currency for damaging American credit.

Seems to me that the Brits, the European bankers, might well have been as confused as I am.  After all, you had 13 different states doing things with no consistency.  I assume that before the Revolution each colony had a network of contacts in the UK government and the banking community which had the knowledge and background to assess what was happening in the colony. That network was disrupted by the Revolution.  The Revolution also meant more interaction among the colonies/states, calling for more knowledge and familiarity with events in the sister states.  The British Empire had had the effect of simplifying things; the Revolution undid things and created complexity.

The Constitution was a step to simplifying things again. We'd still have a decentralized banking system, but by 1800 the issues of the wartime debts were clarified as the federal government took over responsibility.   

Where Have Friendships Gone?

 David Brooks has a column in the Times today discussing friendships, how many we can maintain at various levels of intimacy.  He ends by thinking our friendships have become fragile during the pandemic.

I'm certainly not an expert on friendships--I don't maintain the ones I once have, and since retirement I've not been creating new ones.  

I'm not sure Brooks is correct--I know my cousin's extended family has found new community bonds by having weekly zoom calls during the pandemic.  Before the pandemic, they were scattered across CA, CO, OH, PA, NH, MA, TX with much less regular contact.

I suspect the issue is what the psychologists call "availability"--we readily notice the  changes, the losses, which occur but we are less conscious of the new patterns we're establishing. 

Where Has Our Sense of Community Gone?

Short answer--damned if I know.

Longer answer--gone with dissolution of the Soviet Union. For my entire lifetime the US has had adversaries, first the Axis, then USSR. After 1991 we've had no such adversaries.  Brief flirtations with Japan as an economic rival, with Bush's Axis of Evil supporting terrorism, and later China as a rising rival don't match the threats those mid-century adversaries seemed to pose.  Today we're seeing with Russia's invasion of Ukraine we're seeing a resurgence of unity, of national feeling, etc. both in Congress and the country.

So--my answer: sense of community vanished with our enemies.

Gardening

 My two retirement hobbies are reading and gardening, in that order.  I've been gardening in the Reston community garden since a couple years after buying my house in 1976. Over the years my wife and I have settled into a selection of plants to  grow, some to eat, some to decorate.  Gardening connects me to the cycle of the seasons which was all-important to farmers when growing up. It also offers the opportunity to improve my game each year, trying different things based on the experience of last year. That's something which my mother was very much into.

The Reston garden follows organic rules, which is fine to me, except that it extends to banning preservative-treated wood for raised beds.  Not good, offends mypenny-pinching soul. 

Red Tractor--UK

 Saw a tweet complaining about the 230-odd pages of material the Red Tractor inspector wanted.  Did a search and found it's a UK scheme, as they'd say:

We are a not-for-profit company that is the UK’s biggest farm and food assurance scheme. We develop standards based on science, evidence, best practice and legislation that cover animal welfare, food safety, traceability and environmental protection. Around 50,000 British farmers are accredited to Red Tractor standards, which form the basis of buying and sourcing specifications for major supermarkets, household brands and restaurant chains, ultimately making life simpler for everyone,

50K is about half the active farmers in the UK, but I'm not sure of the definition. It doesn't mention organic products. 

I find this:

 "Results are weighted to represent the full population of farm businesses that have at least 25 thousand Euros of standard output as recorded in the annual June Survey of Agriculture and Horticulture. In 2019, this accounted for approximately 56,521 farm businesses. "  (That would be a little over $27,000 depending on exchange rate.)

Someone with ambition could, or maybe already has, compare UK distribution of farms with US. 

Signs of the Times--Regeneron

 Back in my time it was the Westinghouse Science Search but now it's Regeneron (it's a biotech company which I had to look up).

Here's the press release of this year's winners, dominated by Asian-Americans.

Two signs of the times here--Westinghouse going bankrupt, ending its sponsorship of the talent search, and reinventing as nuclear energy company, and the domination of the search by people whose ancestry isn't western European.  

I sort of regret the first--I think nuclear should have a role in moving away from fossil fuels--and applaud the second--the more brains from more areas we have working the better off everyone will be.