What Really Matters to Congress: Policy or Offices?

 David Brooks on Newshour Friday said he'd learned, contrary to the assumptions of political scientists,  that people don't want power.  He was talking about Congress not being willing to write specific authorities in legislation, as SCOTUS in this week's decision, says they ought to, rather than relying on agencies like EPA to decide and act.

It sort of fits with something I learned from "The First Congress", a book by Fergus Bordewich on the wheelings and dealings during 1789-91.  I've learned the Bill of Rights was not the Congressional version of the Ten Commandments, words of wisdom widely debated and finally etched in stone.  Some legislators saw them as rather meaningless, sops thrown to the Anti-Federalists who'd extracted the promise of amendments as part of state ratification of the Constitution.

Much more important to Congress was the location of the national capital.  It took months of maneuvering and deliberations before the final compromise which settled it.   

That also fits with another action this week: Congress blew up efforts to rationalize and modernize the Veterans Administrations healthcare facilities.  That reminded me of a similar attempt back in the early 1980's to rationalize ASCS offices. It ended badly.

So my bottom line: Congress doesn't do well on difficult policy questions; it's much more interested in offices and jobs and will never delegate authority to agencies to change them.

Roles and Metaphors?

 Found myself changing from my usual jeans and work shirt into khakis and button down shirt the other day.  Why? 

Wife and I going to see the dentist to discuss future treatments.  Somehow I felt my mode of dress would affect how the dentist would respond to my opinions. 

The way we dress conveys messages about who we are or want to be, whether we're conforming to a given role or not.

Back in the day when my wife and I started going to the Kennedy Center for symphony concerts we always dressed up.  That was usual then.  That expectation has changed over 44 years; we're now in the minority, likely even among our age group. 

I Remember the Lord's Prayer

 Sometime in the early 1950's our morning routine in my school changed.  IIRC at just before 8 am the principal would come the loudspeaker system (in each classroom) with any announcements.  Then we'd all stand with hands across our hearts and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.  (A pledge changed to add the words "under God" during those years.)

The change was adding the Lord's Prayer to the routine. At various times my mother and sister both taught Sunday School.  My paternal great grandparents and my grandfather were all ministers. Early on I was very into Sunday School and the singing in our local Methodist church (no nearby Presbyterian churches). But by the mid-50's I turned against religion, considering myself to be an agnostic.  (Now I claim to be an atheist.) So at sometime I stopped saying the Lord's Prayer.  It was a bit uncomfortable.  I don't remember whether anyone conforted me; if they did the fact my father was school board chair was protection (though I never told dad of my stand).

Tattoos

NY Times says 1/3 of Americans have a tattoo. That's a big change in the culture from my youth, when tattoos were limited to a few sailors and other veterans. A tattoo signified (not a word much used in the 1950's) the man (never a woman, except maybe a stripper) was a rebel and/or on the fringes of society.

Cars and Pedestrians--A Metaphor IV

 I want to push the metaphor comparing drivers and pedestrians to those entrapped in our racial web.

• the norms and rules for driving a car are both imposed by history and learned early, as we watch our parents and others drive from within the car, and watch other cars.  The norms and rules for being a pedestrian are less obvious and mostly less formal, except when walkers come into contact with cars, bicycles, etc.  But they too are learned early.  I had to learn to jaywalk; as a country boy and a natural born bureaucrat I over-conformed to the rules as I learned them. Mostly the norms are learned early enough they work below our consciousness--like walking to the right. 
• typically I think we are much less aware of the driver inside the car; we just see the car.  That's similar to how we treat members of racial/ethnic/identity groups.  We don't see the Amish or Hasids as individuals, not the ego within the body or clothing, just the outside.  The same goes for others on the stage of life: celebrities of all kinds.
• I choose to drive a car, or to walk. Once I make my choice, I inherit the whole cluster of norms described above.  My behavior as a driver is somewhat under my control, but it is very constrained.  The constraints are firmer for individuals; the norm is that an individual's racial identity is not under her control (particularly before the civil rights movement).  

I think what captured my imagination here is how quickly and sharply my behavior and attitudes switch when I got from pedestrian to driver and back.  Intellectually I know we fill many different roles as we live, all governed by social norms and habits, but this particular pair of roles illustrates their nature very well.

Anniversary of AS-400

 Saw a Facebook post in 2016 commemorating AS-400 (leaving the county FSA office).  Clicked on the hashtag and found some posts about job opportunities working on AS-400 programs, some dated relatively recently (i.e., 2021).  

IIRC the changeover from the System/36 to the AS-400 was happening as I retired in 1997. So the System/36 lasted maybe 10-15 years; the AS-400 maybe 20 years or so. 

Crime and My Six Convicts

 There's a lot of discussion of crime these days, particularly on Twitter where I follow Peter Moskos, @PeterMoskos, a professor who served as a policeman in Baltimore. 

A very popular book in 1951, so popular mom gave it to dad for Christmas, was this (from the entry in Goodreads):

My Six Convicts: A Psychologist's Three Years in Fort Leavenworth

by 

Donald Powell Wilson

really liked it 4.00  ·   Rating details ·  20 ratings  ·  2 reviews

With an appointment by the U.S.Public Health Service to conduct research in the relationship between drug addiction and criminality in the new research hospital at Fort Leavenworth Penitentiary, I arrived as a professor of psychology and left three years later as a professor of psychology in the 1930s, but not the same, not the same at all. But this book is not a record of the research project but rather a reminiscent impression of the "humors, whimsies and tragedies of my six convict assisants--my world as they saw it and their world as I saw it".

As he mentioned, he had six convicts who assisted in his research.  IIRC he didn't discuss his research much, but tells stories, stories which one reviewer found fictional.  But at the end, again if I remember, he described some of the six convicts as men who couldn't be rehabilitated and released. 

Health System--Dentistry

 My wife and I use Kaiser for health care.  It works well, testing, drugs, specialties, all under one roof (at least metaphorically because there's one database and efficient handoff from one provider to the next).

Unfortunately Kaiser doesn't do dentistry, so when significant problems crop up we're thrown into a different world:

• each provider has her own set of questions to obtain personal data and health history, allergies, drugs, etc.
• each provider has a process to move information back and forth, sometimes still including the use of fax!!!! (This is the 21st century, people).
• each  provider has a separate website which may or may not have been updated and which have their own structure and feel.
• referrals from one to another are a bit kludgey.
• transparency is often lacking.

Otherwise the people are nice and capable. Just operating within a poor structure. 

Cars and Pedestrians--A Metaphor III

 My second continuation:

The points I made in my previous post:What's going on?  

• binary--cars versus walkers
• power--cars have more power
• conflict over scarce resource
• laws and rules to govern power and conflict
• infringing laws
• identifying with fellows generates emotion
• game playing, esp by weaker

Any reader who has gotten this far may be asking: where's the metaphor:

Specifically, when we Americans have our usual discussions of race, of African-Americans and European heritage, we could be talking cars and walkers:

• blacks and whites are binary groups in society, but not in reality
• whites have more power than blacks
• the groups are competing for scarce resources--position in society as represented by wealth and prestige
• there are laws and norms to govern the behavior of the races
• both push the limits or violate the laws
• there's strong in-group feeling for those identifying with the group
• both sides play games, esp the weaker blacks

You Can't Have It Both Ways?

 I've seen this expression recently, mostly in relation to people like Pence who are getting credit from liberals like me for doing his duty or Liz Cheney for her position on 1/6. 

For me, a half loaf is better than none.  Any time someone on the right does something good, it's fine.  I'd compare them to Sen. Ervin during Watergate, or Gov. Hogan's father, who was a member of House Judiciary Committee who voted for impeachment, which was surprising given his generally conservative record.