Motivated Reasoning and Farming

The TV weather this morning showed rain moving into southern California.  One of the blogs I follow is Foothill Agrarian, written by parttime sheep rancher and extension service employee.  His most recent post was on fall, his favorite season, and the complicated planning he and his partner needed to do to plan for the upcoming year.  The main complication was/is the prospect of rain or continued drought which impacts the forage available which impacts the health of ewes which impacts the lamb crop...etc. etc.  So the prospect of rain, though I'm not certain exactly where in California he's located, likely cheered him.

Meanwhile, a few weeks ago another farmer I follow on twitter was concerned over the inability to harvest and store rain, given the rains which were dominating the weather in NY.  I remember the years on the farm when we faced that problem, meaning we had to buy hay during the winter and/or buy molasses to put on the hay which we got in the barn only after it had been rained on (cows didn't like to eat such hay without the addition of molasses).

Back in the days when ASCS operated a disaster payment program IIRC the yields we used would be determined by averaging past years' yields, but dropping the bad years.  That to me reflected farmer optimism--the normal yield was always better than the straight historic average of yields. Now I see it as a reflection of what humans do: use motivated reasoning to support their desired outcome.

The Prevalence of Scams

 A rule of thumb: whenever there's money on the table, or "new frontiers" of opportunity, there's people who will exploit the opportunity.

Recent examples:

Apparently R. Kelly had a big entourage.  Other big shots, stars in various endeavors, have their own entourages, including the former guy.

People have been selling fake covid-19 vaccination certificates.

Several reports of people scamming the various pandemic-related stimulus programs. 

Pushimg the Envelope--CCC

 The former guy pushed the envelope of governmental laws and norms across the board.  That included the use of the Commodity Credit Corporation authority in ways which I think were unprecedented.  He mostly escaped criticism and legal challenges because there was no one, no group whose interest would be served.  Farm groups were receiving dollars. Conservatives were blind to Trump's efforts. Members of Congress responded to the interests of their constituents. Good government groups mostly aren't interested or informed about agriculture and USDA.

It seems the Biden administration is following in Trump's footsteps, judging by their announcement of using CCC for what to me seems like a grab bag of goodies.

The Strange Case of "Identity"

 Read, or skimmed, Julia Galef's book, The Scout Mindset.  I'd recommend it.  But what I want to write about is the mystery of "identity". The last part of the book covers how "motivated reasoning", or the "soldier" mindset as she calls it, is tied up with our sense of identity. Her repeated references to "identity" got me wondering when it became so important.

When I was young, I knew my identity was white, Scots-Irish/German, Protestant, farm boy from upstate New York. Child of John and Gertrude, sibling of Jean, with stories of ancestors immigrating to the US. But I don't recall feeling my identity was in question.  

Is it possible that these older sources of identity have faded away as society has changed and market capitalism has evolved so Americans and Brits worry more about identity and start to find it elsewhere?  Google Ngram viewer has been improved since I last used it; you can now search texts in languages other than American and British English.  When I used it to search for use of "identity", it started to be used much more around 1960. 

The pattern was similar for British English, but not for French, Spanish...

Prisoners Dilemma and the Democrats

 Some discussion this morning on the Democrats maneuvering in Congress led to this idea:

The Prisoner's Dilemma is a part of game theory where, per wikipedia: that shows why two completely rational individuals might not cooperate, even if it appears that it is in their best interests to do so. In the game, if both players trust each other they can end up with an outcome which is good for both, but if they only look to their own interests with no consideration of the other player they end up with the worst result.

I see Senators Manchin and Sinema (MS) as one player; the progressives as the other player.  MS want the infrastructure bill; the progressives want the Biden "Build Back Better" bill. If the two groups cooperate they can get both; if they don't they may get neither.  Partially this boils down to how much trust the two parties have in each other, but mainly it rests on whether there's a compromise on the size and contents and tax provisions of the BBB which both can live with. 

A Parallel Between Chinese and American Development?

 A lot of media attention to China, specifically the possible bankruptcy of Evergrande due to overdevelopment of housing, triggered me. 

China's economic development in the last 45 years or so seems to have been based on privatizing land, or at least selling individuals and corporations a long-term right to farm or develop on a piece of land. (I'm hedging because I vaguely remember that perhaps they used long-term leases in some cases, rather like the Brits did sometimes.)

Anyhow, how did the Chinese state get the land? My impression is that as a result of the Chinese Revolution the Communist Party nationalized land in the 1950's, which they've been privatizing since 1980's. 

To me in a broad view that seems like what the English/Americans did--they nationalized the land held by Native Americans and then fueled economic development by privatizing. 

Best Women Characters from Dead White Males

 Yesterday I tweeted a comment about Isaac Asimov's Foundation Series and its lack of women characters.  Got a lot of adverse comments, which is fine.

Got to wondering about American literature and female characters. I couldn't think of memorable characters written by dead American authors, except for Hawthorne's Hester Prynne. Hemingway's Brett Ashley in The Sun Also Rises and Fitzgerald's Daisy Buchanan also came to mind, but I'd have to go to Cather and Wharton for better characters. 

It's sort of funny--I resist the idea that authors are restricted to writing only about their own, that a white male can't write a black woman, etc. But it does seem from my self-poll that similarity between writer and character makes a difference.

Searching google results in hits for English language works, so characters from Bronte, Austen, and Rowling come up, not to mention Chaucer.

My Prejudice Against Obesity

 I follow Tamara Haspel on twitter, whose feed included this response, the beginning of a thread on the genetics of obesity:

As requested by @TamarHaspel here is a brief tweetorial on my latest @NatureRevGenet review on the #genetics 🧬 of #obesity https://t.co/OsLHqyvy6w 🧵👇 1/7 https://t.co/RrxTOZQmkf

— Giles Yeo (@GilesYeo) September 23, 2021

If I understand he says there are relatively rare cases where a mutation in a gene causes obesity and more common cases where a constellation of genetic markers leads to obesity.  

For as old as I am, I think I keep up pretty well with the changing social norms, at least the more important ones. But I still have a hard time with obesity--I have a knee jerk reaction when I see a picture which includes obese people, particularly obese Americans. I'd like to think I don't act on my first feelings when I'm dealing with obese people in person, but you never know.

Maybe science will finally disprove the idea that obesity is a matter of willpower?

Landslide by Michael Wolff

 Wolff's book gets some 1-star reviews on Amazon, partly for bad writing and for finding Trump to be innocent of bad designs.

Needless to say that's not what I get from it. While there's some problems (many references to Giuliani's drinking and farting) and often the sourcing is clear, he moves the narrative along.  His conclusion about Jan 6 rings true: there was no plan because the "adults" had deserted Trump and those who were left in the White House were incapable of forming a plan, much less executing it. 

That reminds me of Dana Milbank's take from the Mueller report--while the Trump team wanted to collude with Russia, they were too incompetent to do so. 

Our Imagined Communities--Justice O'Connor

 LInda Greenhouse writes about Sandra Day O'Connor--two bits struck me: "Imagined communities" are the groups we think we belong to,

“Those who would renegotiate the boundaries between church and state must therefore answer a difficult question: Why would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has served others so poorly?” Here O'Connor is writing an opinion, and her "we" refers to "Americans".

“I guess you know Senator McCain pretty well,” I ventured. Her response was instantaneous and almost fierce. “I do not,” she declared. “I’ve met him, but I don’t know him. He’s a newcomer to Arizona.” (Unlike Barry Goldwater, born in the Arizona Territory before statehood, John McCain had moved to Arizona after his discharge from the Navy in 1981.) Here Greenhouse is trying indirectly to find who O'Connor voted for in 2008 (and takes Greenhouse's reaction as indicating she voted for Obama.) Here I think O'Connor is identifying herself as a "true Arizonan", in contrast to the newcomer McClain.

I liked the way there were two examples of how the psychology of imagined communities works in the one article.  Note in the McClain example she's excluding, establishing a boundary, while in the religious example she's more appealing for people to include themselves. 

What FSA Employees Have to Deal With

 I'm taking the liberty of doing a screenshot of a post in the Facebook FSA Employees group:

When you're serving many people in all parts of the country all year round, you run into unusual situations, sometimes funny, sometimes tragic.  County employees have to deal. 

(While I'm on FSA, I'd mention farmers.gov, which has developed over time. There's also some Youtube videos--I'd have a link which I found yesterday but am having problems with Chrome.  Here's a starting point.

Empire of Pain

Finished Empire of Pain, by Patrick Keefe.  I think because of the sources which were available it's more interesting about Arthur Sackler, the elder brother and the initiator of the Sackler empire, than he is about the younger brothers Raymond and Mortimer, the grandson Richard who is most closely connected with oxycodone. and the rest of the descendants.

The New Yorker has an item on another scandal in biomedicine--Theranos, where Elizabeth Holmes is now on trial.  I found this applicable to the Sacklers as well:

It is incredible. I think there’s an entitlement to Elizabeth Holmes and her clan that you can’t underestimate. There’s a combination of self-righteousness and entitlement, and an absolute refusal to concede to mistakes or errors, much less fraud.

For the Sacklers, their contributions to many arts and educational institutions seem to be modern versions of the Catholic church's indulgences, which set off Martin Luther. It is a rejection of complexity, an unconscious assertion that a person is either all good (because of contributions) or all bad.  That's BS.

The Face of Our Nation

Benedict Anderson had the concept of "imagined communities"--essentially the idea that people develop a concept of nationhood through shared media, specifically print. 

I'm thinking about the face of America as I experienced it in my youth (1941-63), and how it has changed now, considering print and broadcast media. The America of my youth was white, basically WASP. I don't mean I didn't know of all the non-WASP residents, but WASP was the default, the presumed identity of any person mentioned in media. 

Our actors were Gary Cooper, Clark Gable, Alan Ladd, John Wayne and actresses were the Hepburns, Marilyn Monroe. Our TV series were Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, Bonanza.  Our radio shows were One Man's Family and Gunsmoke. You'll notice the mythology of my America was Western, the individual trying to do right. Our sex was heterosexual and rarely mentioned; gender was not considered.

These days the face of America as I experience it is multi-racial, multi-cultural, etc. 

I like most of these changes in America, but some, perhaps most, of my demographic cohort has real problems with them.  Change is hard.

Understatement of the Month: China Lobby

 Josh Marshall at TPM writes about foreign policy: "For years in DC there’s been a vocal China Hawk community".  

Actually it was decades, almost a century.  The China Lobby was old in the 1950's.  As I recall, it started with influential figures who were associated with missionaries in China, such as Henry Luce. (My aunt and uncle worked for the Y in China in 1910's-20'.) 

It was influential, meant we didn't recognize the People's Republic of China as real, and permit it to take its seat on the UN Security Council, until Nixon and Kissinger recognized it in the 1970's.  People such as George Will fought consistently against Republican and Democratic presidents on the issue, eventually focusing on the effort to keep Taiwan well armed.

Those Were the Days--Anti-colonialism and Am. Revolution

Lots of tweets relating to the NYTimes 1619 project, almost all of them trying to assess the importance of slavery in the American revolution.

I'm reading Louis Menand's The Free World--about halfway through now.  As I lived through the period and was an aspiring intellectual (😕) I recognize most of the names even if I don't remember the books or ever admired the art.  Possibly I'll comment more on it later.  

But today I want to note the Bandung conference, which was a landmark in the anti-colonial movement of the 1950's.  The nations there represented 54 percent of the world's population, or 1.5 billion people (about 4 billion today).  Menand notes that Sukarno , who had led Indonesia's independence effort and was one of the two main sponsors of the conference gave the opening address and cited Paul Revere's ride (Menand, p. 411) as the "start of the first successful anti-colonial war in history".

It's a reminder that the Revolution had many aspects, including its influence as an example on the world stage.

"Depopulated" ?

When there's a surplus of eggs because of disruptions of supply chains, what do you do?  You "depopulate" some hens?  No, you kill them.  But either way you say it the FSA program won't cover it.

From First to Last

Early on West Virginia was leading the national in rate of vaccinations--their governor had relied on drug store chains.

Today West Virginia has the lowest rate of vaccination (lower than Idaho). 

Dieting and Human Institutions

 Tamar Haspel is one of the people I follow on Twitter.  She and her husband raise oysters in Maine, and she writes on food and diet issues, usually with the refrain that diet panaceas are just that, panaceas not based on hard science.  That's a position I can identify with.

She tweeted this about two new promising obesity drugs (more in the thread):

For all y'all dissing obesity drugs:

EVERYONE would prefer it if we could all just eat healthful foods we enjoy to be the weight we want to be.

But we can't, and if you insist that's the only possible solution you're abandoning people, often desperate, who want to lose weight https://t.co/JuvPuut4b9

— Tamar Haspel (@TamarHaspel) September 16, 2021

Her point is that we eat not because of hunger but because of temptation.  It got me thinking.  As I've written, I think, I'm a creature of habit. I'm also skinny. Are the two facts related?  I think they are: for whatever reason I have the habit of regarding food as fuel, to be consumed as soon as possible without wasting any time or energy in savoring, or in deciding what to eat.  So my meals, at least the ones I make or buy as opposed to those my wife prepares, tend to be the same from day to day.

So my decisions on what to eat don't allow much room for temptation by food.  (Nor, since I eat regularly, does feeling hungry have much to do with it--by eating at the times and with the food I'm habituated to I avoid hungry.)  

I'll jump from this analysis of me to extrapolate to human institutions--most institutions are based on habits.  That's part of what upsets us about covid-19; the pandemic has upset our habits which means undermining the foundations of some of our institutions. 

Farm Estate Taxes

There's been maneuvering in the House over how to handle the estate tax, particularly with regard to farms.  The argument is that increasing the estate tax (has the term "death tax" been obsoleted?) means that heirs of farmers will be forced to sell out to pay the tax, rather than continue to farm the family's heritage. This is regarded as obviously wrong and evil, especially by farmers. 

Saw that recently about 75 acres of Iowa farmland were sold for $22K an acre, which is incredibly high. I suspect economists might say there are benefits to forcing land onto the market, rather than passing it on from parents to children.  The alternative to selling would be to take a loan backed by the acreage to pay the taxes, which seems to be the strategy the billionaires use to get spending money from their stockholdings in their IRAs. Presumably an increased estate tax would cut the market value of the land. 

At any rate, it seems the farmers' political power remains high, and there won't be big changes in the estate tax for farms.  Here are some facts:

Under current estate tax law, $11.7 million in assets are exempt from taxes for heirs. In 2019 -- the last available year from the IRS -- the exemption was $11.18 million. That year. there were 2,570 estates that paid taxes on $77.2 billion in assets (on average about $30 million per estate). There were 269 taxable estates that reported farm assets worth $1.3 billion (on average $4.9 million per estate). With the exemption, that means those farm estates averaged about $16.1 million in value. The average overall tax rate paid that year was 17%, according to IRS statistics.

https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/blogs/ag-policy-blog/blog-post/2021/09/10/know-debate-stepped-basis-capital-2?referrer=twitter#.YTuhj6GcPjc.twitter

"Worth" Movie and FSA Programs

 Saw some publicity for the movie "Worth", a dramatization of Kenneth Feinberg's management of the distribution of the funds for relatives of 9/11 victims. The title relates to the problem of determining "worth": do you assess worth based on economic losses or regard everyone as equal?  

We see the same conflict in public assessments of some FSA farm programs: do you issue payments based on economics: the amount of production, the acreage, the losses of production due to disaster OR do you regard all producers as equal.

Judging by recent stories on agricultural programs, many people believe that farm programs should treat each farmer equally.  But a third criterion is also raised--"deserving" which might include "need" and "reparations." Very few of those who aren't farmers are willing to support programs which compensate for economic losses, which means big farmers get more.

I'll be interested to see the movie.

Logistics of Segregated Buses

 Talking with my cousin about her experience living under Jim Crow laws caused me to think about the logistics, or the daily experience.

Some things were clear and definite: separate schools, separate swimming pools (or days of availability), separate drinking fountains.  Once you knew the rules, complying with them was relatively straightforward.

But some situations were not so clear and fixed.  For example, on the bus, a bus that's heavily used by both blacks and whites. At the beginning whites sit at the front and blacks at the back. But once it gets full, if you're a 10-year white girl boarding the bus you're forcing a black to give up her/his seat, regardless of the age or condition of the black.  If it's full and a black is the next to board, she's forced to stand unless another black yields his seat.

Depending on the rearing and beliefs of the girl, she may accept causing inconvenience to the black as her right and due, or as a violation of treating people as equals. 

Lessons Learned?

 Politico has an article summarizing views of the big shots from 2001 and leaders of the security establishment thereafter o

My own views:

• we should have more confidence in ourselves--in fighting terrorism we indulged in interrogation tactics and an approach, the military commission, to providing justice which revealed our lack of faith in established norms and institutions.
• we should have less confidence in ourselves--in our ability to figure out the unknown, whether Iraq had WMD, whether  we could do nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• we should always remember that we as humans don't do that well in dealing with the new and different, as we've seen more recently in dealing with covid-19.  We tend to react with emotion, with resorting to old patterns, with zeroing in on silos.  We must think anew and act anew.

Malkasian's Afghan War

 I commented earlier on Carter Malkasian's "The American War in Afghanistan". 

I've now finished the book and have some more comments:

• overall he judges our war to have been a failure.
• he notes that GWB had the most freedom to manage the war. Bush focused on Iraq and let Afghanistan slide, particularly on building up the armed forces. Rumsfeld is credited for being prescient as to the problems, but debited for resisting the mission.
• Obama felt he was rolled by the Pentagon at the beginning of his term. Malkasian agrees, suggesting with the benefit of hindsight he should have endorsed a change of goal and a smaller investment of forces. 
• Trump is credited for being able to say "enough".  He's dinged for "the Sword of Twitter (not Damocles)", being erratic in his decision making, and endorsing a one-sided peace agreement.

As for causes of our failure he touches on corruption and poor government, the existence of Pakistan as a safe haven and supporter of the Taliban, multiple missed decisions by all the presidents. etc.  His emphasis though is on the idea that the Taliban most closely represented the "real Afghanistan": Islam, and defiance of foreign influence, meaning that Taliban fighters were more inspired by jihad than the government fighters were by their paychecks.

It seems like a good analysis, though I also take from the book the idea that the government and society were never united, never resolving tribal rivalries, often with problems working with the US. Karzai was able to unite the factions early on, but he and the American forces gradually lost their unity.

I also note support for a pet idea of mine: the problems created by rotating troops and commanders through the country.  These problems diminished over time, as more troops and especially the special forces served multiple tours, and as commanders returned in higher positions.

[update--so far Malkasian's earlier book, "War Comes to Garmser", which is focused on the area in Helmand province where he worked for 2 years, seems better written.]

Individual Rights and Society

This is a good point: 

Evidently we're going to have a debate about vaccine mandates and abortion at the same time--that is, both culture war tribes are simultaneously going to take both positions on the rights to medical privacy and "my body my choice" autonomy

— Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64) September 9, 2021

I support the idea of mandating vaccines, with minimal exemptions, and with permitting abortion before viability (and after in very limited cases).  So how do I reconcile the positions?

Vaccines. People who aren't vaccinated can be infected by the virus, possibly permitting its evolution into variants, and definitely enabling its continued existence. Its existence is a danger to me and others.  Being vaccinated carries a very low risk, so in my view the danger outweighs the risk, which warrants overriding an individual's preference and the vaccine mandate.

Abortion. Every thing equal, I'm in favor of humans. Birth of an infant is, on balance, good for me and the rest of humanity.  It's one more mind and body who can improve life.  But I'm also in favor of individual freedom, of autonomy.  Strong protection of such freedoms is part of my vision of the best society.  So if the prospective mother decides that her interests and sometimes her perception of the interest of the embryo are best served by an abortion, I have to take that seriously.  

And what of the embryo?  We say "life is sacred" but in fact we recognize that's not an absolute, not something which can be applied everywhere. Notably, we don't apply it to members of other species.  (I'm not a vegan.) So I'm comfortable drawing the line at viability.

Almost 3000 Americans Died on 9/11?

 Nope.  As my cousin reminded me today, there were a lot of people in the World Trade Towers who came from other countries. Wikipedia says 372 of them, or over 10 percent of the total. I'm sure a lot of people have fallen into the error of talking about "almost 3000 Americans".  Here's one, which seems to be a DOD site for vets and families. 

I think that sort wrong generalization is something humans do. 

The Afghan Learning Curve

 Carter Malkasian's "The American War in Afghanistan" has gotten some good reviews and a lot of attention, since its publication coincides with the end of the war as far as the US is concerned.   

I'm most of the way through it. It's good, though it gets criticized on Amazon for the writing.  I'm not as critical as the reviewer--Malkasian likes simple subject-verb-object sentences which usually are clear and give at least the aura of objectivity. He overuses them. I'm more bothered by some of his tics: like using "assessed" as a synonym for "judged,..." and by converting nouns to verbs (which these days seems to be considered as good writing by some).

One thing which is striking about the content: the complexity of Afghan society, about which I may write more later.  When you imagine our military in 2002 trying to understand what they're dealing with, you get a sense of the difficulty of their job.

True Facts-I

 Some things are true, among them:

1. In American, and perhaps in all modern societies of reasonable complexity (i.e., possibly above tribes), there will be conmen who will find ways to exploit opportunities.  Their cons can range from affiliating with social movements to fraud (recently collecting unemployment) to crime (WSJ claims people are stealing from big box stores and reselling on the internet) to the Nigerian scam artists and the Rev. Jimmy Jones of Jonestown. A good bureaucrat must anticipate this; a good liberal must design government policies accordingly.

How We Repeat Our Mistakes

 One of the lessons we should take away from our involvement in Afghanistan is that Americans don't react well to unexpected events.  Looking back on 9/11 I think it was, as I remember thinking at the time, a lucky shot.  But we reacted hysterically, especially after the anthrax attacks.  That's not something I said on this blog then, because I wasn't blogging then.  Might I have said something like that had I been blogging--perhaps, but unlikely.  Too much of an outlying opinion.  At some time I would have been comfortable saying that 9/11 was a lucky punch, a combination of circumstances and strategy which worked, but which wasn't likely to be repeatable.

But we overreacted after 9/11.  I think we're overreacting now to the August exit from Afghanistan. It's not the end of the world, it's not major damage to the reputation or influence of the US. 

The Olden Days--Tramps and Newsreels

 Remembering our childhoods with a relative this morning.  Two things I thought of later:

• after the war there was, for a while, discussion of tramps and hobos. That's died out.  I wonder whether the people who would have moved around in the 1920s-40s are similar to the people who now find themselves homeless, at least the males?
• discussions of popular culture move from the radio age to the TV age. It's common, I've done it myself, to note that during the 1950s-80s news came into the home through the 3 main networks, as compared to the diversity today.  What I don't think gets noticed is newsreels:

images on a screen are much more powerful than news on radio, much more novel. 

most of middle class America regularly went to the movies, so newsreels were the medium for people to see images of the world.  I don't think there was much competition in providing newsreels.

That Good Virginia Clay, and Ida

 Along Reston Parkway near Town Center there's a project underway, trying to squeeze in a turn lane between the existing roadway and the buildings.  For some reason instead of just putting in a roadbed maybe 12 inches thick, they've been excavating several feet down, perhaps to run some utility pipeline or something. 

They had a small road roller, maybe 4 wide, sitting in the excavation on Tuesday. I drove past it today--the good red Virginia clay at the bottom and sides of the excavation was holding the water Ida dropped when she passed by. The water was up to the axle of the roller, likely 15 inches or so. I'm impressed by the ability of the clay soil to hold the water

At our plot in the community garden about 1.2 mile south of there our rain gauge showed 4 inches falling between Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning, most during a thunder storm which I heard and went back to sleep again.   This year National Airport has been wetter than average while Dulles has been several inches below average. Ida dropped more rain on us than on Dulles, which only got about 2.5 inches. 

How Many Refugees Should We Take

 I would take all the refugees who pass basic security checks. It's not realistic to advocate for open borders; too large and rapid a flow of immigrants stresses the social fabric but the people who are now leaving Afghanistan are leaving because of our involvement there since 1979, regardless of whether they worked for us, with us, or simply within the environment we helped create. 

I felt the same way about Vietnamese refugees in the 1970's, and I think that's worked well for us

Carter Malkasian--The American War in Afghanistan-I

 The book is being widely quoted in the media as we grapple with the ending of 20 years of conflict. It's highly rated on Amazon, and no. 2 best seller on Afghanistan war. 

One tidbit--in the start of the war, from October 2001 to March 2002, we had 12 military killed.  In the last 10 days of the war we had 13. 

It's roughly 460 pages of text; I'm 100 pages in.  More comments as I progress.  

The Last Mile in Health Care

 I follow Atul Gawande in the New Yorker and his books, particularly his advocacy for checklists (an indispensable tool for bureaucrats).  The new print issue of the New Yorker has an article by him concerning health in Costa Rica. 

Costa Rica has longer life spans than the US while spending much less on health care. Gawande credits the way in which they have done public health, a systematic way of having health care professional interact with everyone in their district. 

To my mind it's another example of the benefits of government focusing on the "last mile", the connection between government and the citizen.  FSA does it well for its clientele and programs but the US pattern is to have government work through states and localities. 

RFK

 The possible release of Sirhan Sirhan has prompted a bit of discussion of Robert F. Kennedy's role in American history, and his prospects. 

Early on I was torn between Hubert Humphrey and JFK.  Humphrey was the stalwart liberal, the speaker on the floor of the 1948 convention, the Senator leading liberals in the 1950's.  JFK had charisma and seemed more popular. Defeating Nixon was important, and difficult; less important and less difficult than defeating what's his face last year, so after West Virginia primary showed JFK could win Protestants I accepted his candidacy.

Robert was the kid brother, feisty.  (Interestingly, I find in my memory I had conflated Ted and RFK's college records, to the discredit of RFK.) His reputation among liberals was marred by his work first with Joe McCarthy and then investigating labor corruption with Sen. McClellan. It probably hit a low point when his brother named him attorney general.

Bobby's reputation rose during the 1960's, first with civil rights and then on Vietnam, reaching its peak with me with his speech when MLK was killed.  

I'm not sure whether I would have supported RFK or HHH finally. Humphrey didn't fare well as LBJ's Veep.  It likely would have come down to the man who ran best against Nixon. We know HHH lost, barely. I think it's likely that RFK wouldn't have been able to unite the party; LBJ would have borne his grudges too long for that.

So, my bottom line is I don't think American history changed because of Sirhan Sirhan.  It would have been different, but Nixon would have won, the divisions in the Democratic party would have been there, perhaps even deeper than they were. And Nixon would have continued to be paranoid against whichever Democrat seemed strongest in the lead up to the 1972.  

30 Pounds Heavier

 Actually 31, according to a NYTimes article on the redoing of seats for orchestra halls--average US male has gone from 168 in the 60's to 199 now. 

Getting Old: What I've Lost

As I age, there are things I have lost/am losing.  Some are big and obvious; I won't mention those.  Less obvious is this: loss of finger function, manual dexterity. Specifically the ability easily to pick up small things or, something I notice every morning, to separate the pages of the newspaper.

One thing I haven't lost is a tendency to hypochondria, but I'll use will power and ignore the possibility that this indicates an underlying problem as described here and just assume it's age. 

American Citizens Left Behind?

 Prediction:  One thing which will happen: regardless of the efficiency of the airlift from Kabul, there will be American citizens left behind, likely mostly they have dual citizenship. Some will remain by choice, some will be forbidden to leave because they are Afghans, in the eyes of the Taliban.

10 Percent of Rental Aid--the Last Mile Problem

I've blogged before about the "last mile" problem in government: the fact the structure of government in the US means a gap between government and the citizen. Here's another example, as reported by Politico: 

The Treasury Department said Wednesday that state and local governments had disbursed just over 10 percent of federal rental assistance funds as of the end of July, indicating that millions could be at risk of losing their homes once eviction protections end.

No Appeal for American Rescue Plan Debt Payments

 While farmers.gov today just describes the preliminary injunctions, Politico reports that the administration let the deadline for appealing the (earliest?) injunction run out.  Apparently USDA will continue to participate in hearings on whether or not there should be a final injunction.  

Without absolutely no knowledge of such proceedings, I'd guess the judge(s) would be unlikely to change his mind. 

Apparently the concern was there was a weak case which, if lost on appeal, would set a bad precedent for future court proceedings.

I repeat, no knowledge, but it did seem to me that the rationale for the program was weak--in its essentials it was paying off loans for people based on a history of not giving loans to people.  The people with outstanding loans which would be forgiven were able to get past any past discriminatory hurdles in getting loans.

[Update--to give the rationale for the program, see this piece.]

[Second update--USDA's argument in court]

And Now for Something Entirely Different: Nigeria

 Over at the Atlantic, an interview by Conor Friedersdorf  with a Nigerian writer.  From it I learned  learned about the Nigerian caliphate, and its involvement in slavery.  If you can trust wikipedia, it may have been the second largest slave society (after US) at any time, though I don't believe it.  Brazil likely is similar in size and the Roman empire may well have had more slaves than the US. Other empires likely also had numbers in the millions.  The problem though is we're likely comparing apples and oranges, since the rules about slavery were different in different societies.

Nevertheless, an interesting take.

Digitized Forms

I read the FCW piece on this report. I'd forgotten there was a law requiring agencies to digitize their forms and make them fully on-line, including e-signature, but there is.

The report shows agencies haven't met the legal deadline for many of their forms: USDA is one of the laggards. 

I remember back in the early 1990s working to use WordPerfect 5.0 to design forms, or rather to convert the form designed used the old tools to a digitized form.  WordPerfect had a table feature with which, using a lot of patience, you could create a pretty close version of the old printed forms.  The Forms shop in MSD took up the challenge and did a lot of the ASCS/CCC forms before I retired.

Of course there's a big difference between the forms we did and what the law requires--I gather the ideal now is a fillable pdf file with e-signature activated.  I don't know how far FSA has progressed in meeting that goal.

I'm cynical enough to believe that most forms which meet the law's requirements probably are still poorly designed for online operations.  I expect the same human factors are operating with forms as they were with cars--the early cars were designed as "horseless carriages". I wonder how many filing cabinets FSA offices have filled with paper copies. 

[Updated--I see that FSA's newest form, FSA-2637, is a fillable pdf which can be signed on-line. Good for the people who did this.]

Herbicide Resistant Weeds

 NY Times Mag has an article on "superweeds", weeds resistant to herbicides, specifically Palmer amaranth.

It's a reminder that as we change our environment, our environment changes as well. Natural selection rules.  The same process is going on with bacteria, as we get resistance to antibiotics. 

I don't know, and haven't noticed discussion, whether the use of Crispr and the sort of science which led to the fast development of covid vaccines has any implications for our fights against resistance.

The Former Guy and Competence

 Dana Milbank IIRC summarized the  Mueller Report as saying the former guy's campaign was too incompetent to execute collusion with the Russian government; they wanted to but couldn't.

That's funny, and sad.

I'll summarize the FBI's investigation of 1/6 by saying the former guy's team was too incompetent to put together a conspiracy.  

Illogic in Organic Farming?

Modern Farming runs a piece on organic farming.  I find it illogical: 

One issue is price. On average, organic food costs 20 percent more than conventionally produced food. Even hardcore organic shoppers like me sometimes bypass it due to cost.

That's one paragraph.  The author goes on to talk about the need for more and more organic farmers, and a larger acreage, ending in a push to dedicate a percentage of USDA farm programs to organic farms.

I think this is ignoring market signals.  The market is saying that organic food is more costly.  Is organic making inroads despite its higher cost?  Certainly it's increased since the 1990 farm bill which directed USDA to establish standards for "organic".  But that's 30 years ago.  I don't think the market is saying the advantages and virtues of organic are sufficient to drive a massive surge in organic production.  (IMO what will drive expansion is a continuing rise in American living standards and incomes--"organic" is a status symbol, a signifier of virtue, a feeder into one's ego and self-image.) 

Conceivably added subsidies for organic farming could boost the share of the market, but I think they would be expensive.

Champlain's Dream

 Reading David Hackett Fischers "Champlain's Dream"--

Some surprises: 

• Mohawk Indians wore armor to their first battle with Champlain--wood slats linked with cotton thread.  It reminds me of the armor Japanese warriors of the same period wore, though their slats were leather.. Fischer says it was effective against arrows with flint heads.
• They fought in closed ranks--in contrast to Champlain's handfull who fought from cover, a reversal of future patterns.
• The Mohawks had an impressive "castle", made of wood, but tall enough Champlain resorted to European siege tactics.  See this.
• Early French plantations failed--Harshaw's rule.  Scurvy was often a big problem, though winter hunting providing fresh meat during the winter would help.
• Fischer emphasizes the insecurity of the hunter-gatherer economy--tribes which lived by hunting lived well until the hunts failed, because of bad weather.  It seems a response to those who believe agriculture was humanity's biggest mistake.
• I'm always struck by the scant clothing of native Americans (even more so the Taino Columbus encountered). Makes a difference in domestic economy and in lifestyle.
• I'm surprised by the ease and frequency of Champlain's trips to and from the New World.  Ben Franklin and George Whitfield did a lot of crossings, but Champlain did 40+ trips, many quite fast.  I'm not sure whether it's the improvements in ships between 1492 and 1610 or the learning process, likely both.
• It took 30 years or so for the French to establish themselves securely at Quebec and Montreal, with permanent settlements with French women. 
• Fischer notes the early development of the voyageur culture, at least its earliest members among a group of young men who lived with various Indian nations/tribes for one or more winters, learning the language and the way of life, as well as other differences between the French and English patterns of dealing with native Americans.

Second Thoughts

My opinion as expressed in my post on Afghanistan is different than Kevin Drum's as expressed here and here.  And perhaps deviates from Tom Friedman, who in the Times writes of the "morning after the morning after".

That's bothersome, as I respect Drum's opinions on almost everything.

So time for second thoughts:

• Trump's Doha deal with the Taliban promised we'd be out by May. Pence has criticized Biden for not respecting that.  I think Biden was right to take some time, 4 months as it turned out, to figure out whether he wanted to go with his gut or follow the recommendations of the military.  He would have been severely criticized if he pulled out in May.  It's debatable whether he could reasonably taken the whole summer to consider, so the departure would have happened after the end of the "fighting season".
• There's lots of finger pointing over the intelligence, did the CIA predict it or blow it?  We'll get lots ore on this.  My guess is the CIA was pessimistic, the military optimistic, but nobody saw the quick collapse (which seems to be Gen Milley's position).
• The planning and scheduling of the departure.  Military says they planned and did exercises.  I'll be watching to see if there was State/military planning, and joint exercises--such coordination has always been problematic, and in the absence of lots of high ranking Biden appointees and the transition coordination might well have been an early casualty.
• Based on how things have gone so far, it looks as if we would have done better by bringing the 6,000 troops much earlier--let them live in field for a couple months while the troops which have been serving there departed.  The new troops would be charged with maintaining order during the departure.
• A key element of the planning should have been developing a database of Americans who might need to depart, including both government employees and civilian contractors; a database of NATO personnel so we're clear whether we need to help other nations evacuate their nationals; and a database of Afghanis who have been on our payrolls in the last 20 years, plus their families.

One point the administration has made which I hadn't considered--early steps to evacuate were opposed by the Ghani administration and could/would be demoralizing to them.   I don't know how you handle that--if we're talking 20-100,000 people there's no way to keep arrangements secret. But that demoralization seems to be the main cause of the rapid collapse of Ghani government anyway.  

Maybe in an ideal world Biden and Blinken would have gone back to the Taliban and pitched a deal--a more planned departure. (Or departures, different arrangements depending on how events transpired.)  Problem is that Trump had bargained away US leverage, so anything we could have offered would have relied on Ghani's cooperation in facilitating a transfer of power.  

It's possible that Kevin is right--if things go relatively smoothly from here on out, what seemed to be disastrous two days ago will fade into the past.  I hope so.

Government Forms Design

 Remember the "butterfly ballot"?  The covid vaccination form joins it as an example of inept forms design, or at least of limited imagination on the part of its designers. See this GovExec piece.