Fearless Prediction: This Question Won't be Asked

Either in the televised debates or by any reporter of any national political figure or candidate:

"What would you do with the programs the Bush administration ranks as ineffective? (See this link and my previous post.)"

Instead, there will be lots of talk about government waste and inefficiency. I'm not saying there isn't waste and inefficiency; I'm saying the Republicans have been in charge of the executive branch for most of the last 40 years. Any entity has waste, reflect on that on your next bathroom break. It's true in government, true on Wall street, true on Main Street, true in the home.

Ah, Youth

I suppose that's the response of any old geezer to whippersnappers full of juice and enthusiasm, as here:

And what is success? Success is an edible future, when local populations are fed by local fields and sensible nutrition is affordable and accessible. Where we address poverty and hunger, not with biotechnology, but with long-term access to the means of production, and with proximity to that productive plenty which we can achieve only with careful stewardship of our soil and land base -- a wealth immeasurable in dollars. Success is a smooth energy transition, a satisfying daily bread, a culture in which we have restored honor, and respect to the profession of farming.

Call to arms

Arms strong and hands calloused, eyes open to the beauty of every morning, spirits prepared for the long row still to hoe, hearts full with the support of family and community, let us unite, young farmers, and fight for the right to farmable land, the pursuit of an equitable marketplace, and for recognition from society that we are here, indispensable, a cornerstone of our food future. Let us welcome many new entrants into agriculture, striving to share our lessons, seeds and stories with generations to come. Now is the time for action.

I guess, having gently mocked them, they deserve their link.

Calvin L. Beale, a Bureaucrat? [Updated]

Calvin L. Beale was the senior demographer in USDA, and just died, picking up some nice obits.

One mention calls him a "faceless bureaucrat", while using his death to push the idea of a rural renaissance in Missouri (which he'd first identified in the 1960's). A somewhat belated story in the Post today adds more human interest, among which is this:

What may be even more remarkable is that Mr. Beale never charged his trips to a government expense account. He paid for everything -- airline tickets, car rentals and hotels -- out of his own pocket. He also scrupulously arrived at his office desk 30 minutes early each morning, so as not to waste the government's time while eating his breakfast of half a muffin.

Here's a link to his photos of courthouses. (It seems as if a plurality of courthouses were built in the two decades 1890-1910, which was the same time period Andrew Carnegie was financing his libraries.)

The Daily Yonder has an article on him

Two Different Posts

Not how to interpret these:

At farmgate, the UofIll site, comes a paper on the pricing of seed corn--an excerpt:

"The WI trio examined seed corn pricing in Illinois in 2004 to illustrate how stacked traits were actually priced:
• Conventional seed corn averaged $88.33 per bag.
• The Bt corn borer trait added $20.49
• The Bt rootworm trait was alone worth $27.28.
• One herbicide tolerant trait was priced at $14.51, another at $6.83.
• Double stacking of corn borer and rootworm traits added $35.51.
• Triple stacking of corn borer, rootworm, and herbicide tolerance added $37.30.
• Quadruple stacking added $39.45 for corn borer, rootworm and both herbicide tolerant traits.
• The market power of the seed company added over 8% to the price."

At Grist, Tom Philpott pushes an interview with an author:

"...the relationship between organisms and individual genes is much more complex and mysterious than researchers originally thought. And that, Kimbrell says in this interview, helps explain why after 25 years of R&D, the GMO industry has only managed to create a couple of viable traits. The main one, of course, is "herbicide tolerance," e.g., Monsanto's Round Up Ready corn and soy, engineered to withstand copious lashings of its flagship herbicide, Round Up."

Technical Corrections and Farm Constitution

Congressman Etheridge is introducing legislation to fix the 10-acre "problem" in the 2008 farm bill. The legislation directs the USDA to allow aggregation of base acres and will allow producers to combine multiple farms into one farm through the reconstitution process. Since many years ago I was responsible for this area, I'll be interested to see how this is implemented.

It's not always easy to carry legislation into implementation, as can be inferred from a post at Whiskey Burn entitled "Amazingly Trivial Things" about "technical corrections" to the farm bill. Dan (formerly of Blog for Rural America) disdains the nit-picking objections of the good folks in the Office of General Counsel to language in the farm bill, a disdain commonly found in non-lawyers. (Rather like the disdain non-librarians have for the Dewey decimal system.) Dan thinks the intent is clear, so FSA ought to implement on that basis.

Constitution Day

See this link.

While the "Founding Fathers" had many faults, overall they did about as good as possible at the time, which is all any of us can do.

Cheney and the Bureaucrats

Post has a two-part series from a book on Cheney. Today's article is focused on a story previously reported--the uproar in the Justice Department over approvals for a secret program of intelligence eavesdropping. Short summary: Cheney and David Addington, his aide, pushed through approvals, partly by severely limiting knowledge of the program. When Bush had to renew his approval, Justice personnel rebelled, came within a day of submitting mass resignations, which led to Bush reversing his decision and modifying the program.

The "rebellion", as I'm calling it, was basically among the political appointees at Justice, deputy Attorney General and below, but fed by resistance from career lawyers in the military and finally affirmed by Attorney General Ashcroft.

To me, as a Democratic ex-bureaucrat, it's a story of the good guys (career people) winning a battle with the bad guys (Cheney--boo, hiss). Looked at another way it is an example the inevitable tension between bureaucracy and political chiefs. But I also suspect it's a failure at personal politics by Cheney and Addington--more tactful and personable types who were less obsessive about secrecy might well have won the tacit consent of the bureaucracy, simply by including them from the start, infecting them with a shared concern about the grave dangers of terrorism, etc. etc. (Concerns I don't have, BTW.) In my experience, knowledge is power in bureaucracy. And when you deprive usually powerful people of knowledge, they become resentful.

Having said all that, I still think the result was right. And it's a fine example of the wisdom of the Founders--as the Federalist talked about harnessing the passions of imperfect man to check and balance power.

Disinformation

Shankar Vedantam is back, reporting on interesting research on how misinformation may still have an effect after it's corrected. I'm dubious of the reported difference between conservatives and liberals in this regard--my beginning position is they're both human, and both would operate similarly: i.e, my enemy is a bad, misinformed, lying s.o.b. But it does make one think, particularly someone who is as into politics as I am. One reason I do try to somewhat balance the blogs I read, despite the dangers to my blood pressure.

John Sides at the Monkey Cage provides URL for the research.

Messages From Slow Food Nation

Selected quotes, not at random :-), from this post:

• recruiting millions of new farmers, ennobling farming so more people want to do it, and making it possible for them to make a decent living at it.
• end the free-market, capitalist system: All of those issues are the byproducts of a system built on competition rather than cooperation
• the foods available gave me a huge stomachache. Especially as a vegetarian who couldn’t have the meat, because it meant walking around for 4 hours gorging on beer, ice cream, and chocolate
• drink Red Bull to write theses: Red Bull is just a drink that works for capitalism because it gets you through the work day (and he confessed to drinking it night and day to get through his Ph.D)

The Message of Rural Obesity

A corollary of my post on skinny Amish would be the idea that the rural obese aren't doing a lot of heavy manual labor. Some may be caught in the routine of the big breakfast, etc., not remembering a tractor drives easier than a team, we don't shovel manure much anymore, etc. Even some of those who live in urban settings may still be carrying over their rural diets and menus, without the physical labor that went with them.

Legalize Marijuana, We Need It for MRSA

According to Technology Review, the bacteria that resist antibiotics can be handled with pot.

Trailing Clouds Behind 'Em

Eugene Volokh raises an interesting question at the Conspiracy:

"Say a blogger posts an accurate story -- perhaps based on a news report or a court decision -- that discusses some minor misconduct by some person. The post names that person.

Several years later, the person asks the blogger to remove the post, or to remove the person's name from the post. The person is not a government official or other important figure (at least at that point; one never knows what will happen in the future). The past misconduct was pretty minor, and doesn't suggest that the person will be a serious menace to his friends, neighbors, or others. But it's embarrassing, and the person doesn't like this story coming up whenever the person's name is Googled" [there's more]

He's gotten lots of comments, most of which lean towards being merciful and granting the request. It's nice to see the blogosphere is "Christian" in this sense. But as some point out, while you may be able to edit the past to make sins less visible, it's really impossible to change the past entirely, even on the Internet. That's always been true, I've a host of minor sins and faux pas wedged firmly in my memory which I can't drive out. Even though I may be the only one who remembers them, they're still part of the fabric of my life (changing metaphors there).

But the Internet changes things--Slate has a post noting the ways in which both campaigns have edited the past with respect to Gov. Palin. It's harder and harder for politicians to construct a consistent facade. I think we'll learn the best way is, don't hide, reveal, for the politician and for the public, as difficult as it may be, accept that politicians are human.

Tobacco After the Buyout

I've blogged a couple times (here and here) on the results of the buyout of the old tobacco programs. Here's another article, from Haywood County, NC (mountains) where they grew burley. In summary, North Carolina as a state is growing about as much tobacco as ever, the price is more volatile, the crop is riskier, "produce" (tomatoes and peppers) are competitive, the acreage in the mountains is down, the number of farms is down, the eastern part of the state has bigger, consolidated tobacco farms, some growing a new variety of heat-resistant burley. In the mountains, agriculture is down generally.

So, the program seems to have been effective in keeping smaller farmers in tobacco, presumably well past the time when it was the most economically efficient method of production. And it didn't, at least in the short run, mean lower prices for consumers, as the anti-smoking people claimed. (Full disclosure: I smoked over 2 packs day for the first 10 years or so of my bureaucratic career. Fortunately I was able to quit in 1978.)

Best Words I Read Today

It's National Hispanic Week so there was a do in DC. There was comedy, which as reported by the Post included this:

"By the same token, I hate when I hear some white people going on about 'those illegal aliens taking my job.' . . . Let me tell you something: If a guy gets here from another country, can't read, can't write, can't speak the language, has no technological skills and takes your job? You're a [expletive]."

What Does Reston Read?

This inventory from the Reston Friends (of the library) shows at least what Restonians are willing to donate:

Mysteries and History view for the top spot (47 and 44 boxes worth), with Romance and Children (can't have one without the other) fittingly tied at 33 boxes. But hardback fiction, a category I hardly ever read (I am, after all, a bureaucrat) comes in at 36 boxes!

Congress Giveth, Congress Taketh Away

Congress passed a farm bill loaded with goodies to attract enough votes. One might think that settles issues for 5 years. One would be wrong. What's in the farm bill is two things: "entitlement programs"--the sort of thing that leaps to mind when we speak of "farm programs", and other programs, programs for which the farm bill simply "authorizes" spending $X, but for which the appropriations committees have to appropriate the actual money, either in the annual appropriation bill for USDA or in an omnibus appropriation bill. (That's one of the problems with "earmarks", they are stuck in the appropriations bill either without a previous "authorization", or bypassing the bureaucratic process for prioritizing expenditures of authorized and appropriated money.)

Now the agricultural policy sites, such as EWG's, are full of coverage of fights over what money gets appropriated. Because the old-line farm programs tend to be entitlements, and the newer stuff favored by the greens are not entitlements, guess who's screaming.

Unkindest Cut of All

Poor George W. He didn't get to attend the Republican convention, McCain trashed his record, and everyone is treating him as a lame duck. You've got to feel for the guy.

And then comes the unkindest cut of all. Remember, this is the demon jogger who switched to trail biking when his knee gave out and just spent the weekend with Jim Zorn, new Redskins coach (with an 0-1 record) going a fast 12 miles. And what does Bob Woodward say? He has a "noticeable paunch", which already has 4,700 hits on Google.

Wheat and Beans

The Post writes about someone pushing the sales heirloom beans (dry edible type); the Times about reviving wheat/flour production in the Northeast.

The latter article was the more interesting. PA used to be the breadbasket of the U.S. before rust (a disease of wheat) and the availability of cheaper land had their effects. (There's an old economic geography theory that puts different agricultural products at different distances from population centers--livestock and wheat tend to be further away than dairy and fruits and vegetables.)

The problems in reviving wheat growing include lack of the milling infrastructure and knowledge, the inconsistency found in flour produced in small batches, which screws up the bakers with consequent waste. We as consumers are used to consistent products, whether it be apples or bread. That demand means a competitive advantage for the bigger operation and, in some cases, the use of more food additives. All of which creates problems for the locavore

Gender Differences

John Tierney reports in today's NYTimes science section that research seems to show gender differences are more evident in modern, progressive societies, and less evident in more "traditional" societies. If you're into the subject, it's a must read.

As for me, I'm not surprised (of course, how often does a supercilious blogger ever admit to surprise). A good part of the thing about modern society is there's more space for the individual, more room to "find oneself", to "self-actualize", or whatever other phrase is now current. That should mean there's more differences along all dimensions, not just the gender one.

Of course, that undermines the theory from the 1960's that a male-dominated society was responsible for creating the differences. Which may be why a semi-conservative like Tierney is open to these reports.

Why the Amish Stay Slim

They work, not office work, physical work. So even if their genes favor obesity, they're slim. So says this study.

I buy it. A rural society with lots of physical labor is not stout. "Stout" is a word from the past. Of course many so-called farmers now have a pot, "so-called" because they just drive tractors and because I'm feeling grumpy today. Contra Professor Pollan, the key variable is not the diet, it's the labor.


(Decided since I'm fascinated by the Amish, I need to add a tag for them.)

Another Minority President

Right now the polls show a very tight race. That raises the possibility, again, of a President being elected with a minority of votes cast. If that's the outcome, how do you think people will react? How would the Dems react, if they were robbed again? How would the Reps react, if they were in Gore's position in 2000?

David Sirota Sees Us for What We Are

After a week's vacation:

What's amazing to me after coming back from vacation is how obviously insular and silly this supposed "national" conversation really is, when you just step back for one week and look at it. Whether on blogs, email, radio or television, a small group of us is basically screaming at ourselves, the rest of the public be damned. It's quite tragic, really.

Of course, when you look at the picture of where he spent his vacation, you completely understand.

Achenbach on Vice Presidency

I fancy myself to have a good knowledge of American history and government, but I never realized the logic behind the Vice Presidency which Joel Achenbach unveils in today's Post:

"The Framers never for a moment thought the president needed a Mondale-like adviser or a Cheney-like super-deputy. Their main concern was that they wanted electors from the states to be forced to vote for two people, and not from the same state. The reasoning, historians surmise, is that states would habitually throw their support behind a favorite son as the presidential candidate. Virginians would vote for a Virginian, New Yorkers for a New Yorker, etc. But if they had to cast a second ballot, that second choice, under the Constitution, couldn't be another favorite son.

Follow this logic to its conclusion: The Framers were thinking that the No. 2 pick of many of the electors would be a nationally recognized figure who would wind up with more votes, total, than any of the No. 1 picks. It's kind of like they wanted the vice president to be president."

Makes sense--in today's world the idea of a "favorite son" has faded, but that was a real fear in 1787.

Google Government

The Post has a piece by a man who tries to go 24 hours without Google. (He succeeds in not using Gmail, but he does contact pieces of Google.) He's suspicious of Google's accumulation of data. He concludes:

I went into this experiment fairly certain that it would require the cursory change of an odd habit or two. I learned that my dependence on Google runs deeper than that, encompassing not only my personal Internet use but the nested dependencies of the people and institutions surrounding me. This is perhaps less a celebration of Google's tenth birthday than it is the harrowing revelation of our tenth anniversary. So goodnight, dear Google -- congratulations, and sweet dreams.

It led me to some other thoughts. Googling yourself may be a reason Google isn't as fearsome as it might be. You're on a par with all other users of Google--it doesn't play favorites. And that's somewhat true with the historical stuff--you can see your own web history, at least for a while. Granted there's stuff Google stores I can't see, but they claim, at least, the data is depersonalized--no connection to my name and ID.

Moving on to government--why shouldn't government operate like Google. Why shouldn't it be a principle: you can see anything the government has on you.

Speculation in the Commodity Markets

The Post carried this AP story on a commodity investment fund which was closing down--it had suffered big losses because of the recent declines in commodity prices (oil, corn, etc.). IMHO that settles the question of whether the rise in commodity prices was speculative. Of course it was, it was a bubble just like the housing bubble and the tech bubble and the railroad bubble (couple centuries ago). A bubble means speculation. Now I'd agree there were real market forces at work and it may well be impossible to curb speculation as some might like; people are people after all.

But those right wing blogs/economists who denied the speculation went too far.

Total Loss Farm, Revisited

For those who weren't living in the '60's, this book review covers some of the communal living farms which received press back then. I'm probably unjust, but I get a little whiff of the same romanticism now from some of the advocates of "biodynamic farming" and related themes.

"Unassuming"--You Break My Heart

I've liked Keira Knightley since "Bend It Like Beckham", so this line was a surprise (from an LATimes article on her new movie, on Georgiana Cavendish, the 18th century dish.)

"Keira is quite unassuming-looking in real life,"

What Is Farming in China?

Terrace farming
Originally uploaded by Klobetime

This photo from Klobetime at Flickr says a lot about Chinese farming, at least traditional Chinese farming. Lots of manual labor went into this. You can't use machines, not big machines well. And it makes maximum use of the land.

Why McCain Can't Do Away with Earmarks

From a good Slate piece summarizing various Palin controversies:

Does she oppose federal earmarks?

Alaska has long been the recipient of astounding amounts of federal funding. While Palin slashed pork requests in half during her tenure, the state still requested $550 million in Palin's first year in office. This year she has requested about $198 million—$295 per person—which is still the highest amount per-capita in the country, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense. And when she was the mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired an Anchorage-based firm to secure $27 million in federal earmarks for the town.

Now the McCain camp will defend this by saying she was only acting on behalf of Alaskans, doing just what we'd expect any elected official do to. Which is true. There are very, very few people who can retain elective office without bringing home the pork, I mean bacon.

The problem is similar to the base closing problem--the idea that every federal installation (i.e., military base, USDA office) must be retained because it benefits the local economy. DOD has bypassed the problem by setting up the periodic base closing commission, which makes recommendations which get an up or down vote in Congress. I'm not sure what you can do for earmarks that would work similarly.

A Lack of Form Design Bureaucrats

Technically, forms designers are bureaucrats at a remove; they design the systems by which bureaucracies interface with real people. This post on The Hill Blog on ballot blunders notes the failure of our society to produce enough good forms designers (and now we've moved to computer-based voting, user-interface designers), which screws up our elections.

Funniest Lines Today:

"We were able to build most of it in about two months - two adults, a 14 year old and a 10 year old plus the help of a three year old."

This is from a long post at Sugar Mountain Farm, explaining the construction of earth air tubes and the "tiny cottage". (Not that I have any personal experience with 3-year olds, but "help of a ..." sounds like an oxymoron to me.)

Locavores Rejoice--A Local Dairy for Chicago?

Not local, perhaps, since it's the other side of the state, but at least a lot closer than California. The Blog for Rural America has the story(a big dairy applying for permits in Jo Daviess County, IL.)

(Yes, my tongue is in my cheek. My father's dairy milked 12 cows, I don't like a 12,000 cow farm. And neither does BRA.) But it's an example of the complexities of the current discourse. I'm assuming this move would get milk production closer to more people, cutting transportation costs and energy usage, reducing the carbon footprint, providing fresher milk, etc. But it's to be accomplished by a huge operation, non-organic and a CAFO. So what trade-offs do we accept? When is NIMBYism justified? Do we ever cap the size of business enterprises? Do we break up Microsoft or Google?

You'll note I'm good with questions, not so much with answers.

One Bureaucracy, Two Countries

Dirk Beauregard again offers insights into how differently France is run than the U.S., bureaucratically speaking. But a uniform bureaucracy doesn't mean uniformity of culture:

"France may be one country on paper, but the regional diversies and differenes are so great, that this is several countries in one. We speak one common tongue, share one basic set of republican ideals, but north and ssouth are almost two seperate countries.[sic to all errors--Dirk never bothers to spell correctly]

Maybe our differences are as great, but I don't hear anyone talking of two countries (except maybe the Alaskan Independence Party).

The Role of Fear in Politics

At Grist there's a dispute over the role of fear. Glen Hurowitz summarizes and posts in defense of fear, using the reasoning that fear overcomes apathy. He winds up by saying, first you scare people then you give them hope.

I understand the logic, and maybe even agree on an individual basis--emotions seem to serve the role of overcoming inertia: fear, love, hate, jealousy--they all counteract our tendencies to stay in ruts (particularly strong for me).

As a matter of fact, it's almost the same formula as revivalists use, you scare people with hell, with reminders of their own wickedness, loneliness, whatever, then you offer them hope with the grace of God. It's been working for centuries.

But on a social level I resist. Glen's formula can be generalized; politicians strive to stir emotion (whether it's mocking rivals or disrespecting them, as can be seen this week, and last week)
then offer hope. So it's the way the world works, and environmentalists have as much right to do this as anyone else.

I dislike conflict, which means I dislike emotion, which means I seek refuge in the Progressive's dream (actually the culmination of the Enlightenment) that reason can dissolve all conflicts and create the millennium. That's one reason why computers/software are/were so attractive to me; I have the idea that the proper system design can satisfy everyone. (And fail to remember the law of 2 out of 3: software can be cheap, good, or quickly done.)

So should we worry about vanishing ice? Yes. Should we act? Yes. But humans are going to muddle through for a while longer, even if we don't do exactly what activists want.

English Should Be the Official Language?

June Lloyd shows the surprising persistence of other languages at Universal York.

Losing Ice in the Arctic

Reports like this don't make me feel good. Sort of ties to another post I'm working on--the role of fear in politics.

Oil Prices Falling

Megan McArdle comments on the subject. I also liked the comment by "cynic".

Falling Property Values

My little corner of Reston is rather diverse. We had an African-American family down the court--they bought in 2006. I use the past tense because they moved out this weekend, presumably having been foreclosed on. The prior owner bought in 1999 for $98,500; he sold in 2006 for $365,000.

A Kludge, at Long Last a Kludge

That's what this sounds like: a piece of equipment/system from DHS to enable first responders to cross-communicate, or a kludge:

The program, which DHS will test in the District of Columbia, integrates land mobile radio networks that police, firemen and emergency medical service workers use with cell phone broadband networks and wireless Internet devices, including laptops and personal digital assistants.

With the new technology, a public safety official can communicate with personnel in the field using a cell phone, land radio or computer all on the same network. The technology also allows them to contact colleagues in different departments or nearby municipalities without reprogramming their radios or having a dispatcher connect them.

It's long overdue. If I weren't lazy I'd go back a couple years and find my argument for one. But trust me (I was from the government) on this.

GOP Government Produces Results

Hat tip to Understanding Government's Edward Hodgman, who notes the White House site pushing government results: Results.gov has not been updated for a year and a half.

As a confirmed Dem, I'd love to say this just reflects the fact that Bush's government hasn't done anything positive in 18 months. (And I just did.) But the reality, I suspect, is somewhat different. Sometime back in the recesses of time, someone in the White House got this great idea: "let's have a website devoted just to highlighting the good things that are going on." Others in the hierarchy nodded wisely and said: "Oh yes, that sounds great, you go ahead and do it, here's some money to get it up and running." So, the site was put together and put on the net. And two things happened:

1. the original sponsor of the idea decided to leave for greener pastures, perhaps located along K Street in Washington, leaving no one behind who had really bought into the idea.
2. it turned out the site was just a pimple on the body politic, just a haphazard extrusion which didn't really tie into any institution or ongoing effort.

Results.gov is really no different than the millions of blogs that have been started and abandoned.

What's a "Big" Farmer?

From Farmgate, here's a possible definition of what a farmer is, so a big one would be bigger than this:

How much acreage or livestock does it take for you to earn a living on the farm? One farm business management group in MN offered its calculations based on its members:
1) 890 acres of corn, based on a net return of $84.03 per acre over a 5 year average.
2) 970 acres of beans, based on a net return of $77.15 per acre over a 5 year average.
3) 369 acres of hay, based on a net return of $202.77 per acre over a 5 year average.
4) 4,380 head of farrow to finish hogs, with $17.08 per head over a 5 year average.
5) 15,568 head of finish hogs, with a $4.51 net return per head over a 5 year average.
6) 831 head of feedlot calves, with a $89.98 net return per head over a 5 year average.
7) 127 head of dairy cows, with a $509.96 return per head over a 5 year average.

The biggest surprise to me was no. 3.

Frustrating Article on Russian Agriculture

Back in 1991, if I had been blogging, I would have predicted that grain prices would go through the floor because Russian agriculture would have flooded the market, finally having been freed of the constraints of the system. So much for my wisdom.

Today the NYTimes runs an interesting but frustrating article on Russian agriculture
from the beginning:

A decade after capitalism transformed Russian industry, an agricultural revolution is stirring the countryside, shaking up village life and sweeping aside the collective farms that resisted earlier reform efforts and remain the dominant form of agriculture.

The change is being driven by soaring global food prices (the price of wheat alone rose 77 percent last year) and a new reform allowing foreigners to own agricultural land. Together, they have created a land rush in rural Russia.

The article's frustrating because there's no real description of the current state of agriculture, just that big money people are buying land. There are two facts of interest: 16 percent cof Russia's arable land is idle, about 35 million hectares (maybe 80 million acres); and "[t]he average Russian grain yield is 1.85 tons a hectare — compared with 6.36 tons a hectare in the United States and 3.04 in Canada." That points to lots of potential (although if I recall my geography, Russia's closer to Canada in latitude than the U.S., albeit global warming is changing that.)

Ultra-Orthodox Jews and Sarah Palin

I suspect that may be the first time the words in the title have been used together.

In today's Post an article from Israel. Briefly, a Norwegian woman converted to Judaism 15 years ago to marry an Israeli Jew. Now she's looking for a divorce, but the Ultra-Orthodox control the religious establishment in Israel and they say her conversion process wasn't exhaustive enough, so she's not a Jew, and therefore was never married, and therefore her two kids aren't Jews. The article paints the issue as between those who believe in God's covenant with the Jewish people, who must observe his commandments strictly, and those who believe that Israel must, to survive, welcome converts.

That's the same issue faced by other organizations, from car companies to countries. What is your identity, and how do you maintain it, yet survive in the world? If you're an Asian car maker, do you focus on smaller, economical cars or try to move up-market into the luxury cars and SUV's and trucks. Toyota looked to be a winner doing the latter, an example followed by Hyundai, but with today's gas prices Honda, which retained more of a small car identity and focus, is doing better. If you're a country, do you limit immigrants and require those who come in to learn English, etc. in order to maintain the country's culture as it is now, or do you gamble on opening doors and going with the flow?

That's the issue for political parties, now. How does the Republican Party, and particularly their nominee, maintain an identity and yet attract voters? In that light, Ms. Palin seems a good choice. It's a maverick, anti-establishment, anti-Washington choice for McCain, but one which mends his fences with the social conservatives of the right wing, while simultaneously perhaps attracting women. It breaks with GWB's "compassionate conservatism" by picking someone who supported/was friendly to Pat Buchanan in the 2000 convention. [Updated--additional thoughts] Assuming that McCain has the pocketbook Republicans in his hip pocket, Palin reinforces the party's appeal to working class America.

Closing Prayer

Religion in America comments on and posts the closing prayer of the Dem's convention--the new evangelism.

Why Lecture Courses?

From Brad DeLong:
"

• Budget stringency: lectures are cheap for the university relative to seminars, and even if they are markedly less effective they do soak up students' time

• Alternative information channel: The ears are wired to the brain differently than the eyes, and there is value in not only reading something but also hearing something in producing the synaptic changes that we want to see happen in college.
• A self-discipline device: if people have to show up at a certain place at a certain time to accomplish a task or be disciplined, they are more likely to do so. Lecture as a way of solving our self-command and self-control problems.
  • But why not then just have a study hall? Everyone reads the book, and the monitor circulates and answers quetions?
• A sociological event: East African Plains Apes like to do things in groups that involve language--that is just who we are--and the lecture is just another example of this"

It's Diversity at Work

So now our national tickets include an African-American with an Indonesian-American half sister married to a Chinese Canadian, a woman with an Eskimo husband and a Downs child, two WASP codgers, and our Wheaties boxes celebrate a Russian-American gymnast and a Japanese-African-American decathlete.

Carbon Tax and Locavore

Kevin Drum comments on an NPR piece on the carbon footprint of food, observing a carbon tax would help, probably more than voluntary changes in diet.

Little League Causes Obesity?

Eugene Volokh blogged on the 9-year old who's been banned from Little League because he's too good. It got a lot of comments because it straddles some key issues: the right of an individual to try to excel, the safety of others, etc. I offered a comment remembering the old days before organized youth sports when you scraped together whatever kids in the neighborhood were available and willing, whatever the differences in age and ability.

I got to thinking, resulting in the question which is the title. In the old days, kids stayed in the neighborhood unless they could bike elsewhere (our rural roads weren't favorable for biking, even if I'd ever learned). They didn't rely on parents, particularly mothers, for transportation. Now it's different--mothers spend all their time transporting kids so they don't have time to cook, meaning they go for the fast food and carryouts, leading to our obesity epidemic.

So the solution is to ban Little League.

Analyses of Locavore and Organic

James McWilliams analyzes problems with locavore logic at Freakonomics, Stephanie Page Ogburn analyzes the problems with making a full-time living from organic gardening at Grist.

Both are valuable correctives to books such as Kingsolver's and McKibben's, which tend to play up the possibilities and play down the problems.

AIDS in Rural Areas

The Daily Yonder reports on increasing AIDS cases in rural areas. I've some reservations, because I assume the rural areas started with no AIDS (the whole country started with no AIDS) so we're talking about a percentage increase over a very small base. Of course, it's surprising to find AIDS outside the big cities because the propagation pattern for a virus would seem to require a concentrated population. So maybe the rise is in aging boomers moving to the sticks, a few of whom happen to have HIV/AIDS, as opposed to transmission in rural areas. Who knows?

[Updated--had a senior moment on the proper acronym for AIDS.]