European Subsidy Payments

Our friends in the EU (both "Old Europe" and "New Europe") have the same controversies over payments to corporations and large payments as we do. See here for their equivalent of the EWG payment database. ($20,000 per acre payment!!) One of the problems of going to a historical basis for payments is the development of discrepancies between acreages. (There's always a trade-off.)

French Education

I've noted Dirk Beauregard's blog before. This post describes the day before the French schools reopen.

Challenging Everyone in School

Patrick Welsh is a teacher of English in the Alexandria (or is it Arlington) high school who writes periodic pieces on the state of the public schools. He had one yesterday, discussing the problems kids have who are caught between the very gifted and the ones being targeted to meet the Virgina Standards of Learning (No Child Left Behind), as in:

"...TAG as in Talented and Gifted. And who is and who isn't -- or at least who's designated such and who isn't -- has been one of the most contentious issues in Alexandria since the school system raised the bar for the TAG program two years ago. The new rules have cut out about two-thirds of the students who once qualified: At George Mason, the size of the fourth-grade program went from 17 to six last year."

He closes thus:

"Shep Walker, a T.C. graduate about to enter the College of William and Mary, says the problem is that "gifted-and-talented programs get filled with white kids who have pushy parents, leaving a lot of black and Hispanic kids out in the cold and creating de facto segregation in the classes."

In its defense, Alexandria's school administration was probably trying to fix that situation. But the solution isn't to mark fewer students as gifted and talented. It's to challenge all our kids, all the time."

While that's a laudable sentiment, I don't think it works in the real world or the real classroom. I think the reality is that any teacher faced with 25 students, or even any manager faced with 12 employees, is going to find that teaching (managing) some of them is more rewarding than the others. (I think the reward is a matter of personalities hitting it off, not necessarily of bias.) So some are going to think Mr. Welsh is a great teacher, some are going to say he's okay.

A great school system will manage to provide everyone with great teaching once or twice in their 12 years of schooling, as different teachers connect with different students. For the rest, we'll muddle through.

The Housing Bubble and Immigration

The popping of speculative bubbles needs nothing but a surplus of irrational exuberance, but there may be an interesting cross-over effect with immigration. The NY Times today talks about a national decline in the price of the average house. The Post today discusses declines in the DC area. Interestingly, Manassas Park, which I just highlighted as having turned majority minority with an impact on its politicians, is expected to have the steepest drop in home values in the area.

I don't think it's accidental. Politicians and government leaders tighten the screws on immigration, making it harder to get in. That cuts the demand for both temporary and permanent housing for the immigrants. (Which has often been met by group housing, which is a centuries-old pattern--look at Jacob Riis at the turn of the 1900's and his book "How the Other Half Lives".) And, we know in a free market, a cut in demand will cause a cut in price.

Tacos

Kevin Drum has had several posts on tacos--which have attracted lots of comments. His commenter has dug up a 1952 NYTimes article describing them, but Mexican food (or the American simulation thereof) didn't become popular until the 1970's.

McDonalds

McDonalds now sells more in Europe than in the U.S., per this NY Times article on how they're adapting to European tastes and upscaling. And I remember in the 1950's when they opened in the Binghamton area.

Pigford Perspectives I

I'd have to be blind, deaf, and dumb to deny the existence of discrimination in FmHA/FSA offices. But, I'd also have to be a coward to avoid discussing the Pigford lawsuit. That said, I'm also stupid, because it's obviously a complex issue and very much of a hot potato and I don't plan to spend a lot of time researching it. Just wing a few posts until I get tired.

First point: obviously people are polarized over the issue. The email (via Mulch), apparently circulating among some FSA employees, says the prospect of reopening the lawsuit makes her wish she weren't an employee of an agency.

That statement may be a statement by someone prejudiced against all minorities. That's the assumption made by Ken Cook, Barack Obama, John Boyd, and others. Their assumption may be true.

But, if you read the whole thing (and I give EWG credit for including the whole thing), a more reasonable assumption is that this is a bureaucrat who's complaining about the possibility of useless work being imposed by Congress. She passes on Ms. Cooksie's comment about the provision being "awful" and frets about being buried under workload, and being asked to provide information they don't have.

Now certainly it is the job of bureaucrats, when Congress speaks, to snap to and salute, just like their military counterparts do. It's not their job to worry about whether taxpayers money is being spent wisely, is it?

Pigford Sites

Among the Internet sites that relate to the Pigford lawsuit are the following:

PBS has background material on the history of black farmers here.

The settlement in the class action suit called for an arbitrator to make decisions with a separate, independent court-appointed monitor to look over the arbitrator's shoulder (no decision power as I understand). Here's the Office of Monitor's website

Here's the National Black Farmer's Association website, with a record of their actions and USDA's response (in more detail than I've provided).

The lawsuit was settled several years ago. In 2004 the time had run and there was a spurt of publicity about it:

The Washington Post did an article

The Environmental Working Group did a study with the black farmers association 2004 report
Carol Estes did a piece stating the side from the black farmer point of view.

The Delta Press did a piece from another side here

In 2007 the House reopened the discussion and EWG did several pieces here in July 2007
and in their EWG July Update on farm bill

Here is the testimony of John Boyd

This is the website of the FSA bureaucrats who work on farm loans: National Association of Credit Specialists

Straw in the Wind of Immigration

The Post yesterday had an article on Manassas Park, which is where my wife lived most of her youth. (A Levittown type community outside Manassas, VA, originally for WWII vets and families.) Recently an article said that in 6 years it had jumped from 33 percent minority to 50 percent minority, ranking third in the country for political subdivisions changing rapidly.

Anyway:

The Manassas Park City Council criticized "a small faction of citizens" this week for what it called "irresponsible and offensive" statements about local immigration policies, approving an official position that sets the small suburb apart from neighbors seeking to step up enforcement against illegal immigration.

The position statement, unanimously approved Tuesday night, declared: "The City believes most residents in Manassas Park are legally present and moved to this area to create a better life for their respective families." It added that the city of 11,600, bordered by Manassas and Prince William County, "will continue to work aggressively with federal and state agencies to address all criminal activity."

What's interesting is that these are Republican politicians! What's happening? The handwriting is on the wall--anyone who wants a political career in Manassas Park had better not be hostile to immigrants, who are the majority. (That's independent of judgments over what policy is best.)

Believing What We Want--Food Miles

[Updated: Rich Pirog wrote me a nice note, essentially saying he's still checking, and giving this reference: ]

Someone asked Tom Philpott at Gristmill about the sourcing of a factoid apparently often used in the "slow food" or local food movement--that on average food on our table moves 1200 miles. To his credit, he did some research and found it wasn't a 1969 DOD study. Instead, he tracks down Rich Pirog at Iowa State who says it's a 1969 Department of Energy study:

"Rich did a comprehensive look at food-mile studies for his 2001 paper "Food, Fuel, Freeways: An Iowa perspective on how far food travels, food usage, and greenhouse gas emissions."

The only study he knows about that comprehensively estimates food miles nationwide is the 1969 DoE effort. Reader Steven, if you're still with me, the citation for it is: U.S. Department of Energy. 1969. "U.S. Agriculture: Potential Vulnerabilities." Stanford Research, Institute, Menlo Park, CA."

Unfortunately, DOE wasn't formed until the 1970's--Jimmy Carter in 1977. (Actually, it makes more sense to have been a DOD study--at that time there were still worries about nuclear warfare and the farther food traveled, the more vulnerable we might be.)