Former FSA Employee Has Op-ed

In an op-ed in the Post this morning, James Earl Carter writes about cotton subsidies. He was an employee of a predecessor to Farm Service Agency--Agricultural ADjustment Administration, doing measurement (presumably as a summer employee). Back in the 1930's AAA employed around 100,000 people doing field measurement. Then we got aerial photography, and planimetry, and spot checking and slides and now GPS/GIS.

NASCO Sensitivities

From here,

Communication is the key to our organization and I hope that you are receiving information from your State President and/or Area Exec. Unfortunately, many of our members have become extremely fearful of using the government computer for any purpose. Thanks to Cindy Peterson, Jon Williams, and Darin Slack, the NASCOE Exec Committee has written a document entitled "Government Computer Usage". The Area Execs will be distributing this, it will be posted on the web site, and may be in this NASCOE Now! Our hope is that this will give everyone a little better understanding of when the government computer can and cannot be used.

I Just Follow the Crowd--Locavore

It's now the 2007 word of the year, according to this.

Slow Equals Good? Not Necessarily

Here's an article in the NYTimes that challenges the easy assumption that food grown locally is always the easiest on the environment, particularly when you consider the whole cycle (don't drive to the farmer's market in your Hummer). As a side issue, the author points out our increasing frequency of shopping. Once-a-week shopping is no more.

Developing the Internet--Bureaucrats and Gore

NY Times has an article on the development of the Internet. The whole thing's interesting, but here's two quotes:

..a number of scientists and corporate executives who met here said NSFnet remained a powerful example of how a handful of government bureaucrats in concert with an equally small number of scientists made a set of carefully considered federal policy decisions, in this case leading directly to the modern Internet...

...many of the scientists, engineers and technology executives who gathered here to celebrate the Web’s birth say he [Al Gore] played a crucial role in its development, and they expressed bitterness that his vision had been so discredited.

Maybe the media owes Al an apology?

Losing Farmers, Not According to the Farm Bureau

"Farm Bureau membership across the country has surpassed the 6 million mark for the second consecutive year – 6,231,176 member families. [emphasis added] The milestone was passed as state Farm Bureaus reported 30,838 additional members registered for Farm Bureau membership in 2007. " See press release

Problems of Organizational Change

A nice comment on another blog:

I suspect that all large organisations are “slow to change” if that means “adopt the path the leaders of the organisation have decided to move forward on”. In fact, this applies even to small organisations or dare I say it individuals. Certainly when I make a decision to try to change my own behaviour, I do sometimes experience difficulty in “driving through change”!

A Woman's Work...

From "Feminine Ingenuity, Women and Invention in America" by Anne L. MacDonald, something to pair with the Life photo Bill Bryson alerted me to. It's a list of the necessities for a well-stocked laundry room, about 100 years ago. My mother had most of these:

Agate Pan or basin for starching
Bosom board
Clothes basket
Clothes boiler (tin with copper bottom)
Clothes horse
Clothes line
Clothes pins
Clothes pin bag
Clothes props
Clothes stick
Clothes wringer
Cup for measure
Duster for lines
Droppers
Flannel
Funnel
Heavy cloth for tubs and boiler
Heavy irons
Heavy paper
Iron holders
Iron rest
Ironing table and board
Pins
Polishing iron
Saucepan for starch
Scrubbing brush
Set tubs, three or four, or machine
Skirt board
Small pieces of muslin and cheese cloth
Small pointed irons
Sprinkler
Teaspoon
Wash board
Water pail
Wax

(Not to mention starch, soap, blueing,etc.)

You look at the list, and think about the work each item implies, and the expertise. (Is there anyone out there who knows how to use a "skirt board" these days?) Permanent press has made a big difference to women, second only to processed foods. Remember that, in those days, every man unattached to a woman would have to have his clothes laundered.

Most Ridiculous Sentence I Read Today

The fear of not measuring up as a man is highly motivating, but it is not one that motivates women.

From Volokh.com, Kingsley Browne guest-blogging on women in combat.

Amazon Is UNFAIR to Procrastinators

I'm a procrastinator, I freely admit. I'm usually fairly optimistic, crediting others with good intentions. But I've just become suspicious of Amazon. In the last few days I have twice gone to their site, put items in my shopping cart, then procrastinated over whether to buy then or wait and find more items. Net result, I left the shopping cart sitting. Each time, when I've come back to the cart to complete the transaction, I've been notified that the price has increased on the items in the cart.

It makes sense for Amazon, at least narrowly. They know a customer is either going to abandon the cart entirely, in which case raising the price doesn't matter, or is going to want to buy on a later date. Indeed, they may even know I'm a customer who often comes back and buys. Customers like me have a psychological investment in the transaction and are unlikely to back out. So it's an easy $2-4 per item for them.

I said "narrowly", because the suspicion immediately causes my customer satisfaction with Amazon to drop. They aren't operating in good faith if my suspicions are true. And the mere suspicion is damaging.