Genealogy and Bureaucracy

What's the common thread--both have to deal with names, particularly in their IT systems. And when you deal with names from different countries you run into all sorts of variations, sequence, multi-part names, patronym versus matronym. Here's a post in the ancestry.com blog on handling different names.

And EU Considers Progressive Reductions in Payments

From a long post at farm policy:

Mr. Matthews noted that, “Agriculture Ministers had their first discussion of the Commission’s Health Check proposals at the first Council meeting under the Slovenian Presidency yesterday. It appears that the two issues causing the most fuss are the Commission’s suggestions to introduce a progressive reduction in single farm payments to larger farms (inaccurately referred to as capping) and to increase the rate of compulsory modulation (which again would only affect larger farms), in both cases with the additional funds going to Pillar 2 rural development measures. At the same time, Ministers were clearly taken by the emphasis on risk management and safety nets in the Commission Communication and called for more specific proposals in this area.

"Progressive reductions" is a good name for my hobby-horse.

The Age-Old Dream

Any hierarchal organization has a tension--the bottom has needs, wants, and information; the top has needs, wants, and information, and the two don't match. 20 years ago when ASCS got its IBM system 36's, the IBM software included a "data file utility". It permitted people to do reports or create their own files. I well remember a program specialist from New Mexico ("SR") mentioning his usage of it in an alcohol-fueled happy hour after a training meeting. It took quite a bit of effort to get the agency to make use of such work, and initiative. (IBM released a new set of software that was more user-friendly maybe a year later.) There was always suspicion from the professional programmers and the Washington hierarchy of such efforts. With some reason, I might add.

But the same tension is still evident today, as IBM announces some "mash-up" software. Reading between the lines of this article I can still hear the echoes of long-ago battles.

Collocation Survives

My memory is "collocation" was the term applied to putting USDA field agencies in the same building. This piece from Minnesota shows it's still alive. And an entrepreneur has found a niche, building offices for the agencies.

What's Your Reference Group

I don't know its current status, but "reference group" theory used to be important in sociology. Briefly, the idea is that one's opinions vary based on who you're comparing yourself to.

If, for example, in 1950 you compared your dinner to what was being eaten by the starving children of China, you'd feel very lucky. On the other hand, if your reference group was the Joneses, then you spent your time trying to keep up with them.

As I age, I find my reference groups changing. When I was a boy, I compared myself to everyone older, bigger, stronger, than me. Now I compare myself to myself, my younger self, the one who was smarter, more vigorous, more productive than I am now. And I know that mostly myself tomorrow will be less than today. I suppose the moral is--enjoy today for what it is. If I could only remember morals.

The Difference a Label Makes--"rbST-Free"

Sometimes dairy farmers aren't too smart. (Remember, I grew up on such a farm.) This article from the Akron Beacon describes the bind they're in over rbST, the hormone that increases milk production. It's reasonably sympathetic. But the terminology shows the fight is already lost:

"rbST-Free"--that's a construction which implies that rbST is bad. Most notably: "drug-free", "tax-free", "gluten-free", "risk-free", "pollution-free"...etc. etc.

Are We Ready for This? Changing Mores

Back in my youth, lost amidst the fogs of memory, is the phrase: "Does she or doesn't she?" and the response: "Only her hairdresser knows for sure".

I thought of that this morning as I waited in the supermarket line, and noticed a picture of Ms Clinton on the cover of one of the magazines. She's noticeably blonde.

I also stumbled across this in today's Post:

Clinton's ground troops seeded Las Vegas beauty salons with folders displaying Clinton's hairstyles through her career and declaring, "Worry about your hair. If you don't, someone else will" -- a dig at establishment sexism, Titus said. That issue came even more into focus when MSNBC political talk show host Chris Matthews was forced to apologize for comments that he conceded could have been regarded as sexist and demeaning to Clinton.

And I remember her first hairstyles when in the public eye--seems to me she definitely was not blonde. So she dyes her hair. She's made the choice to be blonde. It fits her boomer personality--in my generation, as the ad suggests, dying one's hair was not something a woman advertised. Nor was it something any man would consider. It was a matter of fakery, dishonesty, meddling with the natural order of things. The boomers changed all that, I guess.

But I'm not sure we're ready for a President who dyes her hair--have we really changed that much?

But of course there was Reagan, but he's not a role model.

Locavore and NAL

USDA has the National Agricultural Library (NAL), which now has its own blog. A recent post discusses "locavore"--the idea that eating food grown locally is good for you and for the environment.

Procedural Theory Meets Political Practice

In theory, when each house of Congress passes a bill on the same subject, the two bills go to a conference committee to thresh out the differences. The reconciled bill is passed by each house and the President signs it.

This long post from FarmPolicy on the current state of play on the 2007 farm bill shows how far we've deviated from it. Issues include payment limitations and means testing and even reform of the marketing loan program. Perhaps most important is how to pay for the new stuff in the bill (i.e. permanent disaster program, help for veggies, conservation). I wonder if the drive to do a stimulus package for the economy may not adversely impact the farm bill--tweaking the tax system to get more money for farmers may not fit well into the atmosphere of doing stimulus.

Whither Corn?

I keep thinking, been there, done that. This farm economy is just like the 1970's. But maybe not. From farmgate:

The energy bill signed into law will have greater impact on farm commodity prices than any farm bill being considered," says MO economist Pat Westhoff at FAPRI. “Mandates to use set levels of biofuels increase demand for corn and vegetable oil and affect market-driven prices more than current or proposed farm bills.”