Good Government: Conflicts Versus Transparency

The Project on Government voices concern over an Obama appointee with a conflict of interest. Obama raised the standards for appointments, but has also waived the standards in a few cases. (I've not seen an analysis of the net effect compared to prior administrations.) I'm ambivalent on the subject; I highly value knowledge and conflict rules tend to work against that. So why not a compromise: the more spotless the appointees background, the less transparency in office, and vice versa. Appoint someone from the industry and they have to put an Internet videocam in their office.

I Need a Name for Bright Ideas That Aren't

It's not NIH (not invented here) but it's the same sort of ego-centric thinking. Maybe it's:
only I am brilliant enough to think of this idea = OIABETTOTI or my bright idea is best BIIB. I think there's a recurrent pattern among smart people of thinking no one ever before has had this great idea when the fact is someone probably has had a similar idea.

I'm picking on my favorite President, who wants to set up a farmers market for DC by closing Vermont Avenue on Thursdays.

But there are eighteen farmers markets in DC. Have the people in the White House thought about this? You need both supply and demand for a successful market. There's not many people living near the White House, so the demand is going to be mostly office workers picking something up for the evening. Doesn't strike me as the best prospect.

Our Varied Agriculture

Once again I'm reminded the pictures in my mind (as Walter Lippman once put it) don't match the reality of agriculture in the U.S. Nor, I'd guess, do the pictures in your mind.

Which county in the US has the most farms, do you think? Some place in Illinois or Iowa?

How about San Diego? At least that's their claim on their publication here. 6,687 farms. The median size is less than 5 acres. But their acreage of field crops has about doubled in the last 10 years.

It's a big country with lots of variety, which we all tend to forget in favor of simple positions.

Dogwood

My area of Reston is probably the most diverse and the poorest part. I remember a saleswoman warning me against buying the house I did by citing the mantra: location, location, location. There's an argument housing is a proxy for investment in children--parents choose the best schools by choosing the right school district, which would explain why redistricting gets very heated. Anyhow, the local elementary school has had its problems, despite lots of efforts to improve it, including going to a year-round calendar. Fairfax County is proud of its schools, but my school is the runt of the litter.

Not having kids, I don't follow No Child Left Behind that closely. It seems though from this article that NCLB can get very picky, with the fate of a school coming down to 3 students. I'm ambivalent about that--it's possible for unique circumstances to screw up any bureaucratic rule.

Why Animal Farmers Should Be Afraid

Here's a Treehugger followup to their post on how male chicks are killed. The summary of comments gives some time to those, like me, who argue this is the way you feed the world. But they put the key point at the end: the observation the original post attracted a hell of a lot more comments and interest than did other green issues. Our diet, and how animals are treated, are a very sensitive issue, so there will be lots more attention devoted to it in the future, which will not be good for current animal rearing practices.

What's Up in MA?

TPM has a commenter provide an update on the results of Gov. Patrick's health care reform in Massachusetts.

Noting the second point, maybe we solve the problem by expanding the number of green cards available to doctors and nurses from other countries. Or maybe we should do as the Amish do, send some of our people to Mexico for treatment.

Feeling Talented? Painting with Sand

Via Edge of the American West, the winning contestant in Ukraine's Got Talent. The article gives some context to the painting:

What she depicts is love and war, set amidst the turmoil of The Great Patriotic War, or as we call it in America, WWII. Ukraine was probably the area most devastated in the war, even more than Germany. It was a conflict that saw nearly one in four Ukrainians killed. A population of almost 42 million lost between 8 and 11 million people, depending on which estimate one references. Ukraine represented almost 20 percent of all the causalities suffered during WWII. And that was after Stalin had killed millions during the manufactured famines before the war. It to this day touches every Ukrainian. That's the context of war memory that Kseniya reaches out to.

It's an amazing 8 minutes. Even more amazing is to reflect how much humans bring to their sensations, as we the viewer are constructing the art from some sand on a projection table.

Next Task for Foodies

The foodies are currently driving to improve the menu in public schools, adding locally grown frutis and vegetables and doing away with junk food and the sort of thing bought just to help farmers (i.e., pork and cheese).

You'll know they've won that fight when they start on such efforts as:

• urging the Girl Scouts to sell apples, not cookies
• urging PTA's and sports teams to send their kids out going door to door selling brown rice, not chocolates.
  

Making Life Better for Our Animal Brothers

John Phipps blogs about a proposal to breed animals to reduce/eliminate their pain at being confined, as in CAFO's. Tyler Cowen blogs about researchers who have identified how to create music which tamarin monkeys like.

Once a Teacher, Always a Teacher (in France)?

Dirk Beauregard has an interesting interview with two teachers in France. They are language teachers, but I gather some of their responses apply to the profession generally. The picture is, it's hard to become a teacher but once you're in, you're in. No job switching in the French system.