Regard for the Career Staff I

President Trump has been slow to fill the slots for political appointees in the executive branch, and Dems have been slow to confirm those he's appointed.  That means the various Secretaries have found themselves dealing with career executives a lot, or working without support.  I've wondered what the effect will be.

In the case of HUD apparently the result has been to raise the civil service in Carson's eyes: GovExec reports that Secretary Carson is praising the career employees at HUD.

Chicken Feed (Sack) Dresses

Slate has a post on a 2009 scholarly article about the use of chicken feed sacks to make clothing back in the day, my day as it happens.  (It's even a thing on Etsy.)

I remember our getting feed in 100 pound bags.  Usually the bags were burlap and were returned back to GLF (the co-op we patronized and my dad was a board member of) for re-use.  But in my earliest memories (1945 or so) there are some cloth bags with patterns.  My sister remembered mom sewing her dresses from them.  The article says such clothes were a sign of poverty, and they certainly were to my sister.

But the times were such that people did re-use things.  I remember scavenging old nails from boards and trying to straighten them so they could be used again.  Mom had a rag bag where the unwearable old clothes went, someday to be pulled from the bag and cut into pieces, possibly for use in a rag rug, or in a quilt.  The innards of the quilt would be another example of re-use: milk strainer flannels. Much to my surprise, a similar thing is still available--description says "gauze" where my memory is of flannel squares.  When pouring a pail of milk into the milk can, you used a large metal funnel with a filter square at the bottom, the filter intended to filter out foreign materials (i.e., manure and bedding) which could have gotten into the milk pail.  (It's not only sausage-making that the layperson wants to remain ignorant of. :-)  Mom would wash the filters, which by regulation could only be used once, and use them for various purposes.  Stitched together they'd be a towel for drying dishes; stacked four or five thick, they'd become the basis for a quilt.

While I think I've adapted pretty well to changes in our culture over the last 70 years, except for pop music, the change in attitude towards material things still bothers me.  What I mean is the way people, perhaps mostly kids, will leave pieces of clothing out--presumably they've lost track of their shoe(s), or socks, or shirt and don't care to spend the time to search them out and retrieve them, and their parents are willing to buy new.  It bothers.

The Best British Comedy Ever Made

The best British comedy series ever made is about bureaucrats.

Cotton Wants

Am I getting old and forgetful--I don't remember blogging about this program.  Remember the pressure on Vilsack to do something for cotton, but not this.  Anyway, from DTN:

"The cotton industry and contingent of 135 members of Congress are calling on the Trump administration to continue operating the $300 million Cotton Ginning Cost Share Program created by the Obama administration as a way to help cotton producers."

Show Me a Hero

That's the name of David Simon's last TV series,covering a few years in Yonkers, NY fight over the location of public housing. It's a tragedy.  In a related development, the Trump administration has abandoned a long-running dispute with Westchester County, which includes Yonkers, over the same issue.

Politics and the Grim Reaper

The last few days of drama over "repeal and replace" has shown the importance of individual senators, and the McCain operation has perhaps reminded people that death awaits us all.

As a morbid thought, suppose a Republican senator dies this month--how does that change political calculations?  Or suppose it's a Democratic senator, they have some old ones too? Or to really go for broke, suppose there's an accident which takes out two or three senators? 

[Note: this was written before announcement of Sen. McCain's cancer.]

[Added: note that Sen. Menendez (D-NJ) goes on trial later this year and Gov. Christie could appoint a successor.]

Last Chance to Comment

 FSA is nearing the end of its comment period on a "generic clearance for collection of qualitative feedback on agency service delivery."  I'm skeptical of this whole clearance process--it's nice in theory but I suspect there's few or no comments, so it's just a paperwork exercise.  To make it more meaningful, in this case, they should include an example or two of what they're talking about.



From the Federal Register:
"Summary

As part of a Federal Government-wide effort to streamline the process to seek feedback from the public on service delivery, the Department of Agriculture (USDA), Farm Service Agency (FSA) has submitted a Generic Information Collection Request (Generic ICR): “Generic Clearance for the Collection of Qualitative Feedback on Agency Service Delivery ” to OMB for approval under the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA).

Dates

Comments must be submitted by July 21, 2017.

Title: Generic Clearance for the Collection of Qualitative Feedback on Agency Service Delivery.
Abstract: The information collection activity will garner qualitative customer and stakeholder feedback in an efficient, timely manner, in accordance with the Administration's commitment to improving service delivery. By qualitative feedback we mean information that provides useful insights on perceptions and opinions, but are not statistical surveys that yield quantitative results that can be generalized to the population of study. This feedback will provide insights into customer or stakeholder perceptions, experiences and expectations, provide an early warning of issues with service, or focus attention on areas where communication, training or changes in operations might improve delivery of products or services. These collections will allow for ongoing, collaborative and actionable communications between the Agency and its customers and stakeholders. It will also allow feedback to contribute directly to the improvement of program management.
Feedback collected under this generic clearance will provide useful information, but it will not yield data that can be generalized to the overall population. This type of generic clearance for qualitative information will not be used for quantitative information collections that are designed to yield reliably actionable results, such as monitoring trends over time or documenting program performance. Such data uses require more rigorous designs that address: The target population to which generalizations will be made, the sampling frame, the sample design (including stratification and clustering), the precision requirements or power calculations that justify the proposed sample size, the expected response rate, methods for assessing potential non-response bias, the protocols for data collection, and any testing procedures that were or will be undertaken prior fielding the study. Depending on the degree of influence the results are likely to have, such collections may still be eligible for submission for other generic mechanisms that are designed to yield quantitative results.
The Agency received one comments in response to the 60-day notice published in the Federal Register of April 4, 2017 (82 FR 16338). The comment was not related to this information collection.

The Decline of Widowhood

Flowing Data has a set of four graphs showing the ages/prevalence over the last hundred years of "singlehood", marriage, divorce, and widowhood.  We know that marriage rates have decreased and divorce has increased, but what we fail to consider is that widowhood has also decreased.

"The Olds"

Ran across a phrase in the Post this morning: "the olds".  It's the "s" which makes it different; not sure why, maybe someday a language person will explain.

Anyhow, ran a google search, and found the Post has an explanation and a quiz.

As one of the commenters on the piece/quiz says: "I am an old. I do not object. More of these questions should have included the option "I have no idea what this means" so that I could have qualified as "super-old."

The explanation: "In popular Internet parlance, "the olds" are essentially people who don't quite get "it," whatever "it" may be: the funniest meme, the latest Internet slang, the fact that you shouldn't comment on your child's every Facebook post. It's less about age, and more about digital zeitgeist."

The LUCkies

Paul Campos suggests the "lower upper class" is a better term than "upper middle class". I agree. I don't see anyone admitting to being upper class, but it's ridiculous that all the lawyers, doctors, CEO's, and entertainers in the top 5 percent are still considered middle class. I've created the acronym, based on my view that a lot is luck.

From his post, these are the percentiles and household income for my LUCkies, household income:


95th 215,000
99th 400,000
99.9th 1,117,000