Memorial Day Weather

Memorial Day is traditionally the unofficial start of summer in this part of the world, but it isn't summer yet at the higher elevations! Below is Mt. Mansfield this morning. The freshly planted corn field is the field across from Quarry Hill Farm on VT-15 in Jeffersonville.

After a temperate but dry spring, we had a week of rain that ended with snow at the higher elevations on Saturday afternoon into Sunday (yesterday). The road through Smugglers Notch was closed Saturday due to snow and remains closed today (Monday). Mt. Mansfield received 13 inches of snow. Several towns in Vermont at 1500 feet in elevation or so received 2-3 inches of snow. Whiteface Mountain in New York received 3 feet of snow! News articles here and here.

We didn't have any snow at home, but it was a cold (37F), rainy day yesterday. It's a beautiful day today, presently 54F.

Lean In

While I had not heard until yesterday about Duck Dynasty (see my previous post), I have heard from multiple sources about Sheryl Sandberg's new book Lean In. I haven't read the book, but I've watched Ms. Sandberg's TED talk which I'm told captures the essence of the book.

Her theme is that women today have plenty of career options, an improvement over previous generations, but women still aren't realizing their potential. It must be somebody's fault. Well, actually, she thinks it's everybody's fault, including women themselves.

Not everyone agrees. Here is a Wall Street Journal book review:

Do as I Do, Not as I Say

The reviewer agrees with Ms. Sandberg that women (on average) have different ambitions than men (on average). Unlike Ms. Sandberg, however, the reviewer doesn't necessarily see this as a problem.

Another view about Ms. Sandberg comes from Penelope Trunk, who once worked in the high-tech industry like Ms. Sandberg. Ms. Trunk, now a farm wife, co-founded Brazen Careerist, her third startup. Brazen Careerist (sounds like "leaning in," doesn't it?) is "a career management tool for next-generation professionals." From her home on the farm she provides executive coaching. Bio here.

That background gives Ms. Trunk a unique perspective on this topic. The blog post at the first link in the preceding paragraph is well worth the time to read. Read the comments, too. The conversation in the comments draws out Ms. Trunk, and she explains more fully why she feels the way she feels. Some of the comments are very insightful, others are quite moving.

Ms. Sandberg has two degrees from Harvard and is a protégée of former Harvard University President Larry Summers. Susan Patton is another Ivy League educated woman who has been in the news recently because of her advice to women.

Ms. Patton was the first woman in her family to go to college. In 1973 she entered Princeton University in only the fifth co-educational class in the school's history. In 1977 she graduated as Class President. Today she runs her own consulting firm specializing in marketing and human resources, including executive coaching. She lives not on a farm but on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Bio here.

Ms. Patton recently wrote a letter to the Daily Princetonian: "Advice for the young women of Princeton":

Forget about having it all, or not having it all, leaning in or leaning out — here’s what you really need to know that nobody is telling you.

Her message was that finding the right man to marry is important to happiness, and that college is the best hunting ground.

Well, Ms. Patton's letter is controversial, to put it mildly. Here is a collection of responses on the Daily Princetonian. Here is a column on the Huffington Post by a woman who was "dumbfounded" by Ms. Patton's letter. Here is Ms. Patton's response on the Huffington Post.

Ms. Patton graduated from college the same year I did. Surely women who graduated from college more recently don't feel that way, right? Not so fast. Here is a column by a recent Dartmouth graduate who supports Ms. Patton's message:

Find a Man Today, Graduate Tomorrow

Here are two more well-educated women who support Ms. Patton's message:

Jean Kaufman, aka neo-neocon
Megan McArdle

All of the above links are about what women think. Are men allowed to have opinions? Probably not. Even President Obama is in trouble for recently expressing his opinion that the attorney general of California is an attractive woman. What was he thinking??

Nevertheless, at some risk, I offer these observations from a happily married man with a son and two daughters, all in their 20s and out of college:

1. Women do not all think like men, and women do not all think like each other. Vive la différence!

2. Feminists are intolerant of this kind of diversity.

Men have been thinking about what women want for a long time. Does modern culture provide a better answer than Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century?

UPDATE 10/20/13: Here are more views on the theme of this blog post by two eminent women.

Christina Hoff Sommers is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Last March she wrote this column for The Atlantic magazine:

What 'Lean In' Misunderstands About Gender Differences

Dr. Sommers' column supports an observation I made to Nancy some years ago: Men helped create our modern world where women have more choices about how to live their lives. Our reward is to be criticized for the choices women make.

Camille Paglia is a professor of humanities at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. On 10/08/13 she participated in a Janus Forum debate at American University on "Gender Roles: Nature or Nurture?" Her debate opponent was Prof. Jane Flax of American University. Interestingly, both women have PhD's from Yale. Christina Hoff Sommers attended the debate and wrote about it:

Comet Camille Paglia comes to AU and talks gender

Follow the link at the end to read Dr. Paglia's opening comments. They are thought-provoking. There's even a Vermont connection!

Duck Dynasty

Am I the last person in the country to hear about the apparently popular TV reality show Duck Dynasty? I only learned about it yesterday. I had come across a link to a short April Fools video by MidAtlantic Farm Credit called Cluck Dynasty. I knew that MidAtlantic Farm Credit had a significant concentration of loans in the poultry industry, but I had no idea what their video was all about. A little research turned up the first link in this paragraph which is where the photo came from. Mystery solved.

This incident prompts me to share a few thoughts about modern culture. This is the first of two posts today on this subject.

What does Duck Dynasty say about modern culture? Maybe the times they are a-changin', ever so slightly.

Modern culture often belittles traditional values such as family, religion and commerce. Modern culture doesn't understand guns or hunting, and a lot of the time it doesn't understand agriculture. Modern culture is all about diversity—except for issues of class or gender where diversity in thought, income or wealth is unwelcome.

Now consider this quote about Duck Dynasty:

A God-centered, traditional family that hunts is now explosively popular across the country and among the younger generation. (source)

Wow. And did I mention that this entrepreneurial family has created considerable wealth from modest beginnings?

While Duck Dynasty came from Louisiana, other surprises are coming from Britain. First there was the wildly popular Downton Abbey, which deals with a fictional aristocratic family far removed from the real family of Duck Dynasty. Unlike anything else in recent popular culture, Downton Abbey actually gives a balanced treatment of the upper classes. See this recent op-ed column in Forbes magazine:

Down On Downton: Why The Left Is Torching Downton Abbey

And now there are the new British dramas “Mr. Selfridge” and “The Paradise” which Virginia Postrel writes about on Bloomberg:

How Mr. Selfridge Created the Modern Economy

A quote:

When the British drama “Mr. Selfridge” debuted on PBS this week, American viewers saw two things rarely on display in contemporary popular culture: a businessman hero and, more remarkably, a version of commercial history that includes not just manufacturing but shopping.

This is wonderful. Our society would benefit greatly from more respect in modern culture for business, commerce, and entrepreneurship.

I once heard Virginia Postrel speak at a conference in Burlington and I was impressed. What she has to say at the link above about feminism is interesting. And she is a Princeton graduate. The topics of feminism and Princeton lean right into my next post...

More SLOW Government

Last summer on Independence Day I wrote about the idea of SLOW Government:

Introduction to SLOW Government

Lots of exciting things have happened since then! At the end of that post are updates that describe two subsequent developments by other Vermonters: Biddle Duke of Stowe and Susan Clark of Middlesex.

Today on Presidents' Day I write about another development.

The idea of SLOW Government came together after I attended the second annual Slow Living Summit last summer. (I blogged about that summit here.) Next summer I will attend the third annual Slow Living Summit, and I will be presenting the idea of SLOW Government!

It will be a joint presentation with Susan Clark, mentioned above. Susan is co-author of Slow Democracy: Rediscovering Community, Bringing Decision Making Back Home. This book, published in September 2012, is a wonderful exposition of what I mean by the "L is for local" aspect of SLOW Government.

Susan and I did not know each other until last month. We were introduced by the organizers of the Slow Living Summit at the suggestion of the publishers of Susan's book.

This joint presentation will be an interesting exercise. While Susan and I mostly agree on the "L is for local" aspect of SLOW Government, we don't necessarily agree on the rest of what I mean by SLOW Government. We have different worldviews, even though we both grew up in Vermont.

Can people with different worldviews work together productively? In her book Susan writes about the concept of ecotones (a new word for me): "the extraordinarily diverse, productive zones where unlike systems meet." Check out this link to an article in Forbes magazine (that Susan brought to my attention) for an example of people with different worldviews coming together for a productive discussion:

MoveOn.org's Co-Founder Has The Tea Party's Co-Founder Over For...Tea

Governments derive their legitimacy from the consent of the governed. Public approval of government has fallen to dangerous lows. Susan and I independently had the thought that the philosophy of "slow" contains ideas that can help turn around this troubling trend. We are now working on a joint presentation about those ideas for next summer's Slow Living Summit.

Stay tuned!

Many thanks for the feedback from people who read my July 4th post on the idea of SLOW Government. I have revised the language in that post from time to time based on that feedback. The original idea remains unchanged, but hopefully the explanation is more lucid. Click here to read the explanation of SLOW Government. Continued feedback is welcome.

And with this update on SLOW Government, I wish you a happy Presidents' Day!

Plot Road to Hogback Road

Last Sunday was one of the best days of the winter! It was sunny and, while it started out cold, it warmed up to the mid 20s (F).

We snowshoed the Long Trail south from the Plot Road to the Hogback Road, about four miles. There were ten people in our group. We stopped at Roundtop Shelter to enjoy a little hot chocolate and peppermint schnapps:

Elevation at the shelter is 1650'. This was nearly the highest point on the hike.

We found a number of pretty ice formations:

Here's most of the crew at Prospect Rock:

Almost at the end of the hike, this view is looking steeply downhill at the Hogback Road and the Lamoille River:

We saw many deer tracks throughout the day but especially between Prospect Rock and the Hogback Road. Didn't see any deer, though.

University of Maine Rifle Team

A big part of my college years at the University of Maine was the rifle team.

The rifle team was one of the most successful athletic teams in the history of the university. The rifle team existed from 1923 to 1984 with four suspended seasons. That's a total of 57 active seasons, out of which the team won the New England championship 20 times. During my four years at the University of Maine (1973-1977) we won the New England championship three times, all but my sophomore year.

An extensive history of athletics at the University of Maine was published in 2007 and just recently made available online:

The Maine Book: University of Maine Athletics 1881-2007

Click here for the chapter on the rifle team. I'm in that chapter in three places, including the team photo on p. 6 from my senior year 1976-77. (The caption for that photo is misleading and partially wrong. See the first comment to this post for a better caption.) We were undefeated that year.

The photo on p. 9 is from the year after I graduated, so I'm not in it, but it is the only photo that shows the sign in the rifle range with all the years that the team won the New England championship. They won it that year, too. We practiced under that sign and it inspired us.

How big a part of my life was the rifle team? I earned a varsity letter in riflery all four years. I was co-captain of the team for three years. My college roommate my junior and senior years was a teammate. I was in several weddings of teammates. Two teammates were in the wedding when Nancy and I were married in 1979.

The University of Maine rifle team was sponsored jointly by the Military Science Department and the Athletic Department. The Military Science Department supplied the range, equipment, and coach. My recollection is that the Athletic Department paid for travel, but I never knew the details of the finances. In my four years on the team, few members of the team, and none of the top shooters, were in the military. The rifle team became a co-ed team the year I was a freshman.

We traveled all over New England and competed against Norwich University, Dartmouth College, MIT, Brown University, the University of Rhode Island, Providence College, and the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. Once a year we went to a big invitational event at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. We weren't the top dog there, often being competitive only with West Point's second or third team. But one year we beat even their first team. On the national level, there were many college rifle teams better than us, but we dominated New England and we sure had a lot of fun!

The rifle team at the University of Maine started to go downhill when it was determined, a few years after I graduated, that there was too much lead in the air in the rifle range. The team tried practicing off-campus, but it eventually died.

There has been a long trend of declining popularity of college rifle teams since before I went to college. Both the University of Vermont and Saint Michael's College had rifle teams in the past, but they had disappeared by the time I went to college. Vermont's Senator Patrick Leahy graduated from Saint Michael's College in 1961 and was one of the top shooters on its rifle team.

But maybe this trend is starting to reverse. The Wall Street Journal had an article about college rifle teams on Dec. 6, 2011, p. D2:

Young Scientists Take Aim

The article is about the college rifle team at the University of the Sciences (a pharmacy school) in Philadelphia. I was pleased to see in the article that MIT still has a college rifle team.

A few words about the sport at the time I was in college. We competed at 50 feet indoors with .22 caliber rifles. Air rifles were a novelty and were not yet used for competition. We competed in three positions: prone, standing, and kneeling. We fired 20 shots in each position. The highest possible score for each shot was a 10, so a perfect score was 600. We used the A-36 target.

For a match eight shooters would be selected to compete. The high four scores that day constituted the team score. (Sometimes, such as at West Point, we had to designate in advance the four shooters on the first team and the four shooters on the second team.) A perfect team score was 2400. As reported in The Maine Book, we regularly had team scores in excess of 2200.

Target rifle shooting in college was an indoor winter sport. Many of us also competed in matches outside of college, year-round. In college we were not permitted to use telescopic sights. Matches outside of college sometimes allowed telescopic sights and often included a fourth position: sitting (that is, sitting cross-legged, not sitting in a chair). Indoor matches were at 50 feet, the same as college, but often on the easier A-17 target. There were also outdoor matches in the summer, at 50 yards for three or four position events, and at 50 and 100 yards for prone-only events. For outdoor events, of course, weather is sometimes a factor—wind, rain, sun, temperature, etc.

Target rifle shooting in the Olympics has evolved over the years (see this Wikipedia article). The Olympics currently underway in London include five rifle events:

10 meter air rifle, standing only, indoors, men and women
50 meter .22 caliber rifle, 3 position, outdoors, men and women
50 meter .22 caliber rifle, prone only, outdoors, men only

These are all individual events. There are currently no team rifle shooting events in the Olympics. The 50 meter three position event would be closest to what we shot in college except that we shot indoors and at 50 feet with correspondingly smaller targets. Like college, telescopic sights are not allowed in the Olympics.

Scoring is slightly different in the Olympics from what I described above for college. The "qualifying" round consists of 20 shots in each of three positions for women (similar to what I described above for college) while men shoot 40 shots in each position. For both men and women, the top eight shooters in the qualifying round go on to shoot another 10 shots, standing, in the "final" round. For the final round only, scoring is in tenths of a point with the highest possible score being 10.9 for a perfectly centered shot. Scoring is electronic. The scores from the qualifying round and the final round are added together to determine the overall ranking.

As I write this, four of the five events listed above are complete and the U.S. had won only one medal. Jamie Lynn Gray won a gold medal in the women's 50 meter three position event, setting an Olympic record. Go Jamie! There are also additional Olympic shooting events for pistol and shotgun. Details here.

P.S. Almost anything can be found on the Internet these days! Click here to see the location and scoring of every shot that Jamie Lynn Gray fired to win her Olympic gold medal, in both the qualifying round (60 shots in three positions) and the final round (10 shots standing).

[Links updated 4/24/2020]

Introduction to SLOW Government

In the previous post I wrote about Slow Food, Slow Money, and Slow Living. In this post I propose a new kind of "Slow."

My day job at Yankee Farm Credit involves financing farmers, which relates to both food and money. In recent years we have been seeing more nontraditional farmers, and I coined the phrase SLO agriculture for Sustainable, Local and/or Organic agriculture. My choice of acronym was a deliberate reference to Slow Food and Slow Money. Later I learned about Slow Living, and that all of these movements are part of the larger Slow Movement.

The philosophy of "Slow" has much to offer. Who doesn't think that modern life is sometimes too fast? But for all that it has to offer, the Slow Movement is missing something. It is missing what I call SLOW Government.

SLOW Government is the opposite of fast government. Fast government seeks to use the power of government to solve more and more of life's problems, resulting in more laws, more regulations, more government programs, more government bureaucracy, more taxes to pay for it all, and more government control over our lives.

SLOW Government first asks the question: Is this a necessary and proper function of government? In a country founded on the principle of limited government, this is a question that we too often fail to ask. SLOW Government recognizes the importance of culture and society outside of government.

The inspiration for SLOW Government came from one of the principles of Slow Money: "There is such a thing as money that is too fast, companies that are too big, finance that is too complex." (source) I believe that there is such a thing as government that is too fast, too big, and too complex.

A good way to think about SLOW Government is as an acronym, which is why it is capitalized:

S is for Sustainable. Government should be financially sustainable. Current policies are not sustainable. Cash outflows cannot indefinitely exceed cash inflows. Debt cannot increase without limit. We in the Farm Credit System have some experience in this area. We know that excessive debt causes borrowers to fail. We know that excessive debt causes financial institutions to fail. The Farm Credit System itself has had several near-death experiences in its long and storied history. Excessive debt also causes governments to fail. That is a fate to be avoided at all costs because it leads to great misery.

L is for Local. Government should be as local as possible. Centralized administration is the enemy of democracy. Alexis de Tocqueville made this observation in the 1830s in his famous book Democracy in America. On my employer's blog I have written two posts about Alexis de Tocqueville's views on the importance of local government, using New York and China as examples.

O is for Organic. The economy should be as organic as possible. Government should allow the economy to develop naturally, without being forced or contrived. Government's management of the economy should rely as little as possible on subsidies, mandates, grants, tax incentives, stimulus spending, etc. Such artificial devices confuse the price signals that are necessary for the economy to work. Such artificial devices also lead to crony capitalism, which is to be avoided because it causes citizens to lose faith in both business and government.

W is for Wise. Government should be wise. Lao Tzu, the founder of Daoism, said: "To attain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, subtract things every day." (source) Our government has had so many things added to it that it has become unmanageable. It has become unwise. No one can understand the Byzantine complexity of the endless laws, regulations, programs, agencies, departments, boards, etc. that constitute our government. We need to subtract things from government until it is once again manageable and wise.

One of the intellectual fathers of the Slow Movement is Henry David Thoreau. His influential 1849 essay "Civil Disobedience" begins with this sentence:

I heartily accept the motto,—"That government is best which governs least;" and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically.

That perhaps overstates slightly what I mean by SLOW Government, but the sentiment is certainly in the right direction. SLOW Government does not mean NO government. It does mean government that is more Sustainable, more Local, more Organic, and Wiser than our current government.

And with this introduction to SLOW Government, I wish you a happy Independence Day!

UPDATE: Fellow Vermonters have taken the bull by the horns on the "S is for Sustainable" aspect of SLOW Government. Biddle Duke, owner and president of the Stowe Reporter, together with friends Rob Foregger, Steve Silverman, Craig DeLuca, Bob Anderson and Jim Del Favero started a movement that went national in August 2012: Fix the Debt. Sign their petition! Click here for the story of how this movement began in Vermont.

UPDATE: Fellow Vermonters have written the book on the "L is for Local" aspect of SLOW Government. In September 2012 Susan Clark, town moderator of Middlesex, and Woden Teachout published Slow Democracy: Rediscovering Community, Bringing Decision Making Back Home. Read their book! "Slow democracy" means local democracy (and more). Vermont town meetings are an example of slow democracy.

Introduction to Slow Living

In this post I introduce the concept of Slow Living. But first I have to talk about Slow Food and Slow Money.

Everyone knows what fast food is. Slow Food is an international movement founded in opposition to fast food. Slow Food grew out of a protest against the opening of a McDonald's restaurant in Rome in 1986. Slow Food promotes food that is enjoyable, good for the consumer, good for the farmer, and good for the planet. "It opposes the standardization of taste and culture, and the unrestrained power of the food industry multinationals and industrial agriculture." The founder of Slow Food is Carlo Petrini of Italy. Today the Slow Food movement includes over 100,000 members in 150 countries.

The Slow Money movement was founded in 2008 by Woody Tasch of the United States with the publication of Inquiries Into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing as if Food, Farms, and Fertility Mattered. Carlo Petrini wrote the Foreword. The Slow Money movement seeks to "connect investors to the places where they live, creating vital relationships and new sources of capital for small food enterprises." In 2010 there was a Slow Money National Gathering in Shelburne, Vermont, which I attended.

The Slow Living movement extends the philosophies of Slow Food and Slow Money:

This simple phrase [Slow Living] expresses the fundamental paradigm shift that is underway in this age. “Slow” encodes the transformative change from faster and cheaper to slower and better—where quality, community and the future matter. It’s about slowing down and becoming more mindful of our basic connection with land, place and people, taking the long view that builds a just, healthy, fulfilling way of life for the generations to come. It is about common good taking precedence over private gain. It is about shifting not just consumption but investment to support the local and regional economy.

Last month there was a Slow Living Summit in Brattleboro, Vermont, which I attended.

More info (all of the above quotes came from these links):

Slow Food: Wikipedia entry, http://www.slowfood.com/
Slow Money: Wikipedia entry, http://www.slowmoney.org/
Slow Living: Wikipedia entry, http://www.slowlivingsummit.org/

Well, this is all very interesting. Who doesn't think that modern life is sometimes too fast? But what I find really interesting is something that is missing.

What is the philosophy of "Slow" missing? See the next post.

Madonna Vasa Trail

Today we got out hiking for only the second time this winter. It was the first time on snowshoes! It's been a mild winter, with little snow. But we had a good time today. About 30 degrees F, snowing lightly, with about 1.5 feet of snow on the ground where we were.

We hiked part of the Madonna Vasa Trail, which I had never been on before. It's a XC ski trail that was created some years ago (1960s or 1970s?). It runs from one of the parking lots at Smugglers Notch Ski Area (Madonna Mountain) to the Underhill State Park. We hiked from Desjardin Road to Burnor Road.

Here's the crew today:

It wasn't snowing very hard in the photo above. By the time we stopped for lunch, it was snowing harder:

In case you're wondering, the styrofoam cups contain hot chocolate and peppermint schnapps. Do we look happy??

The Madonna Vasa Trail was inspired by the Vasaloppet in Sweden, called the Vasa for short. The Vasaloppet is an annual 90 km XC ski race that was started in 1922 and was in turn inspired by a legendary run by King Gustav Vasa in 1520.

100 Years Ago and Today

Pager's parents, Joel Kinsley Putnam and Mabelle Butler were married 100 years ago today. The photo above was taken at the farm on their wedding day. No white Christmas that year!

Beth still has Mabelle's wedding dress:

Above Pager celebrated Christmas today with Beth, Emily, Laura and Katie. Below with me, Brian and Geoff:

Beth gave Pager a copy of the new history of Cambridge (Special Places, Special People) by Roberta Marsh, published last month:

A White Christmas

It has been an unusually warm fall. Most of the northern U.S. is not having a white Christmas this year. We do not have a lot of snow here, but we are fortunate to have a white Christmas. Yesterday, the day before Christmas, was a beautiful, sunny day. We had 2-3" of snow in our backyard:

Today, Christmas Day, it snowed:

 By evening we had another 6" of light, fluffy snow.

Laraway Mountain

Today was a beautiful winter day. We climbed to the lookout on Laraway Mountain on the Long Trail in Waterville. On the trail up:

Mt. Mansfield from the lookout:

Brian and Laura at the lookout:

Laraway Mountain is known for its south-facing cliffs just below the lookout. Giant icicles form on the cliffs in the winter. Hiking out under the cliffs:

There was 3-4" of snow. We didn't need snowshoes, but it was a little icy. Yaktrax or MICROspikes were helpful. It was a cool day, with temps in the single digits above zero Fahrenheit. We saw only one other set of tracks all day. Soon after crossing the big brook on our way up we met the person who had made those tracks, a rabbit hunter.

On the trail down as the sun set:

The best day in winter is better than the best day in summer!