both kids on the townie

Today, child care had other caretaking responsibilities, so A. and I hung out. She napped from about 12:45 to 2:45, thus awake and safe to ride the bike to go pick up T. We took the Townie, because I didn't want to deal with him deciding to mess with his helmet on the trailabike (I was prepared to ignore helmet removal in the Maxi on the Townie), much less spontaneous dismounting (which is a lot harder for him to attempt from the Townie). We got some help from his aide at the preschool so he wouldn't run away. We unexpectedly had to find space to pack not only his little backpack (which I was expecting), but also a pillow, a sheet (his nap supplies are never used, so they decided to send them home. Today.), and a pair of pants that had gotten wet on the slide. Not, interestingly enough, his costume, which I need to retrieve tomorrow so he can go trick or treating at R.'s job tomorrow afternoon

We made it home just fine, altho the cargo turned out to be interfering with steering a little, making me feel wobbly. But we were good. J., our neighbor, said I looked a little concerned while steering us all home. It was fun, in that sort of holy shit I'd better not fuck this one up way. R. helped us dismount once we arrived at home.

No pictures, I am sad to say.

breathtaking stupidity, farmer edition

I don't know that I had ever given this particular combination of events before. In _Divorce Your Car_ (I got stuck upstairs with the railroad law book downstairs, so I started a second book), p 23:

"In the country, meanwhile, as the press forecast a host of benefits farmers would reap from motor vehicles, rural residents got over their earlier distaste for cars enough to consider putting horses out to pasture. [RLA: she means that metaphorically. I'm sure they were mostly slaughtered.] For one thing, switching to cars would free millions of acres -- 100 million just in the U.S. -- devoted to horse fodder: horses consumed 40 percent of the U.S. grain crop. The car would 'remove the last serious obstacle to the farmer's success,' said one writer in Harper's Weekly in 1907. 'It will market his surplus product, restore the value of his lands, and greatly extend the scope and pleasure of all phases of country life.' By eliminating isolation, said the press, cars would encourage succeeding generations to stay on the farm. The car's engine, with the strength of several horses in one small (albeit noisy) package, would ease farm labor. Motor vehicles would move food to market more cheaply, giving consumers lower prices as farmers gained more profits -- the best of all possible worlds."

In practice, of course, all that extra grain being available meant that food prices dropped and the farmer got screwed, simultaneously with having increased their capital costs. They now had to buy fertilizer (since they no longer had horses conveniently producing manure for them), as well. Also, they didn't need the kids to work on the farm, plus the car made it easier for the kids to leave.

In fact, while Alvord doesn't come right out and say it, in some ways, this was a big contributor to the over supply of food that caused catastrophically low prices for food that made the Depression so very, very painful.

Alvord's selective history of our relationship with cars (she's really serious about the titular metaphor) is remarkably even handed and accurate. She does a nice job covering the health problems associated with muscle powered transport (especially horses) in cities, and does not shy away from the issues the population at large had with rail. (Altho she does not adequately characterize the high death toll attributable to rail specifically.)

what is it with people and farm policy?

It's not like R. or I are totally ignorant of the world of the Great Depression, or that we haven't read about what caused it. But neither one of us ever put the no-more-horses thing together with the too-much-food thing.

And biofuels got pushed without people really putting together the whole fuel-crops = not-enough-food (which, mind you, is _great_ for farmers making money) until after the shortages caused riots.

You would think we'd be able to do the math by now, especially given the sheer volume of screen time devoted to depicting the Amish -- a group of people who built Crazy World on a firm foundation of thoughtful avoidance of technology.