Outrage. Yawn.
59% of Americans who answered a Gallup Poll said they were "Outraged", by the AIG bonuses. This compared to 26% who were "Bothered" and 11% who were "Not Particularly Bothered". What? No "No opinion" choice? In this case, had my executive bonus ennui ebbed to the point where I actually picked up the phone when Gallup called, I could only have rallied if "No Opinion" had been presented as an option.
Outrage: Are you as fatigued from outrage as I am? If you look for "outrage" on Google Trends, which tracks keywords across the newspapers like PerthNow, the Rhinelander Daily News, and the North Wales Chronicle, you'll find that the steady state "news reference volume" of "outrage" has increased gradually since 2004. This means nothing, but despite the lack of any empirical data, my opinion is that outrage has been overdone lately. Bailout outrage, and Madoff outrage, and TARP outrage, and crooked mortgage lender outrage, now Obama's "outrage" at the bonuses. Phheww. Sell outrage someplace else, we're all stocked up here.
In September Barack Obama accused John McCain of using "lies" and "phony outrage" in reference to Obama's ill-received "lipstick on a pig comment." Now Obama's being accused of his own phony outrage.
Being that I'm bored to death of the outrage, I thought I'd return the favor and highlight some of the details of the blueberry research that we talked about in our last post. Conservatives and liberals alike zeroed in on the pork in the Omnibus Spending Bill, like the 209,000 dollar blueberry grant to Georgia.
Blueberries! Research! History! Yay!
Blueberry farming is important to Georgia, since it has a "farm gate value of $59.4 million in 2005" and production with an "economic impact of $97.4 million". The history of blueberry cultivation is told by two University of Georgia scientists in a paper posted at the International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS). We'll highlight some of the content here.
The early history of cultivated blueberries is most well known in Florida. In the 20th century a logger in Florida who had been transplanting plants from the wild and cultivating blueberries on his farm, met up with a marketing guy, "a Yankee", and together they sold blueberry plants to other communities in Florida. "Most plants sold were transplanted from the wild without regard to fruit quality. Some of the plants sold were not even [the prized] rabbiteye blueberries but species that don't produce commercial quality fruit." However enough higher quality plants were sold to qualify as a "blueberry boom". According to a history of blueberries told by the Georgia scientists, the boom then collapsed for multiple reasons:
"due to variable fruit quality, competition from new plantings of northern highbush in northern states, poor horticultural practices, and the depression (Mowry and Camp, 1928; Horan, 1965).
A statement in a 1926 Florida bulletin summed up the nursery stock situation: 'A great deal of promiscuous experimenting will doubtless be done before the business of handling stock for this fruit will be standardized as has been done for the great stable fruits of the day' (Coville, 1926).'"
Despite the collapse of the early industry Florida scientists managed to establish some strains that worked well for the region. From the early 1900's, when there were no viable options for commercial berries, you just gathered what you could in the woods, science and research made commercial blueberry farming not only possible, but a thriving industry and livelihood for many.
Tobacco's Out. Blueberries are In
Blueberry research started in Georgia in the early 1900's when scientists as well as random individuals like railroad engineers on fishing trips collected plants, cultivated and cross-bred plants to produce commercial crops. In 1944 the first blueberry breeding position was created in Georgia."The position was filled by Dr. Tom Brightwell, who received his initial blueberry training under the famous Mr.Stanley Johnston of Michigan State University. In the fall of 1945, the Alapaha Blueberry Research Farm was established in a section of the flatwoods district just 25 miles east of Tifton. This has proven to be one of the great decisions made by Dr. Brightwell...."
"It is of great compliment to the character of Dr. Brightwell that he stayed focused on breeding blueberries in a state where no industry existed at the time. Numerous attempts were made to entice him to switch to some 'important' crop."
"Starting in 1950 the cultivar releases began with 'Callaway' and 'Coastal', which were a large improvement over the wild types, but did not have commercial shipping quality."
Around 1970, citizens in Bacon Co. Georgia sought help from the Rural Development Center of the University of Georgia to grow blueberries as a cash crop. The US Surgeon General had targeted cigarette smoking as a risk to health, and tobacco farmers saw the future demise of their livelihoods. Science continued to improved blueberry farming in Georgia and the authors conclude"
"It appears that Georgia has a bright future in blueberry production. The foundation of the industry laid down by so many scientists and growers over the past 60 years has opened this door."
Blueberries don't grow on trees, I guess you could cornily say, it's research and science success that puts them in your energy bar.
