Prince Georges County (Maryland) Executive Rushern L. Baker, III visits USDA-ARS BARC and NAL

Prince Georges County (Maryland) Executive Rushern L. Baker, III and many of the county’s senior officials were treated to an expertly led information gathering visit and tour of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Library (NAL) and the Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center (BARC) on June 20.  For several of the county visitors, it was their first official visit to these landmark Beltsville institutions located in Prince George's County. One singularly impressed senior official was overheard to say that he had just discovered a couple of the county’s best kept secrets.

And how appropriate that this high-level group of county officials should chose 2012 for their visit, this year marking 150 years since President Abraham Lincoln signed into law a watershed act of congress which among other things “established [within] … the United States a Department of Agriculture, the general designs and duties of which shall be to acquire and to diffuse among the people of the United States useful information on subjects connected with agriculture in the most general and comprehensive sense of that word, and to procure, propagate, and distribute among the people new and valuable seeds and plants.”

Those poignant words all but echoed from the walls of the NAL’s Abraham Lincoln Building as NAL Director Simon Liu led the visitors through a lively Power Point presentation of how the Library carries out the founding vision some 150 year on.  Dr. Liu discussed the NAL collection of more than 3.5 million items covering every aspect of agriculture and related sciences. The depth and richness of the collection make it unequaled, he would say, with many materials available nowhere else in the world. NAL's collection fills over 48 miles of shelves, making it one of the largest agricultural collections in the world.

Today, NAL covers scholarly agricultural literature comprehensively. Its purpose is to ensure the collection represents the content and diversity of the world's agricultural literature.  NAL has expanded its capacity to meet researchers and the general public's demand for electronic and digital agricultural information. NAL will remain on the leading edge of modern Information Technology in the days and years ahead.

After the NAL visit, County Executive Baker and his group boarded a BARC bio-fuel bus for an information-laden tour through some of BARC’s 7,000 acres.  BARC Director Joseph Spence would provide fast-paced commentary and instruction. While pointing out highlights along the way, Dr. Spence would explain that BARC is the largest and most diversified agricultural research complex in the world.

Beltsville's record of accomplishments and ongoing programs, he would say, make BARC a world leader in agriculture research. Its international reputation attracts thousands of visitors each year from the United States and abroad.

Beltsville Area research touches on all of these national topics and needs:

• Ensure high-quality safe food and other agricultural products
• Assess the nutritional needs of Americans
• Sustain a competitive agricultural economy
• Enhance the natural resource base and the environment
• Provide economic opportunities for rural citizens, communities, and society as a whole

Want to see more? Here is some recently published Beltsville research stories culled from Agricultural Research, the Department of Agriculture's science magazine:

The Poultry Pantry: Plums, Probiotics, Safflower, and Tea

Chesapeake Bay Cleanup Revs Up

As CO2 Levels Rise, Plants and Humans Respond

A Multifaceted Focus on Farms and Food

Our scientists respond to international agricultural problems that affect the United States

In the Battle of the Bulge, Lifestyle Can’t Be Overlooked

Forum—At BARC, We’ve Only Just Begun

And last, and after Dr. Spence had completed a final stop at the Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center (largest of its kind in the United States), it was back to NAL for a final quick visit to the NAL Special Collections. What’s special? Well, there are rare books, manuscript collections, nursery and seed trade catalogs, photographs, and posters from the 1500s to the present and more. Interested in some agricultural musings by Presidents Thomas Jefferson or Abraham Lincoln? You’ve come to the right place. Materials cover a variety of agricultural subjects including horticulture, entomology, poultry sciences, natural history, and are not limited to domestic publications.

story by Jim Butcher, NARA-B

Prince George's works hard to bring back gambling facilities while the rest of country goes on-line

               Prince George's County is working to bring brick and mortar gambling facilities to its citizens. Economic development is touted as reason enough to move ahead as if the county leadership were introducing a novel cutting edge industry to its communities. Never mind that the cutting edge gaming and gambling industry is moving to the internet and on-line. Thanks to the GOP rushing through legislation to control and regulate the industry (the law of unintended consequences coming into play), on-line gambling is now ruled legal by the US Department of Justice.[1] The states and Washington, D.C. will be rushing to set up their own on-line gambling enterprises while Prince George's County build yesterday's gambling operation.[2] Prince George's County's political elite are like gamblers at a craps table who see a winning bet and make the same bet one roll later. It is left to the citizens to wonder why we continue to be behind the eight ball on the short end of the economic stick.

               Prince George's County's political leaders are once more considering gambling in the county ostensibly to close the looming budget deficit. Any idea that gambling would, as a small side affect, offer financial benefit to a few well connected stakeholders is of course not the reason given for bringing gambling to the county. Any thoughts about how well gambling worked in the past are conveniently not discussed because history is irrelevant when it comes to short term gain and profit. 


               Without a doubt gambling in Prince George's County will expand the marketing opportunities for those who manage the facilities and enhance reasons for visitors to come to Prince George's County. There is, however, no discussion of unintended consequences or unexpected problems that may arise with the introduction of gambling to our neighborhoods. And there are a lot of assumptions of how beneficial this enterprise will be for the tax payers of Prince George's once the managing companies take their cut from the top. There is no discussion of letting the tax payers get their piece of the action before the speculators take their share; for as always Prince George's County's citizens come last.

               Gambling according to Noël Laureate, Paul A. Samuelson, "...involves simply sterile transfers of money or goods between individuals, creating no new money or goods. Although it creates no output, gambling does nevertheless absorb time and resources. When pursued beyond the limits of recreation, where the main purpose after all is to kill time, gambling subtracts from the national income."[3]  This seems strangely appropriate given how the powerful decision makers in the  county  view the ordinary citizens. The development and construction of a gambling facility, on the other hand , most assuredly does create wealth for a few. A couple of questions arise naturally from any consideration, the first being: Are there costs involved that exceed the obvious economic development benefits; and, the second: Who actually gains and who really loses? These questions in and of themselves are not enough to warrant automatic opposition to a private industry s efforts to bring the gaming business here; after all gambling has a long history in the county.[4] If tax payer dollars or incentives are part of the project then there is most assuredly a problem.

               What Prince George's County's entrenched leadership seems to be unaware of is that a fundamental criterion for economic development, sustainability and long term success is for a project to increase a region's net exports not just enrich a few quickly.[5] The amount of goods or services exported needs to be increased or the amount imported decreased. This is how income can increases. A California report on gambling notes that "[p]rojects can be an  economic success in terms of profit without doing either of these things, but those profits come at the expense of other businesses."[6] 


               One unexpected consequence of bring gambling to Prince George's County could be economic gain for its neighbors. Other Washington area jurisdictions may gain from having the gambling center near their borders enabling orders for goods and services to be filled by the rest of the metropolitan region. Senior managers could live in Virginia and bring their wages back to their communities. Their quality of life would not be affect because they successful externalized (dumped) gambling onto Prince George's County.  It is a sign of the arrogance of the elites' diminished capacity to find 21st century development ideas in favor of short term  gain for a few that positions Prince George's County as a poster child for social and environmental justice issues. We, the People, deserve better.  


see reply to Anonymous' comment: http://princegeorgian.blogspot.com/2011/12/anonymous-support-for-gambling-in.html            

                

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[1] WHETHER PROPOSALS BY ILLINOIS AND NEW YORK TO USE THE INTERNET AND OUT-OF-STATE TRANSACTION PROCESSORS TO SELL LOTTERY TICKETS TO IN-STATE ADULTS VIOLATE THE WIRE ACT

Interstate transmissions of wire communications that do not relate to a “sporting event or contest” fall outside the reach of the Wire Act. Because the proposed New York and Illinois lottery proposals do not involve wagering on sporting events or contests, the Wire Act does not prohibit them. September 20, 2011

MEMORANDUM OPINION FOR THE ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL, CRIMINAL DIVISION. [accessed December 26, 2011[http://www.justice.gov/olc/2011/state-lotteries-opinion.pdf

[2]   - Boom in Internet gambling ahead? US policy reversal clears the way. Christian Science Monitor [accessed December 26, 2011] http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/1226/Boom-in-Internet-gambling-ahead-US-policy-reversal-clears-the-way

   - Department Of Justice Flip-Flops On Internet Gambling. Forbes. [accessed December 26, 2011] http://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2011/12/23/department-of-justice-flip-flops-on-internet-gambling/

   - Justice Opinion Finds Room for Web Gambling. Wall Street Journal. [accessed December 26, 2011] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203686204577117090156001780.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

[3] Paul A. Samuelson, Economics, 10th ed., 1976, p. 425.

[4] Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police M.P.D. 1930  to  1939. [accessed December 26, 2011] http://www.dcmetropolicecollector.com/blank6.html

"1934 - A gambling joint just across the Prince George County line was the focus of much attention of the Vice Squad. The establishment, owned by Jimmy Lafontaine was a notorious gaming house and allegedly the headquarters of the city's lucrative numbers racket, (MPD)."

Mr. Jim Made A Million From A Casino Brooking No Booze, Women Or Guns [accessed December 26, 20011] http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1091655/index.htm

"For almost 30 years [Lafontaine] was the manager of the Maryland Athletic Club, which was one step across the District of Columbia line in Prince Georges County, where the law has always been winked at. It was the largest, most sophisticated casino between Saratoga and Havana. Nobody ever called it the Maryland Athletic Club. It was always known as Jimmy's Place—or simply Jimmy's—and if you used either of those names, any cabbie in Washington would know immediately where you wanted to be taken. Once you got near Jimmy's, you couldn't miss it, even though there was no sign out front. It sat there mysteriously silent, surrounded by a 10-foot board fence on three sides and a spur of the Pennsylvania Railroad on the fourth. It had a well-used seven-acre parking lot, evidence enough that the casino was popular among Washington's gentry."

Belair Mansion (Bowie, Maryland).Wikipedia. [accessed December 26, 2011] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belair_Mansion_(Bowie,_Maryland)

Belair [build in 1742] is recognized as the only great colonial estate where breeding of race horses was conducted during three centuries.  The estate significantly influenced the development of thoroughbred horse racing in the new world,[6] having one of only two stables to raise two Triple Crown champions.[ The mansion and its nearby stables both serve as museums, operated by the City of Bowie.

[5] Any attempt to quantify social or environmental costs is very difficult even speculative. How does one estimate the future cost to society of pathological gamblers who are in treatment or recovery.  As a rule development in Prince George's County chooses to set aside the difficult challenge of opportune costing and go for the immediate profits paradigm.

[6] Gambling in California. 1997. Roger Dunstan. [accessed December 26, 2011] http://www.library.ca.gov/crb/97/03/Chapt9.html

Scientific Jobs in Prince George's County are leaving

Beltsville Agricultural Research Center is the flagship location of the Agricultural Research Service. It is the only ARS location with research spanning all areas of food and agriculture. It is a National Laboratory in the same way that Los Alamos is, and it is here, in Prince George’s County, Maryland.

Now we are faced with a continuing decline in funding over more than a decade resulting in the loss of over 200 scientific research positions. At the same time, we are clamoring to get more federal offices in Prince George’s while we let world class research and one of a kind scientific achievement slip through our fingers.

This multi-disciplinary strength allows BARC to take broad, systems-based approaches to solving problems. BARC scientists also benefit tremendously from the intellectual environment of the Baltimore-Washington corridor, which is one of the largest scientific workforces worldwide.

The nature of science has changed markedly in the past 30 years, and in all areas of science, multi-disciplinary work is needed to make progress. Science is also much more instrumentally intensive than formerly, and scientific instrumentation continues to get bigger and more costly. Larger research centers such as BARC provide a multi-disciplinary environment that is also able to leverage investments in research equipment across many areas of science, thus delivering more bang-for-the-buck.

As a result, the impact that BARC scientists have on solving problems is huge. A measure of this is that 20% of BARC’s GS-15 scientists are in the 99th percentile worldwide for having their research cited by other scientists. Another indication of high impact on both science and solving problems for agriculture is that BARC scientists are promoted about 30% faster than the average for scientists in the rest of the agency, in an anonymous peer-review system where promotion is based primarily on such impact. One BARC scientist was cited for two of the top ten achievements in plant pathology in the entire 20th century! Another is the most cited animal health scientist worldwide for the past ten years.

There is even a slight possibility of loosing a priceless scientific collection, which is used to keep our food supply safe, to another state because the funding here in Prince George’s County, in the State of Maryland is woefully inadequate, and to make things worse, the receiving state is sure that their delegation in Congress will find the needed funding. This is outrageous. We beg for clerical jobs, and hope for something better, and meanwhile we are loosing world class scientists because we do not know, and we do not act.