Trump, the Last Gasp of the Patriarchy?

 There was a sudden burst of women running and winning as Republicans in 2020. Some of them were and are supporters of the former president, but I've the optimistic suggestion: future Republican presidents will appoint significantly more women judges and women administrators--indeed I predict the pattern will be much closer to that of President Obama, if not President Biden.

Changing Rural Population

 Interesting post on Rural Blog about the changing demographics of rural areas.  Briefly, for the first time ever total US population in all rural areas fell but the proportion of Hispanics/people of color increased from 17% to 20.8%.  The county where I grew up, Broome County, NY, saw its white population fall by 7 percent while the nonwhite/Hispanic increased by 60 percent (resulting in a 1 percent net increase).

Looking at the maps, it looks as if the Delta and the black belt saw drops in population, as did WV and KY and counties on the Great Plains. Looking at Fresno, CA, Sherman, KS, and Leflore, MS, counties I visited 30+ years ago, all saw a decrease in white population, Fresno a big increase in Hispanic, Sherman a smaller increase in Hispanic, and Leflore a small decrease.

An Ombudsman for EULAs?

 Marginal Revolution has a post which refers to EULA (end user legal jargon). Seems to me we consumers need an ombudsman with authority over all EULA's--someone who will read them on our behalf, because you know the corporate lawyers who draft them aren't concerned with the consumer at all.

Ideally the ombudsman would be able to do a version of the nutrition facts label on food--something which would summarize the critical facts for consumer.

No Fax Macine

Politico has an interview with Judge Luttig, a former circuit court judge appointed by a Republican, about his involvement in reinforcing VP Pence's position on 1/6. He was resisting an appeal from a friend to do something to help Pence, saying he had no platform from which to speak, and quotes himself as saying:

Oh my gosh, Richard, I don't even have a job, much less an official one. I have no platform from which to speak.” I'm out here in Colorado at 6 in the morning. I don't even have a fax machine.

As it turned out, he did get something out, by learning how to tweet a statement in 18 tweets (he'd just gotten a twitter account a couple weeks before), a statement which the media picked up on.

An Archive of Their Own

 As the early adapters among the silent and boomer generations go to the grave what happens to their digital archives?

As a failed historian I lean towards preserving every record, just because scholars have been able to wring meaning from the documentary evidence of the past, even when it's scant.  

As an active user of a Pc for close to 30 years, I know there's an infinitesimal chance that anything in my digital files would be of value to a future historian.  That's true in abstract, even more true given the lack of organization of the files.

A third factor is the ever-declining cost of storage, which leads to the logic of why not preserve it, because we don't know what future historians will be able to do using AI.

I suspect there's a niche for an archive service for personal digital files. That would differ from the services which archive what's on the internet.

Return to the Movies

 After roughly two years my wife and I returned to the movies today--Belfast.

We enjoyed it: some laughs, a moist eye or two, and an education in Van Morrison.

Judging by the audience covid took out a lot more old men than old women.

I can't say whether it deserves "Best Picture", but it deserves the nomination.

Egalitarianism and Mobility

 Ran across a statement in a discussion of declining social mobility in the US that these days the more equal societies have more social mobility.

I wonder if there's math working here.  Consider the US--our top income class has been gaining wealth for some time now.  It used to be the CEO earned 20 times (figure pulled out of the air) what the lowest paid employee in the company did.  Now it's more like 100 times.   Doesn't that make it more unlikely the employee will ever get into the top 20 percent of earnings? 

Who Would Enslave Britons in the Eighteenth Century?

 What threatened Britain in the 18th century that Britons would not be slaves, as in the refrain of Rule, Britannia. The poetry was written by James Thomson, a Scot for whom there's not much other information easily available. 

The year of the poem is 1740 and it turns out the poem was written after the British took Porto Bello in the War of Jenkin's Ear.  Fears of the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745 might have been a factor, since France and Spain were supporting the Stuart pretender to the throne by 1743. So it's wartime when he's writing, the Brits have a victory, and the poem is both boastful and anxious.

The "slavery" in the poem is rhetorical, not descriptive of anything like chattel slavery.

Basic Training 20 Years Ago, and 56 Years Ago

 Here's a description of Army basic training as of 1999. 

Some things struck me--the expansion from 8 to 10 weeks first of all.  Sounds as if they've used the extra time for more military stuff-I don't remember a full week of field exercises, nor any exposure to machine guns.

 No mention of policing the area. . Policing the area was basically forming a line and picking up cigarette butts. I wonder if that still happens, given the decline in smoking since 1960's? 

KP--glad to see they still make young troops do it.  By the time I got through basic at Fort Dix and went to Ft. Belvoir they had started contracting it out there.

The pay--$380 a week?  We got $80, IIRC.

"A Cage of My Circumstances"

 That's a phrase from Zadie Smith's recent book of essays. She's using it in the context of her body, a female black body.

I like the image.  On the one hand you have the concept of "privilege", which is sort of like a backpack containing an assortment of tools, which is that your history empowers you.  On the other hand you have a cage of circumstances, which is the idea that your history limits you.  Both I think are true.