Anglo-Saxon England and Slavery

 Just finished Marc Morris book on Anglo-Saxon England, an interest partially spurred by the TV series "The Last Kingdom".  I liked it, given the scarcity of sources with which he was dealing.

One thing I learned--10 percent of English residents were slaves at the time of the Norman conquest.

I vaguely knew that the word "slaves" comes from "Slav"--from the internet:

What's the etymology of slave?

Etymology. From Middle English sclave, from Old French sclave, from Medieval Latin sclāvus (“slave”), from Late Latin Sclāvus (“Slav”), because Slavs were a common source of slaves, during the Middle Ages, for Europe, the Byzantine Empire, and Arabs.

And I know "slaves" are described in the Bible, etc., but the dominant image in my mind is the rise of African slavery in the mid 15th century, through to the mid 19th century. 

It's so easy to make the accessible information seem like the exclusive and essential information.

False Colors

 Since the Webb telescope has started delivering pictures, I've seen references to their "false colors" or "fake colors".  NASA has used the term:

This false-color mosaic is made of 72 exposures over a 32-hour test. Note: 6-pointed diffraction spikes unique to Webb around the bright stars & a background full of galaxies. Webb will #UnfoldTheUniverse with its first full-color images in just 1 week! https://t.co/LaJjK8v3Bd

— NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb) July 6, 2022

I don't like it.

As I understand it, the Webb captures a much wider portion of the spectrum than do our human eyes. So if the images reflected the spectrum we could see, i.e., were in "real colors", we wouldn't see a lot of the interesting phenomena. So NASA uses what I'd call a translator program to convert all the data the telescope has captured into colors humans can perceive.  The program is true to our perceptions--we see longer light waves as blue, with "ultraviolet" designating the waves which are too long for us to see; we see shorter light waves as red, with "infrared" designating the waves which are too short for us to see. So the results of the translation have the infrared waves showing as red, the ultraviolet as blue.

Whenever we convert phenomena into colors on the printed page, we're dealing in "false colors", not reality.  That's true whether we're dealing with red states and blue states, or starlight.

Just as translators of the Iliad try to be faithful to the original Greek in their presentation of the text in modern American English, so the NASA scientist try to be faithful to the data their telescope has captured in presenting it to us.  In neither case do we get the full richness of the reality, but the best effort of the translators.

Small Farms, Big Farms, Haiti and Dominican Republic

 Here's a long discussion of why Haiti and the Dominican Republic have diverged so drastically, GDP per capita is 5 times greater in the DR, although they share the same island.

Several topics are discussed, but he leads off with the small farm/large farm contrast. There are several reasons Haiti now has small farms, compared to other Caribbean/Spanish American countries. The revolution, the prohibition on foreigners owning land, etc.  

One thing struck me--in the context of the US, we've lost millions of small farms over the years not only because of the economic advantages of consolidation, which is the usual explanation, but because of the opportunities in the cities for better jobs in industry, commerce and finance.  The "Great Migration" of African Americans from the rural South to jobs in cities all over the country is the prime example, but the reality is that there was a bigger migration of whites from Southern farms and of whites from farms in the rest of the country.  

Civil War? Stuff and Nonsense

 Stephens and Collins have a weekly conversation at the NYTimes.

When he noted a fairly widespread fear of civil war, she had a response with which I agree--a sentence:

It’s very possible things look worse than they are because we’re experiencing a revolution in communication more dramatic than anything since the invention of a national postal service.

Big changes in technology usually require a period of adjustment by society.  You can see that in the novels of Dickens, in the writings of Thoreau and his fellow Romantices, in the literature of the 1920's, etc.

The advent of the internet, particularly the cellphone/internet connection, is such a change.   Father Time will dissolve some of the partisanship we're experiencing now.  As we grow more used to the technology and develop norms to deal with the problems it brings we'll settle down into patterns which will become familiar and comfortable to us.

Appearances and Reality--When Are We Back to Normal?

 I think part of the gloom about the country must be perception--we don't see the country as having rebounded back to normal.  One indicator:  rush-hour traffic.  I don't know what it's like elsewhere in the country, but in Reston the parkway used to often have some backups aroun 9:15, when I was crossing on my way to the garden or out for my walk.  Even when there weren't backups the traffic was pretty heavy, especially for someone who remembers the time when it was a two-lane road, not a four-land divided highway.

But not these days.  During the height of the pandemic there was little traffic. Now the traffic is heavier, but I've not seen any backups since April 2020.  My ingrained definition of "normal" is heavy traffic and backups; by that definition we aren't back to normal yet. 

Precision Agriculture

 Wired has a long piece on precision agriculture. Divisions between automating current operations, like John Deere's version of their 14 ton tractor, and new paradigms, like small weed-pulling robots, between field crops and fruits and vegetables, and dairy.  

Did you know legal marijuana is the fifth most valuable crop grown in the US?

If You've Lost Fox?

 Kevin Drum blames Fox for much of the partisanship of the last 20-30 years.  

Jack Shafer at Politico believes the former guy is being abandoned by the network.

Liberals and Change

 

I mean...

What IS the response to this from good-faith liberals, btw? https://t.co/AvRtjYv7xb

— Wilfred Reilly (@wil_da_beast630) July 22, 2022

Within this thread is the "gentrification"/"white flight" cartoon attacking liberals--that is, if the neighborhood changes by increasing the proportion of whites--it's bad because "gentrification"; if it changes by decreasing the proportion of whites--it's bad because "white flight".

I think it's a fair point.  As a liberal I'm stuck, welcoming change from the "creative destruction" of capitalism/market economy, and opposing change by providing a "safety net". 

The key, I think, is modulated change: change must occur but change that's too fast, too massive needs to be cushioned.  That's my analysis and defense of farm programs--only a rigorous supply management system such as those we had for tobacco and peanuts has been halfway successful in maintaining successful farms. If we aren't willing to go that far, then the best farm programs can do is to cushion the changes. 

Things Get Better?

As someone who lived through the 1960's, I sometimes get impatient with today's discussions of race  and its problems.  I remember how it used to be, at least as best a young white NY liberal could who viewed from afar, did not jump into the struggle.

I was struck by the data in the twitter thread below, covering the life expectancies by race and sex between 1960 and 2017.  While there's still a gap in expected life span, the gap has indeed narrowed since 1960, narrowed signficantly and particularly in recent years. 

here's how it looks to me: pic.twitter.com/bd6NHH0cP7

— blighter (@blightersort) July 21, 2022

Cynical Take on Federal Records Act

 Commentary on the missing Secret Service cellphone records has invoked the spector of the Federal Records Act, violation of which can lead to jail time.

We don't know what happened in the case, but I start with some cynicism.  I don't think most bureaucrats in most agencies know much or care much about the FRA. The leader of all Federal bureaucrats for 4 years, the former guy, showed exactly what he thought of it when he tore up documents he'd read.

The Act lacks an enforcement mechanism; NARA has no real power.  

I suspect, and predict, that the Secret Service has never taken the FRA seriously.  This might mean they simply ignored the preservation of records in past years, and continued that mind set in dealing with Jan. 6 and the upgrading of their cellphones.

We may find out if I'm right.