Morning Ed: United States {2017.06.28.Th}

Will Truman

Will Truman is the Editor-in-Chief of Ordinary Times. He is also on Twitter.

Related Post Roulette

114 Responses

  1. Brandon Berg says:

    US5: Does he? That’s not how I read it.

    That said, I think you can make an argument that any flag tainted by association with racist hate groups should be retired.Report

    • You’re right, that was a poor characterization. Fixed.Report

    • Oscar Gordon in reply to Brandon Berg says:

      The thing that irks me is how willing people are to retire a symbol merely because some offensive group has co-opted it. It gives that group a disturbing power.Report

      • bookdragon01 in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

        I agree there. Sadly, I don’t know what to do about it in terms of reclaiming them.

        I mean, look at the poor guy who originally drew pepe the frog and hates that it’s turned into a white supremacist symbol.Report

      • pillsy in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

        There’s such a fine line between ceding a contested symbol just because a handful of annoying butthelmets found it appealing and fighting a pointless and annoying rearguard action against an overwhelming cultural tide.

        (I generally think the Gadsen flag is a bit silly and overly dramatic, but not offensive.)Report

      • Pinky in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

        This begs the question, why should we care what some small group does with a symbol?Report

        • Oscar Gordon in reply to Pinky says:

          If it results in workplace complaints or protests or lawsuits, yes, we should.Report

          • Pinky in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

            I think that’s exactly why we shouldn’t.Report

            • Oscar Gordon in reply to Pinky says:

              Care to elaborate?Report

              • Pinky in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

                OK, I’m going to say this without thinking through the implications of it, so I may be making a mistake here, but: we should not give someone’s subjective interpretation of someone else’s symbol the force of law.Report

              • Oscar Gordon in reply to Pinky says:

                @pillsy

                LMAO!

                @pinky

                I agree with you that we shouldn’t, but we already do. So what is more achievable, rolling back legal precedent or dealing with symbol appropriation.

                Perhaps we need movement symbol trademarks?Report

              • Pinky in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

                I think you’re begging the question.Report

              • Stillwater in reply to Pinky says:

                Don’t be too hard on him. Beggars can’t be choosers.Report

              • Pinky in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

                More serious answer: I think that dealing with a matter of law is easier than redirecting a cultural impulse. But politics, and law, are downstream from culture. Most people think that my subjective interpretation of your symbol carries a value outside of myself. We’ve got to change that.Report

              • Oscar Gordon in reply to Pinky says:

                The conflict, as I see it, isn’t the person who latches on to an obscure interpretation of a symbol and makes a stink about it, it’s the inverse of that, where, for instance, we take the office environment @saul-degraw was talking about in another post, where employees were openly displaying white hoods and nooses. We all know the widely accepted interpretation of those symbols, but I am sure there are some obscure but very mundane interpretations that can be found as well.

                Now something like nooses and white hoods is probably an easy call, but this kind of thing is a gradient, so coming up with a bright line test is going to be a pain.Report

              • gregiank in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

                It really really common for people who have just said what most people would interpret as bigoted or degrading or insulting to say they were just joking. Whose to say if humor was in their hearts but does it really matter at some point.Report

              • Pinky in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

                We’re talking about the reasonable person standard. In this specific case, the Gadsden Flag doesn’t come close. White hoods and nooses are obviously way over the line.

                I see two difficulties surrounding the standard these days. One is the abandonment of the standard in favor of an eggshell skull standard. The second is the issue of whether a country without a common culture can pose such a standard.Report

              • Oscar Gordon in reply to Pinky says:

                Personally, I really hate trying to put subjective standards into law, and even a “reasonable person” standard can be highly subjective.

                That aside, your second point is spot on. There are times I can’t decide if America wants to embrace diversity, or bleach it out in favor of avoiding any possibility of offense.Report

              • Pinky in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

                “Personally, I really hate trying to put subjective standards into law, and even a ‘reasonable person’ standard can be highly subjective.”

                Me too. But the choices are: no standard, every single thing written into law, an arbitrary standard (one possibility being a reasonable person standard), or an indeterminate mix.Report

              • gregiank in reply to Pinky says:

                Most symbols have subjective interpretations. Is a swastika a nice Buddhist symbol or something else? A white hood? A burning cross? A tiki torch? Unless we are talking about specifically designed symbology, like safety signs, then subjective interpretations are the most prominent feature of symbols. And even with specifically designed symbols people often have idiosyncratic interpretations.Report

        • pillsy in reply to Pinky says:

          “begs the question”

          Must. Control. Fist. Of. Pedantry.Report

  2. fillyjonk says:

    US3: I live in a smallish, economically-depressed city. The one large grocery outlet (a wal-mart) in the entire county is here. I see that exact same thing. (To the point where I will not shop on the first of the month, ESPECIALLY if it is a Friday, because I know how busy the place will be and I don’t fancy standing in line for 20 minutes to pay for my food. And I expect not to be able to find certain items for a day or two after – Wal-mart here is absolutely the worst about restocking its shelves).

    though in my city’s case it may be more a Payday Effect; I don’t know if we’re one of the states that has the staggered benefit rollout times.Report

    • Michael Cain in reply to fillyjonk says:

      This USDA page provides access to the SNAP benefits distribution schedule for each of the states.

      On the few occasions when I’ve had a chance to talk with people from a “we want to form our own low-tax state away from the cities” group, one of the questions I always ask is if they’ve priced the ongoing cost of their SNAP program. SNAP participation by states is mandatory. The feds cover the costs — benefits and administrative costs up to specified limits — but states bear any excess administrative costs beyond that. Software systems that are SNAP-compliant are pricey; the number of case workers to be compliant with speed of intake and updates are pricey; the USDA runs continuous audits on state programs; states that don’t take performance seriously and work at it routinely find themselves paying millions (or tens of millions) of dollars in non-compliance fines.Report

      • fillyjonk in reply to Michael Cain says:

        Huh. I learned something today.

        So the people crowding the stores on the first of the month are probably mostly paycheck people….(We have staggered, 1st, 5th, 10th….)

        Also the second Saturday of the month is bad but I know that is because paychecks.

        I just wish we had another large grocery store, or something like an Aldi, to bleed off some of the crowds. (Shoot, I’d like to have an Aldi, I understand their stuff is pretty good…)Report

  3. Richard Hershberger says:

    US2: The transfer of the Chargers to LA was handled in pretty much the worst possible way. That being said, I would be astonished to see them move back to San Diego any time soon (spitballing “soon” to mean within ten years).

    It produces an interesting experiment. The NFL financial model minimizes the importance of actual butts in seats, and especially in the less outrageously priced seats. The whole trend to new stadiums is about catering to the wealthy. And seriously: watching football in person largely sucks. It only makes sense if you are going for the communal experience. If you actually want to see the damn game, who will find yourself looking at the jumbotron the whole time. You can see it both cheaper and more comfortably at home. Put these together and the trend is that average fans watch on TV, while attending in person is more and more a display of conspicuous consumption for the rich. It strikes me as plausible that ownership would be just fine with this. Sure, shots of empty seats are embarrassing, but if the bottom line works out, who cares about the visuals?Report

    • Pinky in reply to Richard Hershberger says:

      The NFL’s plan for LA was that two can live as cheaply as one, at least in terms of stadiums. No single LA team is likely to have a profitable fan base, at least in the next several years. There’ll be revenue from tickets, merchandise, commercials, etc., but not in a way that will benefit from the second-largest US market. But without two teams in LA, the whole thing will become a big money suck.

      Also, San Diego voters have been unwilling to spend money on a stadium upgrade, and this whole experience has alienated them more than they already were (and they had plenty of reasons to be alienated already).

      I could see the Tijuana Buccaneers happening, though.Report

  4. Damon says:

    [PR5] Help PR back on it’s feet, then kick them loose.

    [US5] You can have my “virtual” Gadsden flag when you pry it from my cold dead hands. The guy who was upset at the flag in the NY article was an idiot. He also probably believes “niggardly” is an ethnic slur.

    [US7] I’m still trying to figure out why the guy had a check. The last house I sold was all done with wire transfers or ACH transfers.Report

    • Richard Hershberger in reply to Damon says:

      I’m still trying to figure out why the guy had a check.

      The thing is, by even asking this question the implication is that maybe the police did the right thing after all. If that isn’t your intent, there are better approaches to the discussion.

      As for why he was paid with a check, your personal lived experience is that there is more than one way this is done. It should not be surprising that there might also be more than two. How real estate transactions are handled can vary a lot from state to state. I have written a check in the six figures. It wasn’t on my account. I was the executor of an estate. But it was a regular personal-style check with all the information written in by hand, not a business check that came out of a computer printer. So I find the idea of a check in this amount unremarkable. And the transaction somehow occurred without police intervention.Report

      • bookdragon01 in reply to Richard Hershberger says:

        It was a number of years ago, but when we moved from VA to MI, the money from the sale of the house in VA was in a cashier’s check. Why? Because we did not yet have a bank chosen or therefore an account set up in the town we were moving to in MI. The check was the initial deposit when we opened one.

        Strangely, no one called the police or detained us for hours…Report

        • I’ve had pretty sizable cashiers checks on a few occasions. Never had a sizable handwritten check, though. Which is unusual, and maybe suspicious… but only in combination with other suspicious thing. The sort of thing I might ask about, but would definitely not assume guilt over.Report

          • PD Shaw in reply to Will Truman says:

            Large checks must be reported to the federal government. Recall that this was the law that Hassert violated, and also recall that his bank sort of encouraged this behavior because the paperwork requirements were perceived as a pain. (One may also like to recall Hassert helped pass these laws)

            My operating theory would be that the deposit triggered FBI attention, but they decided to ask local law enforcement to ask the family some questions and it was handled poorly because the FBI didn’t share what it knew.Report

            • Richard Hershberger in reply to PD Shaw says:

              Yet that six figure check I wrote was deposited with nary an eyebrow raised, or if any eyebrow movement in fact occurred it didn’t work its way to the principals noticing it.Report

            • PD Shaw in reply to PD Shaw says:

              Just to clarify, if anybody deposited a check over $10,000, the bank reported it to the federal government, the bank was required to report suspicious behavior, and the customer is really not supposed to know about it.Report

              • Oscar Gordon in reply to PD Shaw says:

                And it took the local PD 3 hours to get the FBI back on the phone?

                You are probably right about what triggered it, but everything after that is FUBAR’ed to hell and gone.Report

              • Michael Cain in reply to PD Shaw says:

                Post 9/11 there are other types of businesses required to report, and in some cases, wait for a response notification. Last car I purchased I paid for by check and there was a three-day waiting period while the check was approved as non-terrorist by the federal authorities.Report

              • bookdragon01 in reply to PD Shaw says:

                The problem is that in this case the suspicious behavior appears to have been looking Muslim.

                Even if a hand-written check raised flags in terms of legitimacy or source of the money, 15 police cars?? And taking the wife and daughter into custody too?Report

              • RTod in reply to bookdragon01 says:

                I have no idea what happened, but I trunk you all are giving short shrift to the possibility that several local people did something stupid.Report

              • Richard Hershberger in reply to RTod says:

                I’m not. That is top on my list of what likely happened.Report

      • Damon in reply to Richard Hershberger says:

        I wasn’t criticizing the guy for having one, I was commenting more on the lack of information in the report of the incident. I’d think it’s kinda relevant to the story.
        After all, having a live check for that much money is kinda risky (crime wise)Report

    • PD Shaw in reply to Damon says:

      [PR5] PR has a per/capita income 45% of Mississippi, the poorest state, and its economy has shrunk as the result of a reduction of exemptions from U.S. law. IOW, PR benefits from both being in the U.S. and being exempt from federal taxes and regulations, with the exception of the federal minimum wage, which puts PR at a disadvantage to neighboring island communities (and encourages off-the books labor).

      I don’t see how PR can survive statehood without continuing its special status as exempt from national laws. Cowen wants to give PR an exemption from the Jones Act, which would divert some transit from ports like Houston and New Orleans, but I doubt it would do much. Pressed on the matter, Cowen might argue that PR should have at least a partial exemption from the federal minimum wage.Report

      • Michael Cain in reply to PD Shaw says:

        Most estimates are that as a state, Puerto Rico would receive approximately $20B per year in additional federal funds (net) that it currently can’t qualify for. That’s more than $5,500 per person per year added to the local economy.Report

      • Will Truman in reply to PD Shaw says:

        It’s not easy to see how Puerto Rico succeeds without a pretty significant overhaul. You might get some increased investment if it were to become a state (which is Cowen’s argument), but that becomes harder due to distance and especially language. A lot of the benefits of statehood come with increased integration, which I’m not sure happens with Puerto Rico.

        That said, we’re not kicking them loose either. And if they start voting clearly for statehood (and I think they’re about to), they’re going to get it.Report

      • Damon in reply to PD Shaw says:

        So, this was a response to my comment that we should let PR go and let it become independent?Report

  5. pillsy says:

    [US7] I love that the bank’s position is, “Yeah, we’d totally have this poor Iraqi dude arrested again for absolutely no reason.” That’s a super-good look.Report

  6. Doctor Jay says:

    [US1] I think Lyman Stone has not considered that it will take some time for Amazon to build new buildings to move into in whatever city is chosen, and during that time, developers will be quite busy with building new housing for the new employees.

    Also, he does not understand the basic sailing metaphor behind “take a different tack“.Report

  7. Saul Degraw says:

    Nothing on Hugh Hefner?

    The food stamps article is four years old. I wonder what things are like now.Report

    • pillsy in reply to Saul Degraw says:

      Hugh Hefner’s death seems to have inspired a firestorm of hot takes. There’s a lot of back and forth over whether he was a champion of progressive causes or a gross, rapey misogynist, and the answer seems to be, “Basically both,” which is exactly the kind of answer that starts metaphorical knife fights.

      If you’d rather just gawk at the stupid instead of untangle yet another intra-left fight, The Federalist has you covered.Report

      • Oscar Gordon in reply to pillsy says:

        I prefer:

        He most certainly did some good things (first amendment fights, serious journalism and writing, sexual revolution, etc.). Perhaps not in exactly the way some folks would have preferred, but then, rarely are the important fights fought in the manner all would prefer.Report

      • LeeEsq in reply to pillsy says:

        Basically right pretty much sums it up. I’m not really sure what to make of the accusations that Hugh Hefner was a “gross, rapey misogynist.” He was but sex, especially when decoupled from any romantic feeling, is going to involve a good chunk of objectification. Very few people are going to want to have consensual sex with somebody they are not attracted to and if the attraction is more physical than emotional, your kind of reducing a person to the status of an object because you are only into them for their physical qualities. I don’t see any way you can avoid this.Report

        • pillsy in reply to LeeEsq says:

          The key charge (spoilered because it’s fucked up) is usually sourced to this article in Cosmo:

          When Madison told him she doesn’t do drugs, she says Hef replied, “Usually I don’t approve of drugs, but you know, in the ’70s they used to call these pills ‘thigh openers.'”

          Report

          • LeeEsq in reply to pillsy says:

            The 1970s were a very strange time where nearly every adult seems to have gone into a crazy series of indulgences. There must have been some very confused elementary school aged kids during the general moral break down.Report

            • J_A in reply to LeeEsq says:

              @leeesq

              I was in elementary school then. With 100% accurate introspection, I don’t notice anything strange in me.

              Now, the rest of the people? Have you noticed how fishing crazy every one of you is? You should look for professional help. Just saying 🙂Report

            • gregiank in reply to LeeEsq says:

              Not really. Lots of our parents were stable, non drug using, mellow people disconnected from the cultural changes. My parents were older, in their 50’s, so most of the cultural changes were not relevant to them. Watching it all on TV was something, but it was just the way things were. It was normal because that was what we were used to. The 80’s were more of a noticeable change with all the moral majority guff.Report

            • fillyjonk in reply to LeeEsq says:

              My parents were Silent Gen, and I presume they stood by and looked on in dismay. I was reasonably happy at home as a child because they didn’t participate in the craziness. But as an adult I’ve heard about “key parties” and similar and…..damn I’m glad I wasn’t a young-married then.

              I mean, being an adult in 2017 sucks, but being an adult in, say, 1975, sounds like it also sucked pretty hard, if in a different sort of way.Report

              • bookdragon01 in reply to fillyjonk says:

                My parents were also middle class squares, so I was shielded form most of the 70s insanity.

                But that makes it all the more mind blowing when I hear about it first hand. I live in a nice suburban neighborhood with a mix of retired folks who have lived here since the first homes went up in the mid-60s to new families with little kids. Last summer the sweet little old 80+ lady down the block told me about how things were back when she was a 30-something housewife. Apparently key parties were a thing. And she and her husband were very much into them.

                I can no longer look at my more senior neighbors in quite the same way…Report

            • Stillwater in reply to LeeEsq says:

              There must have been some very confused elementary school aged kids during the general moral break down.

              Why think that? Those kids had the experiences they had and viewed them as normal. The confusion was from adults trying to make sense of a post-Vietnam Era America. The kids didn’t have any problem with it, I don’t think.

              Add: now, if you’re talking about the 60s, I think you’d have a more valid point. Those kids were pulled in a bunch of different and irreconcilable directions.Report

            • Richard Hershberger in reply to LeeEsq says:

              Well, there was that awful polyester leisure suit my Dad inexplicably was moved to purchase, and then even less explicably occasionally to wear. Even at the time I knew that was fucked up. But yeah, otherwise my family was pretty normal, in a nerdy sort of way.

              But seriously, I have a theory that a lot of modern helicopter parenting, where it is considered horrifyingly irresponsible to let your kid out of your sight, is an unconscious reaction to the 70s. That was a really bad decade. If you take that as your baseline, and add to this a default assumption that things only get worse over time, then it makes sense to dig a bunker in the back yard and not let your kids out. In reality violent crime numbers are way down and our streets objectively far safer than back when I would take city buses to go to the main downtown (which was decidedly seedy) library all by myself.Report

        • Stillwater in reply to LeeEsq says:

          A couple days ago Lauren Duca said that she’s tired of women humble-bragging about themselves and asked people to just plain ole brag. I read some of the comments women wrote, and very very many of their real brags were about how pretty they are and what fine bodies they have, etc. Were they objectifying themselves? Does that question even make sense?Report

          • LeeEsq in reply to Stillwater says:

            I suppose somebody can make an academic article out of it if not an actual thesis. Objectifying Themselves: How Online Comment Culture Causes Women to Brag About Their Looks.Report

          • fillyjonk in reply to Stillwater says:

            I don’t really care if a woman wants to brag on her looks or not.

            I have never been comfortable with my looks though in recent years I have had people whose opinion I respect tell me I am not bad-looking. I suspect few women are comfortable with how they look – I could easily point out about fifteen things wrong with just my face, if you asked.

            So I’m happy if a woman feels secure enough about herself to brag on her looks.Report

            • Stillwater in reply to fillyjonk says:

              I’m happy for folks who like how they look and if they want to brag about it, more power to em. I was just noting that at least some women objectify themselves in the same way some men objectify them (being hot, being pretty, etc). So the criticism of Hefner needs to go a bit deeper than that he merely objectified women.Report

              • Maribou in reply to Stillwater says:

                @stillwater Did you look at pillsy’s blacked-out statement? The criticism goes deeper.

                Also, it’s different to brag on your looks or to see yourself as only your looks. The former is being pleased about something, the latter is objectification. They aren’t the same. Of course, I also think it’s perfectly possible to sexually enjoy visual stimulation without depersonalizing aka objectifying anyone, so I don’t buy the premise that porn requires objectification in the first place.

                And I think it’s also a bit different for someone to objectify, aka depersonalize, other people, or to depersonalize themselves. One is cold/indifferent and the other is kinda heartbreaking.

                Finally, I’d suggest that objectifying someone in your own private space when you’re alone (or inside your own head), is different from objectifying someone to other people and/or to their face; and that objectifying someone consensually is different than objectifying them non-consensually.

                I mean, you and/or Lee may already agree with much of the above or think it’s obvious, but I find that much of it gets ignored or forgotten when people start to talk about objectification.Report

              • Stillwater in reply to Maribou says:

                I’d like to give you a longer answer, but really the answer is short: I knew all that. I’m aware of all that. I was making a narrow point. That you felt it doesn’t present all the complexity surrounding objectification is why you wrote what you did.Report

          • Saul Degraw in reply to Stillwater says:

            @stillwater

            I too am against the Humblebrag because it often seems like false modesty but it is not an on-line creation. People have been saying “I went to school in Connecticut” when they mean “I went to Yale” since the dawn of Yale. Or other versions.

            The humblebrags I see mainly are about economic advantage. “I know I am incredibly privileged=My family made boatloads of money in the Gilded Age and now I can work as a painter while living in an apartment normally occupied by professionals at the top of their game.”Report

      • Saul Degraw in reply to pillsy says:

        The Federalist is always good for derp.

        What’s interesting is that Playboy always was the tamest of all the big magazines.Report

        • J_A in reply to Saul Degraw says:

          I found out about Hefner’s death last night reading a blog post from a political writer I follow that happens to be gay.

          He focused his obituary on Hefner’s contribution to journalism, first amendment, and furthering the culture that were associated with the publication of Playboy

          Which the post writer assured us, he only read because of the Rticles.

          In this case, I believe himReport

          • Aaron David in reply to J_A says:

            As a kid, if I was lucky enough to score a Playboy, of course I looked at the pictures. After I had the mag for a bit I would start reading the rest,and came across wonderful authors such as Walter Tevis and Tim O’Brien.Report

        • El Muneco in reply to Saul Degraw says:

          One of the major reasons Skinemax softcore porn was a thing is that the population of actresses who will sign up for “willing to get naked on camera” is much larger than the group “willing to have (unprotected) sex with a random dude on camera” so it’s much easier to find a really attractive star. Playboy benefitted from the same dynamic.Report

          • Saul Degraw in reply to El Muneco says:

            @el-muneco

            Yes and no.

            I think Hugh during his revolutionary phrase did invent the yuppie guy lifestyle more or less where it was about jazz on the high fi, a cool pad with Herman Miller furniture, good cocktails and food, and sex of course. Possibly with different partners each night.

            Hugh was one of the first people to turn themselves into a Brand.Report

    • Oscar Gordon in reply to Saul Degraw says:

      Nothing on Hugh Hefner?

      In honor of Hugh Hefner, all flags are to be flown at full staff?Report

      • LeeEsq in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

        LOL. I needed that. Thank you.Report

        • Oscar Gordon in reply to LeeEsq says:

          Anytime!

          Things have been a touch warm hereabouts as of late. Some levity was called for.

          (I actually had 2 things I found very amusing in the Tech Tuesday, and one that was just fascinating… not sure who saw those)Report

          • J_A in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

            I found the cargo vessel video quite fascinating. Belated thanksReport

            • Oscar Gordon in reply to J_A says:

              You are very welcome!

              The first time I set sail, I was taken aback by just how massive our oceans are. It’s pretty easy to get to a point where you can not see land in any direction. It’s a bit unsettling at first, but you get used to it.

              I imagine, when we start sending people out past the orbit of the moon, they will experience a similar feeling.Report

              • Plus the punchline to the old joke, “…and that’s just the top of it!” I know people who can’t deal with tunnels and such because they are stuck with the visual image of being under tens or hundreds of feet of rock and dirt. I have the same problem with the ocean — the huge surface expanse doesn’t bother me, but the thought that the bottom of the water is 5,000 ft down for farther than I can see terrifies me.Report

              • Oscar Gordon in reply to Michael Cain says:

                When I deployed, NAV would post a sounding chart on the wall outside the galley showing our position and track for the day (they’d update our position every morning at 0400 until it was time to hang a new chart). We’d have fun discussion after breakfast at muster about how deep the water was and how long it would take to hit bottom if God decided it would be funny to make all the water vanish.Report

    • These days, Morning Eds for the whole week are usually done on Sunday. Sometimes Wednesday and Thursday are done on Tuesday. Today was something of an odd exception because I literally did it this morning. I was going back and forth on whether to have a Puerto Rico section or going forward with the planned United States section. I opted for both.

      In any event, ME and LF will rarely include same-day news.Report

  8. Michael Cain says:

    US6: Ruralia is in the process of discovering — having forced on them might be a better description — that it is expensive to provide modern services in low population density areas. So expensive, in fact, that the private sector has been steadily losing interest in providing such services. Another example is the ACA insurance exchanges: counties where there is only one exchange provider show a very strong rural bias. Nor is it a new problem: most states have had a board/commission charged with finding policies to reverse the decline in health providers in rural areas for decades.

    Anyone who looks at the details of their state’s cash flow sees which way the subsidies flow. I have long been puzzled by how rural politicians can maintain the myth that cities are a financial weight dragging down the rural areas.Report

    • North in reply to Michael Cain says:

      Dense city populations pay scant attention so dense city pols don’t focus on the myth. Rural voters and their pols desperately want it to be true and so triple down on it. Suburban voters romanticize ruralia and generally scorn the urban so lean towards the latter. Thus it survives and marches on.Report

      • Jesse in reply to North says:

        To be fair, at least here in the People’s Republic of Seattle, The Stranger and Seattle Weekly regularly point out the greater Sea-Tac area basically subsidizes the state. Unfortunately, the Seattle Times is owned by an out of touch rich family, so there’s never any editorials about this small fact.Report

        • North in reply to Jesse says:

          Sure, but do they harp on it? Do they say Sea-Tac voters should care about it? Do they say voters should make Sea-Tac state politicians care about it? To cut the ingrate WA Raralian moochers off? I’m guessing not. Partially because urban regions tend to being liberal and that kind of policy jibe doesn’t fit with current liberals well. Also because it doesn’t really threaten their self image. If ruralian voters faced up to the fact that they’re parasitic financial moochers on their regional urban/suburban clusters it’d destroy their entire self constructed image.Report

          • Maribou in reply to North says:

            @north It’s not actually quite that straightforward if you think about how much certain foods would cost to urban dwellers without those subsidies to rural areas… SeaTac is not a great example for this b/c port, but in general milk, fruit, veg etc etc are as affordable as they are (not all that affordable, but *as much* as they are) because of subsidies to rural areas.Report

            • North in reply to Maribou says:

              Yeah I wouldn’t say urbania gets nothing for its subsidies, agreed. That stipulated the economic reality is ruralia is overdeveloped from a strictly economic PoV. If urbania cut off the transfers the price of agricultural and primary industry inputs would increase as those parts of ruralia that actually produce those goods had to take up the cost of that infrastructure and necessarily added the cost to the goods they sell just as you said.

              The savings, of course, from ending urban to rural transfers would be significantly greater than the costs of increased prices. Also it’d be horrible from a humanitarian perspective and deeply counter to general urban sensitivities. The ruralian hypocrisy in this area, though, is pretty galling.Report

    • Jesse in reply to Michael Cain says:

      Honestly, I think a big part of the reason is people (and note I said people, not conservatives or even rural residents) don’t understand big numbers.

      What I mean is, they see a story about some tunnel or transit project in Big City X costing eleventy jillion dollars. Now, not only do they not know that Big City X actually sent out twentaby jillion dollars in taxes out, but the eleventy jillion dollars is over twenty years or whatever.

      So, all they think is “wow, imagine if my little town got even a smidgen of that,” not realizing that in reality, they already get a ton of money, but there’s not big news stories about it or it isn’t mentioned that the reason why the police department has shiny new cars is tax money from the big city.

      Also, the fact that transit project can mean people can get to their job in Big City X was Small Town Z in a shorter time because cars off the road isn’t mentioned, either.

      That was one positive about pork barrel – it was in the Congressperson’s best interest to know let everybody that American tax money that he or she managed to finagle was being spent right here.Report

    • Morat20 in reply to Michael Cain says:

      That’s okay. You can just do things like reclassify bandwidth — decide 10mb/s is “high speed internet” instead of the former 25, and boom! Instant better utilities out in the hicks.

      (And yes, that’s a real idea floated by the current idiot in charge of the FCC).Report

      • Michael Cain in reply to Morat20 says:

        That works to a point. Over the last 10-12 years, the Colorado General Assembly, increasingly dominated by Front Range urban/suburban voters, has imposed emission standards on rural electricity. Because under the right weather conditions, the goop from rural cooperatives’ power plants piles up against the foothills and f*cks up the Front Range air quality. Declaring it to be “clean” when it’s not doesn’t work.

        The standard complaint from the rural interests to those regulations boils down to “We’re poor and can’t afford clean electricity.” If you want to really piss them off, the response is to bring up the REA/RUS and remark, “Let’s be clear; you’re so poor you can’t afford electricity without help.”Report

  9. Stillwater says:

    Anyone watching Romo on Thursday NFL? My first time. I think I’m in love.

    What the NFL needs to regain ratings is have Romo call every televised game.Report

    • El Muneco in reply to Stillwater says:

      Early on he irritated some people by giving his thoughts (as a top level QB) in real time during the pre-snap read phase rather than letting it unfold and give it as analysis afterward.

      I see the point, as it’s a fun game to try to recognize the patterns and predict for yourself what’s going to happen. Kind of spoils it when someone better at it than you is already there.

      But even with max style points off for that, he’s so far above replacement level it hurts.

      Although replacement level is pretty low – the 4th string 4pm EST crew regularly get rules wrong, lose track of timeouts, and aggressively misunderstand the replay process.Report

      • Stillwater in reply to El Muneco says:

        He did some at-the-line real time analysis last night and I actually enjoyed it. But I especially liked his youthful fan-like enthusiasm and that he didn’t fill the airspace with long overwrought analyses of the blatantly and painfully obvious, like pretty much every other color commentator gets bogged down in.Report

        • El Muneco in reply to Stillwater says:

          Oh, I like the at-the-line stuff too. I do think he got some advice to the effect of “let the play go unless you see something decisive or something changing dramatically” e.g. if the call is obvious from counting dudes in the box and no one moves, let us hear the snap count.

          Also, unlike the other crews, don’t remind the audience “he sent a guy in motion to see if coverage was man or zone” more than once per quarter. They can remember it for 45 minutes.Report