Not much snow yesterday but plenty of wind. Only 21F so far. It may go lower before the sun comes up. The weather report says we may get into the high 30s with a good chance of some snow through today and tonight.

Well, they have to keep the prisons filled and petty marijuana laws do that job so well. Ronni Bennett has a post on AG Sessions' latest assault on legal marijuana.

The headline on this article is a bit of an understatement. I would say that American Capitalism isn't working for anyone under the 90th percentile of the economy. The economist interviewed for the article is careful to not tie the results to the economy generally but information is intriguing. The trend has been going on since at least 1999 so it isn't new. Also the statistics show increasing deaths from suicide, drugs and alcohol among both white working age men and, in a parallel though lower curve, white working age women. But that doesn't hold for black or hispanics of the same age and status or for Europeans. So, what gives?

I can relate to this article in a number of ways. My last academic interest (history) has been on the same path of extinction. But I have also loved some of the great writers of history, academic or otherwise. Unfortunately, those are becoming fewer and fewer. We get the celebrities but they aren't necessarily great writers. Some aren't even good writers. I don't know how many articles which should have been interesting I have started and then dropped because the writing was incomprehensible all the while wondering "what the hell are they teaching in English comp nowadays?" Will the loss of the "humanities" (including English, history, philosophy) make us somehow less human?