A New Order

 The next chapter of my life opened today, as I started my new part-time role at the new company (Avalo) doing market research on agricultural trends -- pretty much my previous career at Pebble.  I have a bevy of projects for which I can gather data, research, make forecasts, and in general do what I have done for the past two decades.  As it is part-time, there is some flexibility as to when I can do the job and such, which is fine.  I am not sure how long this will last, but it is good to be semi-productive again.  I had a rough start, sort of, and ended up being excessively snarky to some friends, so I will eat a shit sandwich tomorrow... oi.  But so far, the natives are friendly.

I also helped out this morning with the food pantry pickup; a decent amount of meat from Aldi, followed by assisting with the big delivery from the Food Bank.  I am going to try and handle the ordering this week, just to shake things up and be prepared when everyone is on vacation next month.  There is quite a bit to it -- I hope I remember it all -- but I suspect, as with most things, that once I start and get into a rhythm, it should be fine.

 Started book 44 -- The Panic of 1907 -- and it is quite good.  A bit nerdy and economic, which I love, but the author does a good job with short chapters, vignettes, and brevity to make a compelling tale -- I read it a bit later than I should have last night!  This panic led in many ways to the creation of Federal Reserve System; also, one is struck by how much different banking was back then.  Bank runs with frequency, state banks, no way to really check well if they were solvent, no deposit insurance, interlocking directors.  Now... much as the libertarian in me hates it, government actions do protect people sometime.

'Everything has fallen off a cliff': Battleground state GOPs nosedive in Trump era - POLITICO
I bookmarked this a while back and after yesterday's comment... I would argue that the main problem is that the state parties traditionally do a lot of the legwork (literally), such as voter registration, small events in suburbs and such, and the small fundraisers that used to pay the bills and free up cash for other things.  I see where people are coming from, but these local parties used to be the glue that put things together, and now... I cannot see that we are helped by their disappearance.

David Samuels Interviews MLK Biographer David Garrow on Barack Obama - Tablet Magazine
This is one of the more interesting -- in every sense of the word -- things I have read!

The failure of liberalism - Don Surber (substack.com)
Are we really surprised by this?  Should we be?  I mean, this is simply the most basic form of economic calculation -- the most rational behavior out there -- and if young men are making these choices, why on earth should we stop them?  I would be amused to see the reaction to show this sort of thing to feminists to see what they would say...