“Can the United States deter a takeover of Taiwan by Beijing?” That is a question in my column today. My answer (a quick one): I don’t know. But I think we and the rest of the Free World ought to try our best.
In yesterday’s column, I had occasion to say this:
Do not romanticize the “old” jobs — the factory jobs, the mining jobs, the mill jobs. Lest you are tempted to do so, ask those who worked them . . .
I then told a story, in brief:
I knew a man in West Virginia who worked in a steel mill. After he retired, he never drove by the mill again. He always contrived a way to get where he was going, around town, without passing the mill. I was amazed by that.
A reader from West Virginia writes,
In our state, economic spasms and technology changes tend to hit us hard. Disproportionately hard. There is a fondness, not always merited, for the old days.
One of my great-grandfathers was a coalminer and later a moonshiner. (He was also a Hatfield — yes, of “that” clan.) One of my grandfathers owned a junkyard, and so did my father. They broke their bodies in that unforgiving work.
I escaped, sort of. I joined the Navy and had a flair for technical subjects. I never intended to return to West Virginia, but I married a local girl and, well . . . A tale oft told.
I spent a year in West Virginia, then got into the high-tech profession, from which I recently retired after 40 years. Such opportunities, here, are vanishingly few.
I have no nostalgia for the back-breaking ways by which my forebears put food in their bellies. I honor and am grateful for what they did, but I was blessed to be able to make my way with a slide rule (okay, I traded it for a calculator eventually) versus a shovel. Neither is more virtuous than the other, but better is better.
Another reader writes,
The old jobs aren’t like they used to be. When I was a kid, people used mauls and poles to harvest walnuts and almonds. Now they use air-conditioned tractors.
Also in yesterday’s column, I had a section on transgenderism. This included the question of women’s sports (the participation of biological males in them). A reader from Michigan writes,
I played volleyball competitively and coached female teams. Though I am sure some exist, I have never heard of a female identifying as a male who sought to compete in a men’s volleyball league. Why would this be?
Having a female body is a disadvantage in trying to compete on men’s teams. And having a male body in women’s sports? An advantage, and an unfair one.
There is a meme going around on social media. It shows the storming of the Capitol on January 6 and the words “January 6 will go down in history as the day the government staged a riot.” This meme was circulated by the man who was president that day, and who may be president again very soon: Donald Trump.
I mentioned this in my column on Monday. A reader from Georgia writes,
So, January 6 was simultaneously a false-flag Deep State operation and an impromptu effort by a ragtag group of patriots to save the country? I’m confused.
He is not alone. Anyway, my thanks, as usual, to all readers and correspondents.