Black/white, white/black

Keo, Arkansas is in Lonoke County. Keo is about 80 percent black, while Lonoke County is 91 percent white.

That kind of demographic difference is not all that unusual in Arkansas. For six years, my mailing address was Hensley, Arkansas. Hensley’s racial makeup is around 65-35 black. Just up the road from Hensley is Woodson, roughly 75-25 black. A few miles south of Hensley is Redfield, about 92 percent white and 5 percent black.

What the numbers show is where farm workers lived and where farm owners lived. In other words, blacks who picked the cotton lived on or near the fields where cotton grew.

In 2000, Keo’s population was 235. The highest population was 325 in 1920. The smallest population was 154 in 1990. For a black-majority small town in Arkansas, Keo does not have a high percentage of people living in poverty – 10 percent of families and 7 percent of those 65 and older. The median family income was $43,333 in 2000. More surprising, women have a higher median income than do men -- $26,000 vs. $24,000. Official government figures do not offer a reason why.

Wikipedia says: “Keo has become particularly notable in recent years for its marketing of antiques, with the largest dealer — Morris Antiques — operating a 10-building complex including space for item sales and antique restoration. As in much of the surrounding region, agriculture is the other driving economic force in the area around Keo, primarily in the raising of catfish and cultivation of cotton and pecans.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keo,_Arkansas

In a satellite image, pecan plantations and catfish ponds are quite visible.

https://www.google.com/maps/@34.6038304,-92.0061455,4850m/data=!3m1!1e3

The town’s web site says Keo is “Key to the good life” and mentions it as “one of the few well-preserved cotton plantation towns in existence today. We are located on U.S. Highway 165, 23 miles south of North Little Rock, Arkansas.”

http://www.keoar.com/default.asp?sec_id=180013860


The Toltec Archaeological Mounds are nearby as is a plantation museum.

70 million people, or maybe 75 million

A few years back the Occupy Wall Street movement took a lot of news attention, with marches and camp pitching in parks and leaving trash all over the landscape.

The purpose of the march was to give unemployed college students … Excuse me. The purpose of the march was to show income inequality and how rich Americans were ruining the planet because they were rich and spending their money on things other than what the unemployed college students decided were the right things to spend money on.

The talk then was of the 1 percenters, those people who (reportedly and allegedly) control of have in their pockets 97 percent of the world’s wealth. The unemployed college students never differentiated between “wealth” and “money,” but they were Progressives, who don’t have to define anything, but simply throw out words and phrases, making the world a better place.

So. One percent of the people control 97 percent of the world’s wealth. Oh, the horror! Especially since all those obscenely rich people have offices on Wall Street in New York City and are American.

So what is 1 percent, other than 1 of 100? Glad you asked.

The Population of Earth right now is somewhere between 7 billion and 7.5 billion.

1 percent of that equals 70 million to 75 million.

So, 70 million or 75 million people control 97 percent of the world’s wealth. That doesn’t seem as bad as 1 percent, does it?

Still, though, the obscenely wealthy are American, right?

Here are the wealthiest people in the world as of December 2016:

Steve Ballmer – US.
Jorge Paulo Lemann – Brazil.
Li-Ka Shing – Hong Kong.
Sheldon Adelson – US.
John Mars – US.
Jacqueline Mars – US.
Wang Jianlin – China.
Jack Ma – China.
Lillian Bettencourt – France.
Alice Walton – US.
Jim Walton – US.
Rob Walton – US.
Bernard Arnault – France.
Sergey Brin – Russia/US.
Larry Page – US.
Ingvar Kamprad – Sweden.
Larry Ellison – US.
Carlos Slim – Mexico.
Mark Zuckerberg – US.
David Koch – US.
Charles Koch – US.
Jeff Bezos – US.
Amancio Ortega – Spain.
Warren Buffett – US.
Bill Gates – US.

http://list25.com/25-of-the-richest-people-in-the-world/

Pearcy, Arkansas

Pearcy is in Garland County, in the west-central part of the state. The ZIP Code is 71964.

Here are a few facts about the ZIP Code:

Population: 3,926. Housing units: 1,621, of which 1,469 are occupied. There are 1,978 men and 1,948 women. Colorwise, 96.1 percent of the population is white. Sixty-three percent of families are husband-wife households. A plurality of houses were built in the 1970s and 1980s. Thirty-two percent of the population works full time; 21 percent works part time; and 47 percent report no earnings. Of reporting households, 571 earn less than $25,000 a year.

U.S. Highway 70 runs through Percy. The Ouachita River is a few miles northeast. The town sits in an area between folded mountains typical of that part of Arkansas. A few miles to the southwest is a horse track.

Here is a link to a satellite image: https://www.google.com/maps/@34.4163176,-93.3083578,3149m/data=!3m1!1e3

Cultural appropriation

“A group of Native American and indigenous activists are lobbying the United Nations to outlaw ‘cultural appropriation’ across the globe.”

http://freebeacon.com/culture/native-american-activists-lobby-u-n-ban-cultural-appropriation-worldwide/

All right, do it. Make cultural appropriation illegal. But from the time the ban is legalized, I do not want to see:

People who are of non-European ancestry driving a car or truck, flying in an airplane or helicopter, using a motorboat of any kind, eating English peas, drinking French wine or German beer, eating Hungarian goulash, riding a bicycle, using a computer for any reason, talking on a telephone or cell phone, eating Canadian bacon, eating a hamburger or French fries, anywhere near Southern fried chicken, etc. and etc.

One returned microwave too many

Not long after the Walmart Super Center opened in Sulphur Springs, Texas, my wife and I were at the Customer Disservice department to return something that stopped working. In front of us in the long line, a man put a boxed microwave oven on the counter. He said he wanted his money back, somewhere around $100, because the thing did not work. The Associate asked the man's name and entered the information into her register. She then informed the man the store would not take back the microwave, because it was his fifth return that week at five different stores. The man said nothing, only picked up the box and walked away. I guess thieves develop a positive attitude about their vocation -- Somebody going to catch you sometime.

White Rock, Texas: If you don’t intend to go there, you probably won’t

White Rock is not a place you wind up in by accident.

White Rock is in Red River County, eight miles northeast of Clarksville, says the Handbook of Texas Online. It seems farther.

“WHITE ROCK, TEXAS (Red River County). White Rock, at the junction of Farm roads 1158 and 1699, eight miles northeast of Clarksville in northern Red River County, was settled as early as 1823, when John Stiles crossed the Red River to settle at a spot identified by a white rock. The population was twenty-five in 1910. From 1940 through 1986 the estimated population was reported as forty. In 1990 it was eighty-five. The population remained the same in 2000.”

https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hnw41

I’m not buying that part about “identified by a white rock.” The Red River is a few miles away, and just because somebody stepped ashore near a white rock does not mean he is anywhere near the community. I’ve been to White Rock, and I think the settlement got its name from the fact that the land just below the grass is chalky white stone. An acquaintance told me there was a stream bed with high banks nearby, containing figures eroded by water and wind. I never did get to see the figures.

John Stiles settled the area, although the Handbook entry says “Red Rock.” Probably what happened was, the writer was thinking “Red River” and wrote in the wrong word.

“STILES, JOHN (1797–1854). John Stiles (Styles), pioneer Red River County settler, was born in Barren County, Kentucky, in March 1797, the son of William Stiles. Around 1818 he moved with his father to Doaksville, Indian Territory, in the Red River valley. In 1823 he crossed the river and settled near the site of present Red Rock in Red River County, Texas. When David Crockett entered Texas he reportedly stayed overnight "with his old friend." In 1836 Stiles joined Capt. William Becknell's company, which arrived at the San Jacinto battlefield a day after the defeat of the Mexican forces. According to tradition, Stiles and others from Becknell's company were assigned by Sam Houston to guard Antonio López de Santa Anna because they would be, in Houston's words, "a less prejudiced group of men than the participants in the battle." Stiles was married to Kentucky native Sarah K. Reed; they had twenty-three children, twelve of whom reached maturity. He died in Red River County in August 1854.”

https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fstbh

White Rock Cemetery contains graves of people who lived in the area back when Texas was a country. Several tombstones contain markers identifying the dead as Citizen of the Republic of Texas.

Postal Code 71703

Zamozhne, Ukraine. Population – 678.

Zamozhne is on highway T0229, in the western part of the Vinnytsia Oblast. The oblast was created in 1932, from eight Ukraine districts. “During the World War II the territory of oblast was split between General District Shitomir (Reichskommissariat Ukraine) and Transnistria Governorate (Kingdom of Romania). In October 1941, a camp was established by the Romanians on the Vapniarka site where many Jews were detained in very bad conditions.” The Wikipedia entry does not define “very bad conditions.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinnytsia_Oblast

“As of 1 January 1997 in the oblast there were functioning 749 collective agricultural enterprises, 56 state farms of all systems, 25 inter farm agricultural enterprises, and 818 private (peasant's) farms.

“Agricultural enterprises of all forms of ownership are primarily specialized in growing of cereal crops and sugar beets, the animal husbandry, meat and milk production. In the overall structure of sown areas, winter wheat crops occupy 18%, barley 14% and sugar beets 10%.

“In 1996 the oblast produced 7% of grain, 14.3% of sugar beets, 7.5% of fruits and berries, 6.1% of meat in live weight, 5.4% of milk and 4.0% of eggs of their total production in Ukraine.”

Not bad total production figures.

Here is a satellite image of Zamozhne:

https://www.google.com/maps/@49.026109,27.7228193,994m/data=!3m1!1e3

As with many other aerial images of Ukraine and Russia, the pictures are blurred. Hiding what, one wonders.

Kherson Oblast, north of the Crimea, also has a Zamozhne village. Ukraine soldiers have come under mortar attack near the southern village.