09:41 – We’re up to 2.4 inches (6 cm) of rain since Thursday night. It’s been light but steady the whole time. The breeze has picked up this morning, but a gentle rain and a light breeze are the only effects we’ve seen from Hurricane Matthew. My guess is that the sprinkle and breeze will continue through tomorrow afternoon.
I keep seeing articles about Trump supporters being poor, lower-class, poorly educated, and (implicitly if not explicitly) stupid. Obviously, none of those fit the Trump supporters who comment here. No one comments on the fact that it’s simply mistaken to equate a college degree with being educated. Most of the people I know have a college degree. In fact, most of them have a post-graduate degree. But those degrees are in real subjects. Calling someone who has an undergraduate degree or even a doctorate in non-disciplines like psychology or sociology or education “educated” is just flat-out wrong. The media are using “educated” to mean people who have undergone four or more years of progressive indoctrination, and by that definition it’s no wonder that “educated” people are more likely to support Clinton.
Several commenters yesterday warned me to expect 4H to require a background check before accepting me as a volunteer. My first reaction was simply to refuse. I’m not a pervert. The only time in my life that I’ve been stopped by the police was 30 years ago, when I was ticketed for driving 40 MPH in a 35 zone. I’m 63 years old, married for more than half of those years, and own a home locally. If you chose a random universe of 10,000 people like me, maybe one would be a pervert. Insulting all 10,000 in that group to catch maybe one pervert is ridiculous.
When I mentioned this to Barbara this morning, her only comment was that in this day and age she didn’t think a background check was unreasonable. Which is true. Someone commented yesterday that this insanity may not have reached our rural area, and that’s probably true for local organizations. But 4H is a national organization that’s administered locally by the state Department of Agriculture. So it’s quite possible that they will require a background check. I’m undecided as to what I’ll do if they do insist on it. And, in this day and age, I’m actually more concerned about protecting myself than I am about protecting the kids. I want to make very sure that I’m never in a position where a kid could accuse me of something perverted. Obviously, that means never being alone with a kid, particularly a girl. That’s a sad commentary on how far we’ve let things get.