One of the signs of spring in our garden is that the lovage starts to come up. Lovage is a medieval herb that grows so fast you can nearly see it growing. It will ultimately be as much as eight feet tall.

Lovage has a very strong celery flavor—too strong for green salads but I’ve heard of people who use it in sandwiches which I don’t think would be palatable to me. I use it in soups, stews, in braciole, and, in very small amounts, in my potato salad. My potato salad recipe calls for both celery seed and parsley and lovage serves as a replacement for both.

Lovage is a perennial, i.e. it comes back year after year.

The quote is variously attributed but making predictions about the future is not just hard, sometimes it’s downright mean. That’s certainly the case with the Global Trends 2040 report remarked on by Warren P. Strobel and Dustin Volz in an article in the Wall Street Journal. Here’s a sample:

The report, Global Trends 2040, envisions a rough ride ahead for the planet, with accelerating contests over resources, governments struggling to meet citizens’ aspirations, and increased fragmentation of communities where “people are likely to gravitate to information silos of people who share similar views, reinforcing beliefs and understanding of the truth.”

There’s also some, presumably unintentional, humor:

It sees some bright spots. Population growth in Latin American and South Asia could spur economic expansion, the report says, even as China, Japan and South Korea deal with aging populations. The advent of artificial intelligence, by boosting productivity, could help governments deliver more services and tackle rising national debts, it says.

Population growth is inversely correlated with economic growth in low income countries. China, Japan, and South Korea are some of the most racially and ethnically homogeneous countries on the planet. Are they suggesting that the expanding populations of Latin America will prove to be good markets for China, Japan, or South Korea? Or that China, Japan, and South Korea will gladly accept workers from Latin American countries?

“Artificial intelligence” is a more complicated subject. If they mean automation, automating tasks that would otherwise be performed by unskilled or semi-skilled human workers will mean less work for those workers not more. If they mean true artificial intelligence it’s hard to say but progress in true artificial intelligence has been glacially slow. Most of what you see today is just applying cheaper, faster hardware in ways that were well understood 50 years ago but too expensive to be practical.

I guess that Michael O’Hanlon’s advice in his Washington Post op-ed, that we shouldn’t “overdemonize” the ruling regime in China is wise but I’ve got to admit it has me stumped. What would constitute “overdemonizing” a regime that is suppressing democracy and civil liberties, engaging in genocide, is forcibly sterilizing women, is racist, anti-religion, elitist, enslaving its own people, supporting some of the most heinous regimes in the world, viz. North Korea, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, and for all we know whose recklessness might have unleashed a virus on the world that has already killed more than 3 million people? I’ve got to admit I’m stumped.

I’m sure someone will come along and point out that at least the trains run on time.

I was going to file this under the “too soon you get old; too late you get smart” category but I’m sorry to say that Dan Gross has only advanced part of the way to wisdom in his New York Times op-ed: After identifying himself as a leader of the gun control movement he expresses the beginnings of wisdom:

Of the nearly 40,000 deaths involving guns in 2019, well under 1 percent were caused by what the F.B.I. defines as “active shooter” incidents. In an average year, around 60 percent of deaths involving guns are suicides and upward of 30 percent are homicides that don’t meet the “active shooter” definition, like episodes of domestic and gang violence. Even unintentional shootings (about 1 percent of the total) outnumber mass shootings.

but here’s his prescription for mending the situation:

• Vigorously pursue and prosecute the small percentage of gun dealers who are knowingly contributing to the illegal gun trade (a trade that is disproportionately hurting communities of color).
• Identify opportunities to strengthen the background check system by adding prohibited purchasers that we all, including 90 percent of gun owners, agree should not have guns. For instance, federal rules governing privacy for health records could be modified to allow mental health clinicians to identify those who are a threat to themselves or others, so that they could be temporarily added to the National Instant Check System. This would have to include exemptions for private sales that may make some gun control supporters uncomfortable; but in the end, in combination with the other measures listed here, it would result in a significant improvement to public safety.
• Invest in a large-scale education and awareness campaign on the dangers of owning and carrying guns, and what can be done to mitigate those dangers. It is crucial that these efforts be led in partnership with gun rights groups and public health experts and that they remain free from any judgment about gun ownership or connection with political advocacy. There are many initiatives already, such as public education about the warning signs of mental illness and suicide, which have proven effective and could be models.
• Expand on the work of “violence interrupters” and similar programs proven to reduce gun violence in cities.
• Clearly define what it means to be a federally licensed firearm dealer, with standards that include sales volume. For years, gun control groups have talked about closing the “gun show loophole.” The real problem is not specifically gun shows, it is people who are regularly selling multiple guns to strangers, regardless of the venue, without being required to conduct the same background check that a federally licensed dealer must. Not only does this clearly contribute to straw-man purchasing and gun trafficking, it puts honest dealers at a competitive disadvantage.

Although I don’t think there’s anything wrong with any of those in principle, I strongly suspect that if those measures were implemented, they were fully funded, and they were perfectly executed, in five years or ten years the number of gun homicides will have increased if anything and the primary measurable effect will be on the incomes of the NGOs that get the contracts to do the safety and awareness training. And if experience at least in Chicago is any guide some of those NGOs will be fronts for criminal gangs.

As evidence for that I would submit one fact and one claim. The fact is that in most crimes committed with guns the guns are not legally owned. The claim is that the perpetrators of those crimes know exactly what they’re doing. There’s no amount of publicity or awareness training that will change their incentives.

Ever-hopeful, Wall Street Journal columnist William A. Galston continues to press for a compromise infrastructure plan:

The administration appears to have decided to move the entire plan through the Senate using the budget-reconciliation procedure, which requires only a simple majority. The Senate parliamentarian’s reported willingness to allow more than one reconciliation bill on a single year’s budget will encourage this strategy. But leading Republicans have indicated their willingness to do business with Democrats on pieces of the bill—road, bridges, dams, water systems, ports and airports, as well as broadband and measures to counter China’s economic rise. Why not explore the possibility of a discrete bipartisan agreement before moving on to areas where agreement is unlikely?

The administration’s apparent course is not without risks:

If the administration guesses wrong, it will unravel its gains among moderate and suburban voters and restore a Republican congressional majority. If I were President Biden, I would take out an insurance policy by demonstrating my openness to honorable compromise before going to the mattresses.

I have no particular insights into the thought processes of the Biden Administration but I would speculate that they believe that the $2.2 trillion plan (which will probably cost considerably more) will attract “shy progressives” to their banner. I believe those are just as mythical as “shy conservatives”.

Failing that it may just be the Conan the Barbarian strategy:

Warlord: “What is best in life?”
Conan: “To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.”

The editors of the Wall Street JournaL speculate that China and Russia are testing the Biden Administration.

China

The Philippines began to sound the alarm last month over Chinese militia boats, at one point totaling 220, occupying the Whitsun Reef west of the archipelago. The naval equivalent of Russia’s “little green men,” China’s military-affiliated flotillas can masquerade as fishing fleets to give Beijing plausible deniability as it entrenches itself in disputed waters.

An analysis by two researchers from the U.S. Naval War College last week found “no evidence of fishing whatsoever during these laser-focused operations, but every indication of trolling for territorial claims.”

For more than a decade China has been moving aggressively to establish dominance in the waters surrounding the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and Taiwan, building military installations and harassing other nations’ commercial vessels. In 2016 an international court said China was breaking the law in the South China Sea. The Trump Administration last summer sanctioned firms involved in the construction of illegal islands there.

Russia

Russia’s aims in stepping up its military presence along Ukraine’s border are less clear, though President Vladimir Putin never shies from an opportunity to torment NATO. The State Department on Monday called for Moscow to “refrain from escalatory actions.”

The two situations are hardly comparable. We actually have a treaty with the Philippines which extends to safeguarding them from attack across the South China Sea. We have no discernible interest in Ukraine other than to irritate Russia. China’s interest in Philippine territory is just part of their stated belief that the entirety of the South China Sea belongs to them (cf. “nine-dash line”). Ukraine on the hand during its entire lengthy history was never an actual country until Nikita Khrushchev, who coincidentally had some Ukrainian ancestry himself, made it a distinct Soviet republic in the 1950s. The Russians see Ukraine (the name means “on the border”) as being an intrinsic part of Russia and they have a pretty good case.

Personally, I think that when either China or Russia “test” the Biden Administration and I believe they will, there will be little ambiguity about it. As it is I’m not sure who is provoking whom or to what end.

In my regular walks I’ve noticed something interesting. A significant number of tiny cameras, mounted on the end of ten foot fishing pole-like contraptions have sprung up within a few blocks of me. So far all I’ve seen are north of me.

They aren’t just on major thoroughfares or adjacent to traffic lights but all over a residential neighborhood. The only labels I’ve found on them refer to “Juson Technology”.

I wonder if those that authorized whatever these cameras are doing recognize that a) what they’re doing is probably actionable; and b) if it isn’t it probably calls into question a significant number of Supreme Court cases on subjects that the very same people probably consider sacrosanct.

In his latest Wall Street Journal columns Jason L. Riley highlights the dramatic changes that have taken place over the last 58 years:

In 1964 only 6% of blacks in Mississippi were registered to vote, the lowest percentage in the region. Two years later, that number had climbed to 60%, the highest in the South. “In every southern state, the gains were striking,” wrote the late political scientist Abigail Thernstrom. “Sometimes good legislation works precisely as initially intended.”

In 1970, there were fewer than 1,500 black elected officials in the U.S. Today there are more than 10,000, and they have included mayors of large cities with significant black populations—Cleveland, Philadelphia, New York, Los Angeles, Detroit, Washington—as well as governors, congressmen, senators, a twice-elected black president and the current vice president. Black voter registration in the South, where most blacks live, is higher than in other parts of the country and, in Mississippi and Georgia, black voter turnout has outpaced white turnout.

In 1964 even Southern towns with overwhelmingly black populations had white mayors and white sheriffs. Today most Southern states the percentage of black sheriffs is much more closely aligned with the percentage of black population than in Northern states. In Illinois fro example 15% of its population is black but only 4% of sheriffs are black.

That’s just the start of the differences between then and now. 58 years ago stores, restaurants, hotels, restrooms, and even public drinking fountains were all segregated by race. Mr. Riley concludes that “the Democrats are stuck in 1964”. And what’s worse they’re patronizing black voters:

Why treat the black electorate like helpless children? It’s clear that when blacks are sufficiently motivated, they have little trouble meeting the same requirements that other groups meet and casting a vote. Democrats continue to claim that Republicans are advocating modern-day poll taxes and literacy tests in disguise, even as evidence to the contrary continues to mount.

Actually, that’s not quite fair to Democrats. According to the polls, most Democrats—as well as most Republicans, liberals, conservatives, blacks and whites, don’t object to things like requiring people to prove who they say they are before voting. Liberal activists and their friends in the political press like to obsess over such things, but outside that bubble none of this is especially controversial.

I think that the exaggerated claims of racism and little or no social progress are only possible because people today are so ignorant of the past.

Does racism still exist? Of course it does. And we’re still far from perfect. But the strides that we’ve made have been astonishing over a relatively short period of time.

The editors of the Washington Post are concerned about improving the security at the U. S. Capitol:

The nature of the Capitol Police is unlike any in the country in that they perform mostly security functions and not traditional policing. The events of Jan. 6 were transformative, and it is clear that changes are needed in how the agency operates. A search is underway for a permanent chief to replace Steven Sund, who was forced to resign after the insurrection, and it is important that someone be found who can address internal issues, such as strengthening training, and external issues of a muddled chain of command that includes the House and Senate sergeants of arms and congressional leadership. Congress needs to do its part, so it is encouraging that a bill is in the works that would provide money for security improvements and include reforms to the police board that governs this critical agency.

Rather than commenting directly on the editorial or the politically fraught subject of Capitol security, I’ll comment on the Capitol Police.

The U. S. Capitol Police is the only law enforcement agency that does not report to the Executive Branch of the federal government. It reports to the legislative branch. Congressional inattention to its areas of responsibility have, sadly, become the norm.

The history of the force goes back to 1828 and its numbers have increased steadily since then to more than 2,000 sworn officers today. The area of its responsibility is 270 acres. That means that there are roughly three sworn officers per acre per shift for three shifts which should be manageable. The average pay for sworn officers of the USCP is more than $100,000 per year plus benefits including retirement. That is comparable to the pay of big city police forces around the country. Unlike big city LEOs the USCP are primarily security guards.

The minimum age for becoming a sworn officer of the USCP is 37. There is a mandatory retirement age of 57 (raising it to 60 is contemplated) but officers sometimes are allowed to serve additional years to enable them to reach 20 years of service. Once hired USCP officers are not required to be retested or meet any physical fitness standards.

I would make the following recommendations:

• Lower the minimum age of the force to 30 with five years of civilian experience.
• Retain the present mandatory retirement age.
• Require officers to maintain defined levels of physical and psychological health. Using the “young and vigorous” standard comparable to Executive Branch agencies like the Marshall Service, ATF, or DEA would be advised.
• Officers should be retested every five years.

I would also suggest that the Congress exercise its responsibilities with regard to the USCP but some things are too much to ask.