Some Gloom from Mary

Prarie Mary writes with her usual elegance of being poor and no longer young, and of some problems of the west and of rural life today.

"The message is that life for humans on this planet is becoming increasingly dependent on individual prosperity. If one is old, weak, troublesome, ill, or simply not like everyone else, one had better inherit money. Otherwise, you will end up living in a cardboard box with no amenities".

(Snip)

"Only a hundred years ago or a little more, homesteaders thought they were finally going to get ahead when the government did an enormous land dispersal through the homestead act, allotting to white immigrants the land they had just taken from the Native Americans. Someone remarked that half those immigrants ended up leaving without proving up, defeated by the climate or by a lack of investment capital enough for animals and equipment. Many died. Just as in Europe, a few ended up owning most of the land.

"This village happily celebrates the lives of those who survived -- who are their immediate ancestors. They made it here because they came as a village, developed irrigation as a village, and pretty much continued as interlinked families without an influx of people who were different. Until now. How long will they remain a cooperating village with new people arriving who don’t share the past?"

This one is definitely a "read the whole thing".