Retiring Guy's Digest: 2019-05-05

Saturday, May 11, 2019

Population loss in rural Kansas: Decatur County

Source: Wikipedia (Dccatur County, Oberlin)

Oberlin is the county seat of Decatur County.

Population loss by degrees: 80-89%, 70-79%, 60-69%, 50-59%.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts

Percentage of population 25 and older with a bachelor's degree:

21.9% - Decatur County
32.3% - Kansas
30.9% - U.S.

Percentage of population 65 and older:

27.7% - Decatur County
15.4% - Kansas
15.6% - U.S.

The last time Decatur County voted for a Democratic candidate for president was in 1936. (Barry Goldwaster won by a margin of 2.5 percentage points over LBJ. George Wallace received 8.4% of the vote in 1968.)

Oberlin City Library

Other Kansas population loss posts:
Cheyenne County/St. Francis. (5/10/2019)
Rawlins County/Atwood. (5/10/2019)

Dear Alice, There is no escape from the opioid epidemic. Best, Retiring Guy

A TIME special report

Sheboygan leaders say apparent overdose death at library is wake up call. (WTMJ, 5/10/2019)

A public library is a place where everyone should feel safe and welcome, but in the same building where kids find something new to read, police say a man likely overdosed on heroin in the bathroom.

“My 7-year-old comes here and I’d be mad if I seen some stuff like that,” said Alice Ingram. Ingram thought she moved away from this type of behavior only to find the opioid crisis impacts in smaller communities as well.

“I came from Milwaukee before I came here and I like the fact that my kids can run around and I don’t have to worry about them, for that to happen, they just need to crack down on the drugs, it’s ridiculous,” she said.

Q: What drugs are opioids?
A: Examples of opioids are: Painkillers such as; morphine, methadone, Buprenorphine, hydrocodone, and oxycodone. Heroin is also an opioid and is illegal.

Well, Brent, it's clear what Iowa needs to do in November 2020

Sources: Wikipedia (election results)

Map: CNN

Reported in 'It can't get any worse': Iowa farmers suffer as U.S. trade war with China escalates. (Des Moines Register, 5/10/2019)

Related reading:
Trump is Terrible for Rural America, by Paul Krugman. (The New York Times, 5/9/2019)

What, after all, is Trumpism? In 2016 Trump pretended to be a different kind of Republican, but in practice almost all of his economic agenda has been G.O.P. standard: big tax cuts for corporations and the rich while hacking away at the social safety net. The one big break from orthodoxy has been his protectionism, his eagerness to start trade wars. And all of these policies disproportionately hurt farm country.

The Trump tax cut largely passes farmers by, because they aren’t corporations and few of them are rich.

GET ME REWRITE: Scott Walker still doesn't have a real job

Scott Walker spins gerrymandering on. (Madison.com, 5/11/2019)

Original 3/24/2019 post, "Scott Walker on board with the National Republican Redistricting Trust to preserve North Carolina's gerrymandered districts", starts here.

NRRT

GOP redistricting edge moderated Democrats’ 2018 gains, Associated Press analysis finds. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 3/22/2019)

Smoking gun: invoices for X-ACTO knives. The AP used the so-called “efficiency gap” test in part because it was one of the analytical tools cited in a Wisconsin gerrymandering case that went before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2017 and is part of a North Carolina case scheduled to be argued on Tuesday before the court. In that case, justices will decide whether to uphold a lower court ruling that struck down North Carolina’s congressional districts as an unconstitutional political gerrymander favoring Republicans.

The GOP, of course, prefers the OLD, severely gerrymandered map.

Source: WRAL, 7/13/2018

Friday, May 10, 2019

Population loss in rural Kansas: Rawlins County

Source: Wikipedia (Rawlins County, Atwood)

Atwood is the county seat of Rawlins County.

Population loss by degrees: 80-89%, 70-79%, 60-69%, 50-59%.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts

Percentage of population 25 and older with a bachelor's degree:

26.7% - Rawlins County
32.3% - Kansas
30.9% - U.S.

Percentage of population 65 and older:

27.8% - Rawlins County
15.4% - Kansas
15.6% - U.S.

The last time Rawlins County voted for a Democratic candidate for president was in 1936. (Barry Goldwaster won by a margin of 14.7 percentage points over LBJ. George Wallace received 8.8% of the vote in 1968.)

Atwood Public Library

Other Kansas population loss posts:
Cheyenne County/St. Francis. (5/10/2019)

Population loss in rural Kansas: Cheyenne County

Source: Wikipedia (Cheyenne County, St. Francis)

St. Francis is the county seat of Cheyenne County.

Population loss by degrees: 80-89%, 70-79%, 60-69%, 50-59%.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts

Percentage of population 25 and older with a bachelor's degree:

25.8% - Cheyenne County
32.3% - Kansas
30.9% - U.S.

Percentage of population 65 and older:

26.2% - Cheyenne County
15.4% - Kansas
15.6% - U.S.

The last time Cheyenne County voted for a Democratic candidate for president was in 1936. (Barry Goldwaster won by a margin of 12.8 percentage points over LBJ. George Wallace received 8.9% of the vote in 1968.)

St. Francis Public Library

Code red GET ME REWRITE: The "speak Engish, dammit" crowd is much most likely to be old, undereducated, and Republican

Source: Pew Research

This is Donald Trump's America. (CNN, 5/8/2019)

Dig into the numbers and things get even grimmer. Among white Republicans and Republican-leaning voters, fully 47% say it would bother them, a lot (20%) or some (27%), to hear a language other than English spoken in public. Just one in four (26%) of that group said hearing a foreign language in public wouldn't bother them at all. (By contrast, 58% of white Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters said hearing a language other than English wouldn't bother them at all.)

Population loss in rural Nebraska: Nemaha County

Final post in the series

Source: Wikipedia (Nemaha County, Auburn)

Auburn is the county seat of Nemaha County.

Population loss by degrees: 80-89%, 70-79%, 60-69%, 50-59%.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts

Percentage of population 25 and older with a bachelor's degree:

28.0% - Nemaha County
30.6% - Nebraska
30.9% - U.S.

Percentage of population 65 and older:

20.4% - Nemaha County
15.4% - Nebraska
15.6% - U.S.

The last time Nemaha County voted for a Democratic candidate for president was in 1964. (LBJ won by a margin of 3.6 percentage points over Barry Goldwater. George Wallace received 8.2% of the vote in 1968.)

Auburn Memorial Library

Related reading:
The Good Life: Time has taken its toll on Nebraska's rural churches. (Omaha World-Herald, 7/12/2016)

On Aug. 7, members of what is known as the “old Stone Church” will gather to celebrate the 150th year of worship on the site. The church, whose formal name is St. John Lutheran, isn’t the oldest in the state — that honor likely goes to the Presbyterian Church in Bellevue, at 2002 Franklin St., which was opened 10 years earlier.

But the old Stone Church is among the oldest in Nebraska and is among five rural Lutheran churches that are clustered in a corner of Nemaha County, about an hour south of Omaha.

The rest of the posts (down and up from northwest to southeast)
Panhandle
Sioux County/Harrison. (4/29/2019)
Banner County/Harrisburg. (4/29/2019)
Kimball County/Kimball. (4/29/2019)
Morrill County/Bridgeport. (4/30/2019)
Sheridan County/Rushville. (4/30/2019)
Garden County/Oshkosh. (4/30/2019)
Deuel County/Chappell. (4/30/2019)

Cherry County and south
Dundy County/Benkelman. (5/1/2019)
Perkins County/Grant. (5/1/2019)
Arthur County/Arthur. (5/1/2019)
Grant County/Hyannis. (5/1/2019)
Cherry County/Valentine. (5/2/2019)
Hooker County/Mullen. (5/2/2019)
McPherson County/Tryon. (5/2/2019)
Hayes County/Hayes Center. (5/3/2019)
Hitchcock County/Trenton. (5/3/2019)
Logan County/Stapleton. (5/3/2019)
Thomas County/Thedford. (5/3/2019)

Keya Paha and Boyd counties and south
Keya Paha County/Springview. (5/4/2019)
Brown County/Ainsworth. (5/4/2019)
Custer County/Broken Bow. (5/4/2019)
Gosper County/Elwood. (5/4/2019)
Furnas County/Beaver City. (5/5/2019)
Harlan County/Alma. (5/5/2019)
Loup County/Taylor. (5/5/2019)
Boyd County/Butte. (5/5/2019)
Valley County/Ord. (5/6/2019)
Sherman County/Loup City. (5/6/2019)
Franklin County/Franklin. (5/6/2019)
Greeley County/Greeley Center. (5/6/2019)
Wheeler County/Bartlett. (5/7/2019)

Eastern Nebraska
Knox County/Center. (5/7/2019)
Antelope County/Neligh. (5/7/2019)
Boone County/Albion. (5/8/2019)
Nance County/Fullerton. (5/8/2019)
Clay County/Clay Center. (5/8/2019)
Nuckolls County/Nelson. (5/8/2019)
Thayer County/Hebron. (5/8/2019)
Fillmore County/Geneva. (5/8/2019)
Polk County/Osceola. (5/8/2019)
Jefferson County/Fairbury. (5/9/2019)
Burt Couinty/Tekamah. (5/9/2019)
Johnson County/Tecumseh. (5/10/2019)
Pawnee County/Pawnee City. (5/10/2019)
Richardson County/Falls City. (5/10/2019)

Population loss in rural Nebraska: Richardson County

Source: Wikipedia (Richardson County, Falls City)

Falls City is the county seat of Richardson County.

Population loss by degrees: 80-89%, 70-79%, 60-69%, 50-59%.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts

Percentage of population 25 and older with a bachelor's degree:

19.4% - Richardson County
30.6% - Nebraska
30.9% - U.S.

Percentage of population 65 and older:

24.4% - Richardson County
15.4% - Nebraska
15.6% - U.S.

The last time Richardson County voted for a Democratic candidate for president was in 1964. (LBJ won by a margin of 6.4 percentage points over Barry Goldwater. George Wallace received 10% of the vote in 1968.)

Falls City Library & Arts Center

Related reading:
A New American Dream: The Rise of Immigrants in Rural America. (Civil Eats, 3/22/2019)

Hong Cui is one such rural physician. Originally a medical doctor from Beijing, China, he ultimately migrated to Lincoln, Nebraska where he obtained his citizenship while completing a medical residency program.

For several years, he provided medical care for rural communities in Richardson County, at the southeast corner of Nebraska. “In rural areas, hospitals offer attractive packages for immigrants. People without permanent residency, who have like a J-1 or H-1B non-immigrant visa tend to work over here, and the hospital will help them get approved [for] citizenship or permanent residency,” Cui told The Politic.

Currently, rural areas face a severe shortage of doctors and medical facilities. Rural residents also tend to be older and have lower incomes than their urban counterparts, rendering them more likely to suffer from poorer health.

Related posts (down and up from northwest to southeast)
Panhandle
Sioux County/Harrison. (4/29/2019)
Banner County/Harrisburg. (4/29/2019)
Kimball County/Kimball. (4/29/2019)
Morrill County/Bridgeport. (4/30/2019)
Sheridan County/Rushville. (4/30/2019)
Garden County/Oshkosh. (4/30/2019)
Deuel County/Chappell. (4/30/2019)

Cherry County and south
Dundy County/Benkelman. (5/1/2019)
Perkins County/Grant. (5/1/2019)
Arthur County/Arthur. (5/1/2019)
Grant County/Hyannis. (5/1/2019)
Cherry County/Valentine. (5/2/2019)
Hooker County/Mullen. (5/2/2019)
McPherson County/Tryon. (5/2/2019)
Hayes County/Hayes Center. (5/3/2019)
Hitchcock County/Trenton. (5/3/2019)
Logan County/Stapleton. (5/3/2019)
Thomas County/Thedford. (5/3/2019)

Keya Paha and Boyd counties and south
Keya Paha County/Springview. (5/4/2019)
Brown County/Ainsworth. (5/4/2019)
Custer County/Broken Bow. (5/4/2019)
Gosper County/Elwood. (5/4/2019)
Furnas County/Beaver City. (5/5/2019)
Harlan County/Alma. (5/5/2019)
Loup County/Taylor. (5/5/2019)
Boyd County/Butte. (5/5/2019)
Valley County/Ord. (5/6/2019)
Sherman County/Loup City. (5/6/2019)
Franklin County/Franklin. (5/6/2019)
Greeley County/Greeley Center. (5/6/2019)
Wheeler County/Bartlett. (5/7/2019)

Eastern Nebraska
Knox County/Center. (5/7/2019)
Antelope County/Neligh. (5/7/2019)
Boone County/Albion. (5/8/2019)
Nance County/Fullerton. (5/8/2019)
Clay County/Clay Center. (5/8/2019)
Nuckolls County/Nelson. (5/8/2019)
Thayer County/Hebron. (5/8/2019)
Fillmore County/Geneva. (5/8/2019)
Polk County/Osceola. (5/8/2019)
Jefferson County/Fairbury. (5/9/2019)
Burt Couinty/Tekamah. (5/9/2019)
Johnson County/Tecumseh. (5/10/2019)
Pawnee County/Pawnee City. (5/10/2019)

Population loss in rural Nebraska: Pawnee County

Source: Wikipedia (Pawnee County, Pawnee City)

Pawnee City is the county seat of Pawnee County.

Population loss by degrees: 80-89%, 70-79%, 60-69%, 50-59%.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts

Percentage of population 25 and older with a bachelor's degree:

15.9% - Pawnee County
30.6% - Nebraska
30.9% - U.S.

Percentage of population 65 and older:

28.4% - Pawnee County
15.4% - Nebraska
15.6% - U.S.

The last time Pawnee County voted for a Democratic candidate for president was in 1936. (Barry Goldwater won by a margin of 2.4 percentage points in 1964. George Wallace received 10.6% of the vote in 1968.)

Pawnee City Public Library
Photo credit: Nebraska Library Commission

Related reading:
Amish have fit in well in southeast Nebraska. (Omaha World-Herald, 7/24/2013)

In 2008, five Amish families returned to southeast Nebraska for cheap land, a change in home-school laws and a quieter, rural locale than the suburbanized part of southwest Wisconsin where they had been living.

Now, there are 37 families, two Amish schools and a number of Amish farms and businesses in or near Pawnee City, which at last count had fewer than 1,000 people.

Pawnee City is proud home to both Larry the Cable Guy and SchillingBridge Winery. Its darling downtown is restored and anchored by a jewel of a century-old courthouse. It is the kind of small town where everyone rallies with a bake sale and spaghetti feed to help the 4-year-old with a brain tumor. When new teacher Kelly Neels moved to town, she didn't have to introduce herself.

Population loss in rural Nebraska: Johnson County

Source: Wikipedia (Johnson County, Tecumseh)

Tecumseh is the county seat of Johnson County.

Population loss by degrees: 80-89%, 70-79%, 60-69%, 50-59%.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts

Percentage of population 25 and older with a bachelor's degree:

17.3% - Johnson County
30.6% - Nebraska
30.9% - U.S.

Percentage of population 65 and older:

18.4% - Johnson County
15.4% - Nebraska
15.6% - U.S.

The last time Johnson County voted for a Democratic candidate for president was in 1964. (LBJ defeated Barry Goldwater by a margin of 8.4 percentage points. George Wallace received 8.7% of the vote in 1968.)

Tecumseh Public Library

Related reading:
Nebraska's prisons are still understaffed, especially Tecumseh. (Omaha World-Herald, 5/5/2017)

Two weeks ago, safety concerns expressed by local workers at the high-security prison here led Johnson County Board members to request a meeting with the warden of the Tecumseh State Prison.

Employees and their families were concerned about staff security, and worried that inmates were gaining “the upper hand” at the 960-bed prison, according to Scotty Gottula, the chairman of the County Board.

“ There’s talk out here in the community that the place is a time bomb,” Gottula said.