#who's the poorest merc do you think

[zarla-s]

I saw this post about how Engie was probably born into generational wealth and I can't stop thinking about it.

[patreon]

[spanishskulduggery]

Do you know of any fossil words in Spanish, words that used to be common but fell out of use and are now only preserved in idioms? I tried looking on Google but all the results were English-only examples

I'll try and think of some others but here are the ones that come to mind; and I’m not sure all of these will be what you’re looking for.

si fuere menester = "in the event of" el menester used to be fairly common especially in the Medieval period, where it was another word for "need" or "necessity". Today you only see menester in si fuere menester which is an unusual construction as it is, since fuere is the future subjunctive - which is an obsolete tense - and so it literally means "should it be necessary". This expression only now shows up in contracts and legal contexts normally as "in the event of"

donde fueres haz lo que vieres = "when in Rome... (do as the Romans do)" Again, this is future subjunctive; literally "wherever you go, do what you see".. but in a more obtuse future subjunctive way "wherever you should happen to go, do whatever you may happen to see"

la urdimbre y trama = "warp and weft" The idea of this is related to "weaving", and though this phrase is rather antiquated or particular, it occasionally shows up as something like la urdimbre y trama de la sociedad or something where that's "the fabric of society". It's not the way you say that so much now [el tejido or la tela are more common], but urdir "to warp" was related to working a loom. You still do use tramar but it's not often that you see it related to weaving anymore... tramar is "to plot" or "to hatch a scheme", but you can see how "weaving" would go into "plotting"

so pena de = "under pain of" You don't often see so used in Spanish today, since it's a more direct link to Latin and Italian. And today la pena rarely means "pain" in the physical sense, it usually means "sorrow" or "anguish"... but again in legal cases, so pena de muerte is "under pain/penalty of death"

a diestra y siniestra = "all over the place" This expression literally means "to the right and left". The word diestro/a is still "right-handed" (also means "skillful" or "dexterous"), but siniestro/a used to mean "left-handed"... the idea that the left hand was more evil and "sinister", and "under-handed". In older contexts, siniestro/a means "left-handed", but in modern contexts you say zurdo/a for "left-handed"

al tuntún = "impromptu", "improvise", "on the fly", "by ear" This expression is derived from Latin, ad vultum tuum which is literally "to your face" in Latin. You never see tuntún anymore unless something is done al tuntún but it might be more regional; it just means you're making it up as you go

dormir como un ceporro = "to sleep like a log" Most people today say dormir como un tronco which is the same idea; el ceporro is a variation but it's extremely unusual to see it. Most people will use tronco if they have to

tuerto/a = one-eyed I'm actually not sure if people use tuerto/a still, since there are other ways to say "blind in one eye" or "one-eyed". In older Spanish, tuerto could show up as a "grievance", but in the expression en el reino de ciegos el tuerto es rey is still used sometimes, literally "in the kingdom of blind people, the one-eyed man is the king"

(el) haba = bean [technically haba is feminine] Not common to see el haba used much anymore except in certain contexts, and it's the root of la habichuela "bean". In Spain, sometimes haba is "idiot" so if you see el tonto del haba it's like "the biggest idiot that ever lived"

Vuestra Merced = "Your Lordship/Ladyship" This is the original form of it, but it eventually turned into usted "you" used for polite things. The title was Vuestra Merced and it was how you addressed someone without knowing their title, so it became very polite. In older Spanish you'd abbreviate it as Vd. which eventually became Ud. as the abbreviation for usted. Keep in mind that at a certain point in time, Spanish wrote the U sound as a V, and it followed more of the Latin pronunciation where the V had a softer U/W sound at times. Outside of Spain and works set in older time periods, you're unlikely to use vuestro/a - it even became informal plural "you all" in Spain - but you rarely ever see merced used. Chances are you're only going to see it was vuestra in front of it. But just know that vos has a very different meaning today than it did in the Middle Ages

meter/sembrar cizaña = "to sow discord" You're never going to see cizaña used in any other context unless you happen upon some botanical book. The literal translation is "darnel" which is sometimes called "false wheat"; basically la cizaña looks like trigo "wheat", and it grows close to wheat but it often has a fungus that's poisonous so you need to separate it. The idea behind it is that if you're deliberately planting cizaña you're actively trying to poison someone or make things worse

la celestina = "a go-between, a mediator" This word comes directly from La Celestina a novel written in Spain's Golden Age by Fernando de Rojas. In it there's a woman named Celestina who sets up meetings between women living in convents (who weren't always nuns) and men; acting as a go-between and chaperone for love affairs basically. The term was also la alcahueta but became celestina after the character in the book. Certain characters in literature are considered celestinas like the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet; basically the girl/woman can't risk her reputation so she has her maid or chaperone working to arrange things, and they're often the catalyst for things going wrong. In other contexts, celestina or una alcahueta is a "pimp" or "madame", or sometimes "a gossip"

pardo/a = brown, brownish-gray Today you’re only really going to see pardo/a used with animals. Specifically, el oso pardo is a “grizzly bear”, and pardo/a can be used with horses as “dun”. I don’t know if “grizzly bear” counts as an expression but anyway. In older Spanish pardo/a was another word for “brown” when it came to people too. Today, if you’re describing hair color as “brown/brunette” you’re using castaño which is literally “chestnut”, either castaño claro “light brown” or castaño oscuro “dark brown”. When it comes to things that are brown, the typical word is now marrón or sometimes you see it as color café which is “coffee-colored”

ser un caco = to be a thief Not commonly used as ladrón, ladrona “thief”, but un caco literally means “a Cacus”. Basically, Cacus was a mythological figure who stole some cattle and Hercules killed him. In some places people use un caco to mean “thief” as a euphemism

la Parca = the Grim Reaper Orginally, las Parcas were the Parcae in Roman (originally Greek) mythology. They were the sisters of fate who would measure someone’s life and eventually cut the thread. Today, it’s just one Parca and it’s typically a male figure, skeletal, with a scythe as the “Grim Reaper”, rather than it being a woman with scissors. That’s because during the Plague, people thought of Death as being a skeletal figure that held a scythe, the symbol for “reaping” wheat that was ripe.

manjar de los dioses = “nectar of the gods” / a delicacy el manjar is used in some places in certain contexts but it originally came from Italian as “food” or something “to eat”. Today, manjar is usually a “snack”, or in some cases it’s dulce de leche, but most of the Spanish-speaking world doesn’t use manjar so much. It is sometimes “delicacy”, but in older contexts it was code for “ambrosia”, the thing that the Greek gods couldn’t get enough of. The world manjar still feels very antiquated to me, but when it’s used it’s some kind of good food or eating a lot of food

valer un potosí = “to be worth a fortune” un potosí is pretty antiquated, but it came from the city Potosí in Bolivia which was famous for its silver mines that the conquistadores exploited. There are still some places that will use potosí as “something of great value”, though it’s not so common anymore unless you’re talking about the actual city.

moros y cristianos = “beans and rice” Usually it’s black beans and white rice, though this is literally “Moors and Christians”. You still use cristiano/a today but typically you only use moro/a in a historical sense

Also there’s the expression más sordo/a que una tapia where it means someone is really hard of hearing; literally “as deaf as a garden wall”, but I’ve never seen people use tapia ...only a muro or a cerca as “wall” or “fence”. The idea of tapiar is related to “mortar” and “masonry”

There are also some expressions related to metal and older words for it. For example, saturnino/a is an older word for “gloomy”, though it now refers to “lead-poisoning”. Saturn was linked to “moodiness” in alchemical society, and the symbol for Saturn was the older symbol for “lead”. 

This is similar to how áureo/a is “gold” but also linked to the “sun” because the Sun and gold are linked.

Another is el azogue which is the older word for mercury so it’d be “quicksilver”. You may see azogarse in some texts where it means “to be fidgetty” and it’s related both to mercury-poisoning, and probably to the idea of Mercury/Hermes being the messenger god so always on the move. 

There is also hidalgo/a which doesn’t have quite the same meaning it did originally. Today, hidalgo/a is sort of like “having noble blood”. It literally means “son of something/someone”, where originally in Spain hidalgos were the children of nobles - specifically, it tended to refer to the children of nobles who weren’t the firstborn male. Firstborn sons often got about 2/3 of the money and were expected to run the estates. The second or third or fourth children were usually on their own. It became a running joke that the firstborn became the lord, and the others would either join the army or the clergy. In Cervantes’s time, hidalgos could be among the poorest of society, even poorer than slaves in some cases. They were still “noble” in terms of blood though, and hidalgos couldn’t be tortured by the Inquisition because of it. So they were afforded certain rights, but usually tended to be poor or lower than you’d expect a noble to be. Today it just means “of nobility”, but in Cervantes’s time a hidalgo was the symbol of Spain under the Holy Roman Empire - wealthy and noble and glorious in theory, much poorer in reality.

I'd also add the phrases levar ancla "to raise anchor" or "anchors aweigh/away", where levar is rarely used today aside from nautical terms. Similarly, izar la bandera is "to hoist the flag"... not a lot of chances to use izar if it's not related to "flags" or la vela "a sail"

I also would say errar is less common today in Spanish. It's still used, but you normally say cometer un error "to make a mistake". Still, errar es humano, perdonar es divino "to err is human, to forgive divine". Also errar is weirdly irregular at times, it turns into yerro as present tense yo

And I’m also going to include when la manzana means a “city block”. Today manzana is not rare, it means “apple”. But manzana as a “city block” was originally mansana where it meant a “collection of manses/houses arranged in a block on a grid”. So there’s that. If you ever see manzana used for blocks in a city, it’s technically a separate word

Also depending on context el mar “sea” will be la mar with the feminine article. That’s usually more particular, usually meaning “open water” or deeper waters like alta mar “high seas”. The more poetic or open the water is, the more likely it is to be feminine, and so la mar isn’t quite so antiquated but it’s a little special

[randomtowns]

25 Worst, Rebutted

Continuing the list from the previous post. In that previous post, I found most of the towns on the USA Today list to be not deserving of their place. There seemed to be a particular bias against Georgia. Others were expected, and others were obvious given their statistics. All of these trends continue for the top 25 worst places to live as follows. Let’s get started with more Georgia bashing...

Avon Park, FL Been there? No

Avon Lake is one of a string of towns along US 98 south of Orlando. It features several housing developments from the 1950s, where unchecked land speculation created networks of streets plotted in otherwise undesirable stretches of land, offering housing sites with little or no infrastructure just on their location in Florida. Coastal Florida is one thing, but its inland is another entirely. It’s an agricultural region, with cattle ranching and timber vital regional industries. That sort of industry often creates what exists here: a large community of poor with just a few in the wealthy ownership classes. The article points to Avon Park's nearly 20% unemployment rate, and that 1/3 of its residents are below the national poverty line. Its also adjacent to a bombing range that bears its name.

Lawrenceville, GA Been there? Yes

Lawrenceville is a bit of a microcosm of how the Atlanta suburbs, particularly in Gwinnett County, have changed in the past 20 years. It developed as a bedroom community for the city early on, with its easy access to freeways, but gradually saw an influx of African-Americans and Latinos, changing the dynamic of the area and bringing down housing values. Lawrenceville now has a poverty rate of over 21%, and the article likely zeroes in on the town due to its higher cost of living being so close to Atlanta, and it has one of the highest median home values for any town on the list.

Winton, CA Been there? No

Winton is a small, unincorporated town located on the railroad tracks between Merced and Turlock. Like many towns in the region, it’s majority Latino (71%) and is focused on agriculture. The article points to its high 20% unemployment rate and its staggering 24% poverty rate. Looking on StreetView, it looks like a nice enough town, with well-kept middle-class homes and no real signs of blight. Even its downtown area looks pretty healthy. I couldn’t find much info on why Winton has such poor numbers, so it would be interesting to talk to people to find out what’s going on here.

Phelan, CA Been there? Yes

Yes, there had to be at least one town from this region on this list. Maybe I’m just not getting it, but the High Desert region north of San Bernardino, anchored by Victorville, has always seemed like such an awful place to live. Phelan is a network of unzoned neighborhoods etched into the desert, centered on a couple of strip malls north of Highway 138. Phelan’s median home price is the highest on the list, at over $200,000. It’s too close to the Inland Empire to reap the benefits of cheap desert land. People come out to buy acreage and to not live on top of one another. But there are few services, as pointed out by the article, and it’s still a poor area, with an 18% poverty rate.

Robstown, TX Been there? No

Robstown is a small town just outside Corpus Christi. Robstown is 93% Hispanic, most of them poor, as it has a 41% poverty rate, one of the highest on this list. Robstown has several colonias on its fringes. Colonias are federally-recognized neighborhoods, usually in incorporated areas, where housing is substandard and infrastructure, such as clean water, is lacking. Robstown is also reported as having a crime issue, something that was disputed formally by city officials, which seems to have caused the mention of it to be removed, but its ranking mostly unchanged.

Douglas, AZ Been there? Yes

Aw, Douglas... It’s an isolated border community in Cochise County. Yes, it’s a dumpy town with a lot of abandonment. And the article points out that it’s poor, with a 29% poverty rate. Douglas was an important mining and railroad town through much of the 20th century. In the later part of the last and into this century, the community saw an economic boom from the Border Patrol and the influx of retirees. But this is waning, and the town is estimated to have lost 8% of its population in 2018. Douglas’ fortunes may have changed.

Buenaventura Lakes, FL Been there? No

A large neighborhood south of Orlando and east of Disney World that has been lumped into its own CDP. The area looks nice enough, with sweeping suburban streets lined with middle-class homes, several parks and even a library branch. But the article points out the tough realities: the median income here is well below the national rate while its proximity to Orlando means its cost of living in relatively high. The article points to a lack of supermarket access, but I counted two on the north side of the community and two to its south, including a Publix. This may seem like the town is undeserving, but the crime rate here is also 49% higher than the national average. The neighborhood is heavily Hispanic, with 44% reporting Puerto Rican heritage and 69% reporting speaking a language other than English in the home. This is not the first time we’ll see the Orlando area on here.

Chaparral, NM Been there? Yes

I remember reading about Chaparral years ago. The author had heard about the community, and drove through it, noting the menacing looks he received from people and the run-down nature of the community. It’s a small community etched into the Chihuahuan Desert north of El Paso, just over the state line. Its proximity to Fort Bliss likely means it’s largely reliant on it for employment. And its straddling of both state and county lines means that services are likely lacking, particularly police protection. But the article points to a sobering fact: the poverty rate here is over 43%, the highest on the list and making it one of the poorest places in the country.

Immokalee, FL Been there? No

Unlike its neighbor, Lehigh Acres, who also makes an appearance on this list, Immokalee is an agricultural community established as a railroad town in the 19th century. Immokalee has continued to grow as local tomato farming has flourished, but the town remains horribly poor, with a poverty rate of 42%, which makes it potentially the poorest town in Florida. The population is just 3% white, with the majority (70%) being Hispanic. This is made more ironic by the location of Ave Maria, a newer, very wealthy, Catholic planned community, started by the founder of Domino’s Pizza, just a few miles south of Immokalee. The town additionally sits adjacent to Seminole tribal lands, and they’ve put in a casino on the south side of town.

Lancaster, SC Been there? No

We had to have at least one South Carolina town on the list. Lancaster sits between Charlotte and Columbia, well east of Interstate 77. Andrew Jackson, the controversial president more associated with Tennessee, was born here. With a university campus and a number of historic sites, it seems like Lancaster would be okay, but it is horribly poor. The article lists a 34% poverty rate, a 15% unemployment rate, and points out that half of the town’s residents live on less than $31,000 per year.

Micco, FL Been there? No

Coastal Florida on the list? The article seems to hit Micco on its opioid death rate. The income levels are somewhat misleading as it’s largely a retiree community, with a median age of 69, and mostly composed of mobile home communities, including the massive Barefoot Bay development at the CDP’s northern edge. Most of the community is a few unrelated neighborhoods, with its commercial core along Highway 1. Brevard County in general is known to suck, but I’m not sure that Micco should be singled out as the suckiest.

Berea, SC Been there? Yes

Located just northwest of Greenville, Berea seems like any suburban area, with a mix of middle-class and mobile homes. The article mainly hammers on the 25% poverty rate, and with a reasonable median home price, that does potentially cause issues. In driving through (I believe this is the location of the Walgreens where the cashier seemed horrified that I was buying condoms), I recall it being a little run-down, but not particularly poor. But there may be more going on here than what’s in the numbers or what can be seen from the roads.

Laurinburg, NC Been there? No

Laurinburg sits near the South Carolina state line about 50 miles southwest of Fayetteville. Despite being an education center, with the Laurinburg Institute preparatory school and St. Andrews University located within town, the article points out that the town is flush with poverty. Over 1/3 of its residents are below the poverty line, and the unemployment rate sits at 14%. Additionally, the town has had a long streak of stagnated growth, growing less than 1% between 2000 and 2010, and losing an estimated 5% of its population between 2010 and 2018. The town seems to have crime issues as well, with above-average rates. Until 2019, the town regularly appeared on “most dangerous towns” lists for North Carolina.

Beverly Hills, FL Been there? No

Beverly Hills is a small CDP of mostly a namesake neighborhood located about 90 minutes north of Tampa, between Highways 19 and 41. The crime rate is slightly elevated, the unemployment rate is above average, and the poverty rate is very high, at 28%. Looking at the median home value plus a general StreetView scan, I think this has to do with the late 2000s real estate crash hitting this isolated exurb particularly hard, and it’s just had a slow but steady comeback. Low home values are going to inevitably attract lower-income people, and lower-income people often mean elevated crime rates. This doesn’t seem to be a particularly bad town though, especially when you consider how generally awful this mess of sprawl that oozes north from Tampa is in terms of quality of life. So I don’t know why this area was singled out. Residents seem to agree, as an article published in response to this in a local paper printed incensed responses from local officials and a valid general criticism of these lists.

Silver Springs Shores, FL Been there? No

Located just outside Ocala, the CDP is mainly a neighborhood. The article again points out high unemployment and a poverty rate also above 28%. And I think the same is happening here: a hard crash in home values and a slow recovery has depressed the community, resulting in elevated crime (making recovery harder) and a lower income rate. On StreetView, it’s easy to see that there are still a number of abandoned homes in the area, with others appearing run-down or not maintained. Again though, it’s a little unfair to single out a downtrodden neighborhood in a crappy part of Florida, so I don’t know that this needs to have its place in the search engine dynamic ruined by this appearance.

Shady Hills, FL Been there? No

The article may just be trying to prove my point about the rural counties north of Tampa being particularly crappy. Unlike nearby Beverly Hills though, I think this one is a little more deserving. There are A LOT of abandoned and dilapidated homes in this area. A lack of zoning and sensible development has left the area all over the place in terms of what’s around, but it’s mostly small houses and mobile homes. The article doesn’t like its elevated poverty rate (ironically well below that of both Beverly Hills and Silver Springs Shores) or lack of services, and points out a slightly elevated drug death rate. I don’t know that anyone is going to be upset about its place here unless they are trying to sell local property.

La Homa, TX Been there? No

Let’s get off the Deep South’s back and go back to bashing poor sections of Texas. 38% poverty and 14% unemployment are striking without the context of the region. La Homa is a CDP on the western edge of the Rio Grande Valley’s urban area. It’s pretty much all colonias (see Robstown above), but appears to mostly have running water, trash collection, and paved roads. The population is over 97% Hispanic. If you’re familiar with this region, then none of this will be particularly surprising. The Valley is a tremendously poor region of mostly recent immigrants and first-generation citizens. Services are few, economic opportunities fewer, and it’s a pretty depressing place to live, it seems.

Conyers, GA Been there? Yes

Conyers is a majority-black suburb of Atlanta and the county seat of Rockdale County. Its place on the list mostly seems to be due to its poverty rate, at 30%, and it’s slightly elevated median home price, which means that it’s likely a large portion of residents are spending way too much on rent. In fact, the article also points out that the homeownership rate in Conyers is just 28%. It’s a small, middle-class bedroom community, but it also has a sizable retail district with its place on Interstate 20. It doesn’t seem particularly poor or particularly bad for Georgia. In fact, its location among pine-covered hills is attractive. However, it does have a crime problem, with a rate more than double the national average, but mostly elevated by its property crime rate.

Golden Valley, AZ Been there? Yes

This is a rough area. Like a few other communities on this list, Golden Valley is less town more than a lot of roads laid out haphazardly across the empty desert and parceled out. You can build pretty much what you want and live how you want out here, in this community 90 minutes or so from Las Vegas and just west of Kingman. Driving the back roads is a little scary due to the area’s reputation as a meth production hub. There’s good people out there, of course, but there are also people who would kill you for your shoes. The article mainly knocks it on its unemployment and poverty rates, and points out its isolation. And it is really is isolated. There are a couple of gas stations and other businesses along Highway 68, which bisects the CDP, but residents are entirely reliant on Kingman.

Poinciana, FL Been there? No

I’ve never been to Poinciana (it’s out there), but I’m familiar with it. It’s the largest community on this list, at over 67,000 people, but it’s still an unincorporated CDP of subdivisions etched out into the swamplands south of Orlando. And what a distance to Orlando: it’s a minimum 1-hour drive into town, on roads that are constantly plagued with traffic. But I mainly know Poinciana for its place as the poster child of the late 2000s housing crash in Florida. A small retirement community up to that point, Poinciana was heavily developed just before the crash, with most construction being large houses. The values plummeted, and people left when their underwater mortgages were foreclosed on. The homes were resold to poorer, mostly non-white residents, while the wealthier found homes in areas closer in. But the article points to the area’s lack of services as its main issue. For almost 70,000 residents, there is a Walmart, a Publix, and a small Latino-focused supermarket, surrounding by just a few restaurants along a single strip of roadway. This puts residents at the northern end of the community at a minimum of 5 miles from any sort of retail businesses. To make things worse, the main route north out of Poinciana is a two-lane toll road.

Irondale, GA Been there? No

Irondale is a far-flung Atlanta suburb, along US 41 just south of Jonesboro. It has a high poverty rate, at 26%, but the article focuses on its violent crime rate, which is significantly higher than the national average. The median home value is likely statistically offset by a huge mobile home park included as part of the CDP, but the home values appear to decreasing as the area becomes less desirable and its distance from Atlanta more of an issue.

Beecher, MI Been there? No

Anyone familiar with Michigan is probably surprised to see that this is the state’s only appearance on this list. But leave it to Flint. It’s not quite Flint: Beecher is a CDP just north of Flint and outside the city limits. However, it’s pretty much suburban Flint. Many of the long-abandoned homes have been demolished, but what’s left are overgrown, empty plots next to small and dilapidated homes. There are well-maintained houses and pretty lawns, but there are also unpaved streets. The article points to its crippling unemployment rate of 23%, one of the highest on the list, and that that rate has been sustained and likely resulted in the 38% poverty rate. But past the terrible weather, the perpetually dismal economy and having to say you’re from Flint, Beecher’s crime rate is at least close to the national average.

Fair Oaks, GA Been there? Yes

The list wasn’t quite done with suburban Atlanta, and finishes its trashing of the region by rounding out each side of the city with a shot at one of its small northern CDP suburbs. Fair Oaks sits directly across the road from Dobbins Air Force Base, stuck between the cities of Smyrna and Marietta. Many of the homes were built before the base, and the base only worked to depress their values. Restrictions on flights over the community have been periodically negotiated, but the small sizes of the homes and its location in the heart of Cobb County has brought in a large number of poorer Latino and African-American residents. With a 32% poverty rate and an excessive crime rate 38% above the national average, only its relatively close proximity to freeways and much wealthier areas to the east make it seem like it has hope still.

Donaldsonville, LA Been there? No

In Louisiana, being a majority African-American town is not a good sign. Not because there’s anything wrong with the people, but it means that racism is going to keep a lot of people away. Historically, it shows that not many people want to live there, especially when it’s a town of this size. Donaldsonville is poor. A 39% poverty rate places it as the poorest place in Louisiana. It’s struggled economically. An industrial and river town, historically, the town has seen little if any benefit from the energy production to the south partially due to the highway configuration, which routes traffic well around the town to use the nearby Sunshine Bridge. Though it’s located along the famous River Road, Louisiana Highway 1, Donaldsonville is too far from the plantations and on the wrong side of the river to be viable as a stop, with its portion taken up by heavy industry, including the nearby ammonia plant.

Yazoo City, MS Been there? No

And you thought that there was just going to be that one little entry from the Mississippi Delta? No, the authors continue their bashing of the South by pointing to the oddly-named town’s embarrassing numbers: 20% unemployment, and a 42% poverty rate. Plus, they point out maybe the worst statistic: 20% of resident households live on an income of $10,000 or less per year. Like most of the area, Yazoo is majority African-American. Well away from the Mississippi River, it doesn’t seem to reap much benefit from its location beyond the typical Mississippi involvement in timber. The downtown area is mostly abandoned, with boarded-up shops, made all the more sad by music perpetually piped in on outdoor speakers. With its Amtrak station and Delta location, Yazoo has attempted to make good on the region’s Blues tourism. But it seems like the generational poverty so famous here is going to stick around for a few more generations, unless someone can offer a dramatic solution.