Editorial / Opinions

This issue I worked on a piece about Drury University's Animal Rights program that we mentioned unfavorably in our Rumor Mill section last issue. This animal rights program came about from a total of $2 million in gifts from Bob Barker, of "The Price is Right." Bob Barker’s daily message on the game show about spaying and neutering your pets was one I always agreed with. My mom said one of the world’s big tragedies is the millions of unwanted, unloved, adorable puppies and kittens in the world. I’m an animal lover with a bleeding heart for the strays and the sick ones. I know I’ll be preaching to the choir here, but I think it is vital to understand this. There is a gigantic difference between not wanting to be cruel to animals, to loving your pets and treating your livestock well, and in raising animals’ status morally or worse, legally, to the same level as people, by considering their “rights.”

I’ve been to a few recent state and regional meetings of Rural Electric Coops and heard some real good news. Folks have woken up their representatives and senators. They've told them charging people in mid-America a carbon tax on their electric bill is not very popular with voters. This is good; keep contacting them, about this and any other issue that disturbs you. The voice of America is strong and you can make a difference. Enough politics.

Many years ago, I made one of the best financial decisions of my lifetime. I had the unique opportunity to be the first importer of a certain breed of beef cattle from a foreign country. The outlay of cash was significant, but if the breed panned out, I stood to make lots of money by being the first source of the new genetics to the rest of the United States. After much study and deliberation, I passed on the chance.  The breed didn’t offer much to U.S. beef producers and I really don’t think the people who took that chance profited much (if any) from their risk, since the breed has really become just a novelty. That turned out to be a really good decision on my part, but… I have made many, many bad decisions.

This issue I worked on a piece about Drury University's Animal Rights program that we mentioned unfavorably in our Rumor Mill section last issue. This animal rights program came about from a total of $2 million in gifts from Bob Barker, of "The Price is Right." Bob Barker’s daily message on the game show about spaying and neutering your pets was one I always agreed with. My mom said one of the world’s big tragedies is the millions of unwanted, unloved, adorable puppies and kittens in the world. I’m an animal lover with a bleeding heart for the strays and the sick ones. I know I’ll be preaching to the choir here, but I think it is vital to understand this. There is a gigantic difference between not wanting to be cruel to animals, to loving your pets and treating your livestock well, and in raising animals’ status morally or worse, legally, to the same level as people, by considering their “rights.”

Part 2

These things I remember most vividly about being raised on the farm; the enormous love of my family. Surrounded by my parents, two grandmothers and one grandfather and one set of great-grandparents, it seemed that, surely, I, an only child, would be “spoiled too rotten to live.” Indeed, “Pa,” as I called Grandfather Alsup, often admonished Mother, “There’s no place on that boy for a stick.” More often than not his admonishment only led to a postponement of the inevitable punishment, and made it worse.

Most of us involved in agriculture are very concerned about pending legislation that would tax livestock producers based on “methane emissions” by their animals. Essentially, this would force most of us out of the business because our cattle burp and… well… expel “gaseous” matter out the other end. I always suspected the government would find a way to tax our very existence and it appears this might be the way. I admit that I’ve been overly concerned with this prospect for some time, but events of last week have left me even more paranoid about my own personal future.

Irecently read an article on a “global warming expert,” Lord Stern of Brentford, a professor at the London School of Economics, who offered his opinion on the best solution to “save the planet from global warming.” His solution? Stop eating meat. That’s the message being dissipated to the masses.

Afew weekends ago Pat and I went down to Duncan, Okla., to a literary festival.  Duncan is about 80 miles south of Oklahoma City on Highway 81, it's a neat farm/ranch community that straddles the Chisholm Trail. The town has a wonderful civic center for such events, as well as a historical museum of the trail drives.

Winter will soon be upon us and all of the old-timers (a group of which I’m rapidly gaining membership in) that I hang around with, are beginning to make their predictions based on “the signs.” My father observed the natural occurrences when he was alive and always seemed to put a lot of confidence in the hints that mother nature provided, but he once confided in me that the best two signs he relied on to begin the winter months were:  1) A barn full of hay, and 2) enough wood cut by Nov. 1 to get you through the worst of winters. He firmly believed that if those two goals were accomplished, even the harshest of winters wouldn’t seem so bad.

As I write this I’ve just finished reading an article about a “global warming expert,” Lord Stern of Brentford, a former chief economist of the World Bank and now a professor at the London School of Economics, who offered his opinion on the best solution to “save the planet from global warming.” His solution? Stop eating meat. Yeah, folks, that’s the message being dissipated to the masses. Somehow, by stopping eating, and by eating he means raising, feeding, transporting, slaughtering, processing and then eating meat, we will stop the greenhouse gases from our cows from destroying the planet.