Thursday, October 30, 2008

election stuff to peruse

just a few things of interest:

If you go to http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Missouri_2008_ballot_measures and click on the name of the ballot issue, it will give you more information about who is funding the campaign as well as arguments both for and against the issues.

Another link:

http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/president/w hos-ahead/polling/index.html.

You can look at dozens of different polls on the election - national and state results

last one - http://americanpast.richmond.edu/voting/state level.html look at results for almost all the Presidential elections.

a CH diet

sitting at lunch yesterday with some of my co-workers and this idea hit me: a diet of things that start with the letters CH.

Here's just a partial list:

Chicken, chili, cheese, chips, chocolate, Chinese - probably enough to go on right there but there are more:

chimichangas
chalupas
cherry pie &/or cobbler or cherry tomato
Chablis or Champagne or Chardonnay or Chenin Blanc or Chianti
Cheerios
cheeseburgers
chess pie
chestnuts
chick peas
chicory
chives

I'll bet there are more but this is quite a list and if asked to survive eating only these foods; I'd make it just fine. (Might have to ad lib and allow "chocolate milk"!

and charcoal to cook some of this.

Monday, October 20, 2008

We are getting old.

Not to be morose but of late my extended family is aging and getting sicker.

I have an uncle in his 90s who is bedridden in a nursing home and can't really do anything but eat and when they prop him up in a chair he can sit for awhile.

My dad is 86 and OK but weak from trying to care for his wife who just had a hip-replacement. He's only able to spend about an hour a day with her at the hospital. She also is beginning to show some Alzheimers which is making things doubly hard on my dad.

One detail that makes this harder to accept is how very large my dad's family (all my aunts and uncles) used to be. There were 12 at one time all living. My grandmother died in 1970 and then one by one her children have died off leaving only 4 - my dad, his brother James mentioned above, an aunt Amy in her 90s and aunt Ida Mae in her late 70s or maybe early 80s. One of the saddest things is as each one died, hardly any of the the surviving brothers or sisters were able to attend the funerals.

I know that all this awaits my own children someday but I'd like to spare them the heartache, the hard work and whatever else goes along with growing old. But I know we'll do what we need to do and so will they.

And the world will spin around a few more times.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Future Farmers of America

When I was in high school, even though as a City boy at the time, we thought of anyone wearing one of the denim jackets with the gold FFA symbol embroidered on the back as; kickers. There was usually another word in front of that but you can guess.

Secretly though, I admired those jackets – even wanted one for many reasons.

40-something odd years later I find myself a sort-of farmer although I like the term rancher better. To me farmer says “row crops” and things you grow and rancher says things you raise. Right now we aren’t raising anything but kids and dogs, but I digress.

The editor of Ozarks Farm and Neighbor, for whom I write, asked me to attend a local Beef conference. I went, listened, ate well (very nice prime rib – what would you expect?) and came away with this observation: I can’t do the math but the average age of the 160+ attendees was older than I am (55 and fast approaching 56!) There were a few younger couples but most of the folks were my age and older.
One of the presenters showed a chart revealing that even though prices aren’t great and the economy is in shambles, one bright spot for beef producers is we – the U.S. – are exporting more beef than we import. And this for only the second year in the last 20 or so that his chart covered.

But if the people in the room are an indication, this trend will swing back the other way unless there starts to be many more kids wearing those cool FFA jackets again. I see them – my daughter was in FFA for 2 years. But I don’t see lots of them. Who is going to produce the beef for us to eat in a few years?

Another simplistic observation that shows my total lack of economic knowledge: doesn’t it make some sense that if I’m shipping out so many tons of beef to countries around the world but some of those countries ship back almost as many tons of beef – what if some of it just stayed where it was? Imagine the reduced shipping, packing, storage costs? Reminds me of the C.S Lewis comment about “being sixpence none the richer;” if I give you sixpence so you can buy me something as a gift, I’m “none the richer” once you give it back. We may have a net gain in exports versus imports but what about the cost? Some bright MBA will have to explain that one to me.

But the long term issue seems to be how do we encourage more young people to go into or stay in farming and ranching? My oldest daughter and her husband raise cattle in Montana but what will keep them at it? And for how long? And if they stop – where will our next pound of beef come from? Well in my case I know – our freezer because we raised it ourselves and will continue to do so as long as we have some land and grass.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Which party is good for business?

In one of my other lives I occasionally write for a local business publication and in that I get to interview various business owners and the like. I really enjoy meeting people and getting an insider's look at their business.

Yesterday I met with a young man who runs a very successful business selling safety equipment and information for other businesses. (Once the article has been published I have some interesting insights to share about how Google works that I picked up on in our interview. Check back soon.) He basically helps them comply with OSHA and the myriad of regulations that govern businesses and hopefully protect workers.

He leans Republican in his politics and appreciates that they typically are more business friendly. He feels however that a Democratic administration would likely have more impact and improve his business since typically more legislation, more regulation etc. are likely - i.e. bigger government. So that is good for his business.

I've never thought about this sort of paradox before.

It's All Over But the Counting

Call me a pessimist, call me a realist, call me premature but I think this election is over.

Early reports from last night's debate support this for me.

I don't know what John McCain can do to turn this thing around. Every time I see him on TV he reminds me of Bob Dole and if you are old enough to remember Bob Dole, he gamely tried to oust then Pres. Clinton from office back in 1996. The score? Try 379 to 159. How about 31 states in the blue column and 19 in the red. Can you spell landslide?

Many of my conservative friends may think I've gone to the dark side. I simply see this as a lost cause. Maybe, just maybe, Palin could have helped to right the sinking ship but since the experts have seen fit to have her attempt to be something she is not (experienced on Foreign Policy to name one) she spends most of her time trying to explain things she doesn't have the knowledge or experience to do. I think she was a great choice, is most likely a great person and would serve our country well but ... a lost opportunity.

Conservatives are often accused of being one issue voters - abortion - which leads - stop and do not pass go - right to the Supreme Court and many will weep and wail over the lost opportunity to have McCain appoint any new justices.

But the reality is, even if any of the oldest and more liberal justices were to retire, the voting make-up of those who confirm would stall or pre-empt most of McCain's candidates and it has not been proven that McCain would appoint justices who would be acceptable in every way to conservatives anyway. That would remain to be seen.

On the other hand Obama will likely get three appointments during his first four years - Stevens is 88, Ginsburg is 75 but not in great health and Breyer is 70. So what if Obama gets to appoint their respective replacements? The overall make-up and balance of the court does not change.

Lewinsky, Travelgate, Vince Foster, Hillary - all notwithstanding - we survived 8 years of Clinton. I'm sure we can survive 4 years of Obama. Sorry 'bout that.

Monday, October 6, 2008

The Assassination of Jesse James

Late to the party but we just watched this, this weekend. First reaction – way too long, not very good, kind of odd BUT …

It is a GREAT LOOKING movie. Roger Deakins, the cinematographer did some really neat things. Lots of interesting shots and angles. Beautiful landscapes and scenery. I enjoyed these parts a lot.

Soundtrack – odd juxtaposition in that the score is nothing like what I’d expect from a sort-of western (what else would you call a movie about Jesse James?) set in the 1880s in Missouri. But it sounds really good also.

When you have lots of narration, which this movie does, it may mean the screenplay was lacking and they had to say all this stuff they couldn’t show (If they had tried to show it all, this movie would have gone on forever!) but I really liked the narrator – Hugh Ross. No idea what else he has done or who he is but I liked his style and diction.

For a bigger budget movie, I thought most of the gun-shots sounded like toy cap guns. Who knows – maybe shells in the late 1800s didn’t have much gunpowder but whenever there was gunfire, it sounded small No ooomph.

And one scene of gunfire was strange. Two guys in a bedroom firing away at each other –we are talking almost point-blank range and when all is said and done, each of them barely wounds the other? And these guys rode with Jesse James?

And Brad Pitt? He’s certainly not afraid to shed his pretty boy image. Since Jesse was killed at the young age of 34 – maybe someone younger should have played this part. But I'll give him credit for a pretty convincing slam against the wall when he got shot.

If you want to watch something different; that it is. But be prepared to invest a chunk of time.

Saturday, October 4, 2008

Playing possum

Last week I was getting things in and out of a small shed in our back-back yard. I made several trips when I pulled a box off a shelf and tucked behind it was a possum who made a snarling sort of face at me.

I tried to encourage him/her out of the shed with no luck. After several pokes I began to notice a very strong smell. He/she had ... - well you know. As GW Bush would have said "dookie."

Needless to say the stubborn possum met his/her eventual demise but I guess he/she got me worse as the smell was still there today when I began to clean out the shed.

I mentioned this to someone and they said "what do you expect from an animal that eats dead things?

Now I know. And let's put it this way, what possums leave behind smells worse than anything I've ever smelled.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Travel stories

Returning from Atlanta (Sept. 20) during which I realized I like traveling by plane – less and less. Some observations:

First – rude TSA folks – actually ONE TSA folk in Atlanta. Standing in line barefooted waiting for my shoes to come out of the x-ray thing. The line is jammed up because the guy in front of me apparently has some suspiciously-shaped thing in a bag so the radiologist was taking his/her sweet time reviewing the picture. Meanwhile people are piling up in the narrow line to wait for our shoes etc.

The TSA fellow started asking then he came close to yelling for everyone to please move down. None of us could move because the guy in front of me was waiting for his now overly radiated bag. We couldn’t go anywhere and if there is one thing I know about airports and security these days – don’t go anywhere you aren’t supposed to. The TSA is like the IRS – shoot first and ask questions later. Except I didn’t see any guns. Tasers maybe?

But the guy wouldn’t move and the TSA guy would never simply address him directly but rather voiced his command louder and louder over the entire helpless group.

Ob. #2 – ubiquitous texting. Once on the plane I sat next to a young woman who spent most of her time rapidly moving her fingers over a miniscule keypad of her blackberry-like device. Obviously texting someone. The odd thing is she would text – seconds later would come the reply, she’d stand up (no easy task with the baggage area overhead), turn around and holler something to her text-mate in the rear of the plane. This went on until the flight attendant told everyone to please turn off all electronic devices.

Ob. #3 – once we landed in Springfield we had to wait for a few minutes before we could de-plane. Two guys in front of me both had i-Phones. Each one of them was checking local weather. Here’s the odd thing – one i-Phone said it was 63 degrees and the other said 67. We talk about how quickly the weather can change in Missouri but I didn’t think it would be that different, that fast!