Well shit Doc, where the hell do I start!?!? Things have changed one helluva lot in Iowa since you left West DesMoines.
Nitrates in the rivers are worse. Only an idiot or severely desperate and starving person ever eats any fish out of them. Cancer clinics for carp and catfish would be packed to overflowing if made available. The only fish that seem to thrive are those damned Vietnamese, algae-eating, jumping carp.
Crop rotation in central Iowa is a thing of the past. What few farmers are left just heap on more fertilizer, weed killer and pesticide. Many of the morons have ripped out the windbreaks and other trees along the creeks their grandfathers planted 70 years ago. They can't afford to let an inch go out of production. Never mind there aren't enough rail cars around to cart off the harvest. Aint unusual to see corn piled three stories high outside the grain elevators.
It's been since before you left here most of the small familly operations are gone. The days have vanished since the small farmer had his own hogs, cattle, milk cows, chickens and vegetable garden. He has to be up to his neck in either just corn, soybeans or his ass and soul indebted to the meatpackers that set him up with those ecological disasters called livestock confinement operations.
The meat packers make a mockery of the states anti-trust laws by not only owning their processing plants but also the afore-mentioned farmers, trucking companies, purchasing stations and the state legislators that keep their backs turned. Several of these companies received subsidies to train unskilled workers for their first three months, most of whom were shit-canned on day 91. The vast majority of these workers are undocumented. They are paid not quite the rate as the local workers they displaced received in 1973. Hell, they lied through their teeth to them telling them Iowa didn't even get cold in the winter.
Shit, I could go on for page after page. Look, I know not everyone is wild about corn made ethanol. The dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is a testament to the toxicity of mid-western agriculture. All I'm saying is we're just as screwed using ethanol as not. You might just as well save a few bucks converting to it. My perspective here tells me boycotting or resisting the change aint gonna make one difference anyway.
Nick
When I was a little girl my dad (see link below) worked for a company that specialized in solar power. He told me that when I grew up that everything would be solar powered!
Gee dad, wrong again.
He also told me that if I was Jewish and got tattooed that I was going to hell.
I said, "but dad, we eat pork and shellfish..."
He said, "there are degrees to hell..."
I'm beginning to suspect that dad didn't have all the answers.
In fact, I'm beginning to suspect that no one does.
Its a shame that the folks of the USA dont embrace more eco friendly technology than they do. On a recent trip home to my Dekalb Illinois back in May I discovered that Rochelle Ill. had this gigantic windfarm being erected. By that I mean that these windmills that could generate a buttload of electricity were being placed on the flat as a flitter terrain of northern illinois which is usually windy. There must have been about two dozen of these montrous devices going up. Nice thing about it all, federal regulations mandate that any 'kilowatt' being produced by such a device can be and must be sold to the utility at the same 'kilowatt hour price', damn, what a deal. Basically this means that good ole Commonwealth Edison I grew up with in Dekalb has to pay for the windmill produced electricity at the same rate it charges customers. Talk about pounding sand up an orifice!!! I digress.....my kids are younger, 16 and soon 18 and their world will not be as nice a one as the earth I grew up in. Damn shame. But hopefully,,,some entrepeneur will come up with the technology to clean up our collective screw up of messing with mother nature. Wouldn't it have been nice if we all, myself included, had listened back in the sixties and seventies, eighties too, to the folks who predicted the climate changes, etc. What were we thinking.......uh, pass that doobie over here...
Oh yes, how right you are, as always. They can show repeated photos of their kill, like a hunting braggart, but notice, no photos of caskets draped with the American flag! You see none of those, do you? They don't exist to this evil vile administration.
America, your children are disposable, especially if they are underprivileged, black or in search of a cheaper way to go to school.
There is no war in Iraq. That would indicate that someone was able to fight back. There is only the occupation of Iraq and we will be there until they procure all the oil that America needs to power their SUVs and Hummers.
Our democracy's fucked, the fat's in the fire
We're on the fast ride to hell
A la American empire....
As they make us Ben Dover....
Ann Coulter is a bitch. Ah-hem. I feel better now. Just had to get that one out of my system. No sooner is ZARQUAWI dead, are they right back to plugging Coulter's book, same as yesterday??? Where, or what are the priorities anymore!
Doc, I salute you 100% on your thoughts on today's journalism, or in some cases, lack of it. Murrow would be proud! Good night...and good luck.
Pages