California elections

While I generally try to keep the conversation local, there are some serious issues on the February ballot which will have direct consequences to valley residents. Of course, the Presidential Primary will affect all of us and there are many topics there worthy of our attention as they will have an effect on us for a long time to come. There are the early rumbles of our 3rd District elections with lots of strong feelings on what the future holds for us and which vision of the valley will prevail. There are propositions on the state ballot which deserve our attention as well. We are already seeing millions of advertising dollars being spent on the four propositions 94-97, pro and con, regarding the compacts with four Indian casinos. They will take some understanding of the facts in order to make informed choices. These compact addenda are designed to increase the number of slot machines permissible — in other words, casino expansion — which the people of California voted on several years ago. Voters then said ‘no’ by a margin of 67.5 to 32.5 percent – more than 2 to 1.

 

There are some interesting topics to explore here, such how does it work that the governor and the legislature can circumvent the will of the people and how does one explain the disappearance of the paperwork until after the comment period had expired? These are some of the questions being asked of the procedure that brings us to the point of voting on these propositions even though it may be declared a moot point after the election.

 

I have come across some articles recently that have some pro and con information for you to peruse and help you to understand which claims are true and which are not; which claims could be true and which are not definite by any stretch of the imagination. I know that we are all savvy enough in this day and age to know that many of the ads will have false or misleading information to get you to vote their way. Look at the information yourself and make up your own mind. Be aware that what is good for the goose is good for the gander, and that once things are approved for one person, it is hard to say no to the second.

The articles I refer to are “California: Betting Against the House” by Cosmo Garvin (1/11/2008) at www.newsreview.com  and “California Propositions 94-97: Indian Gaming Compacts-NO” by Peter L. Stahl (1/7/2008) at www.californiaprogressreport.com.

 

Bad cows

Well, I guess it shouldn’t really surprise me, but the poor humble cow who has contributed so much to our society, even to those who are so ungrateful, is under attack again. It was brought to my attention that in a report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (this is why it doesn’t surprise me) titled “Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options,” animal agriculture is named as a leading contributor to climate change.  Frankly, I haven’t heard much that is more ludicrous than this. Even worse, in October 2007 an article ran in the Los Angeles Times called “Killer Cow Emissions,” which exposed the real message — that people would do more for the environment by giving up eating meat than getting rid of their SUV.

 

If it weren’t so ridiculous, it would be not only pathetic but repetitive. Do you remember the cry “Cattle-free in ’93” (that’s 1993), and then “Cattle-free in ’03”? Maybe, if you weren’t in the cattle business, you had not heard this before, but if you were, or are, you are all too familiar with the never-ending onslaught of negative articles, “news” programs and late night talk show skits demeaning cows and talking about how bad red meat is for you. Apparently, because the radicals were not able to wean the American public (or the rest of the world for that matter) off red meat or meat in general, they now have a new tactic: to declare that cows are bad for the environment. The issue is the methane that is produced by their four-stomach system as it turns grass into something useful to mankind. Note that this is something mankind has never been able to do without cows.

Let’s look at this in more detail. The cow eats grass and other greenery, including alfalfa and oat hay when the grass is short, drinks water, processes it through four steps and produces some of that water back into the ground; fertilizer which makes the grass grow taller next year in that spot, and about a hundred products which humans use each and every day. Even if you don’t consume meat, you probably use “natural” products such as leather belts and shoes which come from where? Do you eat Jell-O, cake or use gelatin in your juice to make your nails grow better? Perhaps you use steer manure, bone meal or horn meal on your flower garden. Do you fly on airplanes or have a chronic disease like diabetes? Have you had to replace a tooth or part of the disks in your spine? You might be surprised to find out that all of these things, and a thousand others, contain something from the humble cow.

 

Even the candles you light for your romantic dinners have contributions from the cow. In fact, there is evidence that the amino acids found in beef are not available anywhere else, and they contribute a great deal to human health. I have heard that mankind stood up on two legs rather than four because of meat, so how can that be bad?

Given that this is an election season, and, really, when is it not election season, I think there is more than enough hot air coming from the politicians to more than compensate for what cows contribute to greenhouse gas. What is sad is that they don’t contribute even a quarter of what cows do to mankind’s well-being.

 

Speaking of air

I heard the other day an interesting announcement in Science Journal coming from the European Union — they are going to re-examine their emission standards. Apparently, they have become concerned about the impact of producing huge quantities of biofuels, which would require providing more crop space by eliminating some of their forests. When this is juxtaposed against the contributions of the current forests over a 30-year period, it seems that keeping the forests may actually be a better solution.

 

This caught my attention because I am very concerned about how our governor intends to make good on all his new air standards and biofuels production when we farmers know perfectly well that we already cannot produce what is being promised for a variety of reasons, such as not enough land; the need to grow more than one crop; not all areas of the country can produce the same crop; and little details like that. I wonder when some common sense is going to catch up to the governor, or is this just something to placate the professional environmentalists? Is this really just something to make the activists happy?

 

Jan and Deana

About a year ago, my longtime hay manager and friend noticed that I no longer had any outdoor cats at my house, and he offered me two kittens that he had just found.

It is essential, when you live this far from town, to have outdoor cats to keep the rodent population under control. As my last outdoor cat had succumbed to old age, I was reduced to one indoor cat who thought mice were fun toys to be played with and then let go to find a hiding place someplace in the house. I have talked about Miss Ellie before, and although I adore her, I need fortification on the outside lest I have to give my grandmother’s house over to the rats, mice and all other creatures wanting to make a home here.

 

When the two black and white kittens first made their appearance, I was assured that their mother was a great mouser and that they should be as well. Thinking that they were brother and sister, I named them Jan and Dean after the surfer duo of the 1950s and ’60s.

Of course, I took them to the vet to get their immunizations, which because of the wild creatures that come by requires rabies vaccination as well, where I learned that Dean had to be renamed Deana, because she was a girl, too.

Well, the next few months went by with numerous hunts for mice, rats and even the occasional gopher. I was “gifted” with lumps of entrails and a head from time to time on the back porch.

It came time for “the girls,” as we call them, to get spayed, so again they went to the vet and came home for a ten-day restriction to the garage, where they always spend the night to keep out of the reach of animals who might fancy them as a meal.

Every evening my husband would take their dish of canned food out to them to go with the dry food; they had free choice. He would always come back with some tale of what they had caught that day and laid out for him to admire.

 

One day, however, he came back with a fantastic tale of how they had killed a small rattlesnake that had somehow gotten into the garage. I was horrified as I had a dog bitten by a rattlesnake that survived but had a tough go of it for a while.

The girls never suffered any ill effects from their encounter with the slithery kind and I don’t believe the snake had a chance to bite either one of them.

I was not aware that cats were so deadly to snakes but I have to admit that I feel much safer now that Jan and Deana are patrolling the place.

They go outside every morning except when it is raining — they would rather sit on the heater vents in the garage then — and they both examine all parts of the garden for “pests.”

They even provide entertainment in the form of leaps in the air when they attack a particular grass plant they are fond of. Or maybe they are trying to kill it, I’m not too sure.

 

In any event, they leap in the air and fall into the plant and then roll out. They bat at each other through the plant and hurl themselves through the grass landing on top of it.

I don’t know if it feels good to them or what the attraction is to this particular plant, but it certainly is fun to watch them leaping and playing with each other.

What a delight to share a life with them!