Issues of concern to people who live in the west: property rights, water rights, endangered species, livestock grazing, energy production, wilderness and western agriculture. Plus a few items on western history, western literature and the sport of rodeo... Frank DuBois served as the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003. DuBois is a former legislative assistant to a U.S. Senator, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior, and is the founder of the DuBois Rodeo Scholarship.
Monday, May 06, 2013
Optimism for Congress to Break Stalemate, Protect New Public Lands
As the 112th Congress gaveled to a close last January,
many wondered if Washington D.C.’s toxic political environment would
continue to compromise popular land conservation bills. Setting aside
lands for hunters and anglers, hikers and backpackers, mountain bikers
and horseback riders is a uniquely American phenomenon that has remained
a bipartisan endeavor for more than a century. But that came to a halt during the 112th, which was the first Congress since World War II not to protect a single new acre of public lands. Now, only a few months into the 113th Congress, we’re
beginning to see potential signs of a thaw as elected officials from
both sides of the aisle have begun to introduce legislation to protect
America’s most prized landscapes. Just last week Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO) introduced the Hermosa
Creek Watershed Protection Act of 2013. The bill would protect 108,000
acres of the San Juan National Forest, while also preserving all
historic uses of the forest, including mountain biking, motorized
recreation, selective timber harvesting and grazing. The bill mirrors a piece of legislation introduced by Senator Bennet during the previous Congress with one exception: This time around, Representative Scott Tipton (R-CO) joined the effort by introducing companion legislation in the House of Representatives. The bipartisan effort by members of Colorado’s Congressional Delegation comes on the heels of a similar bipartisan push in Montana. There, Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) and Representative Steve Daines (R-MT) are working together to protect the pristine North Fork of the Flathead River near Glacier National Park from new oil and gas development and mining...more
Al Gore wants to ‘awaken’ Rupert Murdoch on climate change
Al Gore hopes to cross paths again with media titan Rupert Murdoch to pitch him on the dangers of climate change. Here’s the tail end of Steve Fishman’s big new Gore profile in New York magazine: And
there’s one specific capitalist he hopes to enlighten. Gore tells me of
his ambition to have another meeting with Rupert Murdoch, to talk him
through the issue, convert him to the cause. “There is still hope that
he will awaken to the reality of this,” Gore says. “It would make a huge
difference if he would.” Fox News, The Wall Street Journal’s editorial pages and other
Murdoch-controlled outlets are skeptical of the scientific consensus on
climate change and its risks...more
Former park rangers launch group to protect America’s national parks from irresponsible oil & gas drilling
A big player in Canada’s oil sands believes the Keystone XL pipeline
will eventually be needed to keep expanding production of the resource. “Long-term, we do need Keystone to be able to grow the volumes in Canada,” Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. President Steve Laut tells The Globe and Mail. The comment could provide political ammunition to environmental groups battling TransCanada Corp.’s proposed pipeline. Keystone opponents argue it will be a catalyst for expanding oil sands production, thereby worsening greenhouse gas emissions...more
Jewell gets first up-close look at offshore operations
U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell is no stranger to the oil patch, but until Friday, her exposure was limited to land. The new perspective came courtesy of the Cabinet official's visit to an Ensco semisubmersible drilling rig and Chevron's Blind Faith production platform in the Gulf of Mexico — the kind of facilities that were off-limits to women when Jewell worked for Mobil Oil three decades ago. “I've never been on an offshore rig,” Jewell observed Friday after donning a hard hat and gloves on Chevron's platform 160 miles from New Orleans. “When I was in the oil business, they didn't let women offshore.” Now, Jewell is in charge of regulating the industry. It's a remarkable transformation for the mechanical engineer turned Interior secretary who now oversees energy development on 1.7 billion acres of federal waters. Along the way, she has been the CEO of Recreational Equipment Inc. and spent 19 years in the commercial banking industry, including a stint as an energy analyst. Friday, she got an up-close view of federal regulators conducting offshore inspections at oil production and drilling facilities...more
Popular eastern Idaho rock climbing spot threatened with permanent closure
The federal Bureau of Land Management may permanently close a popular
climbing site in southeastern Idaho, over opposition from local rock
climbers who argue the plan is too restrictive and was pushed through
without stakeholder input. The 400-acre area known as Castle Rocks has been closed off and on to
climbers since 2003, and may close permanently sometime this summer.
Agency officials say they hope make a decision this month, depending how
much feedback they receive from the public. Mike Courtney, BLM field manager in Burley, said both the
Shoshone-Bannock and Shoshone-Paiute tribes consider the land sacred and
are worried cultural resources could be destroyed if climbing
continues. BLM surveys have determined the region contains important
archaeological resources and artifacts, including spearheads dating back
thousands of years. Citing those and other reasons, a report from the BLM dated April 12
proposed closing the Cassia County area to climbers for good, although
hikers and hunters would still have access to existing trails. Courtney
said the plan targets climbing because soil erosion and vegetation
destruction are most severe around staging areas, the spot near rock
walls where climbers prepare for their assent. But the BLM's plan has left regional climbers upset. They argue
they've offered less prohibitive proposals that still protect the area's
abundant cultural heritage and environment. “They reversed course really quickly and went from considering the
climbing management plan to coming to a decision that banned climbing
right away,” said R.D. Pascoe, a policy director with the climber
advocacy group Access Fund. Pascoe argues rock climbers are willing to avoid historical or
archeologically significant sites, and his organization and local
climbers came up with a plan that offered guidelines for when the BLM
can close certain routes. The BLM's most recent proposal, he said, unnecessarily eliminates all climbing access...more
Geez, they find some arrowheads and shut down the whole thing.
Best I recall there were no background checks, registration or other restrictions on Native American weapons, so you'll find remnants everywhere. Haven't seen the BLM report, but this could be a formula for shutting down the West.
Geez, they find some arrowheads and shut down the whole thing.
Best I recall there were no background checks, registration or other restrictions on Native American weapons, so you'll find remnants everywhere. Haven't seen the BLM report, but this could be a formula for shutting down the West.
BLM Spending $100K to 'Increase Knowledge of Ethical Behavior'--Among ATV Drivers
The federal government will spend $100,000 over five years on a
Bureau of Land Management program to "increase knowledge of ethical
behavior" among people using off-road vehicles. “The purpose of this project is to increase knowledge of and
conformance with the Utah Ride On Campaign message, and reduce incidents
involving property and natural resource damage, unsafe practices,
visitor conflicts and enhance access to public lands by improving
recreationists’ behavior knowledge of ethical behavior among
recreationists on BLM lands,” the grant description said. The main objective of the campaign is to “maintain and enhance access
to public lands by improving recreationists’ behavior, increase
knowledge of ethical behavior among recreationists on public lands,” and
“reduce incidents involving property and natural resource damage,
unsafe practices, visitor conflicts.”...more
Guess you can't teach "ethical behavior" to rock climbers.
I could support this type of program...if it was taught to federal employees.
Tomorrow I'll get started on the DuBois University for Ethical Behavior by Federal Employees. It'll be way out in rough country. You know, so you'll have to ride an ATV to get to class.
Guess you can't teach "ethical behavior" to rock climbers.
I could support this type of program...if it was taught to federal employees.
Tomorrow I'll get started on the DuBois University for Ethical Behavior by Federal Employees. It'll be way out in rough country. You know, so you'll have to ride an ATV to get to class.
South Texas Ranchers tell Sen. Cornyn border is not secure
Senator John Cornyn visited Brooks County today to hear issues ranchers and authorities in the area are facing with the influx of immigrants making their way 60 miles north of the border. “We’ve rescued them, they are on the verge of dying out here and we’ve rescued hundreds of them,” rancher Dr. Mike Vickers said. Mike and his wife Linda Vickers live minutes from the Falfurrias checkpoint, making their land a popular crossing for illegal immigrants. “We’re running about a hundred a month and this is just a little quarter mile of fence line,” Linda said. The couple finds clothing, trash, water jugs and evidence of human smugglers are on their property daily. “Some of the ranchers in this county have been threatened, don’t call the Border Patrol, if you see people on your property,” Mike said. Smugglers also destroy fencing and water pumps costing the Vickers thousands of dollars each year. Senator Cornyn heard the concerns of the Vickers and several other ranchers today at a meeting with Brooks County elected officials and the South Texans’ Property Rights Association. County officials told Senator Cornyn they need money and resources to control what some call an invasion of illegal immigrants and drug trafficking. “The threat of danger is imminent to everybody in this county because of what is happening here, this is gang related,” Mike said. Brooks County Sheriff Department rescued 659 illegal immigrants, who were abandoned by smugglers on private property last year and found about 129 bodies...more
Drought threatens NM ranchers livelihood - video
New Mexico’s devastating drought could soon affect your wallet as cattle ranchers feel the pinch and begin selling off their herds to save their ranches. Hundreds of head of cattle waiting to be sold at auction Friday are proof that the drought is taking its toll on cattlemen. Charlie Myers, owner of Cattlemen’s Livestock Auction in Belen, said most of the cattle sold this month should not have been at his auction site. “We are seeing our volume double to what it should be for this time of the year,” Myers said. Myers said typically around this time of year they push through 500 head of cattle each auction. On Friday, around 1,400 made their way through the stalls and up for bid. Many sold are thinner and younger when you compare them to what cattle sold in the fall. “There's a calf that brings $300,” Myers said. “In all probability bring $700 this fall.” Myers said his customers have no choice but to sell some early and take a cut in profit to keep their business going. “It’s probably a herd he's built up over 20, 25 years,” Myers said. Myers said this is the worst he's seen in years when it comes to cattlemen being forced to cut their cattle early. The problem is statewide. The Belen auction has been selling stock from as far south as Deming to as far east as Santa Rosa...more
Hay stock tight, prices sky high: Dry winter, cold spring dampens outlook
The hay stack at C.R. Eisenzimer’s farm five miles south of Cascade is down to about the last 17 bales. A dry 2012 season taxed last year’s hay supplies. Eisenzimer didn’t get a third cutting on his hay crop due to an early fall freeze. And this year’s cold, wet spring is keeping pastures from greening up enough to turn cattle out on yet, extending the hay-feeding season for a lot of ranchers. “If you can find hay, it’s expensive,” Eisenzimer said. The average price for hay in Montana in April was $160 a ton, a 61 percent increase from the price a year ago, according to the National Agricultural Statistic Service. Typically hay supplies in the U.S. are short at some point during the spring, as ranchers continue to feed their livestock, waiting for pastures to be ready for grazing. “But as dry as it was throughout some parts of the country last year, that situation has moved up earlier this year,” said Erika Sorenson, the market reporter for the USDA Market News Service. “Supplies are tight all over, and I know in eastern South Dakota there is concern that some ranchers will run out of hay before pastures are ready for grazing.”...more
In parts of plains, drought fears nag in 3rd year
The merciless drought that ravaged large sections of the Midwest and Plains is over, disappearing this spring in a dramatic weather reversal: heavy rains and floods swamping fields with mud in many areas. But some farmers and ranchers in parts of the West and the Plains, including southwest Oklahoma, are pondering the prospect of another year of a desert-like landscape and a disappointing harvest. It’s far too soon for predictions. Rain this winter and spring blanketed central and eastern Oklahoma, bringing relief to a state that marked its hottest year ever in 2012 and its driest May-through-December on record, according to Gary McManus, associate state climatologist. But the western third of Oklahoma, including the Panhandle, remains gripped by drought, along with stretches of the central Plains from South Dakota down to west Texas and parts of New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming and Nevada. For some, this year may be a tipping point, says Mark Svoboda of the National Drought Mitigation Center...more
NM museum opens exhibit on 'curanderismo'
The Maxwell Museum of Anthropology has opened an exhibit on the magical art of curanderismo (coo-RAN-deh-DEES-moh), or the practice of traditional Mexican folk healing. The Albuquerque museum drew dozens of visitors from around the country Saturday to its "Southwest Herbalism & Curanderismo" exhibit with curandera Tonita Gonzales. The internationally-known healer performed limpias (lihm-PEE'-AHS'), or cleansings, for visitors at the opening. Displays featured popular curandero instruments from incense burners used in rituals to cups necessary to cure a spiritual illness. Curanderismo is the art of using traditional healing methods like herbs and plants to treat various ailments. Long practiced in indigenous villages of Mexico and other parts of Latin America, curanderos also could be found in parts of New Mexico, south Texas, Arizona and California. AP
Sunday, May 05, 2013
Cowgirl Sass & Savvy
Western wine tasting
by Julie Carter
The sight of a pretty girl will stop a cowboy in his tracks
every time. Furthermore, he will do and say things completely contrary to the
“pre-pretty girl” man you know him to be. This story is one of those times.
Wes was a cowboy working for a rancher with a big chunk of
New Mexico country to tend. During the early days of his job, he became aware
that his boss had a daughter in an Ivy League college somewhere in the
direction of “back East.”
Winter passed, heifers were about done calving, brandings
were on the horizon and summer would soon be here. Life was very “cowboy”good.
Then Pretty Girl came home for Spring Break and the cowboy’s
world turned upside down.
The celebratory barbeque at the ranch gave Wes a little time
to visit with Pretty Girl and he knew right-off she was way out of his social
league as she chatted about opera, Broadway openings and formal dinner parties.
With some cowboy boldness, he decided he’d take a run at her
by holding a wine tasting. How hard could it be?
Like most cowboys, Wes liked to help the Colorado folks out
with their brewery success and occasionally tried to help the Kentucky folks
with their sour mash business. He knew he was going to have to get some
schooling on the finer points of wine tasting.
Cowboys are experts at many things, capable of hard work
with cattle, horses, fences, and equipment as well as making the hard business
decisions required for a modern ranching operation. What they don’t know, they
aren’t afraid to ask about from someone who has a few more years and little
more experience.
After conferring with a few of the hands in the bunkhouse
that night, it was the consensus that an expert was required. Their collective
thoughts pointed in the direction of the windmill man who was known to be able
to fix anything and tell you a little bit about practically everything.
In a phone call to this recommended universal expert, Wes
was briefed on vintage, bouquet, body, sediment and all the various attributes
of fine wine. The windmill man spoke with such knowledge and authority, the
cowboy was duly impressed. He gave a brief pause to a curious thought as to
where this windmill man might have gotten his knowledge, but was in no position
to question it.
It was clear his plan would be to invite Pretty Girl to
share a little wine with him the next time she was home.
Back to work he went, taking more notice than ever to the
possibilities of the ranch. In his daydreams he envisioned Pretty Girl bringing
him his supper after a hard day’s work on the ranch he had married. By the time
she actually came home again, he was in love.
It was summer, so the cowboy invited her on a picnic to a
pretty spot on the ranch with wine to be the main feature. They set a date and
the cowboy whistled his way through his work for the next several days.
As will happen at a ranch, things didn’t go as planned. He was
down to choosing between a trip to town to get the wine or helping a late
calving heifer through her birthing ordeal. In a bind, he called the windmill
man who agreed to bring him some wine before the big date.
Shined up and washed behind the ears, Wes picked the girl up
at the boss’s house and headed down the road to the spot on the creek he’d
selected. They talked and laughed and the afternoon progressed about as
smoothly as he could have hoped.
He might have actually realized his dream of capturing
Pretty Girl and the ranch -- if only the windmill man had thought to buy wine
in bottle instead of a box.
Julie can be reached
for comment at jcarternm@gmail.com.
Landscape Conservation Cooperatives
Landscape Conservation Cooperatives
A Note tied to a Ribbon
First Amendment Rights
By Stephen L. Wilmeth
Red
Steagall sang it … we live it.
“On a fence line north of Esteline, the strangest
sight I’d ever seen.
Was a note tied with a ribbon to a
rolling tumbleweed.”
The note was written in a fair woman’s hand.
She had lost her love. In silent grief, she had cast her heart and her hopes to
the wind. Tied to a tumbleweed, she sent the note away, trusting in God’s blessings.
In Red’s song, she became a
cowboy’s personal image of hope … his own Red River Rose. He realized what the
message meant later as he looked into the flames of his campfire.
Congressional authority?
The destruction of the Culture and
Customs of the West is visible in every direction. Name any historical industry
and it is under assault.
The battles are being shaped by the
agencies reporting to cabinet secretaries. They are being supported by the
Senate, no longer protectors of state rights and direct cooperators with nongovernmental
organizations, and the House of Representatives, which holds the purse strings,
but has obliged the free fall into debt Armageddon.
Federal stewardship of the West has
long been irreverent and blasphemous. It has been that way for 107 years.
And, yet the West has continuously cast its
heart and hopes to notes tied to symbolic tumbleweeds. “Help us!” the message reads.
The Endangered Species Act, the
Federal Lands Policy and Management Act, the Equal Access to Justice Act, the
Clean Water Act, the National Environmental Protection Act, and thousands of
pages of policy, regulations, and rules have become the legal authority to
stifle, alter, admonish, and denigrate the citizenry it was, collectively,
represented to uphold.
The laws are being applied antithetically
to how they were promoted. The best example is the Equal Access to Justice Act.
That Act was intended to protect Americans who could ill afford to defend
against actions by the federal agencies and the environmental front. Records
show the opposite has taken place
The groups manipulating the laws
have also filled the roll of local government in matters of land use planning.
The latest example is DOI’s Secretarial Order No. 3289.
In this order, the secretary
established landscape conservation cooperatives. These cooperatives are
represented to focus on local strategic conservation efforts at the ‘landscape
level’ through private partnerships.
The partners, though, have nothing
to do with local government unless that government is staged to support the
outcome of their proposals. The order spells out the process. The cooperatives
will deliver “applied science to inform resource managers of decisions that
address climate change and other regional scale stressors”.
The indoctrination and instructional
trail to federal managers will continue while the “partners develop adaptation
strategies”. In other words, the partners, whoever they are, will develop the
science to be instituted and policed by the agencies. There is no grassroots
land planning in this debacle. This is an end run legislative proxy. It is
being engineered by the environmental brokers.
While states like Colorado Texas, Wyoming, and Utah have been present
in recent day House Natural Resource Committee hearings on the matter, the Southwest
must look at this order with a similar but expanded concern. The order is aimed
at five western states, and … ten Mexican states!
Isn’t a point of order appropriate?
Where is the Congressional authority to enter into international conservation
projects directed by agenda driven partnerships?
The reality is there is no local
planning from the West. The planning comes through these partnerships and it
tracks through Washington.
The stewardship of western lands has also become nihilistic and anarchist.
Luke Shipp
Luke Shipp is a pragmatic fellow
from Texas.
This week a number of us received an email from him. While most of the contents
will remain private, the message was significant. It must be shared, and it
harkens back to the most basic and sacred of promises.
Luke reminded us of how rural
communities have endured fraud, waste, and abuse from the governmental
institutions charged with administering federal land matters. Individual
families have been devastated and forced out of business. Heritage industry
employees have lost jobs and have faced cultural displacement. Regions have
lost income, citizens, commerce, and tax base. Children, particularly in the
wolf release areas, have suffered trauma.
Moreover, forests burn on a scale
that took place only one other time in American history. Increasingly, Westerners
are governed not by laws, but by policy and regulations. Local governance isn’t
planning or crafting solutions for communities. Rather, local governance is
defending itself against the latest project being driven by conservation
cooperative efforts.
Indeed, fraud, waste, and abuse are
rampant, but there is also something more fundamental corrupting the landscape.
As Christians, scripture is the written spiritual guidance to which we must adhere.
The Bible states man is to have dominion over the creatures and creation.
As the propaganda invades our lives
regarding the importance of saving the environment, those of us who rely on the
land abhor the promises of more restrictive land protections. For example,
where, in the 193 million acres of Forest Service administered lands, have such
wonders reappeared?
The truth is the wonders exist only
where biblical dominion actually exists. That is where the game herds flourish.
That is where wildlife and livestock exist in lock step. That is where oil
extraction is being teamed with increasing productivity with livestock and
wildlife. That is where relics of the past are protected. That is where
productivity of the land remains a function of long range planning and
protected stewardship.
It doesn’t exist on federal lands.
There isn’t a mystical federal Camelot solution that will recreate the
conditions being represented, nor will adding endlessly to the artificial
designations change those circumstances. The magic appears, as Aldo Leopold
perceptibly observed, where “the steward is too poor to pay for his sport”.
Luke’s point is clear. The First Amendment
right of Westerners is being debased and mimicked with derision.
His inspiration is revealed in abundance.
There is no western stewardship dominion over creation. In fact, the opposite
is engineered. A wolf in the Blue Range Recovery Area has more rights than
Americans in the release area. If you don’t believe that, ask one of the 42
ranchers who were recently informed of yet another wolf pair release in their
midst. Each of them said, “No!”
The absentee conservation
cooperative hierarchy ignored the responses. The pair was released.
The warning of wise men
The Constitution was not founded on
unnatural law. On the contrary, the genius of the document is the culmination
of over two millennium of experience and failures of unnatural law.
Array the names who served as
references or primary authors of the document. Their list is impressive.
The Gospel authors, John Adams,
William Blackstone, Frederic Bastiat, Cicero, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander
Hamilton, Thomas Hooker, Thomas Jefferson, John Locke, James Madison, Alexis De
Tocqueville and George Washington were all staunchly adherent to the tenets of natural
law, including those certain unalienable rights of the American model. Every
one of those men was tough minded who, by their ascension to historical
prominence, had to reject most of the popular intellectual fads of their day.
No man was more widely respected
than Locke among the Founders. Locke rejected the proposition that the
unchecked and random forces of nature could ever produce a pencil much less a
natural wonder. It was the Creator that was the wonder, not the creation.
Perhaps that single realization
lends more credence to Shipp’s simple reminder than anything else. Our biblical
teachings clearly state that we, as believing Christians, have been granted
dominion over the creatures and the creation. We were granted that by the
Creator, our God. No government, no law, no policy, no regulation, nor any
conservation cooperative has the authority to separate the law of revelation
from the law of nature.
No authority was more respected on
that subject than William Blackstone. He believed the two sets of laws were
inseparable. He stated,”… upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the
law of revelation, depend all human laws.”
In his attempt to preserve French
freedom, Frederic Bastiat added, “The Creator has entrusted us with the
responsibility of preserving, developing, and perfecting (life) … he has put us
in the midst of a variety of natural resources. By the application of our
facilities to these natural resources we convert them into products and use
them … Life, faculties, production, in other words individuality, liberty,
property … And, in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these
three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it.”
We agree. Our symbolic, ribboned
note hasn’t worked, but our position is correct. Thank you, Luke … you reminded
us of our greatest strength.
Stephen
L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New
Mexico. “All but one of those men was a Christian. We
have only thought we were out numbered.”THE WESTERNER sez:
Everyone should read The Law by Frederick Bastiat. It's available, for free, in three different formats, by going here. Since reading this book years ago, I've never looked at government the same.
To learn more about Bastiat, try Frederic Bastiat: A Man Alone, also available for free by going here.
Baxter Black: Tiny safety scare considered outbreak
by Baxter Black
One of the biggest upheavals in food production in the last 10 years was the result of one of the tiniest, most unimaginable scares.
It would be comparable to one single Aborigine threatening the U.S. with a flyswatter, and our government issuing every homeowner a .50-caliber machine gun to defend themselves!
Peruse ag media today and you will see multiple companies offering age and source verification for cattle.
The biggest impetus for this technical, political and management service was the BSE/Mad Cow scare. It began in Great Britain in 1996 and was connected to human deaths from Creutzfeld-Jakob disease.
Once they diagnosed the connection between BSE and C-J, the British bit the bullet and began their eradication program, but not before the whole world had a global fright worthy of Orson Wells, “War of the Worlds!”
Over a period of time, random cases were diagnosed in Canada, Korea, Japan and Europe.
In 2003, the U.S. made its first diagnosis.
At the peak of random testing, the number of positives compared to the cow population was less than a grain of sand in the Sahara.
Meat-eaters around the world soon realized their own personal risk was less than getting hit by an armadillo dropped from the sky. Yet governments have continued to restrict imports of beef from each other, mostly for political reasons and market protection.
One of the biggest upheavals in food production in the last 10 years was the result of one of the tiniest, most unimaginable scares.
It would be comparable to one single Aborigine threatening the U.S. with a flyswatter, and our government issuing every homeowner a .50-caliber machine gun to defend themselves!
Peruse ag media today and you will see multiple companies offering age and source verification for cattle.
The biggest impetus for this technical, political and management service was the BSE/Mad Cow scare. It began in Great Britain in 1996 and was connected to human deaths from Creutzfeld-Jakob disease.
Once they diagnosed the connection between BSE and C-J, the British bit the bullet and began their eradication program, but not before the whole world had a global fright worthy of Orson Wells, “War of the Worlds!”
Over a period of time, random cases were diagnosed in Canada, Korea, Japan and Europe.
In 2003, the U.S. made its first diagnosis.
At the peak of random testing, the number of positives compared to the cow population was less than a grain of sand in the Sahara.
Meat-eaters around the world soon realized their own personal risk was less than getting hit by an armadillo dropped from the sky. Yet governments have continued to restrict imports of beef from each other, mostly for political reasons and market protection.
Liberty Versus ‘The Experts’ in Film and TV
by Ryan McMaken
...Cantor, an expert on Shakespeare and a professor of English at the University of Virginia, has again returned to the topic of television and film with his new book The Invisible Hand in Popular Culture: Liberty vs. Authority in American Film and TV, and further expands on the topics of globalization, markets, and state power first presented in his 2001 book Gilligan Unbound.
This new volume is even more substantial than the previous one, featuring ten essays on film and television ranging from UFO movies to Westerns to South Park. In addition, the introduction provides an extensive discussion on the very nature of pop culture, how it is produced, and how it should be interpreted...
Cantor begins with The Searchers (1956) and looks at its themes of revenge in light of another revenge cycle, Aeschylus’s Oresteia. In the frontier of the Western genre, the lawlessness of the new lands is reflected in the words of Aeschylus, written millennia before:
Cantor goes
on to note that this question is answered in a variety of ways
in Westerns, with two distinct and opposing options offered by
the television shows Have
Gun – Will Travel (1957-1963) and Deadwood
(2004-2006).
Have Gun provides the (conventional and authoritarian) view offered by Westerns, and as Cantor notes, the show’s hero Paladin imposes order on a frontier composed largely of racist rubes, petty tyrants and superstitious fools. Every town, it seems, has a lynch mob, and the "unending sequence of tyrannical rich men" in Have Gun sets the stage for many showdowns between the enlightened and refined hero Paladin and his backward enemies.
Paladin, Cantor notes, looks remarkably like the members of the ruling class in Washington D.C. and New York at the time Have Gun was made. Sophisticated, highly educated technocrats were the heroes of the day (at least among people making television shows) and Paladin fit the bill. Everywhere on the frontier, Paladin’s intervention is necessary for "Paladin never seems to come upon a functioning community, with a set of decent political institutions that make it capable of self-government."
At the other
end of the spectrum is the HBO series Deadwood, in which
the people of the town of Deadwood are perfectly capable
of self-government. If the "enlightened" people show
up in Deadwood, it’s usually to steal something.
Cantor examines Deadwood in light of the debate between Hobbes and Locke. Cantor concludes that Deadwood is in many ways explicitly libertarian, condemning government and praising private property as a civilizing force in numerous ways. Is the state necessary for order or do property, peace and prosperity pre-date the state? Deadwood, it seems, comes down firmly in the latter camp.
The people
of Deadwood – uneducated, foul-mouthed, and unsophisticated – explicitly reject rule by far away and refined elites. They’ll
take freedom instead.
...Cantor, an expert on Shakespeare and a professor of English at the University of Virginia, has again returned to the topic of television and film with his new book The Invisible Hand in Popular Culture: Liberty vs. Authority in American Film and TV, and further expands on the topics of globalization, markets, and state power first presented in his 2001 book Gilligan Unbound.
This new volume is even more substantial than the previous one, featuring ten essays on film and television ranging from UFO movies to Westerns to South Park. In addition, the introduction provides an extensive discussion on the very nature of pop culture, how it is produced, and how it should be interpreted...
Cantor begins with The Searchers (1956) and looks at its themes of revenge in light of another revenge cycle, Aeschylus’s Oresteia. In the frontier of the Western genre, the lawlessness of the new lands is reflected in the words of Aeschylus, written millennia before:
Go where heads are severed, eyes gouged out, where Justice and bloody slaughter are the same… castrations, wasted seed, young men’s glories butchered…In the Western genre, this is so often the nature of the American frontier neatly summarized, and we can only ask ourselves: who shall impose order?
Have Gun provides the (conventional and authoritarian) view offered by Westerns, and as Cantor notes, the show’s hero Paladin imposes order on a frontier composed largely of racist rubes, petty tyrants and superstitious fools. Every town, it seems, has a lynch mob, and the "unending sequence of tyrannical rich men" in Have Gun sets the stage for many showdowns between the enlightened and refined hero Paladin and his backward enemies.
Paladin, Cantor notes, looks remarkably like the members of the ruling class in Washington D.C. and New York at the time Have Gun was made. Sophisticated, highly educated technocrats were the heroes of the day (at least among people making television shows) and Paladin fit the bill. Everywhere on the frontier, Paladin’s intervention is necessary for "Paladin never seems to come upon a functioning community, with a set of decent political institutions that make it capable of self-government."
Cantor examines Deadwood in light of the debate between Hobbes and Locke. Cantor concludes that Deadwood is in many ways explicitly libertarian, condemning government and praising private property as a civilizing force in numerous ways. Is the state necessary for order or do property, peace and prosperity pre-date the state? Deadwood, it seems, comes down firmly in the latter camp.
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