If All We Get Is a Circus, Can’t We at Least Have Trained Seals

The Interior Department is directing more than $300 million in federal “economic stimulus” money to the Bureau of Land Management to update its facilities, roads and trails and jump-start renewable energy projects across the country, said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, honking and clapping like a trained seal here on Saturday, May 2. The largest chunk of the funding – roughly $143 million – will go toward new construction, deferred maintenance and energy efficiency upgrades on existing facilities. In Nevada, that will include $1.2 million to install solar panels at 16 remote fire stations, $6.8 million on abandoned mine cleanup, and $8 million to clear up a backlog in permit applications for people who want to install wind and solar projects – but not projects that could deliver substantial amounts of cheap power quickly by using coal or other proven technologies, mind you – on public lands. One line item in Mr. Salazar’s festival of fiscal frivolity calls for spending $800,000 in federal tax moneys to repair trails in the Sloan Canyon National Conservation Area, near Henderson. Gosh, only a few months ago the concern was how to keep people from finding out where the old Indian pictographs in Sloan Canyon WERE, to prevent them being defaced. Now the federal government wants to pave the trail? Will they follow the example of the Japanese, who not only paved the hiking route up Mount Fuji, but also placed benches and cold-beer vending machines at convenient intervals? Pardon a little adult intervention into this zillion-dollar equivalent of a kids’ birthday party, but pony rides, paper hats, and hiring people to slap solar panels on the roofs of rural outhouses and fire stations only just barely qualify as “creating jobs.” Real jobs involve producing something that consumers – either here or abroad, among our trading partners – want and will voluntarily pay for. There’s no reason to believe one-time desert make-work schemes, building things no one would voluntarily buy, will “buoy” the economy any better now than when FDR tried the same thing with his 1930s “Civilian Conservation Corps” – keeping men dependent on the government and thus stretching the Great Depression by an extra seven years. What is any newly trained “outhouse solarizer” going to do when you run out of BLM outhouses?...LewRockwell.com

Nonproducing lease definition needed, DOI's Salazar told

US House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee leaders asked Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar a basic question when he presented his department's fiscal 2010 budget request on May 13: How does Interior define a nonproducing lease? Salazar couldn't supply an answer, but promised to develop one soon and consult with subcommittee members about it. He's already under pressure because the Obama administration's proposed federal budget includes $122 million of annual revenue from fees on nonproducing leases starting Oct 1. Salazar doesn't question the idea behind the assessment. "I've practiced water law in the West. States' water laws have a similar use-it-or-lose-it feature. Oil and gas are similarly precious commodities," he told the subcommittee. But Salazar also couldn't answer the question when Rep. Michael K. Simpson (R-Ida.), the subcommittee's ranking minority member, asked what DOI considers a nonproducing lease eligible for collection of the proposed $4/acre fee. "I think this is important, particularly if someone could be penalized for bureaucratic or legal delays which aren't his fault," Simpson said. Officials from one of DOI's major agencies, the US Bureau of Land Management, told the subcommittee last year that it can take up to 4 years for a federal oil and gas lessee to simply get a drilling permit, he added...PennEnergy

Pesticides indicted in bee deaths

...Brandi discovered the watermelon farmer had irrigated his plants with imidacloprid, the world's best-selling insecticide created by Bayer CropScience Inc., one of the world's leading producers of pesticides and genetically modified vegetable seeds, with annual sales of $8.6 billion. Blended with water and applied to the soil, imidacloprid creates a moist mixture the bees likely drank from on a hot day. Stories like Brandi's have become so common that the National Honeybee Advisory Board, which represents the two biggest beekeeper associations in the U.S., recently asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to ban the product. "We believe imidacloprid kills bees -- specifically, that it causes bee colonies to collapse," says Clint Walker, co-chairman of the board. Beekeepers have singled out imidacloprid and its chemical cousin clothianidin, also produced by Bayer CropScience, as a cause of bee die-offs around the world for over a decade. More recently, the same products have been blamed by American beekeepers, who claim the product is a cause of colony collapse disorder, which has cost many commercial U.S. beekeepers at least a third of their bees since 2006, and threatens the reliability of the world's food supply. Scientists have started to turn their attention to both products, which are receiving new scrutiny in the U.S., due to a disclosure in December 2007 by Bayer CropScience itself. Bayer scientists found imidacloprid in the nectar and pollen of flowering trees and shrubs at concentrations high enough to kill a honeybee in minutes. The disclosure recently set in motion product reviews by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation and the EPA. The tests are scheduled to wrap up in 2014, though environmentalists, including the Sierra Club, are petitioning the EPA to speed up the work...Salon

Californian Appointed to Lead Position in USDA

Congressman Dennis Cardoza announced that Rayne Pegg, of California, has been appointed to the USDA as Administrator of Agricultural Marketing Service. She is currently a deputy secretary of Legislation and Policy for the California Secretary of Food and Agriculture. "Rayne´s selection for this position helps bring California´s agriculture interests to Washington," said Congressman Cardoza, who sits on the House Agriculture Committee and chairs the Subcommittee on Horticulture and Organic Agriculture. In her current role, Pegg is the principle advisor to both the California Food and Agriculture Secretary and the cabinet of the Governor of California. She further represents the California Food and Agriculture Department before the California legislature, regulating bodies and other interested parties. Pegg has also served as a director of International Trade and Plant Health for the California Farm Bureau Federation. Her position with the USDA will take effect in July...American Chronicle

Ranchers still oppose animal ID

Five years after the federal government started a program to trace livestock in the event of a disease outbreak, just 36 percent of ranchers are taking part. U.S. Department of Agriculture officials found out why Monday, when 75 Western livestock producers gave them an earful during a meeting. The "listening session" was one of seven scheduled around the country in May and June to hear ranchers' concerns, with the goal of increasing participation in the program. Those concerns haven't changed much in five years: The cost is too high for small farmers. The regulations amount to bureaucratic suffocation. The program neither prevents nor controls disease. And what's in a farmer's pasture is nobody's business. "This is the last of your freedom, boys. Freedom restricted is freedom lost," said Bert Smith, a cattleman from Layton, Utah, who owns Ox Ranch in Ruby Valley, Nev. The nationwide tracking system, started in 2004, is intended to pinpoint an animal's location within 48 hours after a disease is discovered. Farmers were to have voluntarily registered their properties with their states by January 2008. Mandatory reporting of livestock movements was to begin one year later. Just 36 percent of the nation's estimated 1.4 million farm "premises," which includes farms' multiple locations, are registered for the program. The proposed system does nothing to prevent disease, and animal tracking would be better left for states to handle themselves, said Wade King, president of the Cattle Producers of Washington. "USDA should be focused on preventing the disease instead of tracing it," he said...Olympian

Drought Wilts Agricultural Credit Conditions - Dallas Fed

Drought continues to weaken both the agricultural production and farm credit environments, according to a first-quarter 2009 survey of agricultural credit conditions released Monday by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Poor production, volatile commodity prices and high feed costs are affecting lending activity in the 11th district, which includes all of Texas and parts of New Mexico and Louisiana, the bank said. In its report, the Dallas Fed said almost a quarter of respondents said loan extension requests increased from last year, and a third said loan demand was decreasing, with some naming the poor economic climate and inadequate agricultural conditions as factors. Land sales have also slowed, but land values are stable. Lease rates for irrigated land have increased as a consequence of the drought. Ranchers make up a sizable part of the district's agricultural community and bankers said many ranchers were unable to reach a break-even point, leading to herd liquidations. High input costs and low milk prices are hurting the dairy industry in the region as well...NASDAQ

Song Of The Day #041

Hank Penny (1918-1992)was born in Birmingham, Alabama and was influenced by his father, a disabled coal miner who played the guitar and did magic tricks. His favorite music was western swing and he formed his first group, the Radio Cowboys in 1938. The musicians that played with Penny over the years makes an impressive list: Noel Boggs, Roy Langham, Joaquin Murphy, Speedy West & Merle Travis, among others. One of his female singers was one Mary Morgan, later known as Jaye P. Morgan. Penny was invited to be on Dude Martin's show, where he eventually ended up stealing Martin's wife, singer Sue Thompson, and then started hosting his own show. Penny retired in the mid-70s.There are several collections of his music available, such as Flamin' Mamie 1938-1941, The Penny Opus #1,and King of Hillbilly Bebop .

Here at The Westerner we are all about equality and inclusion, so we've pulled out the Special Pink Player and are dedicating today's selection to any feminists out there.

Here is Hank Penny singing, "Catch 'Em Young, Treat 'Em Rough, Tell 'Em Nothin'".

NOTE TO READERS

My new computer is here. I've spent much of this evening downloading software, transferring files, etc., so this will be a shortened version of The Westerner. Tomorrow, or very soon, I'll be announcing some changes. Stay tuned...

Industry is warming up to Obama's climate plan

Sprawling across about 9,000 acres of rolling farmland in southwestern Indiana is one of the world's biggest aluminum smelters, operated by Alcoa Inc. The maze of rectangular buildings and giant smokestacks consumes enough electricity to supply a city of 200,000 -- power generated by burning more than 2 million tons of coal a year. So it may be surprising that company executives are pushing Congress to pass a version of President Obama's plan for combating global warming. After all, Obama wants to slap hefty fees on facilities like Alcoa's that pump millions of tons of carbon dioxide and other pollutants into the air. Those fees could raise costs for the company and leave it vulnerable to foreign competitors. But a growing number of coal users have come to believe that, with the right tweaks, Obama's plan would not only help the environment but boost their profits. Politically, the decision to get behind the broad outlines of climate legislation mirrors the push by insurers and pharmaceutical companies to remake the nation's healthcare system: In both cases, corporate strategists concluded that some government action was likely, and they might fare better at the table than on the sidelines...LATimes

Nothing new here as history repeats itself. Big Business in cahoots with Big Government. BG increases their coffers and size, BB increases profits by limiting competition via BG's regulations.

Personally, I'm for the era of the Big Individual. I'd apply a cruel bit and cut the rations of BG. Limit BG to it's primary function: protecting the rights of the BI. Open up the pasture gate and make BB compete against all comers.

In summary: The unholy alliance of BB and BG reeks of BO. Saddle up, put some distance between you and the BO, and bring on the BI!

House OKs $6.4 billion to make schools greener

The House on Thursday passed a $6.4 billion school modernization bill that would commit funds for the construction and update of more energy-efficient school buildings. The measure passed 275-155 in a largely party-line vote, and will now move to the Senate for further review. The legislation, if signed into law, would also help to create new jobs -- around 136,000 positions, according to calculations by the Economic Policy Institute. [Make that union jobs] "It's about raising a new generation of leaders who inevitably are going to inherit the problems we will leave behind," she said. "So when you're actually able to use the school itself as a teaching tool, as an opportunity for learning, that's when the connections with curriculum really start to happen." [Make that greenies using federal bucks to take over the curriculum]...CNN

Cattle rancher wins Survivor tv show

The 18th season of outwitting, outlasting and outplaying came to a rousing end Sunday, showcasing the charm—and luck!—of everyone's favorite bright-eyed cowboy. Alabama cattle-rancher James "J.T." Thomas Jr. came out on top of the Survivor: Tocantins finale, chosen the unanimous winner at the final tribal council. The million-dollar prize came on the heels of a nailbiting finale that repeatedly played out in J.T.'s favor. As if a million bucks wasn't enough, Jeff Probst named the 24-year-old champ the fan-favorite and recipient of an extra $100,000. On top of all of his winnings, J.T. was seemingly untouchable throughout the entire finale, winning the immunity idol twice tonight and earning all seven votes in the final tribal council...E Online

SAF hails Ninth Circuit ruling in Glock lawsuit

Monday’s ruling by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that dismisses a lawsuit against Glock by the victims of a deranged gunman in Grenada Hills, CA was a proper decision under existing statute, the Second Amendment Foundation said today. In a 2-1 decision, a three- judge panel upheld a lower court’s ruling that the case, Ileto v. Glock, was nullified under the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA). That federal statute was passed to prevent junk lawsuits against gun makers, and this specific case was cited during Congressional debate as precisely the kind of lawsuit the law would prohibit. “We are delighted that the Ninth Circuit panel not only affirmed the lower court ruling,” said SAF founder Alan Gottlieb, “but also that the court upheld the constitutionality of the federal law prohibiting this kind of lawsuit. While we sympathize with the victims, it would be an egregious miscarriage of justice to hold gun manufacturers responsible for the acts of criminals over whom they have no control.” In August 1999, a deranged man named Buford Furrow opened fire at a Jewish Community Center summer camp in Granada Hills. The Glock pistol he used had once been owned by a police department in Washington State, but had been sold as surplus and passed through several hands before Furrow got it...Liberty For All

States' Gun Rights: The Next Constitutional Battlefield

The right to bear arms is famously and specifically referenced in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Alas, for advocates of the right, the language of the amendment gets tangled up in the regulating of militias and the interpretation of commas. Now a multistate movement is trying to find more robust constitutional support in another amendment, which makes no mention of weaponry at all. The 10th Amendment declares, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." It inspired the so-called Sagebrush Rebellion that swept the West three decades ago, preventing the federal takeover of public lands pushed by the Carter Administration and propelling the self-proclaimed Sagebrush Rebel, Ronald Reagan, to the presidency. Now the Amendment is being invoked by pro-gun advocates to press for state, rather than federal, regulation of gun manufacturers. Montana has passed a law allowing local gun manufacturers to sidestep federal regulations as long as the weapons they make are sold within the territory of the state. "It's a gun bill, but it's another way of demonstrating the sovereignty of the state of Montana," Democratic Governor Brian Schweitzer said, according to the AP, as he signed the bill into law in mid-April. "I like big guns, I like little guns, I like pistols, I like rifles, and I would like to buy a gun that's made in Montana." In Texas (which recently saw Governor Rick Perry joking that the Lone Star State might take up the ultimate state right and secede from the Union), a similar bill is in committee as the legislative session winds down. Tennessee and Alaska "Firearms Freedom Acts" are working their way through the process. Utah may take up a bill next year...Time

Multiple New Mexico witnesses watch orange cigar-shaped object hover and fade

Word got out in this New Mexico town that something glowing orange was hanging in the sky on May 17. One witness grabbed her Nikon D40 and shot several images. She first described the object as "a big bright ball of fire or a bright orange ball, not sure which." Later after examining and enlarging some of the photos, she said that "in some of the pictures it looked like an orange cigar shaped object." When you review the witness photos, if this object was shot at the correct angle, it could appear as a ball, but in this shot pictured at the top of the page, it looks as though the object turned - where she was able to photograph its length. The following report and its headline is unedited...Examiner

The Valley Goes to War

To call Sam Fordyce a small Rio Grande Valley town may have been an overstatement. It was located near La Joya, and in late 1941 it wasn't much more than a collection of houses spawned by the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railroad. But it did have a rodeo arena. "My dad was putting on a rodeo there and I was riding in that rodeo," recalls Valley rancher Frank Yturria. "They interrupted the rodeo to announce that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor." It was Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941, a day that shook the nation. "I went back to school on Monday morning and the entire class went into the auditorium. It was explained to us that we were at war." Such news had a profound impact on the Valley. But the Valley would have an equally profound effect on America's war effort...The Monitor

Town marshal had law-breaking past

There was plenty about Henry Brown's past that could be considered unsavory: He had ridden with Billy the Kid, stolen horses and fled New Mexico to avoid murder charges. But Brown didn't disclose his past to residents of Caldwell. They were looking for a lawman in June 1882 and were most impressed with the way he handled a gun. He was known throughout the Southwest as one of the quickest men on the trigger. And those were credentials enough for a rowdy Kansas cowtown that had seen four of its lawmen murdered shortly before his arrival. He was hired as an assistant marshal, then promoted to marshal. Town residents gave him a Winchester rifle on New Year's Day 1883. It was inlaid with gold and silver and inscribed: "Presented to City Marshall [sic] H.N. Brown for valuable services rendered in behalf of the Citizens of Caldwell, Kas." That was a stark contrast to his background. He was born in 1857 in Rolla, Mo., and raised by relatives after being orphaned. At age 17, he began drifting West. By the mid-1870s, he was in Lincoln County, N.M., where he met rancher John Tunstall and Billy the Kid and joined the Lincoln County War between ranchers and merchants accused of price gouging. The battle over local politics and economics escalated into cattle rustling, gunfights and court battles. Brown was one of the Regulators who fought on behalf of the ranchers against Lawrence Murphy and James Dolan, owners of Murphy & Dolan Mercantile and Banking...Wichita Eagle

It's all Trew: Cheap labor helped build Thompson Park

While our economy continually slips, more talk about creating jobs for the unemployed keeps popping up. This is not a new idea. In fact, each time a recession appears creating jobs is placed on the front burner no matter which party is in power. The year I was born, 1933, was the bottom of the Great Depression plus the start of the Dust Bowl. Less than 10 inches of rain was recorded that year, eliminating almost all crops. The government was buying starving cattle to help the drought-stricken livestock owners. My father signed up to work for the WPA, which was building Highway 83 from Perryton to Canadian. He shared a car with Grant Westbrook, a neighbor, and both showed up promptly at sunup each morning at the site. All freshly signed workers were handed a sledgehammer and placed behind a rock plow pulled by a Caterpillar tractor. The orders were, "bust every rock bigger than a baseball." As your seniority increased you could move up to easier jobs. As the pay was from $1 per day starting and up to $3 a day top wages, there was a lot of turnover...Amarillo Globe

Song Of The Day #040

This is gonna be Hank Week on The Westerner: Hank Williams, Hank Penny, Hank Thompson, & Hank Locklin. I'll find another Hank by Friday.

We'll start with Hank Williams. It's hard to believe anyone reading this blog isn't familiar with Hank Williams, but just in case you can read about him here.

In 1946 Williams recorded two singles for Sterling Records, one of which is today's selection, "Never Again (Will I Knock On Your Door)." He later had many hits for MGM, but anyone listening to this early Williams can hear the greatness to come.

Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

Decoration Day to Memorial Day

By Julie Carter

Memorial Day is all about remembering the fallen, the honored, those gone on to their great rewards, traditionally in the service of our country.

However, before life became complicated and I understood all those things, it was simply "Decoration Day" to me and we decorated all the graves of all the kinfolk, military or not.

Decoration Day was delightfully fun for my siblings and me. It was a much less organized family reunion of sorts. But, instead of meeting at some park or at a relative's house, we met at the cemetery.

My dad's side of the family was quite extensive. My grandmother was one of 12 children of a German homesteader and my grandfather was one of seven born and raised there.

Apparently, at the time, there was a large number of them still alive and living within a day's drive to the Colorado high mountain valley where it all began. There, where the roots of the family tree were first planted on homesteads, farms and ranches.

The cars and pickups of every age, size and color would pull up the hillside in the old pine tree-shaded cemetery where our clan had claimed resting ground since the 1870s.

Kids would roll out of the vehicles first and begin running up and down the pathways, seeking familiar faces and space to blow off the hot crowded car ride.

Trunk lids would raise and as chattering voices carried on the late May breezes, shovels, rakes and buckets and buckets of flowers would appear.

There were fresh-cut pine and spruce boughs, irises by the dozens and lilacs with a strong fragrance that wafted through the piney woods.

I don't know just how or who got it all done, but shortly, every grave would be clean, orderly and with a fresh bouquet. My grandmother would, as she did every year, explain to us who this person was or that name and how they were related.

She would laugh with me at the given names of the time - Hulda and George Washington Baker was just the funniest, I thought.

As we wandered through the many tiny tombstones that told a story, she told me about the flu epidemic that took so many children in 1880-82. Each marker bore the tale of the horrible loss of one, two and more children in the same family that died, sometimes within days of each other.

With history reviewed and duty done, we'd all pile back in the vehicles and travel off to have a huge picnic lunch; somewhere that allowed us to leave the propriety and reverence behind us while got reacquainted with kin folk that we might not see again until the next May.

Today, all I can do is recapture those moments in memories. Families have scattered far and wide and that tradition, at least for my immediate family, got lost in the miles and with my generation. Those same graves are now tended by an enduring uncle who faithfully looks after our history.

Quietly every year, I gather my son and we stop to pay our respects to his grandfather here in New Mexico. Along a little-traveled road in a quiet country cemetery, we chop back the weeds, reshape the dirt and place a new bouquet of bright flowers in remembrance.

His tradition is different but in keeping with mine, the reverence is the same - honoring those that came first, from a world they never could have imagined.

Julie can be reached for comment at www.julie-carter.com

Response Mother's Day Post

Received via email in response to Song Of The Day #038 (Mother's Day):


Thanks, Frank. You succeeded in helping me get the tears flowing. My mother, Coralee Holland, died May 16, 1984, three days after mother’s day. Her memory has haunted me all week, and Mother’s Day is especially hard for me. God took that memory from me when Janet and Frank married on May 16, 1998, or I could not have made it through the day.

Of course, all children think their mother was the best, but my Mama was truly one of a kind. She married at 17, and my oldest brother was born 11 months later. Besides the seven children that she gave birth to, she also raised four of my father’s nieces and nephews. She was a widow at age 54, and all she knew was the farm. She canned anything that didn’t get out of her way, and she worked shoulder to shoulder with my dad in the fields. The one thing that she absolutely did not like to do was clean house. I was always embarrassed that someone would come over and find the mess, so on Saturdays, I would clean all day. When Dad died, in order to pay off the doctors and hospitals, she had to clean other people’s houses at 50 cents an hour. She did pay the bills, finished raising my little sister, and bought two houses before she finally retired.

Mama always made do, and she was never ashamed of the faded cotton dress and the one pair of shoes that she had to wash the mud off of, and polish every Saturday night for Sunday church. She stood 4’11” (compared to my dad’s 6’6” frame), but what she lacked in height, she made it up with heart. She could put out a feast at the drop of the hat, and her table always welcomed anyone who wanted a meal.

I don’t think I will ever stop missing her. Be sure to let your Mom know just how important she is, because someday she will be gone. I never stopped telling my Mama how much I loved her, so my pain is not caused by guilt.

Again, thanks!

Joyce Holland Harmon