Seizing BP Assets: Compounding One Disaster with Another

The April 20 explosion and subsequent round-the-clock oil spill from a BP-operated deepwater drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico 40 miles off the Louisiana coast has generated justifiable anger across the nation. It's also generated calls for strict sanctions against BP, the most drastic of which is confiscation of all company assets. The front line of this campaign is an ad hoc organization calling itself "Seize BP," which already has organized dozens of rallies across the country. Its mission mirrors its name: persuade the Obama administration to seize assets of the British-based oil company and use the proceeds for compensating victims and family members for loss of life, health, and property. Were it only that simple. Surely, heartbreaking accounts of the ecology of the Gulf of Mexico coastal region damaged by oil toxicity and oxygen depletion make such impulses understandable. At least 100 million gallons of crude oil have spewed from the broken well and onto beachfront and other properties. Yet such a move in the long run would set a precedent whose effect would be to chase away private-sector oil drilling from that region. And given the experiences of nationalized oil industries elsewhere, it is not likely to prevent further spills. Market logic, unfortunately, rarely appeals to the impatient. Apparently, it doesn't appeal to the Obama administration. President Barack Obama, under enormous public pressure to "do something," has already embarked on a course of de facto nationalization. In a private June 16 White House meeting, Obama coaxed BP chief executive Tony Hayward into "donating" $20 billion to a new escrow account earmarked for payment of damage claims — the president called it "a good start."...more

Gulf oil spill may boost ethanol in nation's energy debate

With regulators and legislators poised to decide issues that will shape ethanol's future for years to come, the ethanol lobby is increasingly making the scene unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico — with tens of thousands of barrels of crude still flowing daily from BP's deepwater well — a backdrop for the nation's energy debate. "The choice between the dangers of our addiction to oil and the promise of American renewable fuels is as clear today as the contrast between the blackened estuaries of the Gulf Coast and the sparkling green fields of rural America," said Robert Dinneen, president of the Washington-based Renewable Fuels Assn. Now producers and corn growers are looking to expand their market by increasing the level of ethanol in gasoline to 15%. The Environmental Protection Agency is weighing a waiver request to allow billions more gallons of corn-based fuel in the nation's gas tanks. A decision is expected this summer. The ethanol industry is also lobbying Congress to extend a tax credit for blending ethanol with gasoline and maintain a tariff on imported ethanol — measures implemented years ago to help a fledgling industry grow. Both the tax credit and tariff are set to expire at the end of the year...more

Using a crisis to suckle even more at the government teat - and the D.C. deep thinkers will probably go for it.

Audit faults NOAA on fishermen’s fines

An audit of how fishery police used millions in federal fines collected from fishermen has found they misspent it on such items as cars for managers, a $300,000 luxury undercover boat, and a weeklong training workshop in Norway. The audit, released yesterday, was commissioned earlier this year after the inspector general of the US Department of Commerce found mismanagement by the law enforcement office of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Inspector General Todd Zinser investigated after fishermen complained for years about arbitrary enforcement of fishery laws, saying the fines amounted to a bounty because NOAA kept the money. Gloucester fishermen Richard Burgess, who has fought $85,000 in fines, said NOAA should repay fishermen every dime. “We’ve all known that they’re criminals,’’ Burgess said of the law enforcement office. “Every one of them has got to go.’’...more

Will Congress Kill Volunteer Fire Departments?

Volunteer fire departments are about as American as apple pie. But under legislation moving quickly in Congress, this staple of American life could soon be a thing of the past. House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D.-S.C.) wants to include the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act as part of the war supplemental coming before the House this week. The bill forces state and local governments to collectively bargain with police, firefighters and emergency workers. Its critics say it would compel volunteer firefighters to join unions, threatening the survival of America's nearly 26,000 volunteer fire departments. The act would affect some states more than others. In North Carolina and Virginia, for example, collective bargaining is currently prohibited. Eighteen other states have limitations on bargaining. The legislation would likely force those governments to abandon merit-based promotions for public safety workers and shift instead to a collectively bargained seniority schedule, which unions prefer. Critics of the bill call it anything but reasonable. The Heritage Foundation's James Sherk documented the consequences to volunteer firefighters last time the bill was this close to passage in 2007. Sherk noted that nationwide 72% of firefighters are volunteers, serving mostly communities with fewer than 25,000 people. Under the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act, also known as PSEECA, the International Association for Fire Fighters stands to gain. The union, which represents career firefighters, strongly opposes volunteers and prohibits its members from belonging to volunteer departments, even when they're not on duty...more

Chicago approves new handgun restrictions

Grumbling about a U.S. Supreme Court they say is out of touch with America’s cities, Chicago aldermen voted 45-0 today to approve a rushed-through compromise gun ban. The law, weaker than the gun ban tossed out Monday but with some even stronger new provisions, allows adults in Chicago to buy one gun a month, 12 a year, but they must pay registration and permit fees and take five hours of training. Within 100 days, anyone who wants to keep a gun in the city will have to register, get their training and pay the fees. Also within 100 days, any of the estimated 10,000 Chicagoans convicted of a gun offense will have to register at their local police station like sex offenders. The aldermen did not hold back their contempt for the five members of the U.S. Supreme Court who threw out the city’s gun ban Monday. “No Supreme Court judge could live in my community and come to the same conclusion they did a couple days ago,” Ald. Sharon Denise Dixon (24th) said. “I find it hard to believe that the Supreme Court justices that voted to strike our handgun laws have spent any time in the communities that many of us represent,” Ald. Toni Preckwinkle (4th) said...more

Someone please explain to the aldermen that your constitutional rights are not dependent on where you are geographically located in the U.S. Would they say the same thing about the first and fourth amendments? This is scary.

The alderman should read this.

You will be happy to see how Obama is spending your money

Here are some examples that hit the news in the last week:

Feds Wasted Millions in Utilities Program for Poor A government program that's supposed to help impoverished families heat and cool their homes wasted more than $100 million of taxpayer dollars paying the electric bills of thousands of applicants who were dead, in prison or living in million-dollar mansions. The Department of Health and Human Services spent $5 billion through the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program in 2009, doling out money to states with little oversight. An investigation by the Government Accountability Office found about $116 million in improper payments to seven states in 2009. The program helped pay the electric bill of a Chicago woman who lives in a $2 million home and drives a Mercedes.
The study found HHS paid $3.9 million to 11,000 applicants who used the identities of dead people...

Millions of Swine Flu Vaccine Doses Have Expired About a quarter of the swine flu vaccine produced for the U.S. public has expired -- meaning that a whopping 40 million doses worth about $260 million is being written off as trash. "It's a lot, by historical standards," said Jerry Weir, who oversees vaccine research and review for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The outdated vaccine, some of which expired Wednesday, will be incinerated. The amount, more than twice the usual leftovers, likely sets a record. And that's not even all of it. About 30 million more doses will expire later and may go unused, according to one government estimate. If all that vaccine expires, more than 43 percent of the supply for the U.S. public will have gone to waste...

FEMA Workers Ran Up $247,100 in 'Improper Purchases' on Government Credit Cards--Including $4,318 in 'Happy Birthday' Cards One employee used a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) credit card to buy $4,318 in “Happy Birthday” gift cards. Two other FEMA officials charged the cost of 360 golf umbrellas -- $9,000 -- to the taxpayers. Other FEMA officials used funds allocated for disaster relief in Oklahoma to buy 19 portable ceramic heaters for the office at a cost of $1,098. In all, $247,100 in “improper” expenses was made to FEMA credit cards, according to a report by the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General...

U.S. Has Paid $1.44 Million for Project That is Studying the 'Social Milieu' of Male Prostitutes in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has so far awarded $1.44 million in federal funds to a project that, among other things, is estimating the size of the population and examining the “social milieu” of male prostitutes in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam...

U.S. Spent $550,496 on Study That Did 'Focus Groups and In-Depth Interviews' To Learn About the Sex Lives of Truck Drivers The federal government has spent $550,496 on a project that involved conducting “focus groups and in-depth interviews” with American long-haul truck drivers to learn about their sex lives in order to assess their risk of contracting HIV or other sexually transmitted infections. The project has failed to find any instances of HIV among the truck drivers studied...

California welfare recipients withdrew $1.8 million at casino ATMs over eight months California welfare recipients using state-issued debit cards withdrew more than $1.8 million in taxpayer cash on casino floors between October 2009 and last month, state officials said Thursday. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger issued an executive order requiring welfare recipients to promise they will use cash benefits only to "meet the basic subsistence needs" of their families. The order also gave the state Department of Social Services seven days to produce a plan to reduce other types of "waste, fraud and abuse" in the welfare program. The moves came after The Times reported Wednesday that officials at the department failed to notice for years that welfare recipients could use the state-issued cards to withdraw taxpayer cash at more than half of the tribal casinos and state-licensed poker rooms in California...

Artists design sheep wagon for the 21st century

Artists in the state of Colorado want to makeover the rustic sheep wagons used by immigrant workers across the West, suggesting the portable homes be spruced up to look like futuristic space vehicles with gardens and solar panels. Immigrants from Peru, Chile, Mexico and Nepal who come to the U.S. on temporary work permits sometimes live in worn-out one-room trailers in desolate landscapes, including in Wyoming, California, and Utah. The working conditions caught the attention of Colorado lawmakers this year, but no legislation materialized. Artists with the Yuma-based non-profit M12 say the debate doesn't have to be contentious. They created three proposals to revamp the sheep wagon — known to the workers as "campitos" — and will show the designs on the walls of a trailer turned into a gallery, along with an old sheep wagon for comparison. "We decided to take on the campito as a design problem. These things look like covered wagons because they were designed in the 19th century at a time when that made sense," Saxton said. "Our question was, what would a campito look like for the 21st century?" What M12 came up with were tricked-out wagons that look like they came out of "The Jetsons." One design looks like a roly poly, folding into a ball to be towed by a truck and unfolding into a tent-shaped wagon when it's parked. In another design, the wagon looks like a space capsule with wheels similar to those of a Mars rover. The third design is made up of three modules for a garden, bed, and kitchen — features that all the designs have, along with a global communications system to make phone calls...more

Leon Metz: Baseball trip turned violent for El Pasoans - Who was that cowboy?

As a local historian, I've never encountered any particular early day period of El Paso's history when the saloons and gambling houses were closed. But it actually happened during one 1892 Sunday afternoon in Deming. And what was the occasion? Well, it seems that the fat men of El Paso took time off from their many labors and went to Deming to play baseball with the fat men of that town. A local El Paso man named M.F. McLean managed the "El Paso Fats," and he chartered a train just for this particular occasion. Over 200 local business and professional men went on the excursion to witness the game. To show El Paso support, the principal local saloons and gambling houses in this city closed their doors so that 200 El Paso proprietors, employees, business and professional men could take time off to go watch the big event. At Deming, the El Pasoans were seemingly met by the entire population. A brass band played thunderous music. Also present was an immense cannon made of cardboard. Its barrel bore the legend: PROTECTION FOR THE EMPIRE...

Here's the part of Metz's column I like:

On the trip home, a hefty New Mexico cowboy tagged along with a quart of whiskey in one hand and a pistol in the other. He wanted everybody to take a drink. Within minutes, an El Paso player named Charles B. Dowd managed to get the gun and the whiskey, and threw both items out the car window. Well, that riled the cowboy, and within a few minutes he had everyone on that car engaged in a free-for-all. Later, as things quieted down, and the cowboy went to sleep, someone woke him. In a few minutes he would have the whole car fighting again. According to witnesses, fighting broke out at least six times between Deming and El Paso, even though in a caboose behind the fight car were Judge J.E. Townsend, Mayor Johnson, M.F. McLean and a writer who jotted down all of these events. Then oddly, but perhaps not surprisingly, upon reaching El Paso, J. H. Boone, who later became Sheriff of El Paso, heard about the exploits of this New Mexico cowboy. So the two men met at El Paso's Astor house, where an angry Boone offered to give him a good trimming. But it was that cowboy's night to fight and he overcame Boone in short order...more

Who was that cowboy? Anybody from Deming or El Paso know?

Song Of The Day #351

We missed Swingin' Monday on Ranch Radio, but we will make up for it with James Talley performing W'Lee O'Daniel and the Light Crust Doughboys. The rest of the week will be Light Crust Doughboys songs.

Go To FileFactory.com

Arizona's Closed Federal Parkland is a No-Man's Land

The number of illegal immigrants and drug smugglers crossing through this magnificent national parkland in southern Arizona has "decreased significantly" in the last four years, park officials say. But there's a dark cloud to this silver lining: To make it happen, the refuge had to close a sliver of this slice of heaven to the quarter-billion American taxpayers who own it -- essentially creating a no-man's-land on which only drug smugglers, gun-runners, human traffickers and the Border Patrol agents who track them down dare to tread. And with rival Mexican drug gangs gunning each other down less than 50 miles away, the chance that the closed portion of the wildlife refuge will reopen in the foreseeable future appears to be between slim and none. For the time being, officials say, this public land will be closed to the public. In 2006, the refuge manager at the time, Mitch Ellis, saw that the smugglers and drug-runners were winning, and his solution was to close 3,500 acres of this 118,000-acre natural habitat. He cited increased violence in the area due to “border-related” activities, including assaults on law enforcement officers and migrants, as the reason for the closure. Back then, says Sally Gall, the park's acting refuge manager, it was estimated that as many as 4,000 people a day were crossing illegally into the U.S. from Mexico, tramping across public land that's home to nearly 330 species of animals and hosts up to 40,000 visitors annually. Tom Kay, 68, whose Jarillas Ranch features more than four miles of border fence and shares its western boundary line with the Buenos Aires refuge, estimated that up to 400 illegal immigrants walk onto his 15,000-acre land every day. But after years of never locking his door or removing keys from vehicles, Kay has found it necessary to change his ways. “I gotta lock the barn up now,” he said. “If I don’t, I wake up and find people in the hay."...more

And Bingaman's S.1689 would designate a quarter of a million acres as wilderness on or near our border with Mexico. If the bill becomes law, "no-mans land" is heading our way.

More than immigration at stake on border

The same routes and crossing points, the same coyotes and smugglers who manual laborers rely on to enter the United States can also be used by intruders with far less benign objectives. The armed groups that have turned Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, into a war zone — 200 people dead in only one week last month — have distribution networks that crisscross this country. The cartels, their paramilitary enforcers and street gangs move illicit drugs north and cash and guns back south. In the multi-billion-dollar drug trade, the border is irrelevant. And there’s no reason to believe the people doing the beheadings and assassinations will indefinitely be solicitous about keeping violence on one side of an international boundary, as the alleged plot to blow up Falcon Dam suggests. In May, the Department of Homeland Security warned law enforcement officials in Texas of the potential illegal entry from Mexico of a suspected member of the al-Shabaab terrorist group, an al-Qaida affiliate in Somalia. Why would terrorists from Somalia or anywhere else choose to clandestinely enter the United States from Mexico? Because if millions of Mexican laborers can do it, so can they. That’s the troubling fact at the heart of what the U.S. government calls “special interest aliens” — illegal immigrants from countries that pose a national security threat. Hundreds of them are apprehended in the United States each year. No one knows how many are being missed. A recent report from the U.S. Southern Command obtained by the Washington Examiner raises a warning flag. “Of particular concern is the smuggling of criminal aliens and gang members who pose public safety threats to communities throughout the border region and the country,” it cautions. “These individuals include hundreds of undocumented aliens from special interest countries, primarily China, but also Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan.” People who wish to do harm to the United States can and are entering the country undetected. That ought to be the starting point of any national discussion about the border...more

Drug gangs terrorize residents in small Mexican villages on Arizona's doorstep

Very few residents dare to drive on one of the roads out of this watering-hole for migrants, fearing they will be stopped at gunpoint. They worry they will be told to turn around after their gas tanks are drained or, worse, be kidnapped or killed. A shootout that left 21 people dead and six wounded on the road last week is the most gruesome sign that a relatively tranquil pocket of northern Mexico is quickly turning into a hotbed of drug-fueled violence on Arizona's doorstep. Nogales, the main city in the region, which shares a border with the Arizona city of the same name, has had 131 murders so far this year, nearly surpassing 135 for all of 2009, according to a tally by the newspaper Diario de Sonora. That includes two heads found Thursday stuffed side by side between the bars of a cemetery fence. Many people have fled in the last few months, said one resident whose family has longtime roots in a village near the shootings. He asked that his only his first name, Luis, be published because he fears for his safety. His relatives abandoned their homes this spring to join him in a larger city where he lives. Luis said schools closed early this year without explanation. Soft-drink vendors and electricity meter readers refuse to come...more

12 people killed during elections in Juárez

A man was beaten to death and hung from his house's fence in Juárez this morning, Chihuahua state police said. Police arrived to the Los Almendros subdivision about 6 a.m. to respond to the murder. They have not identified the man who appears to be between 35 and 40 years old. Police reported threatening messages were written on the man's chest and back. In total, eight people were killed in Juárez on Sunday, when thousands headed to the polls to elect the mayor and Chihuahua governor. Four have been killed today, state police said. Among the murders, a man found close to midnight Sunday appeared to have been tortured. Police said the unidentified man was pierced from his mouth to his genitals with an iron rod...more

Drug war casts shadow over Mexico elections

Presumed enforcers for drug gangs hung four bodies from overpasses before dawn on Sunday in Chihuahua, the capital of a violence-wracked Mexican state that borders Texas and New Mexico, as Mexican voters went to the polls to pick new state and local leaders. A local newspaper, El Heraldo, reported on its website that two of the four bodies found dangling in Chihuahua victims may have been guards at a local prison. In the capital of Tamaulipas, another border state, 30 bodyguards protected Egidio Torre Cantu as he cast a ballot. Torre's brother was the 2-to-1 favorite to win the governorship of Tamaulipas before gunmen ambushed his convoy June 28, the highest-level political assassination in more than a decade. The brother assumed the candidacy on behalf of a PRI-led coalition. Federal police arrested Gregorio Sanchez, the PRI's candidate for governor of Quintano Roo, home to the resort of Cancun, on May 25 on charges he was linked to the Beltran Leyva and Los Zetas drug gangs. Even so, the PRI candidate who replaced Sanchez was on track to victory...more

Officials make arrests in US Consulate deaths

An alleged gang leader arrested in Juárez told Mexican authorities that a U.S. Consulate employee and her husband were targeted for assassination because the woman provided visas to a rival gang. Officials said Friday that Jesus Ernesto Chávez Castillo, 41, described as a top Azteca gang member who led hit squads, is suspected of ordering the slayings of Lesley Enriquez Redelfs and her husband, Arthur Redelfs, both of El Paso. Chávez, known as "El Camello," or the camel, told investigators after his arrest that Enriquez Redelfs was the target of the attack on March 13 because she had been helping the rival Sinaloa drug cartel. His allegation was met with skepticism by U.S. officials and contradicts the story of another suspect arrested earlier this year. The FBI, which has been investigating the slayings, said his claim is unverified...more

Mexican authorities: Federal agents could have fired bullets that struck City Hall

Mexican authorities said the seven bullets that pierced the walls of El Paso City Hall on Tuesday could have been fired by Mexican federal agents. Federal police spokesman José Ramón Salinas said that six agents stopped a vehicle Monday afternoon to inspect it and that the driver and passengers attacked the agents. A shootout erupted, and a federal agent and a woman were killed. Salinas said the fact that the vehicle the agents had stopped was later found with bullet holes and blood showed that federal agents had fired shots. Salinas said these findings were preliminary because the shootout is still under investigation by the Chihuahua state attorney general's office. "The order is always to avoid firing, but the police officer is the one who makes the decision at the moment," Salinas said. Generally, criminals in Juárez have been using the AK-47 rifles, or what they call "cuerno de chivo," Spanish for goat's horn, because the ammunition clip curves like a horn. But Salinas said some federal police officers are also armed that type of gun. It fires a round that can easily reach El Paso from Juárez. No Mexican agency, however, is taking responsibility for the bullets that hit City Hall...more

Shootout At El Paso City Hall

In his speech Thursday, President Obama assured us that our "southern border is more se cure today than at any time in the past 20 years." So why is El Paso's City Hall taking fire from Mexico? The president made his pitch for "comprehensive immigration reform" by assuring us problems on the border were already taken care of, so the next course of action was a modified amnesty program for 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. But a funny thing happened on the same day he was urging Americans to go along: El Paso's City Hall found itself in a war zone as gunfire from the Mexican side from either traffickers or the Mexican lawmen trying to fight them pocked the edifice. News reports said as many as seven bullets hit the building. No one was hit — this time. It's another sign of the horror in Mexico spilling onto the U.S. side. Further down the border on the same day, 12 miles from Nogales, Ariz., 21 people were massacred in a fight between rival smuggling gangs over the right of way to bring their illegal immigrant "shipments" and narcotics into the U.S. It all gives the president's assurances to Americans that the border situation is being dealt with an aura of unreality...more

Arizona Dems contest Obama's assertions on border security

Anticipating a furor of voter criticism over the July Fourth recess, Democratic lawmakers from the border region shot back at the White House last week, challenging the president’s speech on immigration in which he said that the southern border is secure. Arizona Democratic Reps. Ann Kirkpatrick, Harry Mitchell and Gabrielle Giffords joined a growing Republican chorus in denouncing President Barack Obama for not pushing for more specific action in his Thursday speech on the nation’s immigration and border security issues. Obama said that the U.S.-Mexico border is more secure today than at any time in the past 20 years. But the three Arizona Democrats disagreed. “The crisis on America’s borders won’t be addressed with words,” said Giffords. “I was disappointed to hear the president give short shrift to border security concerns by saying that our nation’s southern border is more secure today than at any time in the past 20 years. “That is not a sign of progress, it is a statement on the poor job we have done in securing the border for the past two decades.” As their constituents continue to clamor that more must be done to secure the borders, the first- and second-term Arizona Democrats are increasingly bucking their own party’s stance on border security. “As any politician knows, it is easier to make speeches than it is to make progress, and we need more than talk from the White House and Congress right now,” said Kirkpatrick...more

Wells Fargo, Wachovia Involved in Numerous Mexican Drug Laundering Schemes

Just before sunset on April 10, 2006, a DC-9 jet landed at the international airport in the port city of Ciudad del Carmen, 500 miles east of Mexico City. As soldiers on the ground approached the plane, the crew tried to shoo them away, saying there was a dangerous oil leak. So the troops grew suspicious and searched the jet. They found 128 black suitcases, packed with 5.7 tons of cocaine, valued at $100 million. The stash was supposed to have been delivered from Caracas to drug traffickers in Toluca, near Mexico City, Mexican prosecutors later found. Law enforcement officials also discovered something else. The smugglers had bought the DC-9 with laundered funds they transferred through two of the biggest banks in the U.S.: Wachovia Corp. and Bank of America Corp., Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its August 2010 issue. This was no isolated incident. Wachovia, it turns out, had made a habit of helping move money for Mexican drug smugglers. Wells Fargo, which bought Wachovia in 2008, has admitted in court that its unit failed to monitor and report suspected money laundering by narcotics traffickers — including the cash used to buy four planes that shipped a total of 22 tons of cocaine. Wachovia admitted it didn’t do enough to spot illicit funds in handling $378.4 billion for Mexican-currency-exchange houses from 2004 to 2007. That’s the largest violation of the Bank Secrecy Act, an anti-money-laundering law, in U.S. history — a sum equal to one-third of Mexico’s current gross domestic product...more

Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

Headin' down the rodeo road

by Julie Carter

It's the Fourth of July holiday and all roads lead to a rodeo arena somewhere.

As we honor America, our freedoms, and the price paid for both, I find myself also giving some reverent honor to the cowboy as well.

This particular holiday is his "Cowboy Christmas," the most lucrative run of rodeos for the season.

Rodeo rigs are progressively bigger, fancier, and technology has kicked rodeoing up a notch from the days of standing in a pay phone booth to enter a rodeo or find out when you drew up. While so much is different, much is still the same.

Rodeo roots run deep in the heart and soul of the American cowboy. It began as a good-natured competition among the working cowboys.

During more than a century, it has evolved to be a major league sport complete with television media coverage, sponsors and big money.

Today's rodeo, with the exception of the events themselves, resembles little of its beginnings on the open range. The cowboys have advanced to be defined athletes and fewer have ranch cowboy roots.

The addiction to the adrenalin remains the same as does the dedication to the competition.

One of the differences in the sport lies in the technology used to "phone home" reports from the rodeo (aka excuses, near death experiences at the bucking chutes, requests for money, etc.).

Instead of using a pay phone at the local honky tonk, the cowboy now sends a text message to a loved one's cell phone or an email from just about anywhere he is at the
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time.

That's progress. And you will find that today's rodeo cowboy has no idea how anybody managed to get it done without all the current gadgets.

It has been said that rodeoing is an addiction and the only cure for it is more rodeo.

In two ever-popular songs, it is referred to as that "damned old rodeo." Back in the '60s, iconic Ian Tyson, a Canadian rodeo cowboy turned singer, penned a song called "Someday Soon."

The song lamented the love a rodeo cowboy has for the sport and the pain it causes those that love him. "He loves his damned old rodeo as much as he loves me." The song stayed popular for decades with new recordings of it by Judy Collins, Lynn Anderson, Chrystal Gayle, Suzy Bogguss and Chris LeDoux.

Garth Brooks recorded a timeless song about the sport called simply "Rodeo." The lyrics sum it up about as well as any written.

Well, it's bulls and blood
It's dust and mud
It's the roar of a Sunday crowd
It's the white in his knuckles
The gold in the buckle
He'll win the next go 'round

It's boots and chaps
It's cowboy hats
It's spurs and latigo
It's the ropes and the reins
And the joy and the pain
And they call the thing rodeo

She knows his love's in Tulsa
And she know he's gonna go
Well it ain't no woman flesh and blood
It's that damned old rodeo

Fourth of July rodeoing is defined by road-weary cowboys, tired horses, pickups filled with dirty clothes, fast-food wrappers and muddy boots.

A dashboard full of rumpled rodeo programs, Copenhagen cans, empty coffee cups, dusty sunglasses, gas receipts, a ball cap or two and a road map paints the classic scene.

For me, it wouldn't be the Fourth of July if I wasn't in the hot sun, beating rain or dusty wind waiting for the next rodeo event to move the entertainment along.

So that's what I do. However, now I carry a camera and put what I know of rodeo in print.

I don't suppose I'll ever be anywhere else but at a rodeo grounds somewhere on the Fourth of July. However, the option has crept into the recesses of my mind, only to be banished by the sounds of the National Anthem and the bucking horses kicking in the chutes in unison.

Let's rodeo!’

Julie can be reached for comment at jcarter@tularosa.net. Visit her website at www.julie-carter.com .