Baltimore Hands Out First Trans Fat Citation

The Baltimore City Health Department issued its first environmental citation for repeat violations of the city's trans fat ban. The Health Department issued Healthy Choice, a food facility in the 400 block of Lexington Street, a $100 fine on Thursday. "It was the second time they were found with a high trans fat level in their ingredients," said Health Department agent Juan Gutierrez. The Health Department said more than 100 Baltimore restaurants have received warnings since the ban went into effect. Agents said that if restaurants don't make changes after a citation is issue, the establishment could be shut down...more

All consumers are incompetent, therefore the government must protect them by offering "encouragement" to the producer. Wonderful system.

Navajo Lawmakers Turn to Prayer Amid Corruption Investigation

At least 77 current delegates to the 88-member Navajo Nation Tribal Council are charged with offenses including theft and fraud in the use of tribal funds. So when the lawmakers convened the last day of their fall session with customary prayer, the ritual quickly deepened into a quest for protection and purification. Delegate Willie Tracey dipped an eagle feather in water and sprinkled it on the other lawmakers, who patted the drops on themselves in a gesture of absolution. One by one, they lined up and sipped more ceremonial water from a small wooden cup in the council chambers where colorful murals depict the tribe's history. The lawmakers have faced heavy scrutiny since it was revealed last week that the majority of them have been charged in tribal court with any of five offenses -- conspiracy, theft, abuse of office, forgery and fraud -- in an investigation of how they spent discretionary funds intended for Navajos in need. The allegations say the money was used by some lawmakers on the nation's largest and deeply-impoverished Indian reservation to benefit themselves and their families...more

Traditional New Mexico Tribe Bans Trick-or-Treating

Kids who have been eagerly awaiting a fun-filled night of trick-or-treating in this small Native American community will need to find a new way to spend Halloween. Leaders of Jemez Pueblo have banned trick-or-treating on Halloween, saying it's a safety concern for children walking near unlit roads at night and a holiday that's not part of pueblo culture. Pueblo leaders say anyone trick-or-treating on tribal land will be sent home, and suggest parents who want their children to participate take them elsewhere. The community of about 2,500 lies in an area of mesas and red rocks an hour's drive northwest of Albuquerque, New Mexico's largest city. The tribe still deeply embraces its traditions, including preserving the Towa language that's unique to Jemez and is spoken by more than 90 percent of its members, Madalena said...more

Song Of The Day #427

This morning Ranch Radio brings you Johnny Horton's 1956 recording of One Woman Man.

Johnny Horton - I'm A One Woman Man.mp3

Holiday hex hits Sharon again

You will recall last Christmas Sharon fell from a ladder while getting down Christmas decorations. Today she fell from a ladder while putting up Halloween decorations.

Another trip to the hospital and more X-rats and a CT scan. No broken bones, but a swollen elbow, sore shoulder and a nasty knot on the back of her head. She is one hurtin' lady right now.

That means my schedule and my ability to get to this computer are gonna change. So The Westerner may look a little different for awhile.

Also, if you know anybody who needs some ladders, cheap, let me know. I'm givin' 'em away.

Solar farm sparks heated debate in California's Panoche Valley

A kind of family feud has erupted in San Benito County's rich slice of Central California farmland over plans to build a massive solar power facility in a valley shared by 20 ranchers and organic farmers and some of the rarest creatures in the United States. Both sides of the dispute insist they are fighting for the same things — protecting the environment and growing the local economy. County officials — some of them farmers themselves — believe Solargen Energy Inc.'s proposed 400-megawatt solar farm on 5,000 acres just south of San Francisco Bay will be a key part of a new future based, in part, on green technology. But the small-scale ranchers, farmers and horse trainers who live and work in the misty pastures and furrowed slopes of Panoche Valley believe the old connotation of "green" is worth more. In an effort to hasten construction of the plant, the county recently approved a final environmental impact report that opponents say was faulty. In addition, despite opposition from the California Farm Bureau, county leaders and the San Benito County Farm Bureau approved the withdrawal of about 6,500 acres in the Panoche Valley from pacts intended to keep that land in agriculture for 10 years, in return for tax breaks under the state's Williamson Act...more

Struggle looms for control of Beef Council

Nebraska is the only state where all nine members of the beef checkoff board, collectors of about $9.5 million per year in mandatory fees, are elected. As the state's beef producers get ready to cast mail-in ballots in November, the number of candidates vying for open seats in four of the nine districts is the highest in recent memory. And at least one of those 10 candidates is suggesting the outcome could send a message about disenchantment with the management of money nationally that's raised at the rate of $1 per head and added up to about $77 million a year in the most recent fiscal year. "I think a lot of states are watching us," said Pam Pothoff of Trenton. And that's just fine with her. "I figure, when somebody pays in a dollar, they ought to get a dollar's worth of good out of it," Pothoff said. "And we're certainly not getting that."...more

Cedar City’s Main Street becomes a river of wool

In 1870, sheep ranchers in Cedar City first took their grazing animals off the neighboring mountain and herded them through town into the valley for winter. On Saturday, the tradition was kept alive as more than 1,000 of the wooly beasts paraded down Main Street to the delight of several hundred spectators lining the curbs. The parade was part of the Cedar Livestock and Heritage Festival, held to celebrate the livestock heritage of Cedar City and Iron County. The trail down Main Street is one of the few recognized livestock trails in the country that bisects a city for one day. Chad Reid, chairman of the festival committee, said the event is in its fifth year and was fashioned after a similar parade held every year in Ketchum, Idaho. An official with the Ketchum Parade encouraged Cedar City to preserve the tradition. “She said, ‘You have a story to tell,’ ” said Reid, who helped get the city to herd the sheep down Main Street as ranchers did 140 years ago...more

Gadsden Hotel in Douglas has ghostly guests

Robin Brekhus used to amuse herself by joking with the ghosts of the Gadsden Hotel when she worked in the basement. She was down there a lot after moving to the border town to run the old hotel. She would jokingly call out to the ghosts, asking if there was any buried gold, but she didn't believe the legends of apparitions and unexplained noises in the old hotel. That changed on Friday, March 13, 1992, a little after 4 p.m. The hotel lost its power, and the lights went out, the clocks stopped, the elevator froze. The staff needed candles, so Brekhus picked up a flashlight and headed for the basement to retrieve some. She started getting creepy vibes almost as soon as she got down there. "I got the feeling that someone was watching me," she said recently, standing in one of the hotel's basement corridors. "The hair on my arms stood up. The hair on my neck stood up." Brekhus recalled how she pointed her light down the hall. Nothing there. She grabbed candles from one of the rooms and walked back into the hall. She shined the light toward the other end of the hall, the end with no entry or exit. Someone was standing there, calmly watching her, she said. Brekhus ran for the stairs. "He looked like a cowboy," Brekhus said. "It looked like he had a long duster coat and a cowboy hat. I know I saw somebody. It's like he was waiting for me to acknowledge that I saw him. Then he just kind of turned and moved down the hall. It made a believer out of me."...more

English horseback riders complete journey through American West

It sure was one long ride. A pack of English horseback riders who trained in Frisco have concluded a six-month journey through the American West. Their trek: The group left in April from Fort Belknap, a couple of hours west of Dallas-Fort Worth, and headed through Texas, New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming. The riders ended their journey a few weeks ago in Montana, near the Battle of Little Bighorn. "The scenery in Montana was stunning and worth waiting for," James Locke, the expedition leader, said in an e-mail. Challenging journey: Along the way, a few riders suffered heatstroke. In New Mexico, hail and sheets of rain pounded the riders and horses, but a rancher rescued them. In northern Colorado, swarms of grasshoppers surrounded the riders, hopping into their food and drinks. And then there was an encounter with a mother bear and her two cubs. The bears walked toward the riders but eventually moved into the bushes. Honoring two pioneers: Locke and company – they called their trek the Long Ride – followed in the footsteps of two Western pioneers, Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving...more

Texas City area settled by black cowboys on historic list

An area in Texas City that 143 years ago was settled by former slaves now is on the list as one of the recognized historical places in the nation. The 1867 Settlement, located in what is now West Texas City, earned the listing on the National Register of Historic Places in May, but descendants of the first settlers are preparing to celebrate next summer when the city marks its 100th birthday. The settlement was founded in large part by black cowboys, who were part of the Chisom Trail cattle drives, on 320 acres that was divided into three-acre tracts for recently freed slaves who could supply “testimonies of good standing and industrious habit,” according to the settlement’s history documents prepared by the Galveston County Historical Commission. For more than a 100 years, it thrived as a self-sufficient African-American community and included general stores and churches, as well as small farms and houses of the settlers. Descendants of four of the black cowboys who worked for the Butler Ranch in what is now the League City area and were founders of the settlement — Calvin Bell, Thomas Britton, Thomas Caldwell and David Hobgood — still are very much a part of the community. Bell, who has been a tallyman for the Butler Ranch cattle roundups, bartered some of his pay for some cattle. When he settled in the area in 1874, he became the first African-American in the county to have a registered cattle brand...more

Annual reunion drew Civil War vets, cowboys

During Plainview's infancy, before the vast Plains ranches had been broken up into farms, the community brought Civil War veterans and cowboys together each summer for a huge four-day reunion and celebration. The 1898 reunion is outlined in a flyer found among materials once belonging to rancher George M. Slaughter that are now on file in the Llano Estacado Museum archives. Headlined "RE-UNION! CONFEDERATES and COWBOYS" the flyer advertised "A grand celebration of the Confederate veterans and cowboys will be held on the fair grounds at Plainview, Aug. 2d 3d 4th and 5th, 1898." Everyone was invited, particularly "The Veterans of the Gray and Blue and all Cowboys." The event was free to all. "Free grounds, free grass, free water, and free air. Our water facilities are much better than last year and copious rains have made grass fine and abundant." The first two days of the event were set aside for "the exercises of the Confederate veterans" with the last two days focusing on the cowboys. "The Confederate Veterans and Cowboys will have programs of each days' exercises distributed on the grounds. Roping contests, tournament riding and bronco busting will be some of the features of the Cowboys exercises. Grown cattle only will be used in the roping contest." A good time had by all was the same sentiment expressed by Susan McWhorter Maggard, who died in 1981. She wrote, "We used to go to Plainview in the late 1890s for the Cowboy Reunion. It would be held in August each year and last four days. There was a place east of town and they would fix streets for the covered wagons. Lots of people had tents, too. There would be calf roping and bronc riding and the rest of the time we just visited. People came for quite a distance and set up camp. We'd cook over campfires."...more

Family locates site of children's Jal grave site

Hidden among the prairie grass and mesquite bushes a few miles east of Jal, an old barbed-wire fence and wooden cross were the only evidence four nameless children lost their lives at that spot more than a century ago. On Oct. 25, 103 years after the children were laid to rest, the names and faces almost lost to history have been returned to Violet, William, Newton and Earl Sparks. For their nephews, Jack and Frank Sparks, the story began on March 16, 1957. According to the Sparks family's oral histories and research by local historian David Minton, that was the day the four children's mother, Effie Sparks, broke down crying and told a niece she had four children buried somewhere in New Mexico or Texas but had no idea where. The revelation set Effie's grandchildren, Frank and Jack, on a quest that would take them more than 50 years. As the story goes, and as Minton writes it, it was 1907 and all six of the Sparks children — Cecil, Violet, William, Newton, Earl and infant Eva Mae — became ill with either diphtheria or scarlet fever. The family loaded them into a wagon and started for Midland, Texas, the closest and best medical help at the time. A rider was sent ahead to get medicine and meet the family on the trail, but along the way four of the children died. They were buried, and the wagon, bedding and items taken for the trip were burned to prevent the spread of the disease. James and Effie Sparks returned to Nadine with their surviving children, Cecil and Eva Mae, where they lived until about 1915, when the family returned to Coke County, Texas, along with two new children, Relia and Vera, who had been born in Nadine. Minton, with the help of Jal area ranchers who still remembered the story passed down from their fathers, found the family grave...more

Trew: Homesteaders Act greatest act ever passed

Not only is the act thought to be the most important act ever passed by the government, it gave birth to the "breadbasket of the world." Between 1870 and 1900, more than 2 million settlers took advantage of this "almost free land" opportunity. The cheap land was not a bargain in personal sacrifice. Enduring drought, blizzards, locusts, hailstorms, poor communication and national financial panics, about 60 percent of the 2 million plus claims were abandoned at least once. On the success side, about 783,000 claims were sustained, eventually comprising 270 million acres in titles issued. Montana had the most claims with North Dakota, Colorado, Nebraska, Oklahoma and South Dakota following. Almost all states boasted claims, including Alaska. Arriving in wagons, and in most cases without the presence of trees for lumber, most claimants had to dig holes in the ground or build houses of sod in order to be protected from the elements. As financial conditions improved, small frame houses were built, many on top of or beside the dugouts and soddies to provide for growing families. Many early settlers earned money by picking up bleached buffalo bones left by the hide hunters. Some had to harvest the bones before they could plow their crop land...more

Song Of The Day #426

It's Swinging Monday on Ranch Radio and here is the group Salty Dog performing Mobile Line.

Salty Dog - Mobile Line.mp3

Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

The cowboy and the skinwalker

by Julie Carter

It happened on a high desert ranch in Navajo country.

The mesa lands surrounded the canyons and the cedar-covered hillsides and all were painted in layers of bold colors.

The day wore a hushed stillness broken by the occasional flapping sound of a crow on the wing.

A lone cowboy was checking cattle, riding along at a slow trot when a movement caught his eye.

Across the canyon, very deep and wide, he could see a man walking. He pulled his horse to a stop, squinting to make sure of what he was seeing.

In the distance, he could see what he knew to be an Indian dressed in the traditional animal-hide apparel of a century ago.

The fact that the Indian was afoot so far from civilization raised a curiosity in the cowboy.

He navigated his way across the canyon in one of the few places that it could be crossed. There he found some old cliff dwellings and "picture rocks," bringing him to the thought that perhaps the Indian had been praying there in an ancient place of worship.

The cowboy looked around but the man seemed to have disappeared. He rode to the spot where he saw him from across the canyon and found not the man, but where he had been sitting, along with another curious sight.

Hanging on a large cedar, like ornaments on a Christmas tree, were little figurines made of grass and bound with string. One of them, swaying only slightly in a non-existent breeze, was quite clearly a man on a horse.

A cold shiver went down his spine. He shook it off and began to look around for signs of the man he'd seen.

He found the Indian's tracks and followed them for a short distance. They all but disappeared in the rocks so he circled the area looking for more tracks.

All he could find were the tracks of several coyotes.

"I figured he was hiding in the huge cracks in the rocks so as not to be bothered," the cowboy related in telling the tale "So I rode away respectfully, crossed back over the canyon and went on to finish my day's work."

The next night, the cowboy was joined in camp by a Navajo friend of his named Bobby. They sat by the fire and over coffee, the cowboy told Bobby about what he had seen the day before.

Even in the dim firelight, the cowboy could see Bobby's deep brown skin turn very pale.

He was visibly spooked when he asked the cowboy if he believed in witches and demons or devils.

The cowboy, without hesitation, replied a simple, "No."

Bobby, his voice shaking, began to tell the cowboy about skinwalkers. Although they are most frequently seen as a coyote, wolf, owl, fox, or crow, the yee naaldlooshii is said to have the power to assume the form of any animal they choose, depending on what kind of abilities they need.

Some Navajo also believe that skinwalkers have the ability to steal the "skin" or body of a person.

The Navajo believe that if you lock eyes with a skinwalker they can absorb themselves into your body.

Bobby told the cowboy that his lack of belief in bad spirits made his soul too strong for the skinwalker.

"The little doll on the horse that was hanging in the tree was the tool he made to call you over to his side of the canyon," Bobby told him. "When you lost his tracks, then found several sets of coyote tracks, it was him and his clan leaving when he couldn't enter your body.

"Only one of them will change shape and be seen," said Bobby. "That's why you only saw one man. They didn't want you to feel outnumbered. Stay away from them, and they'll move on."

The legend of skinwalkers comes with many stories and warnings, all common with their elements of evil and elusiveness that are magnified by the dark of night.

But there is one cowboy that knows what he saw in broad daylight.

Never again did he ride the desert canyon lands without feeling there were many eyes upon him.

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

It's The Pitts: I Don't Get It

by Lee Pitts

I really enjoy listening to Charles Barkley make commentary about basketball games. I loved watching him play because he was a ferocious competitor, he is highly entertaining, obviously intelligent and from what people say, he’s a great guy. But awhile back The Chuckster uttered something lame and un-Chuckster-like. He said, “There are really only five serious and important jobs in the world: teachers, firemen, police, doctors and those serving in the armed forces.”

Oh really, Charles? I think you are forgetting someone.

People nodded in agreement and accepted Barkley’s proclamation as wisdom because the “Round Mound of Rebound” said it. And because it was a very politically correct statement. It sounded like something you’d read in Bartlett’s Book of Quotations. Except that it’s absolutely false. Has everyone forgotten in this country that the most important thing they have to do every day is eat? Without farmers, ranchers and fishermen there’d be no kids to teach, fires to put out, colonoscopies to dread, wars to fight, crooks to arrest or basketball games to comment on.

Not that the five jobs Charles listed aren’t noble callings. Of course they are. These servants all deserve our utmost respect and appreciation. I fully support our military, come from a long line of firemen and I wouldn’t be alive today if not for a good doctor. Without good teachers you wouldn’t be reading this. But theoretically, at least, societies could exist without these five occupations. Not very well mind you, but society could survive on some level. But without farmers, ranchers and fishermen we’d all starve to death. Perhaps we could hunt for our food but all the game in this country, including several endangered species, would be wiped out in one day if we all had to hunt for our dinner like the Indians of old.

I don’t know when there started to be such disdain for folks who produce things in this country. Well meaning people give money to green groups who mostly use these contributions to pay lawyers to throw up roadblocks in the way of people who produce the necessities of life. While the farmers and ranchers have done more to save endangered species than all the green groups put together. Yet society worships the greenies and looks down on the farmers and ranchers. I don’t get it.

Letting our forests burn and rot is seen as preferable to harvesting the timber and putting it to good use. Those of us in the west who produce things are supposed to have the same Constitutional rights as those urbanites who live in the east, who see the west as their playground, and yet the federal government owns 2-10% of eastern states while they own 30-90% of western states. I don’t get it.

We allow teenage daughters to tattoo their entire bodies but howl like coyotes when ranchers brand their cattle. We feed, house and even clothe our pets in designer togs while there are children in this world starving to death and people living outside in cardboard boxes. We celebrate low-life athletes and Hollywood celebrities, elect corrupt politicians, and can’t miss watching TV shows about mothers who have eight kids at a time or who have given birth to 19 children. And then we criticize the farmers and ranchers who are just trying to feed all of us. We only allow our fishermen and others who produce stuff to catch a bumper crop of bureaucracy. And I don’t get it.

When will it dawn on folks that you can’t continue to regulate people out of work, destroy entire industries, and then expect to get a job or have unemployment go down? We can’t all work for the government and still pretend to be a democracy.

Charles Barkley is a smart man and I’m sure if he reconsidered he might change his mind. As a fan of his I’d like to think that Charles was merely guilty, like all Americans are, of taking this nation’s farmers, ranchers and fishermen for granted.

Red Tape Rising

Next January the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is set to issue new regulations on emissions from boilers used in facilities like oil refineries, paper mills and shopping malls. The EPA claims their new regulations will only cost the economy $9.5 billion by 2013. But the American Chemistry Council says the cost will surpass $20 billion and kill 800,000 jobs. Who is right? We don't know. But what we do know is that if you total up all of the new regulations already passed by the Obama administration last year, using their own cost estimates, fiscal 2010 saw the largest increase in regulatory burdens placed on the U.S. economy in the nation's recorded regulatory history, says Conn Carroll, assistant director for the Heritage Foundation's Strategic Communications.

* According to a report released last month by the Small Business Administration, existing total regulatory costs already amount to about $1.75 trillion annually -- nearly twice as large as the sum of all individual income taxes collected last year.
* Adding to this burden, federal agencies promulgated 43 new rules during the fiscal year ending September 30, 2010.
* The total cost of these rules, each one individually calculated by the Obama administration itself, was $28 billion.
* On net, the Obama administration inflicted $26.5 billion in new regulatory costs on the economy last year.

As high as this $26.5 billion total is, the actual cost of all these new regulations is almost certainly much higher, says Carroll.

* First, the cost of noneconomically significant rules -- rules deemed not likely to have an annual impact of $100 million or more -- is not calculated.
* Second, no costs were given for 12 of the rules that were deemed economically significant.

Most importantly, the costs that were given are likely minimized because the regulators are allowed to make up the cost of their own regulations. Indeed, a 2005 Office of Management and Budget Report to Congress found that regulators underestimated the costs of their rules 34 percent of the time.

Source: Conn Carroll, "Red Tape Rising," Heritage Foundation, October 27th, 2010.

NCPA

Why Can't We Innovate Our Way to a Carbon-Free Energy Future?

Despite pledges such as the 2008 promise by the Group of Eight (G8) industrialized nations to work to cut global carbon emissions in half by 2050 under the Kyoto Protocol, no meaningful international climate agreement has ever been reached, says Bjorn Lomborg, head of the Copenhagen Consensus Center and adjunct professor at Copenhagen Business School.

The Kyoto approach proposes a "solution" that is more expensive than the problem it's meant to solve.

* To cut carbon emissions enough to keep average global temperatures from rising any higher than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels -- a goal endorsed by the G8 -- we would have to slap a huge tax on carbon-emitting fuels.
* Huge means something on the order of $4,000 per ton of carbon dioxide -- or $35 per gallon of gasoline -- by the end of the century.
* The impact of a tax of this magnitude would be devastating -- it could reduce world gross domestic product (GDP) by a staggering 12.9 percent in 2100 (the equivalent of $40 trillion a year).

The best estimate is that if we don't do anything about global warming, by 2100 it will be doing roughly $3 trillion a year in damage to the world. In other words, under the Kyoto approach, we'd be spending $40 trillion a year to prevent $3 trillion a year in environmental damage, says Lomborg.

Fortunately, there is a smarter way than carbon cuts to deal with global warming. What if, instead of crippling economic growth by trying to make carbon-emitting fuels too expensive to use, we devoted ourselves to making green energy cheaper?

Research has found that devoting just 0.2 percent of global GDP -- roughly $100 billion a year -- to green energy research and development would produce the kind of game-changing breakthroughs needed to fuel a carbon-free future.

Not only would this be a much less expensive fix than trying to cut carbon emissions, it would also reduce global warming far more quickly.

Source: Bjorn Lomborg, Why Can't We Innovate Our Way to a Carbon-Free Energy Future?" Investor's Business Daily, October 22, 2010.

NCPA

Song Of The Day #425

The Gospel tune this Sunday morning on Ranch Radio is the classic Rank Stranger by the Stanley Brothers. Many other bluegrass groups went on to record this beautiful song.

Ranch Radio also found out that when the Yahoo Media player specs said it would link to each mp3 file on your page, they meant the page of your website, not the page on OpenDrive like I thought. I show two pages, or two days of my blog posts, so it would play both songs. Today I am showing only one page, so it will play only the one song. Let me know if you don't like me showing the posts from only one day.

Stanley Brothers - Rank Stranger.mp3