The Price of Admission - Wilderness Rape Trees

The second video from Truth On The Border is The Price of Admission - Wilderness Rape Trees

I would encourage you to see the full-sized version by going here.

Their first video, Trash On The Border, you can view by going here.

Obama Administration Hosts National Rural Summit on Rebuilding and Revitalizing Rural America

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today held the Obama Administration's National Summit of Rural America with agricultural leaders, farmers, ranchers, community leaders, and rural residents who shared their vision and ideas to rebuild and revitalize rural America. As the day began at Jefferson College, Vilsack discussed many of the challenges and opportunities facing rural communities throughout the country and he encouraged participants to think boldly about the future. Vilsack also detailed the Obama Administration's commitment to job creation in rural communities and made several announcements to support rural businesses and cooperatives.

* A new Memorandum of Understanding between USDA and the Small Business Administration to outline a collaborative approach to supporting small businesses in rural America.
* USDA is seeking applications to support rural microentrepreneurs and microenterprises, which will provide $45.1 million to encourage lending to start up business ventures. Funding is available from the Rural Development Rural Microentrepreneur Assistance Program.
* USDA announced $22.5 million for recipients in 45 states and Puerto Rico to receive business development assistance and pursue marketing opportunities for agricultural commodities through USDA Rural Development assistance under the Value-Added Producer Grant program;
* USDA announced $6.7 million grant and loan funding to recipients in 10 states that will promote job creation through USDA Rural Development's Intermediary Relending Program and the Rural Economic Development Loan and Grant program.

What a waste, and it ain't a "micro" waste either.

'Climate Climbdown'

The Royal Society of Britain is rewriting its official position on global warming. We'd say the consensus that man is causing the planet to heat is cracking, but there never was a consensus in the first place. Last December, the 350-year-old Royal Society, considered the top scientific institution in Britain, published the following statement: "It is certain that greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels and from land use change lead to a warming of climate, and it is very likely that these greenhouse gases are the dominant cause of the global warming that has been taking place over the last 50 years." But now, just six months later, the Royal Society, under pressure from skeptics, says it will publish a new "guide to the science of climate change" this summer. According to the London Times, "The society has been accused by 43 of its fellows of refusing to accept dissenting views on climate change and exaggerating the degree of certainty that man-made emissions are the main cause."...more

Lightning strike injures 8 in Yellowstone

A lightning strike injured eight people who were waiting to see the Old Faithful geyser erupt Tuesday in Yellowstone National Park. Officials say a single lightning bolt from a small storm struck about 4 p.m., injuring eight visitors who were standing on or near the boardwalk that circles the geyser. The incident was witnessed by hundreds of people waiting to watch the park’s most popular attraction. Bystanders had started CPR on a 57-year-old man when park staff arrived on the scene. The man, who was unconscious and breathing, was airlifted to Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center in Idaho Falls. The Associated Press identified him as Harlan C. Idell Jr., 57, of Leesburg, Fla. “He indeed was struck by lightning,” park spokesman Al Nash said. “The others had impacts from being in that area where lightning struck. I am told that one guy who was sent to the hospital in Idaho Falls is going to be released this evening.” Seven other individuals were treated and released for complaints including shortness of breath, tingling or numbness...more

New Mexico embraces ecotourism efforts

New Mexico wants to join the ecotourism trend, promoting not only the state's natural beauty but also outdoor adventure, cultural heritage preservation and access to wild places. New Mexico's ecotourism venture was launched early last year but the actual pilot programs begin this summer around the Gila Wilderness near Silver City and Taos in northern New Mexico. Tourism is New Mexico's No. 2 industry, behind oil and gas production, and brings in an estimated $5.7 billion annually. And if ecotourism can be fairly described as nature-based specialty travel or wilderness experiences that enrich and educate, the state thinks it has something to offer. Outfitters, guides and others around New Mexico already have been doing ecotourism but "didn't know there was a name for it," said Sandy Cunningham of EcoNewMexico, which has a $250,000 contract with the Department of Tourism to develop the program. Smaller communities will benefit most from the state's effort, said Arturo Sandoval, president of the 19-year-old Center of Southwest Culture Inc., dedicated to preserving northern New Mexico's traditional land-based communities...more

Canada - Changes to cattle ear tags

Any bar-coded dangle tags still hanging from Canadian cattle's ears will officially become plastic jewelry effective July 1. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency, which was previously expected to de-list bar code tags as of Jan. 1, 2010, said Friday that the bar code tags will be de-listed July 1 in favour of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. Starting July 1, all cattle must be tagged with approved RFID tags before they move from their current locations or leave their farms of origin. "Although this change may be an additional one- time process for some producers, the ability to easily capture information from the RFID tags will help all producers in the long run," said Darcy Eddleston, a Paradise Valley, Alta. producer and chairman of the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency (CCIA), in a joint CFIA/CCIA release. "We have worked with government to move forward on traceability and we believe that de-listing the bar-coded tag will advance traceability initiatives." Existing bar-coded tags should not be removed, but left on the ear. An RFID tag must then be applied to the same animal, the agencies said. Producers who haven't already done so must cross-reference that new RFID tag with the existing bar-coded dangle tag in the Canadian Livestock Tracking System (CLTS) to make sure all tag data and history on a given animal is maintained. That data includes all events uploaded by the producer against the tag...more

Print depicts the roots of rodeo

This year's Reno Rodeo limited-edition print is a step back in time, and that's exactly the way Reno Rodeo President Ray Callahan and artist Cathy Trachok wanted it. "My theme this year has been a saddle-broncs-and-sagebrush kind of thing, kind of going back to the roots," said Callahan, a rancher and fourth-generation Nevadan. The roots of rodeo sprang from the ranches of the Old West, when cowboys from the various ranches would enliven roundups and cattle drives with friendly competitions. Trachok, a Reno native and lifelong artist, has long had a love for Nevada's mountain and desert landscapes. She has also had a longtime desire to be the artist for the Reno Rodeo print. He showed Trachok a black-and-white photograph of a saddled bronc kicking up its heels, stirring up a cloud of dust, and tugging against a cowboy trying to gain control. He asked her if she could use the image as a starting point. And so she did, with great delight. "It was a black-white-photograph, so I got to play around with the colors that I wanted to do," she said. The end result shows Nevada mountains and sagebrush and a scene that has probably played out thousands of times on Nevada's range during the past 150 years...more

Oklahoma City to host 37th annual Prix de West art exhibition

Two Oklahoma artists are among the new artists invited to show their works at the upcoming Prix de West Invitational Art Exhibition and Sale at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. Norman sculptor and University of Oklahoma artist-in-residence Paul Moore and Broken Arrow painter Mikel Donahue will exhibit artworks at the 37th annual show June 11-12 at the Oklahoma City museum. Donahue said disbelief was his first reaction at being asked to participate. "I called them right back after being invited,” the colored-pencil artist said during a recent telephone interview. "I really just wanted to make sure they knew who they had been talking to. Like all first-timers, Donahue will exhibit two paintings in the show. "Fall Work,” priced at $6,500, depicts a calf-branding scene at last fall's roundup at the historic Stuart ranch near Waurika, Donahue said. "I liked the way the smoke was gathering in the branding pen and that they had an actual fire to heat the irons,” he said. "They do branding the old, traditional way — 600 calves in a morning.” His other painting, "If These Walls Could Talk,” priced at $5,500, shows a young cowhand saddling up in front of an old sod-roofed log building at a friend's Wyoming ranch. "I liked the contrast of light and of the idea of young and old,” Donahue said...more

Song Of The Day #326

Ranch Radio will close out this weeks look at Emmett Miller and his influence on country music and artists with a triple play.

Miller recorded Anytime three times: 1924 & 1928 for Okeh, and 1936 for Bluebird. Eddy Arnold had a big hit with the tune in 1948 and is our first selection today (Also recorded by Patsy Cline, Jimmy Dean and many pop singers such as Dean Martin)

Miller recorded I Ain't Got Nobody in 1928 for Okeh and in 1936 for Bluebird. Bob Wills & Tommy Duncan also recorded it in 1936, but today we give you Asleep At The Wheel & Don Walser performing the song.

Our final selection is Merle Haggard's live performance of Big Bad Bill Is Sweet William Now. Haggard also had a studio recording of the tune, but it was the live performance where he gives the tribute. My date and place of recording differs from what Haggard says, but who am I to disagree with the great Merle Haggard.

The Battle For Arizona

The trackers mustered at Tex Canyon Road, 20 miles north of the Mexican border, on the afternoon of March 27. There were border-patrol agents, six search-and-rescue units from the Cochise County sheriff's department and dogs trained to track escaped inmates from nearby Douglas State Prison. Several ranchers were also there, many of them descendants of the Germans and Irish who came to the San Bernardino Valley a hundred years or more ago. Back then, the ranchers settled here in part to feed the U.S. troops stationed at the border. One military mission in those days: prevent the chaos of the Mexican Revolution from spilling into the Territory of Arizona. Now another period of powerful unrest in Mexico had brought a different kind of war to the valley, and the ranchers were mindful that the violence might have claimed one of their own, a man named Rob Krentz. When Krentz's daughter Kyle heard that her father was missing, her first thought was, How do you lose a guy that big? Krentz, 58, was a bear of a man--when he played football in high school, his nickname was Captain Crunch--but throughout southeastern Arizona, those who knew Krentz say his heart was the biggest thing about him. The trackers couldn't find Krentz before nightfall, so they waited for a border-patrol helicopter, which spotted his ATV 10 miles from his house just before midnight. It was hidden in the trough of a swale, its running lights still on. The helicopter's thermal imager showed the heat signature of his slain dog, according to a relative of Krentz's. Beside the dog was Krentz himself, his body too cold, dead too long to register a thermal reading...more

Agua Prieta officials help search for man who killed Rob Krentz

Did the man who shot and killed a Douglas rancher flee to Agua Prieta? Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever says yes, but Agua Prieta officials say no. Agua Prieta police released to News 4 a crime scene photo showing footprints. It's widely believed the footprints belong to the man who killed Rob Krentz back in March. Cochise County detectives say the tracks led south into Agua Prieta. In April, a picture of Armando Chacon Gonzales, also known as Alejandro Chavez Vazquez, was released by the Cochise County Sheriff's Department as an investigative lead in the homicide. They say he is a suspect in several burglaries. Agua Prieta police have been looking for him. Vicente Teran, mayor of the border city, says, "Nobody knows him. He's never been here, and I'm pretty sure he's not here." Teran, a rancher himself, desperately wants to help U.S. authorities. He says he would be the happiest mayor around if he could turn over the suspected killer. Less than 24 hours after the murder, they began their investigation and questioned over 100 people at the police department. Alfonso Novoa, the police chief, says they have searched records, archives, and are even offering a $10,000 reward for information on the man who murdered Rob Krentz...more

Mexican officials deny claims Krentz's killer is in Mexico

Mexican officials in Agua Prieta deny claims that Douglas Rancher Robert Krentz's killer is in Mexico. Agua Prieta's mayor and police chief also deny reports they're working closely with top U.S. investigators. They say they have not spoken with American officials in more then a month. Nine On Your Side's Steve Nunez sat down with Mayor Vicente Teran and his Police Chief Alfonso Novoa. Novoa tells us his officers have questioned more then 100 people. Teran says they've even offered a $10,000 reward, and no one has come forward. Nunez asked: "What do you say to those who say why should we trust Mexican officials that they've done everything that they can to find Krentz's killer?" Teran responded, "Let me tell you something, how can we trust Americans to say he came to Agua Prieta and he didn't come. We are here. We are involved in our cities and like I tell you we feel bad about the rancher and family." Novoa claims he has not heard from U.S. officials in more then a month. He laid out what he believes to be the facts he's investigating including a photo of a footprint he says was taken at the crime scene, a photo of a man he says is the prime suspect, and a photo of the type of gun he says was used to kill krentz. Nunez asked: "Do you blame the American officials for not sharing all of the information with Mexico?"...more

Obama admin. holds meetings on 'Great Outdoors'

On the edges of a vast landscape that measures in the millions of acres and stretches north through a wilderness area and a scenic national park, ranchers and environmentalists have been able to agree on a lot lately. The work done to preserve land in northwestern Montana's "Crown of the Continent" was made the shining example Tuesday of what the Obama Administration hopes to achieve with its new "America's Great Outdoors Initiative." The conservation effort has focused on voluntary land sales of 310,000 acres from a large timber company, deals to retire mining and oil projects and conservation agreements with ranchers and land owners in developing homemade plans for a working landscape in the heart of the Rocky Mountains. The varied interests behind the effort also agree the Obama Administration should make sure its new initiative doesn't force land conservation ideas from big cities down the throats of rural residents. "Urban-based conservation movements have really only succeeded in alienating the very best allies: our ranchers, our loggers, our sportsmen and our farmers," said Melanie Parker, who lives in the scenic Swan Valley and has played an integral role in getting loggers and environmentalists in the area to talk with one another...more

I also found this interesting:

The administration's new initiative comes as Republicans and others criticize the contents of an internal Interior Department memo and other records that show the administration was considering the potential for presidential monument declarations in nine western states. Those declarations, last done in Montana under former President Bill Clinton, remain a very sore point for some westerners. Leading Democrats said the monument declarations are not part of the agenda. "I am opposed to the administration creating monuments," said Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., who holds an influential role in the Senate. "This is bottom up, that was top down."

If Baucus is opposed you won't see Obama designate any monuments in Montana. Same would be true for New Mexico should Bingaman take a similar stance.

Great Outdoors Initiative forum held in Helena

Federal officials got an earful Wednesday at a listening session in Helena on how to better protect open lands and get people, especially children, into the great outdoors as part of President Barack Obama’s Great Outdoors Initiative. Jay Erickson with the Montana Land Reliance called for renewal of conservation-easement tax incentives, which could give ranchers more reason to keep from subdividing their property. Bob Sanders with Ducks Unlimited wants to focus attention on preserving the wide open native prairies of Eastern Montana and the Dakotas, which he called “one of the most productive areas on Earth.” The five men were among about 200 people who crowded into two banquet rooms at the Red Lion Colonial Inn in Helena, as one of four listening sessions held only in Montana this week on the president’s initiative. Robert Bonnie, a senior adviser to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, said the sessions were enlightening to the dozens of federal officials attending them. Vilsack, John Jarvis, director of the National Park Service, and Nancy Sutley, chairman of the White House Council for Environmental Quality, were among top federal officials who attended Tuesday’s session. Ellen Simpson with Montana Wood Products and others also said that if the government wants more people to use the outdoors, they need to make it easier to get into the forests. “We need to open, not close, access to people,” Simpson said...more

A Gun For Grandpa

Chicago is deciding whether to prosecute a great-grandfather and Korean War veteran under its handgun ban. He refused to be a victim, and now there's one less armed thug roaming the streets. What's the problem? If the 80-year-old vet living on the city's West Side didn't have the gun the city said he shouldn't have, he and his 83-year-old wife and 12-year-old great-grandson might have joined those victims of gun violence about whom gun-control advocates constantly chirp. The vet obtained the gun in violation of the city's handgun ban after a prior incident in which the couple was robbed at gunpoint by three armed intruders. So when Anthony Nelson — a parolee with a record of drug and gun arrests — tried breaking into their East Garfield Park home, they were ready. Nelson fired twice at the as-yet-unnamed homeowner, who walks with a cane but retained enough of his military marksmanship to drop the intruder with a single gunshot to the chest. Yet in some quarters, instead of being hailed as a hero, it's the homeowner who's being considered a threat and the armed predator a victim of gun violence. When asked if the 80-year-old would be charged for violating the city's gun ban, Mayor Richard Daley, who recently threatened to put a gun up the posterior of a reporter questioning the ban's effectiveness, said: "I don't know. Thank you very much." Of course, if the homeowner didn't have the gun, he might not be alive to be charged...more

Sacred bone whistle headed back to Idaho tribe

A sacred whistle, a wooden stick, a button, a shell and a rounded cork possibly from the 1700s are on the verge of being returned to the Nez Perce tribe after spending decades in a forgotten, anonymous crate in a warehouse. University of Idaho anthropologist Leah Evans-Janke says it was one of those fortuitous discoveries that happen sometimes in archaeological collections: Somebody opens a dusty old box, not knowing what's inside. While Evans-Janke, collections manager at UI's Alfred W. Bowers Laboratory of Anthropology in Moscow, Idaho, says the discovery isn't earthshaking, it's "the greatest feeling in the world is meeting with the tribe, and handing the items back over to them, and knowing things are coming back to where they should be - kind of tipping the balance in the universe to where things should be." The 20-year-old federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act requires that human remains, funerary and sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony are to be returned to lineal descendants and culturally affiliated American Indian tribes...more

Navajo Nation mourns passing of Code Talker

Lemuel Bahe Yazzie, a member of the Navajo Code Talkers who confounded the Japanese during World War II by transmitting messages in their native language, has died. He was 91. Navajo Nation officials said Wednesday that Yazzie, who lived in Whitecone, Ariz., died at his home last Friday. Tribal President Joe Shirley Jr. ordered flags on the Navajo Nation to be flown at half-staff from June 3-6 in honor of Yazzie. Yazzie joined the Marines in September 1944. He served with the 4th and 6th Marine divisions as a radio telephone operator until March 1946. He returned to northern Arizona and was a machinist, rancher and ordained minister. Yazzie is survived by six children, 26 grandchildren and 52 great-grandchildren along with his two brothers and three sisters. Yazzie's funeral is scheduled for 9 a.m. Saturday at the Tse'Bii Osteel Bible Church in Whitecone. AP

Ian Tyson inspired by students' 'powerful song'

Ian Tyson doesn't just collaborate with anybody. Sure, the 76-year-old country-folk music icon broke into the business with his former wife Sylvia Tyson in the '60s, and Ian & Sylvia became giants of that era's folk movement. And, in recent years Tyson has also performed with the CPO and recorded with Corb Lund. But working with grades 1 and 2 students from the arts immersion school Calgary Arts Academy? Nobody saw that coming. Even so, Tyson's latest recording, A Song For Spirit, is a worthy and touching folk anthem and we owe it all to a blinded bird. And to Paul Rasporich, the teacher who made the project happen. Rasporich was inspired when he learned about the story of Spirit, a downed golden eagle that was taken to the Alberta Birds of Prey Foundation in 2007 after it had been shot and left for dead on a gravel road near Lethbridge. The foundation, dedicated to rehabilitating injured birds of prey, nursed Spirit back to health, but the eagle was to reside with the organization permanently because gun shot pellets had left it blind...more

Song Of The Day #325

Emmett Miller, the minstrel singer who performed in black face, first recorded Right Or Wrong in 1929. In 1936 he recorded the song again adding the yodel type phrasing. One year later Bob Wills & Tommy Duncan recorded the song. I think you'll see Miller's influence on their version.

AP Impact: US-Mexico border isn't so dangerous

It's one of the safest parts of America, and it's getting safer. It's the U.S.-Mexico border, and even as politicians say more federal troops are needed to fight rising violence, government data obtained by The Associated Press show it actually isn't so dangerous after all. The top four big cities in America with the lowest rates of violent crime are all in border states: San Diego, Phoenix, El Paso and Austin, according to a new FBI report. And an in-house Customs and Border Protection report shows that Border Patrol agents face far less danger than street cops in most U.S. cities. The Customs and Border Protection study, obtained with a Freedom of Information Act request, shows 3 percent of Border Patrol agents and officers were assaulted last year, mostly when assailants threw rocks at them. That compares with 11 percent of police officers and sheriff's deputies assaulted during the same period, usually with guns or knives. In addition, violent attacks against agents declined in 2009 along most of the border for the first time in seven years. So far this year assaults are slightly up, but data is incomplete...more