Beth's Everything Blog

Posts Tagged ‘politics’

Have you heard of CAFO? It stands for Confined-Animal-Feeding-Operation.

Some years ago, our farm neighbor gave us a call. His sow had farrowed  and she didn’t have enough teats to feed all her brood. Would we like the runt? Our then twelve year old daughter went wild with excitement. Of course she wanted the piglet. So on a moment’s notice, we went into the agribusiness even though we knew nothing about raising pigs.

Lynn named the baby Trefa, a take off on the Yiddish word tref which means unclean. At the time we thought it was pretty funny. We kept the pig on the screened-in porch and nursed her from a bottle every four hours. It was during the school year, and no one was home during the day to feed Trefa, so Lynn took her to school and left her in the nurse’s office. Each student nurse assistant got to give the piglet a bottle. In the next few weeks everything about her grew very fast. The school principal, who up until then had been very indulgent, call and said Trefa couldn’t come to school anymore.

After a few days at home, we totally understood why. Trefa’s back porch stank. Everything within twenty yards of her stank. Suddenly, we no longer thought her name was so funny.

In the past few years, worldwide demand for pork has risen almost 50%. Understandably, Kansas with its vast amount of land mass used for agriculture, would like to be part of the solution. The question is: can agribusinesses raise huge numbers of animals in a humane way while protecting the environment and the workers who care for them?

And why has Governor Brownback already opposed an Environmental Protection Agency law that would require Confined-Animal-Feeding-Operations (CAFOs) to report directly to the EPA?

Seaboard Farms, located in Johnson County, Kansas has recently obtained approval to build a Confined-Animal-Feeding-Operation (CAFO) that will house 264,000 hogs in Greeley County, Kansas located just east of Colorado and north of Oklahoma. It will be the second largest such operation in the country.

As to Treifa, we took her back to the country and returned her to our farmer friend. But if one little pig can produce so much odor (and that which causes the odor), imagine what 264,000 Trefa’s will do. I’m just saying . . .

If there was ever any doubt that women have power, it ended with the Susan B. Komen debacle. For years, we’ve run in races and worn pink, but when we discovered the SBK foundation had clay (and political) feet, we rebelled. All that time we thought we were supporting the fight against breast cancer, but when Karen Handel joined the board with her own political agenda, she changed the dynamics. It should remain as a good lesson for Susan B. Komen’s sister, Executive Director Nancy Brinker.

What is it with men and power? We’re still hearing about President Kennedy, this time from some sixty year old woman who claims she was a nineteen year old Whitehouse aide when he had his way with her. Men say it’s testosterone. Women say it’s self-indulgence. (Calista. Beware. Isn’t that how you got Newt?) I’m sick to death of the rankling in Washington, tired of congressman and senators acting like two year olds, hate the ugly speeches, nasty tirades, gross commercials. (Have you heard Randall Terry’s? Ugh!)

Think what we could do if we backed our own candidate for president. We’re too late for 2012, but how about 2016? Yes, yes. I know. We missed our chance with Hillary, but she came with so much heavy baggage (Bill). And I know just the person:

ELIZABETH WARREN.

President Obama wanted her to head up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: main job  . . “police credit lenders and prevent consumers from unwittingly signing up for risky loans.”  The Republicans, scared of this brilliant, charming, honest, knowledgeable woman, blocked her nomination. She would have been perfect, but the Repubs don’t want anyone protecting us consumers. (The office still has no director and we still have no protection.)

Elizabeth’s qualifications are awesome. She is a chief advocate for banking reform. Emily’s List and a National Nurses Union are already backing her. Read about her at this website or one of the hundreds of others you’ll find on your browser.

Meanwhile,  she is running for Teddy Kennedy’s old senate seat in Massachusetts against Scott Brown, who modeled and posed nude for the centerfold of Cosmopolitan Magazine in the 1980′s to make money toward paying for his Boston College law degree. While a state senator, he voted for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and opposed the repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. More importantly, his election to the U.S. Senate tipped the delicate balance of the Senate, though he has done little else.

Women in Massachusetts, unite. Get out and campaign for Elizabeth. The rest of us will help by sending donations to her campaign. She is someone who will make you proud, and she will make a perfect first woman President of The United States of America.

Only eight days into the new year, and already we are knee deep in the politics of choosing the next president. It’s a dirty business, full of partial truths, innuendos, and out and out lies. My stomach turns over when I read the vitriolic comments on the internet. It seems few can have reasonable discussions without name calling, even the so-called intellectuals. Very tiresome. Worse still, it’s only the beginning. Somehow we must slog through the muck until November.

At least we can be grateful that the Iowa caucuses are over. In a state of some 3,000,000 people, 91 % of whom are Caucasian, less than 150,000 or maybe 4 % of the population voted, 25% for Mitt and 25% for Rick, who is, politically speaking,  far right of the far right.

And speaking of Iowa, did you read that some farmers are selling their Iowa farmland for as high as $13,000 an acre? Iowa farmers are the state’s new millionaires because corn and soybean prices have gone through the roof. A farmland  bubble or will it last?

Just to start you thinking, here are a few things that have happened under President Obama administration: *Energy producing plants must begin preparing to produce 15% of their energy from renewable sources, *Vaccination programs have been expanded, *We now have a State Children’s Health Insurance Program that covers health care for 4 million more children,  and *Federal support for stem-cell and new biomedical research.

On my new Wildlife calendar this year is a picture of a polar bear with her young cub who’s chances of survival are less than 40% and decreasing because the arctic ice is melting faster each year. Polar bears do not hibernate like brown bears so they are forced to swim longer and longer distances to find food.

One last thought. As I write this, the outdoor temperature is 60 degrees. Louie and I jumped at the chance to take advantage of the strange but great walking weather. The park was full of little people. Louie loves those children and you could almost see him smile as he sat patiently letting their tiny, little fingers poke and pet him.