Three issues today--just keeps raining

Three Issues:
Swine flu. Sometimes I sincerely doubt our intellect. Who would actually quit eating pork because this possible pandemic was named ‘swine’ flu? Evidently, quite a few, since last Tuesday the pork industry took an 18 million dollar hit! Now, I am not an advocate of the method of confinement by which our meat is raised. (When I retire, I will be raising our own chickens for meat and not just eggs.) I strongly believe that raising our meat so confined is unethical (interesting to use that word when I/we are going to eat them) and with the use of antibiotics is dangerous and unnecessary. I believe in eating meat, but there are healthier, more humane ways to do it. At the same time, I just don’t know how some are making the strange connection that ‘swine’ flu would be passed to humans in meat that is cooked to 160 degrees. I come from the farm (I’m still there) and this doesn’t make sense to me. Personally, I feel much more comfortable eating the venison that my husband and daughter hunt in the fall. I help with the butchering so I do get up close and personal with the meat we eat. I detest those who devour their McBurgers at the same time talking about the ‘poor little animals and how sad it is that they must die’. I guess it is ok to allow others to do your killing for you. When asked, ‘why do you kill those animals’, I reply “Because I can’t eat them alive.” OK, now I am stepping down from that soap box. Heaven help us if the H1N1 becomes worse!
The Economy, stupid! No insult intended, but I couldn’t resist. I live in a state that is run by an idiot—bet you can’t guess which one it is because it seems to be commonplace. Our state has a ‘reserve fund’ of over a billion dollars. Our state has unemployment out the wazzoooooo and has been borrowing unemployment funds from the feds since last November. Our governor says that the reserve fund is for a rainy day. Just what exactly constitutes a ‘rainy day’. It’s raining cats and dogs and we are in the middle of a perfect storm! My oldest daughter is drawing unemployment and is trying to hold onto her home and raise our granddaughter (luckily they are only 4 miles away—at least they aren’t at the other end of the country). There are NO jobs. She doesn’t have medical insurance, granddaughter has Medicaid. Her unemployment will eventually run out—then what!? And it is EVERYWHERE. And we have asses in the Statehouse who want to ‘save it for a rainy day’. The ark is loaded and leaving! The President seems to understand, which is a lot different than the loser that we had in the White House before. Trouble is, can anyone get us out of this and soon? The answer is no since we are in the transition phase where we come to understand that capitalism is dead (rest in peace) in the last depression and we have only been working with an illusion since then since everyone is so afraid to let go. We will come through, but it will be an humbling experience that we deserve. And the world will be a different place—hopefully at least greener.
The War—many people are saying ‘at last, we are fighting in the right country’, but we still have a very expensive mess left in Iraq and jumping and running may take a bit more time than we would like. Keep in mind that no one has ever ‘won’ in Afghanistan, but we had a good chance in the 80’s had we stayed to clean up after the Russian mess. However, the American people only want to use money for war, not for the peace, so the Taliban moved in very smoothly. If Americans could just see that an investment in peace is much farther reaching than an investment in war, we would not be in Afghanistan. Of course, peace doesn’t seem to us to be ‘patriotic’ so it is not preferred. Don’t even get me started on that boondoggle in Iraq—an excellent vacation spot for George and Laura. Much closer to their Saudi buds.
You might note a bit of bitterness today. We have a quarter acre of vegetable garden for the farmer’s market that is standing in mud and isn’t planted. Wettest spring in years. We’ll do what farmers have done for centuries—we’ll just wait.

Peace to us all.