Having spent the summer doing "Pity the poor farmer" stories about the drought in faroff Flyover Country where the heathen Bitter Clingers dwell, the media has come to a sudden realization in the last couple of days that the troubles of those farmers are in some way connected to the price of food for Real People in places like New York and L.A.
I can hear the TeeWee reporter on NBC's Today nattering away on the topic down the hall right now...
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Just wait till someone explains to them that corn ethanol requirements, green as they are, somehow cause higher prices at Whole Foods and make this whole situation worse. Cognitive dissonance, here we come!
Kinda sad that the 'city kids' mostly don't go stay with their country relatives during the summer.
Cleaning the manure canal behind the milking cows head-stalls, working the haymow end of a bale conveyor, watching a chicken go from coop to table, and Bossy's beef sides cooling on late fall side porch no longer inform enough of the general populace about real life on the human planet.
Those sci-fi and fantasy novels no longer seem like such far-away futuristic fun. More like Soylent Green. But I'm getting old and gloomy, and it just could perspective.
THE SKY IS FALLING THE SKY IS FALLING!!!!!
My wife has been beating the 'food prices are going up drum' all summer. The connection I'll admit to missing until I saw a news story is growing problem transporting stuff on the rivers.
A reporter was standing in the Mississippi River near Memphis the other day...where it used to be over two miles wide, it's about .3 miles wide. They are seeing increasing groundings and navigation hazards, which could force much more truck/train supply shipping, which will add more end price to EVERYTHING.
Poor ignant me not realizing how much stuff was still shipped on the river.
It only became a "Crisis" when the UN held a Press Conference in the last couple of days and said "We need More Free Food to feed all those Starving Citizens in countries ruled by Billionaire Dictators. Think of the Children!"
Teh sky is falling, but only in Wookie suiter's gamer-dreams.
Reality is much less fun and a lot more dreary, but fact. It simply goes under the heading of 'Progress' and 'It's good for you peasants.'
We've been very fortunate to live in such times as we have seen: A Golden Age, comparable to past notable Cultures/Empires. Which said entities mostly sank themselves, for the usual historical, repeatable reasons/unreasons.
Nothing exciting here, just the usual curve of of rise, apogee and then internal entropy.
Enjoy y'r companions, human and animal, shoot y'r firearms often, drink good beverage and dine well, and sweat y'r body regularly. You'll be OK. Books are good, too.
Kindly do enjoy the present.
Panamared,
"THE SKY IS FALLING THE SKY IS FALLING!!!!!"
Doubtful, but your grocery bill is rising. Of course, anyone who hasn't been living under a rock (or in a Manhattan condo) has known about this for months now.
More like 3 watts. Same people who abhor hunting because meat is made in supermarkets.
FTA:
"I buy less," she said.
...the tragedy here is that the scooter now won't be as snug a fit.
I know it can't really be true but at times I could be convinced that most city people don't know where food comes from before it shows up on the shelf at Safeway.
This is especially true when the city people pontificate, "Why should we care about what the inbred, rednecked, hicks who live in the country think?"
I'll tell you why, "Because you want to eat, don't you? You need us more than we need you."
I'm a happy (sort of) Idaho farmer these days. The crops look good and the prices are way up.
@Joe Huffman: yes, they can be that ignorant. When I lived in Davis, California some years back the city council was working to ban big rigs from the downtown
But the Capital is immune to the disasters striking the subjagated Districts......
Not that Jay
...where the supermarkets were. "How will food get delivered?" we asked. We were met with confused stares.
Oh, please stop all the name calling!
The TV is for entertainment. We should all be aware of that. Well, entertainment and supporting liberal social agendas. And expressing biases and bigotry against patriotic and honest virtues. Ahem.
A story doesn't make the news unless some TV face gets screen time for being on location, and the station figures the story will entertain the audience.
There is a reason, people, that the coverage doesn't include how deep the cracks in the ground have gotten to be, and how this helps moisten the deep subsurface (i.e., moisture reservoir) when rain does occur. The adage of "watching corn grow" comes to mind.
Except, of the TV folk were on the ball, they would have been doing what I saw growing up -- corn shrinks when it runs out of water. Set up a still camera taking 15 minute pics for a few days, and the painful sight is abundantly clear. The shrinking is too often followed by a fatal change of color -- as the stalk and leaves dry out.
I wonder if anyone has mentioned that as prices rise, response to advertising is diverted to fuel costs and food costs and rising rents, so that advertisers cut back on their advertising budgets. Yep. Entertainer, er, TV news positions are at risk now, too. I bet that makes the headlines.
Heh. Heh.
The fact that congress has nearly mandated the burning of food in automobiles hasn't done us any favors either.
TAMMY
FYI the preferred dwelling in the "Manhattan Peoples Soviet" are CO-OPS
NOT CONDOS!
CONDOS are to be had in the our 6th borough South Florida and other dominions and dependencies across the seas!
I'm thinking this might well be the largest nail in the coffin of the Obama campaign.
If the price of gasoline goes up $0.50 or $1.00 a gallon because the corn didn't grow this year and the required ethanol costs that much more, and "everybody knows" that ethanol in gasoline is
"a democrat thing"...
There's only 2.5 months to the election. The timing on this could really suck for old Barry there.
Hm, and I thought the ethanol mandate was a W thing...
Awww, why didn't Teh Won just make it rain while he was there??
Another thing this will hurt- most sodas use corn syrup instead of sugar. It may be that the 'dew drinkers will either be pissed at Obama because they can't afford their fix, or they just won't be able to get the energy to vote for him again.
I have switched from Cherry Coke to Orange Juice, to make Gaia happy from abstaining from high fructose corn syrup. The cranberry juice I used to drink is now verboten, as it is made palatable by high fructose corn syrup.
Huh...I've always made my cranberry juice more palatable with a jigger of Popov. Takes all kinds, I guess.
Mike James
Anonymous, you confuse cranberry juice with cranberry juice cocktail.
REAL cranberry juice has neither sugar nor HFCS. (and it's far more delicious)
It's the end of the world as we know it...
And I feel fine...
hehehe
"I could be convinced that most city people don't know where food comes from before it shows up on the shelf at Safeway."
There's a farmer/wookie-suiter/author named Joel Salatin who has city folks out to his farm on a regular basis. He says that more than half of his visitors are surprised to learn that chickens have bones.
Worth a read: http://www.amazon.com/Folks-This-Aint-Normal-Healthier/dp/0892968192/ref=la_B000APFOT2_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1345075553&sr=1-1
Alath
Carmel IN
Ew. I'm picturing the lumpy, shapeless, feathered slug-chickens, oozing in under doors and raiding the cat food. Do Not Want!
Considering all the negativity, I could'a used a drink, but then I realized the price of corn likker probably went up too.
@ mustanger,
I figure corn likker must be like my gas tank. It makes sense to top up the tank often when the prices are going up, and wait until nearly empty to fill when prices are dropping.
So now would be the time to keep the shelf full of corn likker, pick up another one as soon as a space opens up.
But then, that might not be a bad strategy any time. Oh, well.
@ Mike James,
I got myself in trouble one Christmas. I plucked a straggly little evergreen tree from the ditch up the road, stuck in a leftover stand, and started stringing popcorn and fresh cranberries.
I always enjoyed popcorn. But dang if I didn't get used to the taste of the cranberries. I almost didn't leave enough cranberries to make a respectable string.
I started skipping the HFCS when I noticed it gives me stomach cramps.
Got plenty of deer that needs harvesting come fall.
Got plenty of deer that needs harvesting come fall.
I was able to taste-test the difference between soda with sugar and with HFCS many years ago in Iowa, since we were had two local bottlers for RC, using different sweeteners. The drinks are not the same. The switch from the disastrous "New Coke" back to Coke Classic was about the time that all the bottlers were switching to the HFCS, and that is why everyone complained that Classic Coke didn't taste right.
A year or two back in the summer Pepsi did a number of their products as "Throw Back", using sugar and the taste was so much better. It also left you not wanting to guzzle the whole 20oz at once. I can still find Dew Throw Back in cans at a few stores in the area.
@ Library-Gryffon,
So, if corn is going to be scarce and expensive, then maybe I should think about buying stock in sugar?
Will honey supplies tank and skyrocket in price, as the drought inhibited flowers as well as crops?
Will my bean & weiners go ballistic, because of the beans this summer and the weiners next winter?
Will speeding tickets go up, because the local highway patrol has to pay more for gas? (And buy more "fuel efficient" new cars, Just Because?) As opposed to, say, saving beau-coup fuel by upgrading existing vehicles. http://www.wired.com/autopia/2012/08/hybrid-conversion/
Should I invest in companies that import food, beans, corn, oats, soy meal and salad oil, etc.?
Any bets Barry stops reporting layofs and jobless rates, "for techincal" (i.e., election coming) reasons?
Remember, you can plant a fall garden. Beets, cabbage family (Brussels sprouts, broccoli) and greens are good cool weather crops. And another rotation of peas, in much of the midwest, will mature in plenty of time, as will carrots. Mix plenty of hardwood mulch into the soil for now and next summer -- the wood fibers help hold water. Maybe volunteer to help a neighbor clean the chicken house, for a share of the gleanings. Pick up another hoe and spade at an auction, to save money on implements.
One recipe for soil for raised garden beds seems to work in my planter -- 1/3 each compost, hardwood mulch, sand. Go figure.
And, yes. I haven't liked the taste of Coca-cola since they stopped using sugar.
Now, do you people understand why I drink too much?
I'm sorry if the ethyl hydroxide sometimes inspires me to get rude and silly on other peoples' blogs, but one must really dull the inevitable pain which is coming, with the cheapest available anodyne.
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