Short memories

Suggested reading:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/16/us/us-drought/index.html?hpt=hp_bn1

http://weather.blogs.foxnews.com/2012/07/16/2012-drought-one-of-the-worst-in-history/

http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/48202640/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/16/us-drought-2012-widest-since-1956_n_1676936.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/16/midwest-drought-2012-us-worse_n_1676967.html?ref=topbar

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/ag-sec-vilsack-wishes-rain-prayer-combat-painful-191255266.html

Ok, every one, the sky IS falling. Run out, run around, jump and shout. The world obviously is coming to an end and it is all the fault of the stupid Americans and their dumb gas-guzzling car lifestyle. I mean if it wasn’t for anthropomorphic-caused climate change, the breadbasket of the America (and as well as for much of the world) wouldn’t be baking in the heat this summer.

Granted, much of the US is suffering under the worst drought in 25 years and probably in the last 56 years (but not in the last 75 years and before that, who the heck really knows).

But droughts are nothing unheard of. If one chooses, one can look back through several millennia of recorded human existence and droughts seem to be a rather routine occurrence. Some have been worse, others not so worse, but they keep on happening with astonishing frequency regardless of what us humans do or do not do. What do us people want? Do we think we can control the weather? I mean I know we can do a lot of things, but I don’t think we have mastered the climate just yet, nor do we really have all that much influence on it.

The problem, it seems, that – at least in America – we constantly living under what I call “a condition of historical amnesia.” If it didn’t happen yesterday, or if I haven’t seen it on television via CNN/FOX/NBC/ABC./CBS, then it never happened and what is happening today is unlike anything that has gone before.

What a bunch of equine fecal material. I find it sad that history seems to be such a neglected subject in American schools today; because without knowing, and having some understanding, of history, then you have no context with which to evaluate and understand anything that is happening today. You won’t know what terms really mean when people start bandying them around, oftentimes misusing or misrepresenting these terms to the point you almost have to believe the sky IS falling.

Now, I am not trying to be Pollyannaish (probably an obscure reference to anyone under the age of 40), but the sky is NOT falling. The skies, the weather, the climate, the world, people, all are doing what they have done for millennia: They are changing.

The world is not static. It is dynamic and things are always happening AND changing. Often, these things seem to run in cycles and because of the cyclical nature of our planet and its orbit around the sun, there probably is some validity to that.

This does mean that if we know what has gone before, and hopefully gain some understanding of that, then we can do something different than before with hopefully a better outcome.

Panic is not an option. It is a waste of time, energy and usually resources like money, which we have scarce enough as it is.

However, we have to realize that certain things happen when things like droughts happen.

First: the price of food WILL go up. This is so simple it hardly bears mentioning, but you will see a lot of panic stories coming on the rising price of food. Drought=Poorer Crops=Less Food in the Supply Chain. When supply goes down, price goes up – basic law of economics.

Second: The price of other things depending on those crops will go up for the same reason.

Third: Water will be valuable and be in short supply. Its price may also go up.

Fourth: Energy, especially those blended fuels with biomaterial, will be more expensive. It also will be in more demand, so what supplies we have will have to be stretched.

So, if we know a) droughts happen (and will happen, over and over again) and b) that there really isn’t anything we REALLY can do to alter the weather, then anybody proposing drastic solutions to protect the climate really is blowing smoke.

We also know that times are going to be tough and money tight. Plan for it. History tells you it is going to happen, now and again, and again, and again. It is kinda silly not to learn from the past, isn’t it.

Horse meat

Backgrounder:

http://news.yahoo.com/missouri-town-hopes-first-u-horse-slaughter-plant-225135573.html

Ok, this topic is just for fun.

I once read a book (gasp, he reads! J) back when I was in college entitled “The Impoverished Student’s Handbook of Cookery, Eatery and Housekeepery”. It was great fun. It also had some good tips on a cheap way to live in an apartment off campus and survive.

One of the discussions in the book was on meat, and what to do with it. In keeping with the book’s irreverent tone toward just about everything, it included a passage on horsemeat. You see, Americans have this thing about horses. They seemed so cute (and girls back then just fell in love with every horse in sight) that it was a travesty for a human to eat an equine. It didn’t matter that the meat’s protein was just as good as any other meat (as soldiers from eras long past will tell you as well as other people needing sustenance desperately), it just isn’t done. It is done in other parts of the world, but on this, and dogs and cats, Americans are a bit squeamish.

Now, we (except for vegetarians who forget that humans are omnivores and designed as predators – note the canine teeth and the binocular vision … they are there for a reason and it ain’t eating carrots) Americans will eat a whole lot of different species of animal life (as well as plant life, but we are not talking about that).

The way we get around the fuzzy names like cow, pig, sheep, deer, moose, bear and a host of other mammals is we give it another name. Unfortunately, for the birds, they aren’t as lucky: A chicken is a chicken; a duck is a duck; and a pheasant is a pheasant. Fish is fish, but it also can go by other names. But for the mammals primarily we have a variety of names.

Cow meat is beef, veal, steak or roasts.

Pigs are pork, bacon or ham.

Sheep is mutton.

Wild stuff is venison.

But horse … well it is horse. As are dog is dog and cat is cat.

So, this book, with its tongue firmly stuffed in its cheek, suggested that the poor horse, cat and dog needed other names. The names, it suggested probably should be four-letter words like beef, veal, pork, lamb, chops, etc., because that seemed to go over the best in English.

So, since somebody is thinking of adding horsemeat to the mix … I challenge someone to come up with that four-letter word and let’s start getting it out.