In the 1964 U.S. Supreme Court case Jacobellis v. Ohio, Justice Potter Stewart wrote a concurring opinion he hoped would establish a legal standard that protected every American’s right to free speech yet guarded “community standards” against “hard core pornography.” That competing interest, Stewart wrote, was difficult to balance because it was difficult to define [...]
The first good corn planting day of spring finally arrived at my central Illinois farmette April 30. Like the month’s previous 29 days, however, no one within 100 miles used it to plant because near-record rains had washed April away. Late start So now it’s May and it’s late by any corn-planting standard. On the [...]
Two of the greatest ironies of living in the richest, strongest nation in the history of the world are how many poor people remain in 21st century America and how vulnerable — as the Boston bombings showed again — we are to evildoers. The two are not linked. Evil is evil and it has no [...]
Chicago Cubs baseball fans and American cow-calf ranchers have two things in common. First, they can’t win for losing and, second, they pay heavily for the right to do just that. For example, on April 15, Tom Ricketts, chairman of the Cubs, announced plans to update the 99-year-old home of the team, Wrigley Field. The [...]
While Max Baucus and Jon Tester are both Democrats, both U.S. senators and both Montana country boys, last month’s hurried vote to fund nearly $1 trillion of current federal spending shows just how different these Big Sky legislators really are. Baucus, a ranch kid with two degrees from Stanford University, has spent nearly 50 years [...]
That lion-in/lamb-out thing about March didn’t offer much lamb this year, but it did deliver several platters of snow. Oh, spring arrived on time; winter just didn’t leave on time. The struggle between seasons finally sorted out during Holy Week. Palm Sunday brought eight inches of snow, howling winds and drifted roads to nowhere. Easter [...]
The neighborhood farmer grapevine, fiber optic for years now, was set abuzz two weeks ago with news that a 237-acre piece of the township for sale at $12,500 per acre. Whoa, right? Promising land Well, the land sports five-year averages of 199 bu. for corn and 60 bu. for soybeans and is home to a [...]
Contrary to rumor, Nero did not fiddle while Rome burned. He couldn’t have; fiddles did not exist in first century Rome. Far more likely, however, is that Nero lit the fire that burned nearly one-third of the city in 64 A.D. because he wanted to clear the 200 or so acres to build a new [...]
The coincidence was positively delicious. Shortly after Swedish furniture seller Ikea found itself, shall we say, saddle-deep in a saucy mess that featured racier red meat in its Swedish meatballs than you’d normally get from the average European cow, the USDA announced changes to its controversial Country of Origin Labeling, or COOL, law for American [...]
In the run-up to the Great Budget Sequester of 2013, a deeply indebted America once again learned what every American knows from birth: your government program got us into this mess, not mine. As evidence, look at the red-hot reaction by ag forces to the rumor — not fact, but rumor — that the White [...]
