The federal government shutdown: Just plain irresponsible and stupid
In a recent television interview, famed Wall Street investor Warren Buffett characterized the October federal government shut-down as “totally irresponsible” and said the failure...
Could Congress learn a lesson from its history?
Some things never change: In 1981, the White House and Congress were locked in a farm bill fight the likes of which no one...
On the road: California, a land all of its own
From the baking but breezy rest stop in the middle of California’s Mojave Desert, Interstate 15 disappears into the low mountains southwest toward Los...
Fields of gold fill the midwest in fall
On a sparkling fall day a week before the first FarmAid concert at the University of Illinois, I drove the back roads to Champaign...
Cartel capers: Belarus and Russia
There are two reasons to keep up-to-speed on the fast pace of events in what would seem to be the very dull world of...
Charging into fixed bayonets
So just what was Congress, and especially the U.S. House of Representatives, doing when it entered the final week of its high-speed game of...
The deal with high mileage chicken
Just before the Labor Day weekend began, Aug. 30, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service announced China was welcome “to...
World population is essential part of food production discussion
Our good friends at Progressive Farmer magazine fill 15 pages of their September issue with a well-researched, well-written “special report” on “Feeding the World.”...
Pork is the other red meat
A lean hog is not a fat chicken but the marketing geniuses hired by the National Pork Board sure sold a lotta’ hams, bacons...
More than meals served at the last supper
The weekly newspaper from my hometown bring news that the small, rural Catholic church near the big southern Illinois dairy farm of my youth...
