It doesn't require any particular bravery to stand on the floor of the Senate and urge our boys in Vietnam to fight harder, and if this war mushrooms into a major conflict and a hundred thousand young Americans are killed, it won't be U.S. Senators who die. It will be American soldiers who are too young to qualify for the Senate. I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in. - George McGovern
On April 22nd, 1971, 27 year-old former Navy Lt. John Kerry testified against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War as a member of "Vietnam Veterans Against the War".
On Wednesday, April 27, 2016, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry gave the keynote address at The Vietnam War Summit at the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas.
John Kerry, a young man who went to war in Viet Nam at the behest of old men in Congress, came home to protest the war and ultimately became a U.S. Senator. Speaking at the Viet Nam War Summit, Kerry succinctly reiterated the futility of old men sending young men to war.
Yet still, to this day, we haven't learned the lessons of history.
A couple years ago I decided it would be nice to have some quail hanging around the farm. Thinking if I got them when they were chicks they would adapt and stay around. What seemed like a good idea wasn't.
stock photo
Come to find out placing "wild" birds on your property (quail, pheasants, etc) is not allowed by the state, unless you have a permit. On top of that, you can only acquire these birds from dealers licensed by the state. I'm all for the state protecting wildlife, but this story gets better.
So, off I go to some guy who is licensed by the state to raise quail. Yup, he has some chicks. "What are you going to do with them," he asks. "Raise them in our chicken coop until they are full grown and then turn them loose on our farm," I tell him. "Nope, can't sell them to you," he says. "Not unless you are going to shoot them." Huh?! Shoot them?!
It seems that "sporting clubs" buy the quail to shoot. They take the adult quails in cages and turn them loose so these guys can use them as target practice. Seriously. The only way the guy would sell me any quail chicks was if I said I was going to raise them and then shoot them. So, I did. This story keeps getting better.
I took a dozen quail chicks home with plans to raise them until they were old enough to turn loose. When I put them in the chicken coop building, they scattered and hid behind stuff stored in the coop.
For several weeks I kept them locked in the building and would leave food and water for them, however never saw them. Enough of this I thought, so I figured I would scatter some food in the pen area and leave the door open. After all, that works for chickens. Not so for quail chicks. They saw their chance at freedom and, like the old saying, flew the coop. I haven't seen them since.
Yesterday afternoon my wife and I were riding around in the UTV when we spotted two adult quail scurrying around by the fence. Could it be a couple that had escaped the coop and survived? If so, my plan worked. Sort of. At least I didn't shoot them.
We've been super busy since we got back home from Arizona. The place sat vacant for four months, so it takes a while to get things back in shape, including picking up branches from the winter winds.
The past couple of days I've hauled 15 tons of white rock with the old dog dump truck to spread out in the driveways and yard. I only use it a couple of weeks each year and I wondered if it would still run after sitting so long, but it fired right up. Storing the battery on a trickle charger and a little Stabil does the trick.
The white rock is almost as nice as paving, but way cheaper. A birds eye view shows how much rock it takes for the farm.
Every year I add a load or two and spread it with the tractor.
Everything is growing and we've had to mow already, even before I had a chance to service the mowers. Today I finished changing the oil, oil filters and fuel filters in both mowers. The forecast is for rain next week, so that'll make the grass grow. Mowing four acres takes a few hours and makes me think I should just get some sheep to do the work.
There's always something to keep us busy on the farm and I guess our lazy days in Arizona is over.
Living of the farm has its advantages, however television reception isn't one of them. We are able to get a few local over the air channels, but that's about it. Yes, less television is a good thing, however when you are a news junkie that can be a problem, which is why we have satellite with Dish. Besides, most of the programs on over the air stations ... well ... just suck. Of the gazillion channels Dish offers we regularly watch only about a dozen. I mainly watch news programs, history programs and some classic movies. All the others are useless to me.
We have two Dish receivers and take them along when we RV travel, which is the case with this past winter trip to Arizona. When we got home a few days ago and unpacked I couldn't find the remotes. The receivers wouldn't reset and come to find out a remote is required. Thinking they would turn up I waited, but no such luck.
In the meantime I've been trying to watch the news programs on my laptop. Not being tech savvy, this hasn't been easy. In addition, another disadvantage of being on the farm is not having simple access to the internet. Consequently, we have to use a mifi from Verizon. By watching programming on the internet that uses up a lot of airtime (or GB's or whatever it is called). So, I finally decided that was enough of that and since you can't just drive to a Dish store (and even if I could find one it would be miles away from the farm) I decided to order two new remotes.
For a fleeting moment I even thought about giving up satellite TV. A fleeting moment.
Ever have one of those situations where you have so much invested in something you have a hard time giving it up?
Ever since the Supreme Court essentially said that corporations are people for the purpose of campaign donations, big money has been pouring into campaigns. With super PAC's and various "shell" PAC's it is harder to see where the money is coming from.
On the NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt tonight* there was a report on the difference between where Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are getting their money. Even though Clinton claimed she was getting a substantial amount of small contributions, evidence is that the opposite is true. Exacerbating her claim is the undisclosed amount of money she has taken from Goldman Sachs and amounts raised at secret fundraisers.
Sanders counters that Clinton is getting most of her contributions from the wealthy.
In fact, only 19% of Clinton's contributions are $200 or less, whereas 66% of Sanders contributions are from small donors with an average of $27.
When one looks at the reported contributions the differences couldn't be clearer.
This certainly looks to be campaign funding by corporations vs. funding by the people. Dare we consider it class warfare?
From another blog* which I found amazing enough to repost here.
This is what happens when someone cares
A two-year-old Nigerian boy who was found emaciated and riddled with worms after his family left him for dead has made an incredible recovery.
A picture of the starving toddler being given a sip of water by an aid worker broke hearts around the world when it was published in January.
The boy, now called Hope, was abandoned by his family because they thought he was a witch and was found in the streets by Anja Ringgren Loven, a Danish woman living in Africa, on January 31.
And now Ms Loven has shared a series of photographs showing Hope's miraculous recovery in just eight short weeks, and says he 'is really enjoying life now'.
We left Taos early this morning and after driving through the mountain passes and prairies of Northeast New Mexico on Rt 64 we made it to our overnight stop in Hugoton, Kansas. We are close to home and have about 460 miles to the farm, but maybe will stay out one more night. Why push it? That way we can get home mid-afternoon Monday for the necessary unpacking instead of early evening tomorrow. It's hard to let go of this vagabond lifestyle.
Yesterday we had a good day walking around the old town of Taos checking out the various shops.
And... a parting momento of Taos: even the manhole covers are artistic.
On our way home we decided to take the north route to catch a few sights. We were driving in 40 mph winds for a couple of days, which was no fun.
On the first day we stayed overnight near Winslow, AZ so we could see the Meteor Crater. It is an awesome sight and one not to be missed. The strong winds and cold continued into the second day, so viewing the crater was brief.
I had seen the crater some 20 years ago and this was a first for my wife. It has become a big tourist attraction and they have expanded significantly, adding a large gift shop. Smart on their part since the awe struck tourists just have to have a souvenir after seeing the crater.
On the second day we fought the strong winds and drove as far as the Sky City Casino just outside of Albuquerque. We don't gamble, but they have a nice RV park and we did get a discount for the buffet.
On the third day we arrived in Taos via the scenic "low road," with stops at a auto memorabilia yard and a vineyard.
We are currently in Taos, NM for a couple of days, which was the main reason we took the north route towards home. It's not like I thought it would be. I expected a quaint artist community. Instead it is a town that has outgrown its infrastructure. I was told by a local that years back it was quaint, however "communities" have sprung up around Taos and it is now an area population of about 35,000. Seems like the yuppies have converged on Taos. Any of the original historic sites have now been turned into tourists shops and the old town is overwhelmed with crowded traffic. The streets are in disrepair and likely because of how disruptive it would be to even think of closing streets for repair. There seems to be two classes of Taos - rich and not so rich. There are a number of eclectic shops and an equal number of high end, high priced galleries.
Notwithstanding that, we have been knocking around and found the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge to be amazing.
Standing on top of the bridge looking down was a bit intimidating and there is even a suicide hotline number posted in case you have second thoughts.
In the summer it is a mecca for rafters and surprisingly, even as chilly as it was, we did see rafters (I added an arrow to the pic pointing them out). It is a long way down from the bridge to the river.
Today we will walk around the old town Taos shops and check out more sights. Thankfully we are in a pickup camper, so no expensive paintings or sculptures will come home with us. Our trek back to the farm continues.
