Wet Year
Life is a bitch, and then it has puppies if your livelihood is agriculture. After years of drought farmers east of the Front Range should count on a great crop. Then along comes massive thunderstorms with tennis ball sized hail. Those crops not pummeled by hail are flattened by high winds and/or drowned from excess rain.
West of the Rockies, the Intermountain West crops are being devastated by katydids (Mormon crickets).
Enemy of the State
Recently, circumspection was advised to avoid being labeled, “An enemy of the State”. Good advice, but too late for me.
My activism began
in the late 1960’s after leaving the Army and then attending College. The VA was screwing over Vietnam era vets. Three other students and I started with a table at the end of quarterly college registration. A few years later, long after I’d moved on, it grew into a fairly large and active movement among the colleges and Universities in Colorado.
I married a stubborn 1st generation Norwegian (Ya sure, ya betcha), who as a USO volunteer, had stirred up a hornet’s nest about the mistreatment of certain airmen at Lowry Field. These were fuck ups that were in a disciplinary barracks, with no heat, and very limited medical care.
Later, our first born was severely autistic. This prompted us to become active once again.
Wife was hired as a reader/aide for a blind employee of the Department of Education. After six months she was still a temporary. The manager told her getting clearance was the problem, that her and my combined FBI file was 5” thick (before computers took over). Eventually, she was “let go” during a “reorganization”.
How do you become an enemy of the state? Seems all you need to do is exercise your rights as a citizen.
From time to time the FBI actually catches real criminals. It seems most of their efforts are directed to compiling information on vocal, but law abiding, citizens.
Soon to be “Settled Science”
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Seems the courts are taking a dim view of the ATF assuming the power to write laws that Congress didn’t pass. Could this be a trend?
Currently the BLM is radically changing rules on use of public lands. Primarily this affects cattle and sheep grazing but can easily be expanded to all types of recreation. Might the courts put the BLM in its place? One can hope.
These are hardly isolated practices.
Perhaps President Trump’s greatest legacy will be the 500+ Federal Judges he nominated that are now on the bench.
More Wokeism – Colorado Edition
Some are just silly, like the OWL Party. Laugh, but it took enough votes away from the GOP candidate to elect Democrat Dixie Lee Ray. She went on to prove women can be just as incompetent as men in high political office – a true pioneer.
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We were living in Washington State at the time so remember the OWL Party. For those interested, here is a long and detailed article on how a bunch of drunks in a bar affected the outcome of an election.
Whiskey is for Drinking – Water is for Fighting
Fired for Caring
They are owned by Kroeger.
Build Back Better
Colorado Bankruptcy filings up again.
Legacy
One of my two remaining aunts died this year (cancer). This past Saturday a remembrance was held at the Wheatridge, CO Historical Park. The land was once settled and worked by several generations of our family. My remaining aunt was born in the sod house and my late aunt in the brick house.
She had five children. We lost one to cancer several years ago. Her surviving children organized the remembrance. As I sat there I thought of her children. Good, honest people raising good honest children and great grandchildren are her true legacy, IMO.
As always, YMMV
12 comments:
You'd think the BLM would have learned a lesson from the Cliven Bundy incident.
Apparently not.
I'm pretty sure this is as wet as it's ever been since we moved here almost seven years ago.
GB
Two administrations ago so most have forgotten or were't with BLM at the time.
DrJim
I've been back since 1998 and can't remember any wetter.
To "Unknown". You had a good comment but didn't put you name/handle/tag whatever with it. Please look at the blog header.
Water is good! El Nino after three years of La Nina is definitely having an impact! And nothing wrong with being proactive, especially for your own children's rights!
Old NFO
There is the old saying, "I'll die on my feet before I'll live on my knees".
"YMMV" but I doubt it!
I saw the Mormon cricket migration for myself recently, put me to mind of the biblical plagues of Egypt.
W.w.w.
Preaching to the choir?
Maybe they are afraid of being baptized.
Mormon crickets always just seem to appear spontaneously fully formed and migrating. Memory is the Mormon settlers' reports were confirmed by non Mormon sources in the valley.
I hope the King Soopers employee sues and gets a significant severance. He is a Union member and filming a crime in progress is probably not specifically prohibited in his contract. His film will likely be used in prosecuting the the thieves. Less than $1000 stolen so probably get charges reduced to the lowest possible violation. So who was right? The thieves who are condoned by King Soopers, the other employees and customers who did nothing or the videographer?
Jeff D
The life cycle of Mormon Crickets has been studied thoroughly with no conclusions as to how to prevent large outbreaks. They are present every summer but only swarm in large numbers every few years. Current thinking was the past winter with far above snowfall after years of drought caused more eggs to hatch.
Failing to address shoplifting brings to mind the "broken window theory on policing". Lack of enforcement leads to more, and different, crimes.
Enemy of the State?
Respect.
LSP
In great company.
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