08 Aug 2005
A Meditation on Cloning

Would you be you
if you were me?
If I was he and
he was she?

Would you be you
if you could see,
that I was you and
you were me?

Would you and I
be one for all,
if we were both
just six feet tall?
Blue eyes, blond hair and belly fat,
our DNA as tit for tat?

Where shall we be
when all are one?
When each is every,
and one is none?

We shan't be here,
'tis clear to see,
when I am you
and you are me.

dmh 2005-08-08

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Did the Draft Horse Fail?

“Before winding up this very abbreviated report on a business that was the life-blood of American Agriculture for so many years, let’s reflect on the broader aspects of what the draft horse could mean to the farmer of today.

Come with me down the country roads of the farm belt on a day 50 years ago. The fields on either side are growing an assortment of crops, with quite a lot in pasture. The substantial farm homes with big barns, good outbuildings and adequate fences (making salvaging of crop residues by livestock relatively easy), dot the 80’s and the 160’s. Big, drafty horses and mules are working in the fields, sometimes in big hitches and many just in teams. Mares with colts at their sides attest to the fact that an adequate supply of farm power is in the making. Depending on the time of year, we’ll see a six horse hitch of Percherons, some grey and some black, plowing with a gang plow; a pair of Belgian mares on a spreader with colts running alongside; a nice team of Clydes mowing hay; a team of bay geldings hooked on a stationary hay baler pulling it to a new location in the field, four head on a binder, all going about the business of planting, cultivating, and harvesting a crop. Or rather, a variety of crops.

Now let’s take this same trip today. The fields are still there, but most of them much bigger. Most of the fences have been torn out in some areas, many of the barns and outbuildings have been torn down and others are falling down, homes that echoed to the laughter of children and the wisdom of age stand silent and empty, instead of a variety of crops with a healthy mixture of grasses and legumes the earth seems to be black for miles, all under the plow, and of course, there are no horses. And there is also a distinct shortage of people, as reflected in the run down appearance of many small towns that no longer (the experts say) have a right to live. The wheat and corn don’t grow any faster, and the hay doesn’t cure any faster. The machine that replaced the horse didn’t raise the price of farm products. The machine that replaced the horse didn’t increase the fertility of the soil. The machine that replaced the horse does not reproduce itself. But, the machine that replaced the horse has replaced millions of Americans on the land, crowding them into our urban centers. The power of the farm vote and the farmer’s voice has been diminished, and cheap food is regarded as a birth right. Not cheap automobiles, or cheap tractors, or cheap boats, just cheap food. The farmer has had to be subsidized by the rest of the populace to continue to operate so that he can produce foodstuffs at an acceptable level, that is lower and lower. Farming tenancy leading to land ownership, has become a social relic, and has instead become a hereditary privilege for fewer and fewer young men and is now called agri-business.

Is this a success story? Did the draft horse fail as an efficient source of farm power?”

by Howard Johnstone, Centennial Farm Belgians, Maple Hill, Kansas

from The Draft Horse Journal, Spring, 1975

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Talk about Press Coverage...

A couple of hours after I finished my last post about getting some good local press coverage the emails started coming in - "Wow! You're famous! Congratulations!" and "How'd you do it?" and many more in a similar vein. The odd thing was that these were from customers, who don't necessarily read the blog, so the references couldn't be to the newspaper articles. Finally a customer called and told me I was on the Paul Harvey News and Comment radio show, a national broadcast by this veteran broadcaster.

Sure enough, about 12:43 into the 15 minute show you heard about Dave Haxton and his milk and egg home delivery business in Lebanon, Indiana! You can hear the whole show in WMA format (available, I assume, for the next week) by going to the site and selecting the Wednesday noon segment. I managed to record the relevant bit (a whopping 20 seconds worth) off the air from a local source here (MP3 format, 126k).

It's pretty weird to hear your name on national news, especially, as my darling wife added, not for something illegal! I only wish my stepfather could've heard it - but he's been gone 11 years. He practically worshiped Paul Harvey, listening to all three of his shows every single day for the entire time I knew him (better than 25 years). It would've made him proud, which was something I didn't do often enough as a teenager or a young man.

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Ragnarok to Start Next Tuesday

A little Heathen humor ...

After a millennium or so of waiting, the Norse Gods have finally announced plans to begin Ragnarok, the divine war that will temporarily end all life on earth.

(link) [The Spoof]

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