Well ... another road trip has wound down.
The road across the top of the US, down the west coast and the back half way across the middle and then up the middle exposes you to the history of the US ... both past and present.
It also serves as an introduction to a large number of folks you meet along the way as well as fellow travelers hoping to find themselves in their travel experiences.
It also serves as an introduction to a large number of folks you meet along the way as well as fellow travelers hoping to find themselves in their travel experiences.
The most prevalent historical element out there, on the road that I traveled, is how the US, before the mid to late 1800s, is really the story of the native Indian (and I use Indian on purpose ...as opposed to American), the Mexican and Spanish, followed by the explorers, followed by the masses moving west.
You can easily see this by pulling out your Atlas and name checking the towns ... Indian names abound, French names to some degree across the top ... Indian names abound as you go south down the coast and you get the odd French one and soon many Mexican and Spanish ones; as you get moving east from Santa Barbara an then north from Oklahoma City.
You can easily see this by pulling out your Atlas and name checking the towns ... Indian names abound, French names to some degree across the top ... Indian names abound as you go south down the coast and you get the odd French one and soon many Mexican and Spanish ones; as you get moving east from Santa Barbara an then north from Oklahoma City.
In Oklahoma I crossed the Chisholm trail - once the main north south corridor for driving huge herds of cattle to the Northern market .... cattle that were rounded up on the free range for the great annual drive ...today this trail is impassable because of barb wire, local and interstate highways, railway tracks, transmission and distribution lines, etc.
Today the drives would be made by cattle car ... but no need for that ... we raise thousands in small areas on factory farms .... feeding them corn and pumping them full of growth hormones, etc ... like professional athletes ... and there is a comedic irony there ...
The Spanish, Mexicans and the native Indians were defeated by the same force ... not the will of the white man moving west ... but the very force that drove the white man west ... mercantilism, capitalism,
The native Americans were always good stewards of the land ... only hunting and growing what they needed to sustain themselves ...
We .... the descendants of those that pushed madly westward are proving to be very poor stewards ... not only of the land ... but of finance, energy, immigration, and agriculture ... I could easily add education, the arts, health, physical education ... but let me use agriculture as an example ...
An Indian staple was maize ... or corn.
Today corn is killing us ... in more ways than one ...maybe it`s Crazy Horse`s last laugh.
Corn is being produced in record quantities ... farmers are subsidized to grow it through past agreements to keep farmers solvent and on the farm. Growing corn year after year is an energy intensive process ... meaning it takes tons of fertilizer and insecticide and herbicide to grow this crop ... the fertilizer, insecticide and herbicide are produced from ... imported oil.
The corn once produced, generally speaking, is either used as cattle feed, used in foodstuffs or used to produce ethanol - there is an intense lobby going on right now to increase the percentage of ethanol in fuel from the current limit of 10% to 15% ... meaning in all states ... in some states this is the case right now ...although you need a flex fuel model engine to use it ...I`ll return to this in a minute ...
Fuel as cattle feed ...cattle can`t digest corn properly .. they are grass eaters ... however we can give cattle an implant which enhances their gut chemistry so corn can be digested .... this along with growth hormone plus other pharmaceutical based compounds to fight disease and infection .... diseases and infections as a result of the close proximity they find themselves in, with their brethren, on the factory farm ... as opposed to the free range ...
Archer Daniels Midland is a food engineering firm ... for want of a better term ... you know why corn flakes stay crunchy in milk for so long ... they have been engineered ... by ADM ... ADM also did the research that allowed fructose and glucose (dextrose) to be used in all our canned and boxed foodstuffs ... super sweeteners .... this stuff is tens of times sweeter than natural sugar ... is more calorie dense ... and affects the bodies insulin-carbohydrate mechanism differently .... those who are not eating fresh food daily ... those who buy everything processed or eat out a lot .... are consuming a corn based diet ... one of the main reasons why obesity is on the rise .... and of course to produce those tons of cereal and foodstuffs that are based on corn and use corn derived sugar ... it takes a lot of imported oil ... are you sensing a trend ...
With regard to ethanol production ... it is heavily subsidized by the Federal and some state governments ... we take corn, produce a mash, ferment it, distill it to produce ethanol ... using imported oil to do this...we then take the resulting ethanol and add it to .... imported oil ... so we use imported oil ...to make ethanol .... to add to more imported oil ... and the government pays industry to do it based on already subsidized corn production ....
Corn is not only killing people, it`s killing the economy ... and it`s causing a huge dependence on foreign oil ... and is the indirect cause of off shore drilling... which is also subsidized.
I had mentioned going from 10% - 15% corn production ... that means taking current arable land ... used for growing grain, green veggies, root veggies .. and converting it to corn ...thus getting more subsidized corn production ... increasing the need for imported oil, making us fatter and reducing domestic production of the very things we need and should be eating ...
This is just one instance where agricultrural policy, energy policy and public health policy intertwine and make no sense ....
If you are what you eat ... some of us are a filed of corn or a barrel of oil ... depending on how you look at it ...
The one worrying thing that I take back from my last two trips to the US ... is that the knowledgeable folks and the ones who really care, and are trying to get an articulate message out there, are being drowned out by a very vocal minority who are playing to the fears of those whose minds are made up for them by talk radio and cable news and daytime television ....
Either something `bad`is going to happen and people will shake their heads and wonder what that was all about and common sense will return ... or things will slowly drift as they are until the mess is bad enough that a charismatic individual will come along and post-Katrina will look like a quilting bee ... from that they will recover as well ... but the world will sink and recover with them .... and that`s simply not an event I want to experience ... nor do I want my children to experience ....
Either something `bad`is going to happen and people will shake their heads and wonder what that was all about and common sense will return ... or things will slowly drift as they are until the mess is bad enough that a charismatic individual will come along and post-Katrina will look like a quilting bee ... from that they will recover as well ... but the world will sink and recover with them .... and that`s simply not an event I want to experience ... nor do I want my children to experience ....
So ...to all my friends in the US ... and there are many ... please help someone get off Rush ... help someone turn on to an economist, a scientist, a real journalist, a real engineer ... and then watch them elect someone who is informed by these same `real`; people .... you won`t regret it ... and neither will we ... standing outside ... looking in ...scratching our heads ...
One last thing ... another `jesus is lord` billboard is not going to help anyone; another billboard calling on voters to get rid of politicians because they are following a black Muslim not born in America is not going to help anybody; an education combined with tolerance and understanding will lead to those billboards not being put up in the first place .... and will eventually lead to co-existence ...
To quote from verse 1776 of the Krome Koan,
`To outsiders, US voting is similar to driving a car .. choose R to go backward ... choose D to go forward ...`
Looking forward to the next road trip,
Forever Man
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