We need more farmers like F.W. Owen.

Don’t listen to the salesmen who say that farmers have to “get big or get out.”

Don’t listen to the ignorant environmentalists who say commercial farming is unsustainable.

Don’t listen to the animal rights yahoos who think that all farm animals are, by definition, mistreated.

There is a path that keeps farmers in business, protects the environment, and treats animals well.

If they only read Naked Villainy’s insightful posts about toad sexing, they wouldn’t have looked so foolish.

I mean, come on, everyone should be able to tell the difference between two-headed mutants and toads l’amour!

The very wise Mr. Morhart, my AP European history teacher, once gave me this koan:

“Love in high school is hell. You have the apparatus to feel all the emotions, but none of the experience to put it all in perspective.”

Indeed.

When the Berlin Wall came down, all sorts of communist paraphenalia hit the market.

The Maximum Leader got a Makarov and a cool East German border guard overcoat.

I wanted a statue. When I win the lottery, I’m going to purchase and ship over one of those ubiquitous Lenin Exhorting The Masses sculptures anchoring the square of every little one-horse hamlet in Eastern Europe.

I’ll plant it in the garden, on it’s back, exhorting arm thrust skyward, and plant red-blooming flowers all around it.

The red garden will be featured on the Home and Garden channel. Writers from the Smithsonian Magazine and New Yorker will opine on the triumphant symbolism.

You all can come visit.

A friend from college days - a history professor beloved by Mike and I, just became a father.

His wife had twins.

He is 61.

I struggled to cope with newborn-induced sleeplessness at 31.

He will be 79 when his kids graduate from high school.

On the other hand, he will be able to retire in a couple of years and be a full-time dad, a job I would love to hold.

Fatherhood is cool. I welcome Big Jim to the fraternity.

Does anyone else find the cartoons on Annika’s site hot?

The santa girl is cute, but not as cute as some of the previous icons, like the girl who took offense at Helen Hunt’s outspokenness.

Tell me I’m not the only one.

Update: More Annika cartoons here.

Via the Lovely Annika: Apologize to a cow.

Her timing is perfect, since I just delivered meat to my customers on Saturday. Hopefully the Maximum Leader will see fit to comment on his humanely raised, grass-fed, hormone and anti-biotic free beef.

I am going to take a bold stand here and advocate arborcide.

Cedar trees ought to be extinct.

When you drive down the road and see a pasture with a crop of cedar trees, it is like a big neon sign saying “this farmer does not take care of his pasture.”

Cedar trees harbor ticks.

Cedar trees grow up in fence lines.

Cedar trees make poor firewood.

Cedar trees are an alternate host for apple cedar rust.

The only use of a cedar tree is too teach young people to develop a work ethic. You give them a maul, a bucket, and send them out to tackle the seedlings.

Join the anti-cedar crusade now.

Ally has argued in defense of intelligent design.

I disagree, but that is a post for a more reflective day.

Until then, I give you a great site discussing the constitutional issues around the teaching of evolution in the classroom.

Carry on.

UPDATE: Bill Keezer correctly points out my need to clarify the wording above; Ally has argued for the teaching of intelligent design. He also notes that he has had a discussion with another blogger about this topic. I’ll have to catch up on my reading.

The BigHo replies to my moralistic soapbox poem:

M,

Ah, you think like a Westerner– contracts are actually important to you.

Yeah, if I were in the States, I’d agree with you. We could actually talk about”principle.” But here, where the bosses don’t really give a shit what thecontract says, all’s fair in love and war. You keep your dignity in whateverway you can. I’m probably going to lose mine after tomorrow.

As for your sympathy for my boss– don’t worry: she needs none. The woman’s asneaky little bitch, using the receptionists as spies, laying guilt trips onKorean and expat teachers to get them to do her bidding, issuing random threatsabout firing Korean teachers– even writing up a TWO-PAGE-LONG list ofcomplaints about one of the expat teachers, a newbie named Valery, who in myopinion is trying her best & didn’t deserve such shitty treatment (she’s onlybeen in Korea for six months). If my boss were to get canned for failing tomanage me, that’d be icing on the cake.

Part of what allows me (or any expat here, for that matter) to think and act soextravagantly is that being fired isn’t a tragedy. There’s no black mark onyour permanent record– all hagwon (language institute) jobs are shady to somedegree or other. In all likelihood, you’ve been fired for unfair reasons.That’s typical of many expats in Korea. Foreigners who toe the line to theKorean bosses’ satisfaction almost never receive extra perks for their goodbehavior (or the perks are insultingly minimal). If anything, they’re screwedharder, because they’ve proven they can be used. It doesn’t pay to be a goodlittle soldier in a Korean business.

In such a poisonous environment, idealistic talk about upholding a contractmeans little.

I loved the poem all the same, but thought I should inform you of the uglyrealities here.

BTW, as I blogged beore, my brother already gave me the “stick to the contract”lecture. Heh. Yeah, in a perfect world…

Kevin

When I was in Civil Air Patrol…

Shut up! I was not a geek!

When I was in Civil Air Patrol, we did an activity called extemporaneous speaking. You drew a topic out of a hat, prepared for two minutes, then delivered a five minute speech.

I once had to do “corrugated tin.”

I am going to need help if I am going to find enough topics to meet the goal of 48 posts in 24 hours. Send your extemporaneous topic to smallholder@nakedvillainy.com. When I check my email, I will make a post within two minutes.

Does anyone know any PETA supporters or dogmatic proponents of animal rights who have actually had to survive by the sweat of their brows?

Analphilosopher claims to have been surrounded by agriculture as a child, but  get the impression that his was a hobby farm rather than a smallholding.

I wonder how much actual nature the “don’t hunt the deer” crowd has actually experienced. The absolutists seem to have no idea that choosing not to hunt the deer in the absence of natural predators does not restore natural balance. Not hunting is crueler than hunting - leading to starving, disease-ridden herds. Additionally, deer tend to reduce the prosperity of other species and eliminate forest biodiversity as they overgraze favored plants. Saving deer from hunting reduces the kills other animals by detroying their habitats.

But, claim the moralists, we won’t be the DIRECT killers.

We shouldn’t have disturbed the environment -> Stop hunting deer -> If the deer destroy the remaining environment, it is not our moral concern.

I wonder if they would also agree with:

We shouldn’t have invade Iraq -> Stop fighting the insurgency and withdraw -> If the people of Iraq fall into the hands of a brutal Shitte thugo-theocracy, it is not our moral concern.

Apples and oranges, I know.

Shut up! You try doing 48 posts in 24 hours.

The best ever smackdown of Thoreau can be found in either Michael Pollan’s Second Nature.

He has a whole chapter on Walden Pond and discusses how those who fetishize nature don’t really realize that letting things remain “natural” is no longer an option. The world has been so changed that no truly “native” plantings can survive without human intervention. The best part of the essay challenged Thoreau’s smug contemplation of his superiority in letting his beanfield be destroyed by “natural” weeds. The weeds, you see, were man-introduced as well. Plus, Pollan points out, it is a lot easier to be sanguine about the failure of your crops when you don’t rely on those crops for your very survival.

Was it just me, or was the collective unconscious a load of horse crap?

I mean, come on!

The whole transcendentalist inner-light tradition annoys me.

Wouldn’t it just suck if our old girlfriends got blogs?

Ex-Smallholder Girl:
“And then he tried to go out with me and my friend in the same evening! The Cad! Well, at least he wasn’t inadequate like the Minister of Propaganda”

Ex-Maximum Leader Girl:
“Mike was hitting on me?”

Ex-Minister of Propaganda Girl:
“I am, like, so tired of all these girls trying to get to my man just so they can get into a movie. They are, like, so shallow. I wonder when Rob will get home? My agent says there will be a bit part in his movie…”

Ex-Foreign Minister Girl:
“Greg is such a stud, but I wonder about his friends. Mark dances with his hands over his head and Mike keeps chatting with strange men he meets in the club.”