presidents, race, and apery

vs.

As a student of history and an involved citizen in general, I try reallyhard to understand the issue of race in this country. I get it. We've had a rough past. However, isn't it time to move on?

The cartoon on top was published in the New York Post to immediate outcries of "racist!" But how racist can a depiction of the President as a monkey really be when we've spent the last eight years comparing the president to a chimpanzee?

I think one of the main problems regarding race in this country is the fact that people want to get offended. Take the percieved racism out of the cartoon and read it again. Aha! Now it says that Washington is full of chimps who are bungling up the economy! I get it!

But that would not be enough. Let's make a big deal out of it. Of course, Al Sharpton had a few words to say on the subject. From an article on CNN: "Again, Al Sharpton reveals himself as nothing more than a publicity opportunist," he said, referencing a news release the civil rights activist sent out blasting the paper and demanding an apology."

And because that scathing commentary on Sharpton's practices regarding race in society was written by the author of "Listening to the Spirit Within: 50 Perspectives on Faith"and "Speak, Brother! A Black Man's View of America," it was OK.

To everyone in this country, regardless of color: CHILL OUT.

Farm

Growing up we didn’t have neighborhood ball games in the middle of the street that were put on hiatus to accommodate the passing fare. Growing up we didn’t have ice cream trucks parked between on the corner between to streets named for trees, diminutive customers lined up in the evening summer sun to buy drumsticks and freeze pops and those little Italian ices with mom and dad’s five dollar bills. We didn’t go to Girl Scout meetings or play dates with the neighbors. And we sure as hell never took outings to the country.

When people wanted country, they came to us. We ran barefoot through cow pastures, holding sticks and herding cows back to the barn at night. We built forts in patches of woods with entire fields as our front yard. We spent entire summers cleaning up and training cows to walk on a halter, then showing them in the fair. We built hay tunnels, had roving games of hide and seek that encompassed the entire farm and spent countless late afternoon summer hours sitting at the very top of the big barn, staring out of the hay loft into the setting sun.

The farm I grew up on stands alone in a vast wasteland of suburban refuse. Like an oasis in the driest of deserts, the lopsided barns from another century, the cow pastures and acre after acre of open fields are a testament to another time in the area’s history. To see cows standing around a barn yard chewing cud and flapping at the flies with their tails has transformed from commonplace to extraordinary and a car slow down drastically in front of the heifer yard is not uncommon. It’s easy to picture the suburban mother with her kids strapped tightly into her sports utility tank explaining the sights to the kids. “See that Evan? See those cows Emma? That’s where milk comes from!” Of course, the kids are less interested in the animals than what’s on TV in the backseat and who can blame them? They’re only interested in what they have been told is interesting and a large group of black and white animals standing in their own shit and chewing their throw up doesn’t fall into that category.

It’s no wonder, then, that small farms like the one I grew up on are a dying breed. People just don’t care. When you go to the grocery store, you pay a price for milk. That price, however high it may be, however, does not reflect what the farmer is being paid to produce the milk. When asked what formula is used to determine the price of the milk the farmers sell, government agencies usually respond with “it’s a complicated formula.” I’m a pretty smart person: try me. But they never do. So the small farmer suffers. Right now, to produce a gallon of milk costs two cents more than it can sell for. Producing thousands of gallons of milk every single day can add up pretty fast. Planting ornamental grasses and sod and selling the cows as fast as you can find buyers is a more fiscally sound option, and one that many small dairy farmers are opting to do.

Selling the land in the current economy isn’t a viable option, but something will have been lost once the cows are gone. Sure, they smell. Sure, they’re a lot of work. But when it comes down to it, they are the farm. Imagining walking down the road to the farm two years from now at feeding time and not hearing those desperate “feeeeed meeeeeee” moos from the calf barn creates a pit in my stomach. Thinking that I will have to wait with the rest of them for an open farm day somewhere in the county to pet a newborn calf and let her suck on my fingers makes me want to cry. And spending my late afternoon summer hours in the top of the hay loft looking out over pampas grasses or a blue fescue does not seem a good substitute for watching cows trudge slowly back home after a long day of eating and relaxing in the warm summer air.