The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
Greetings to everyone in Western Illinois. Well, the week long dry spell is broken and we again are enjoy'n abundant rain showers.
What started out around these parts as prospects for a mighty fine crop year has now turned into a big question mark. Fields that look rather sickly from the road, thru a pickup truck windshield, look plum sick when flown over by plane. Yellow corn is in ample supply.
Whilst we like to see yellow kernels in the fall at harvest time, we hope the plants this time of the year would have a rather dark green color to them, not yellow.
For those whose corn has good color and is tasseling they probably feel quite fortunate. Tasseling out before the 4th of July is a good sign. Other fields however seem to be very stunted in their growth, with question as to how fall yields will turn out.
The USDA has come out with a report that helped corn prices increase 30 cents to 40 cents per bushel. With wet weather scattered thru out the corn belt, one wonders if more price strength remains.
One thing for sure, once the farmer has sold most of his corn at lower prices, the market will somehow enable itself to increase considerably.
The supreme court recently reinforced the citizens right for gun ownership. It didn't take long for radical politicians to attack the reinforcement of constitutional rights by promising new regulations to punish law abiding citizens.
Mayor Daley of Chicago has much personal police protection, but won't allow the common citizen to defend himself in his own home. He only wants criminals to have guns. With Illinois having one of two of the most gun restrictive laws in our union, there remains on an average day more American folk killed in Chicago than in the war in Afghanistan.
Daley's answer is for more gun laws which have proven time and again failure in reducing crime. It somehow seems Daley calls attention away from his cities problems by zeroing in on gun control.
In the United States today it seems that everything that is political becomes regulatory, and everything that is regulatory becomes political.
The EPA is a good example of this phenomenon. There should be a line where politics stop and regulation becomes scientifically abstract. The truth is that regulatory agencies can't function without political support. Their funding is appropriated by congress, so the ideal of strictly scientific findings is a fairy tale by appointed leaders.
We have evolved, as a nation, past our ability to self regulate. We use a system that was designed to improve our lot, to wage war on each other. Those charged with enterpacting and modernizing regulations are put in jeopardy each time they do so.
Our founding fathers applied elected office to those government folk who were able to enforce and apply laws. As government and technology has changed those who truly affect our daily lives are no longer elected and generally are unresponsive to the general electorates will.
King George of yesteryear had a similar attitude toward the colonists as many bureaucratic regulatory agencies have today toward the common citizen. It matters not whether the subject is the environment, gun control, seat belt laws or whatever. Often it seems enforcement centers more around fines and revenue enhancement rather than concern for welfare of the common person.
Reckless unbridled spending is fed by fines on regulatory rules that never existed only a few years ago. They are often levied on those least able to afford and/or offer resistance. How many times have you observed politicians or their close connections and family go relatively scot free whilst some poor working snook gets nailed to the letter of the law.
The answer it seems might lay in making those folk at the head of regulatory agencies responsive to the average citizen by making their job an elected position. If'n you don't like being stopped randomly and systematically by the state police for seat belt laws, vote in a new head of the state police. He or she might then choose to enforce other laws more aggressively to influence our general welfare more affectively rather than financing state and local budgets thru fines, etc.
The same would apply to the head of the EPA. Make it an elected position responsive to the will of the people rather than politicians. The system works for judges, sheriffs, governors, presidents, congress, etc. etc. And yet some regulatory agencies now dictate to our elected officials what they should do. They've got it turned around backwards.
And by the way, most of this previous line of think'n was influenced by a serious conversation held on the 4th of July betwixt Buster Jigs, Bill Jones, Cornelius Farkward, and Sandy Bob as they awaited the fireworks to go off.
Keep on Smile'n
Catch ya later
Barnyard Bruke