Creative Endeavors

It has been a busy and productive week, lot of things been happening. I have been working on this new main index thing, and that has eaten up my days like you would not believe. I have been so busy I don’t know whether to wind my butt or scratch my watch, and that has presented a lot of problems. But everything seems to be caught up for the moment, and don’t you think for one brief nano-second that I am not grateful.

It is nice to catch a breather.

STICKY FINGERS: A woman in Connecticut serving eight months in prison for stealing from her employer was given seven more months after it was discovered she had other embezzlements. The 53 year old woman was caught red handed with $152,000 in additional stolen funds (the previous amounts were not mentioned) that figures out to what, $21,714.00 a month for the seven months she received additional. Who says that crime doesn’t pay?

TENNIS MISHAP:  Radio Girl up in the Northern Exposure State has cracked a rib or two playing tennis.  Give her a shout and wish her well, you know that cannot be a lot of fun.  http://bikininerd.typepad.com/theradiogirl/ Personally I don’t play the game, too much running for me.  I never could understand the terminology of tennis.  When I was single, I would play, but I would always keep score by shouting out … “Twenty, I like you a lot but I am still going to date other people” … just couldn’t get the word “Love” out of my mouth.  You cannot trust tennis players, to them the word “love” means nothing.

PAIN AT THE PUMP: Nebraska’s Attorney General will prosecute gasoline station operators who try to cheat customers at the pump. Gas stations in that state, at least two or three a week, have been caught selling low grade ethanol-blended fuels as regular gasoline at higher prices.

SAY CHEESE: Condom brand LifeStyles has come up with an updated version of the drugstore photo booth with a suggestive twist. It is the so-called “Make Out Booth” which dispenses free black and white photos of the person (or couple) in the booth.

Along with condoms, now some of you might find that a little bit nasty, but they are passing them out in school these days. The 6 foot tall booth had its premier debut at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. 

Well, Yeee-haw ya’ll. (Okie talk) A dirty picture booth in the Bee Hive State, what is next a National Condom?

CHEAP EATS: Taco Bell is now selling the “Big Bell Box Meal.” A steal at 4.99 per serving. Only in America, a Bacon Club Chalupa, Beef Crunchy Taco, Bean Burrito and cinnamon twists, large drink on the side. Advertised on television as “Eat Like A Man.”

How about “oink-oink” or possibly “Snort.”

JUST CHARGE IT: NASA in Houston, Texas has divulged that employees have used govt. credit cards for items such as IPods, video games and jewelry. Successfully sidestepping the competitive bidding rules designed to save tax-payers money. 451,000 charges, totally more than $265 million were chronicled by a Houston Newspaper. DID YOU EVER NOTICE THEY ALWAYS TELL YOU HOW MUCH THESE PEOPLE TOOK (STOLE) BUT NEVER MENTION THE WORD PROSECUTION IN THE ARTICLES. That is because they never prosecute them, just demote them to a lower rank I suppose.

THE LITTLE RR THAT COULD: The Durango & Silverton RR in Colorado is going to do its part to help Mother Earth. They recently announced that they are going to plant 2,500 trees in the Durango area to offset the carbon dioxide emissions of their steam engines. Wonder what Casey Jones would have thought about that? The railroad burns approximately six tons of coal for a 90 mile round trip along the Animas River to Silverton Colorado.

Good for them!

Actions speak louder than empty rhetoric (promises) from Washington DC.  You remember Washington DC don’t you?  That is the place that sent Condoleesa Rice to Saudia Arabia to get a list of terrorists, and she came back with a copy of their telephone book.

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In my younger days, when I would say something that was not germane to the subject at hand, my father would interject, “What does that have to do with the price of rice in China?”  He used to say that all of the time, and that other thing … “Your mother and I are NOT your real parents, the police are your mama and daddy.  Remember that.” 

My dad was a funny guy.

The price of rice in China has gone up, way up.  Also, India banned the export of non-basmati rice this week as global stockpiles reached a 25 year low and world prices have soared at the same time.  So it appears that gasoline stocks are not the only immediate problem on the horizon.  India is the second largest producer of rice in the world, following China, so the ban is expected to boost the prices even higher.

Vietnam, Egypt and Cambodia have also limited their exports because like India, they need the crop for domestic consumption.  As the world gets larger, it seems the available supply of food, shrinks.  Wide spread pollution in China have contaminated huge swathes of land that once supported rice paddies.  Of the 30 top polluters (cities) in the world, China has the proud distinction of claiming 28 of them. 

Rice is a staple for about half the world’s people.  In March, prices rose from $650 a ton to over $1,000.  That is a pretty hefty increase in a short amount of time.  It seems as if the entire system has gone out of whack.  A farmer in Ethiopia gets about .28 cents for a fifty pound bag of coffee, but the average cup of coffee in Europe now costs about $2.79 per cup. 

What is wrong with this picture?

Recently I was reading a piece on China and it said that “one industrial complex in the southern part of the country” was home to some 14 million people.  Now think about that for just one minute.  14 million people is about 10% of the entire workforce of the United States.  We have all these people concentrated in one location and they are eating three meals a day.  Now stop to consider the logistics of all this.  It boggles the mind.  It is easy to see why China routinely will purchase the entire soybean crop of Brazil in one fell swoop.

As developing countries start eating more meat, grain crops are diverted for animal feed, causing what is know as “Agflation.”  It is at work right now in the global prices reflected on rice production.  As we continue to switch corn over to fuel for motor fuels, and divert it to cattle feed, human consumption suddenly becomes secondary goal of farmers.  This is also going to drive the prices up.  Soon there will be no fine line separating human consumption, animal feeds and synthetic motor fuels, then what? 

As third world countries continue to update their economies and step up to the dinner table, we find that the fare isn’t going to be all that abundant.  A global food catastrophe is looming on the horizon; it could possibly be in “biblical proportions” as predicted in the Bible. 

Soon, perhaps a lot sooner than we think, a grain of rice is going to be worth a drop of blood.

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