Presidential Campaign

So what do you think about the candidates, what should they focus on ? Rant if you like. I'm in the mood for debate! By the way vote this time. THrough the years I have heard too many comments about young voters for having strong opinions but never bother to vote. Back it up!

I am always so impressed with the depth of knowledge and thoughtfulness of the responses in our class.

Crisis looms worldwide food shortages.
This was an article in a Newsletter I get at work related to the food industry. Costco is seeing a huge increase in the movement of grain and cooking oil.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/360096_foodshortage23.html

Why do we love music? Why is it important?

For our upcoming dialogue project we are focusing on property rights as they relate to music. I am interested in why people steal or download music illegally and why music is that important to us. Please comment I would love to hear your thoughts.

Women and power--well actually NOT!

Check out this article in Portfolio Magazine.(how dumb I had so much trouble linking) It discusses how women have actually less power now than in the 80's when we first started getting some actual equity in the workplace.
I was thinking of Homework hostage's blog and what it might be like to be a woman of color. I respect women of color so much for their struggle and strength--I love to read their writing and poetry and history. I mean being a white woman is hard but--geez--ladies-just think about it. We women are the lowest of low on the ladder--and it is not getting a whole lot better.
Maybe we just ran out of energy to fight. Maybe this current generation thinks the problems of gender bias that affect our economic and social well being, are solved. I can guarantee you they are not. The industry I work in, up until a few years back, had a yearly industry"stag" party(men only) so guys could have fun(network).
Everyday I am interrupted at some point when I try to speak in a group of men. Men blatantly talk over me and even the body language says you are not worthy. Sure, I choose to work in a "man's world"--and there is no doubt about it; they take pride in their "man's world". I am allowed in because I am competent and numbers add up. I love the men, and I've always gravitated to jobs that are traditionally for men. I just always feel unworthy of my position, as if I have been given a great opportunity to live in their world--so don't screw it up by whining about the little things like equal pay; it isn't--promotion; they are rare--listening to jokes and degrading comments about women--porn; it happens. I really am not bothered so much by anything except the unequal pay and no matter how great my performance, I still feel like an outsider.
I feel like an outsider at CSUMB too, but so what, I absolutely love learning this time around. I seem to gravitate towards things that are uncomfortable--I can't wait to see what happens next. I hope I didn't offend anyone especially you guys. I think it is hard on men, when they are told they must give up power, that scares me too. I want men to be powerful. It's hard to figure out what to do when girls want to be taken care of and be powerful too. We all want the door opened for us in some way. Help a sister out! Don't we all want to feel like we matter? Typical________ you might say!

I made a big mistake!

I just realized it is unethical to delete a blog and comments (unless they are offensive). I did not post a reference for my blog "disease and illegal immigration". I forgot about ethics and felt it was easier to delete so no one else would be offended or think it was my personal opinion or worst plagiarism. I offended a Hispanic person who saw it as an attempt to keep out Mexicans. I really am concerned about illegal immigration because of diseases that are normally screened in the immigration process. I would want to immigrate to a country that was caring enough to attend to the health and well being of it's citizens and those that want to become citizens. So I apologize for my mistake and if anyone else was offended, I apologize to them too.

Football players are cool. You really have to be physically and mentally tough to play football.

I DA H O STAT E F O OT B A L L
Highland graduate plays the waiting game
BY DAN THOMPSON dthompson@journalnet.com


POCATELLO — Nick Tranmer’s spinal injury set him back months, but competitively it was probably the best thing for his winter conditioning team.
With the sophomore center, Tranmer estimates his team won about half the team-on-team drills. Without him, linebacker J.T. Albers, safety Keith Goins Jr. and wideout Jaron Taylor dominated.
“When I got hurt they started winning because it was straight up fast people against fat dudes,” the Highland graduate joked Thursday.
Tranmer is trying to stay peppy these days. Midway through winter conditioning, he injured the L4 and L5 nerve roots along his lower spine while doing squats. The pain radiates down his legs even now, and he won’t participate in contact drills this spring.
But that doesn’t mean he’s given up on next season.
There’s a whole lot about playing center that’s mental. Tranmer appreciates that after spending two years under George Yarno’s tutelage. And though he’s not a behemoth, Tranmer and teammates are confident that the 275-pound lineman is plenty big to excel at center for Idaho State — if not this fall, then perhaps down the road.
“He’s short,” senior Evan Dietrich-Smith said of the generously listed 6-foot Tranmer. “He’s short and it’s a game of leverage. When I was in high school, we had a center like that but he did great because he was able to get under guys’ pads a lot easier.
“Tranny is tipping 5-8, 5-9 on a good day, but he can stand up and still get underneath these guys. He’s just got to apply the technique and the nastiness.”
Those are aspects of the game Tranmer learned from Yarno, the Bengals starting center the last three years, and Mike Orthmann, the team’s offensive coordinator and offensive line coach.
With any team but especially the Bengals, the center must be mentally stout. He aids the quarterback in reading defensive fronts, then relays calls to the other four linemen. He isn’t lined up one-on-one with a defender as often, Tranmer pointed out, leaving the shoving to the guards.
So, provided Tranmer makes the right call, he shouldn’t need to push around many bodies by himself.
At least that’s the idea — one perfected by Yarno.
“George was a mentor for Nick, and it’s great when you have a player like that,” coach John Zamberlin said. “Nick’s come a long way. He’s not the biggest guy out there, but he gives you everything he’s got.”
Now, though, Tranmer can’t really do that. Spinal injuries tend to linger, Dietrich-Smith said, and recovery requires patience.
He’s also competing against junior college transfers Jarret Gant and Ryan Henry, who are healthy and bigger than Tranmer.
But Tranmer’s mental prowess is there, and after shadowing Yarno for two years, he knows that bulk isn’t everything.
“It set him back that he hurt his back. It’s gonna hurt him in the long run, because those injuries aren’t easy to come back from,” Dietrich-Smith said. “But at the same time, I think Tranny’s ready to step up.”

DOUG LINDLEY/IDAHO STATE JOURNAL Idaho State’s Nick Tranmer listens as coach Mike Orthmann talks to the offensive line Thursday.

A Global Need for Grain That Farms Can’t Fill

FOOD for OIL? I guess Soros, Chavez, and other America haters will have to rethink how they will feed their people. Thet want to make us suffer economically by withholding oil and contracting with new developing countries. Guess what? We can grow food.

The Food Chain
A Global Need for Grain That Farms Can’t Fill
Dan Koeck for The New York Times

On his North Dakota farm, Dennis Miller has seen wheat prices steadily climb.
LAWTON, N.D. — Whatever Dennis Miller decides to plant this year on his 2,760-acre farm, the world needs. Wheat prices have doubled in the last six months. Corn is on a tear. Barley, sunflower seeds, canola and soybeans are all up sharply.
to buy three loaves, now you buy one,” Mr. Ojuku said.

Everywhere, the cost of food is rising sharply. Whether the world is in for a long period of continued increases has become one of the most urgent issues in economics.

Many factors are contributing to the rise, but the biggest is runaway demand. In recent years, the world’s developing countries have been growing about 7 percent a year, an unusually rapid rate by historical standards.

The high growth rate means hundreds of millions of people are, for the first time, getting access to the basics of life, including a better diet. That jump in demand is helping to drive up the prices of agricultural commodities.

Farmers the world over are producing flat-out. American agricultural exports are expected to increase 23 percent this year to $101 billion, a record. The world’s grain stockpiles have fallen to the lowest levels in decades.

“Everyone wants to eat like an American on this globe,” said Daniel W. Basse of the AgResource Company, a Chicago consultancy. “But if they do, we’re going to need another two or three globes to grow it all.”


In contrast to a run-up in the 1990s, investors this time are betting — as they buy and sell contracts for future delivery of food commodities — that scarcity and high prices will last for years.

If that comes to pass, it is likely to present big problems in managing the American economy. Rising food prices in the United States are already helping to fuel inflation reminiscent of the 1970s.

And the increases could become an even bigger problem overseas. The increases that have already occurred are depriving poor people of food, setting off social unrest and even spurring riots in some countries.

In the long run, the food supply could grow. More land may be pulled into production, and outdated farming methods in some countries may be upgraded. Moreover, rising prices could force more people to cut back. The big question is whether such changes will be enough to bring supply and demand into better balance.

“People are trying to figure out, is this a new era?” said Joseph Glauber, chief economist for the United States Department of Agriculture. “Are prices going to be high forever?”

Competition for Acres

At a moment when much of the country is contemplating recession, farmers are flourishing. The Agriculture Department forecasts that farm income this year will be 50 percent greater than the average of the last 10 years. The flood of money into American agriculture is leading to rising land values and a renewed sense of optimism in rural America.

“All of a sudden farmers are more in control, which is a weird position for them,” said Brian Sorenson of the Northern Crops Institute in Fargo, N.D. “Everyone’s knocking at their door, saying, ‘Grow this, grow that.’ ”

Mr. Miller’s family has worked the Great Plains for more than a century. One afternoon early last month, he turned on the computer in his combination office and laundry room to see what commodity prices were up to.

“Oh, my goodness, look at that,” Mr. Miller said. Barley was $6.40 a bushel, approaching a price that would tempt him to plant more. Soybeans were $12.79 a bushel, up from $8.50 in August.

The frozen earth outside was only a few weeks from coming to life, but Mr. Miller was happily uncertain about what to plant. Last year, the decision was easy for Mr. Miller and everyone else: prices of corn were high because of new government mandates for production of ethanol, a motor fuel. This year, so many crops look like good bets, and there is so little land on which to plant them.

“I’m debating between spring wheat, durum wheat, canola, malting barley, confection sunflowers, oil sunflowers, soybeans, flax and corn,” Mr. Miller said.
The biggest blemish on this winter of joy is that farmers’ own costs are rising rapidly. Expenses for the diesel fuel used to run tractors and combines and for the fertilizer essential to modern agriculture have soared. Mr. Miller does not just want high prices; he needs them to pay his bills.

Until recently, he could expect around $3 a bushel for his wheat — far less than his parents and grandparents received, when inflation is taken into account. Consumption in the United States was dropping as Americans shunned carbohydrates. The export market, while healthy, faced competition.

Now prices have more than tripled, partly because of a drought in Australia and bad harvests elsewhere and also because of unslaked global demand for crackers, bread and noodles. In seven of the last eight years, world wheat consumption has outpaced production. Stockpiles are at their lowest point in decades.

Around the world, wheat is becoming a precious commodity. In Pakistan, thousands of paramilitary troops have been deployed since January to guard trucks carrying wheat and flour. Malaysia, trying to keep its commodities at home, has made it a crime to export flour and other products without a license. Consumer groups in Italy staged a widely publicized (if also widely disregarded) one-day pasta strike last fall.

In the United States, the price of dry pasta has risen 20 percent since October, according to government data. Flour is up 19 percent since last summer. Over all, food and beverage prices are rising 4 percent a year, the fastest pace in nearly two decades.

The American Bakers Association last month took the radical step of suggesting that American exports be curtailed to keep wheat at home, though the group later backed off.

If all this suggests a golden age for American growers, it could well be brief, said Bruce Babcock, an economist at Iowa State University. He predicted that farmers would do their best to ramp up production, possibly to the point of pulling land out of conservation programs so they could plant more. “Give farmers a price incentive, and they’ll produce,” he said.

The Agriculture Department forecasts that world wheat production will increase 8 percent this year. In the United States, spring and durum wheat plantings are expected to rise by two million acres, helping to drive prices down to $7 a bushel, the government said.

Yet the competition among crops for acreage has become so intense that some farmers think the government and analysts like Mr. Babcock are being overly optimistic.

Read Smith, a farmer in St. John, Wash., thinks a new era is at hand for all sorts of crops. “Price spikes have usually been short-lived,” he said. “I think this one is different.”

His example is plain old mustard. Two years ago, Mr. Smith would have been paid less than 15 cents a pound for mustard seeds. As more lucrative crops began supplanting mustard, dealers raised their offering price to 20 cents, then 30 cents, then 48 cents early this year. Mr. Smith gave in, agreeing to convert up to 100 acres of wheat fields to mustard.

Mr. Smith said it was inevitable that supermarket mustard, just like flour, bread and pasta, would become more expensive.

“We’ve lulled the public with cheap food,” he said. “It’s not going to be a steal anymore.”

Bread to Be Had, for a Price

As the newly urbanized and newly affluent seek more protein and more calories, a phenomenon called “diet globalization” is playing out around the world. Demand is growing for pork in Russia, beef in Indonesia and dairy products in Mexico. Rice is giving way to noodles, home-cooked food to fast food.

Though wracked with upheaval for years and with many millions still rooted in poverty, Nigeria has a growing middle class. Median income per person doubled in the first half of this decade, to $560 in 2005. Much of this increase is being spent on food.

Nigeria grows little wheat, but its people have developed a taste for bread, in part because of marketing by American exporters. Between 1995 and 2005, per capita wheat consumption in Nigeria more than tripled, to 44 pounds a year. Bread has been displacing traditional foods like eba, dumplings made from cassava root.

Nigeria’s wheat imports in 2007 were forecast to rise 10 percent more. But demand was also rising in many other places, from Tunisia to Venezuela to India. At the same time, drought and competition from other crops limited supply.

So wheat prices soared, and over the last year, bread prices in Nigeria have jumped about 50 percent.

Amid a public outcry, bakers started making smaller loaves, hoping customers who could not afford to pay more would pay about the same to eat less. Sales have dropped for street hawkers selling loaves. With imports shrinking, mills are running at half capacity.

At Honeywell Flour Mills, one of the largest in Nigeria, executives were glued one recent day to commodity screens. The price of wheat ticked ever upward. “Even when you see a little downturn, you wait for some few hours or a day, and before you know it, it’s gone way up again,” said the production director, Nino Albert Ozara.

Despite the crisis, there is little sense of a permanent retreat from wheat in Nigeria. The mills are increasing their capacity, hoping for a day when supply is sufficient to stabilize prices. “The moment you develop a taste, you are hooked,” said a confident Muyiwa Talabi, director of an American wheat-marketing office in Lagos.

Mr. Ojuku, the man who buys fewer loaves, and one of his fellow tailors in Lagos, Mukala Sule, 39, are trying to adjust to the new era.

“I must eat bread and tea in the morning. Otherwise, I can’t be happy,” Mr. Sule said as he sat on a bench at a roadside cafe a few weeks ago. For a breakfast that includes a small loaf, he pays about $1 a day, twice what the traditional eba would have cost him.

To save a few pennies, he decided to skip butter. The bread was the important thing.

“Even if the price goes up,” Mr. Sule said, “if I have the money, I’ll still buy it.”