Corn

This video segment, originally broadcast January 28, 2009 on PBS’s The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, tells only a portion of the story of corn - the tip of the iceberg if you will.

America produces a lot of corn. It is America's number one cash crop; forget the amber waves of grain - in 2007, the U.S. produced 12.32 billion bushels of corn, far more than wheat (2.17 billion bushels) and soybeans (2.88 billion bushels) combined. But the history of corn in America is one of "unintended consequences" presenting themselves time and time again since colonial days, and the pattern of unintended consequences continues into the present.

The corn plant clearly dominates the American landscape. Today 125,000 square miles of American soil are devoted to corn production, with the "corn belt" states of Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska and Minnesota producing over 50% of our corn. Production of corn has always been an essential component of the American economy (such as it is), and markets have to be continuously identified, created, and exploited to accommodate this bounty.

Even before the Revolution, a glut of corn was created by an expansion of the corn belt into Kentucky and Ohio. Since there were no roads in this region and most transportation was by packhorse, it cost more to transport corn than it could bring on the Eastern markets. But 10 bushels of corn could be reduced to 1 gallon of whiskey. So farmers distilled the corn into "liquid assets" that could easily be shipped or bartered. Practically every farmer made whiskey and it became a medium of exchange. It didn't take long for the new government to realize that it could tax that whiskey.

Backwoods farmers in western Pennsylvania eventually revolted over the stiff excise tax placed on their whiskey, and in 1794, George Washington needed 13,000 troops to put down what came to be called the "Whiskey Rebellion." With more men than he had led during the Revolution, Washington put down the uprising with his Treasury secretary, Alexander Hamilton, by his side.

But by this time, the young nation was awash in a flood of cheap, corn-produced liquor. By 1810, there were at least 2,000 distillers producing more than two million gallons of whiskey. By the 1820s, whiskey sold for twenty-five cents a gallon, making it cheaper than beer, wine, coffee, tea, or milk. As a result, America became a nation of drunks. Government figures showed that annual per-capita alcohol consumption for everybody over 15 years of age amounted to thirty-four gallons of beer and five gallons of distilled spirits, and one gallon of wine. Actual consumption may have been as high as ten gallons of whiskey per person, over four times the current rate.

Instead of a morning coffee break, Americans stopped work at 11:00 a.m. to drink. A lot of work went undone, but this apparently was not a problem in this slow-paced, preindustrial age. And a drunken stage coach driver posed little threat, since the horses knew the route and made their own way home.

Writing at the time, Alexis de Tocqueville suggested that the sudden disappearance of traditional boundaries had left people bereft and disoriented, with negative consequences for social control. The rootless individual, seeking his fortune, living by his own wits, and answerable to no social superior, became celebrated as the national character ideal. The stable, self-policing community was demolished, and the forms of behavior that grew out of an inherited concept of reciprocal rights and obligations became obsolete. But it was also the availability of cheap liquor made from the abundant corn that led to the problem.

During this period, the drinking of hard liquor increased in settings that no longer even offered the pretense of other activities. The tavern or inn, where food and lodging were provided in addition to drink, gave way almost exclusively to the grogshop, essentially an early version of the saloon. Solitary drinking, unencumbered by social control, also increased during this time, as a sizable number of Americans began to drink to excess by themselves for the first time. The solo binge was a new pattern of drinking in which periods of abstinence were interspersed every week, month, or season with one to three-day periods of solitary inebriation. When people did drink, they were more likely to go on binges where they drank all out.

All of this in time led to the Temperance Movement of the 19th Century and ultimately to Prohibition. In the years after the Civil War, the Temperance Movement was most active in the corn-producing Midwestern and western states, where the problem likely was the most visible. Of course, Prohibition itself was a singular failure. Mark Twain remarked that Prohibition drove "drunkenness behind doors and into dark places, and [did] not cure it or even diminish it." The associated rise in bootlegging and organized crime is the poster child for unintended consequences.

But soon after the 18th Amendment was passed in 1919 banning alcohol, farmers had found new ways to increase corn production even more. In 1930, a hybrid corn was developed whose sturdier stalks allowed the plants to stand crowded side by side and resist blowing over. Then in 1947, munitions plants found themselves with a surplus of ammonium nitrate - the key ingredient in making explosives, but no longer needed since the Second World War had ended. A way was found to convert ammonium nitrate into a chemical fertilizer that boosted soil nitrogen levels and made it possible to plant more corn year after year without soil exhaustion.

But the biggest advancement came in the late 60s, when a Japanese chemist discovered the enzyme glucose isomerase. Ten years later, this discovery was used to develop the perfect low-cost sweetness substitute - high-fructose corn syrup.

Then in 1973, a new policy allowed direct subsidy payments to farmers. Before the 1970s, farm policy supported corn prices through loans, government purchases and land rest. The new policy encouraged farmers to grow and sell their corn at any price. And grow it, they did, and the rest is history.

Over the following three decades, corn syrup and corn byproducts found their way into nearly every processed food and drink. Coca Cola replaced sugar with corn syrup in 1980 to save a few pennies and Pepsi followed suit in 1984. At lower cost, drinks and meals then went super-sized, because marketers quickly discovered that Americans would consume 30% larger portions and pay a few more cents for “value meals.”

According to a chemical analysis of dishes served at McDonald's, Burger King, and Wendy's, American fast food is almost entirely produced from corn. A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences used a stable isotope analysis of carbon and nitrogen to determine the origin of molecules present in hamburgers, chicken, and fries. The researchers found corn to be the almost exclusive food source of the beef and chicken served in fast food restaurants. The researchers also uncovered evidence to suggest that fast food restaurants are misleading consumers as to the oils used in preparing french fries and that animals slaughtered for production are kept in confined quarters, rather than outdoors.

On average, we each consume 200 calories more per day than we did 30 years ago – mostly in the form of hidden corn calories. We consistently eat corn and wash it down with more corn. And if you’re poor, it’s even worse. Foods made with corn, aided by government subsidies, are often the cheapest and contain the most calories. By subsidizing corn, we have pointed those at the greatest risk to foods that are certain to make them sick.

So after creating an epidemic of alcoholism, which led to epidemic crime during the resulting Prohibition, corn is now creating an epidemic of obesity. But the marketing of this bountiful crop still continues with the latest use of corn as a source of ethanol bio-fuel.

It takes a lot of fossil-fuel energy to grow and harvest corn and to convert it into ethanol. If you take that into account, only about 20% of each gallon of corn ethanol represents new energy. Further, the boom in corn for ethanol has also led farmers to convert more land into cropland. That releases carbon that was stored in shrubs and trees and in the soil, adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. The result, surprisingly, is that corn ethanol may actually be worse for the climate than gasoline.

The federal Renewable Fuel Standard, enacted in 2005 and updated in 2007, dictates that by 2015 the nation must produce 15 billion gallons of corn-based ethanol, compared with only about 2 billion in 2000. Government subsidies for ethanol is making sure this happens. As a result, about a third of the nation’s corn is already being turned into ethanol.

This has led to a major expansion in production of corn. Some land that was once used for soybean production is now devoted to corn — and land that had been set aside under the federal Conservation Reserve Program has been plowed up to grow even more corn. Conservation Reserve Program land serves both as a buffer to keep pesticides and fertilizers from leaching into waterways and as a rich habitat for wildlife. Such areas can also accumulate topsoil over time. Turning them into cropland essentially eliminates all of these benefits.

The switch away from soybeans, meanwhile, may be leading indirectly to the destruction of rainforests in Brazil and other nations. With less soy being grown in the U.S., the price of soybeans is rising, pushing other countries to cut down trees in order to make way for a cash crop. The felling of forests is a major contributor to climate change: trees that are burned or chopped down and left to rot add heat-trapping carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

A better source of ethanol may be crop wastes such as corn cobs and stalks because they don’t increase the demand for agricultural land. Neither would another candidate source, native perennial grasses like switchgrass, if grown on marginal lands. These ingredients are not as easy as corn kernels to convert into ethanol, but there are a number of companies attempting to commercialize what is know as the production of “cellulosic ethanol.” If it can be done economically and in a way that keeps greenhouse gas emissions low, farmers may be able to profit from the ethanol boom in a way that’s easier on the climate.

The Native Americans first gave maize, field corn, to the arriving European settlers in the early 16th Century, and we've been killing ourselves with it ever since.

The War Is Over [?]

"Let me say this as plainly as I can: By Aug. 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end," President Obama announced today at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. "The United States will pursue a new strategy to end the war in Iraq through a transition to full Iraqi responsibility."

Obama promised that he would withdraw the approximately 142,000 combat forces now in Iraq by August 2010 and 35,000 to 50,000 remaining troops by December 2011, beginning the end of one of the longest and most divisive wars in American history.

[At least 50,000 residual troops will remain in Iraq until December 2011.]

"America's men and women in uniform have fought block by block, province by province, year after year, to give the Iraqis this chance to choose a better future. Now, we must ask the Iraqi people to seize it," he said, triggering applause from the Marines. The president called Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki and former president George W. Bush from Air Force 1 enroute to the speech to brief them on what he would say.

[U.S. Predators attack a Pakistani Taliban compound in South Waziristan.]

Gen. David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, and Gen. Ray Odierno, the top commander in Baghdad, believed the plan presented moderate risk, but still supported the 50,000 residual troops figure.

[A build-up of 17,000 troops have been ordered to Afghanistan.]

Obama has also won crucial backing for his Iraq military withdrawal plan from leading Congressional Republicans, including Senator John McCain. Republicans emerged from a meeting Thursday evening more supportive than several leading Democrats, who complained earlier in the day that the president was still leaving behind too many American forces.

Zombies

Disgusta

Same mission, different city: today, I'm in Augusta, Georgia, trying to win back the work of yet another former client, a chemical manufacturer for whom I worked from 1993 through 2003. Same van as yesterday, but a smaller crew, just me and Joe from Memphis.

Augusta is a city of about a half million located on the Savannah River, near the Fall Line, the boundary between the crystalline rock of the rolling Piedmont and the unconsolidated sediments of the flat Coastal Plain. Many stream characteristics change as they cross the Fall Line: rapids and shoals are common near the geologic contact, floodplains are considerably wider on the younger sediments, and the frequency of stream meanders increases.

Augusta is best known for hosting The Masters golf tournament each spring, and for being the hometown of James Brown, the godfather of soul. But in addition to Brown, Augusta's also the home of actor Laurence Fishburne (Morpheus from The Matrix) and Hulk Hogan, artist Jasper Johns, former president Woodrow Wilson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, and opera singer Jessye Norman.

However, a certain elitist element in Atlanta refers to Augusta as "Disgusta." According to the Urban Dictionary, "Disgusta" is a "shitty little city in east central Georgia. . . A place so humid your underwear becomes permanently plastered to your ass. Devoid of Culture and Refinement. Lacking any redeemable qualities. Full of fat, white trash rednecks who think Applebee's is fine dining and go to Wal-Mart as entertainment. Populated by a plethora of fat women driving SUVs and Dodge Ram Pickups." I do not share this sentiment.

After we returned from Augusta, Joe had to return the van at the airport and catch a flight home to Memphis. From the airport, I took MARTA home. While taking public transit from the airport is not an extraordinary event in most other cities, a certain, mostly suburban element is so afraid to ride MARTA, with it's multi-cultural passengers and stops in less affluent neighborhoods, that they insist of carrying concealed weapons. Frankly, I'm more afraid of paranoid, pistol-packing, white suburban males on the train than I am of exhausted airport workers coming home from a long day at work.

Fortunately I saw none of the former and more of the latter. I took the MARTA light rail train from the airport to Arts Station, and then the bus from Arts Station to Piedmont Hospital, and walked the last mile home. No one tried to rob me, rape me, or register me to vote, and I actually got a little fresh air and exercise during the walk.

No big deal.

This Is Spartanburg

By the way, did I mention that I was in Spartanburg, South Carolina today?

Spartanburg is located in the Piedmont Province, the rolling foothills of the Southern Appalachians, and comprises the eastern end of the Greenville-Spartanburg district. It's a pleasant enough town, but in 2002, Spartanburg County ranked among the worst 10% of all counties in the U.S. in terms of releases of air toxins, primarily toluene and styrene.

But that's not why I'm here. It's also the corporate headquarters of a former client of mine, a company for whom I consulted from 1984 through 1986, and again from about 1998 through 2003. I've switched firms twice since then, but always wanted the chance to represent them again. These are hard economic times, and I've been aggressively trying to re-capture as much of my former market share as I possibly can.

With its pleasant climate and low cost of living, Spartanburg is blessed with several corporate headquarters. This includes Extended Stay Hotels, Denny's restaurants, and textile giant Miliken. BMW opened a plant here in 1996 for manufacture of luxury SUVs, part of the migration of automobile manufacturing in the United States from American firms in the Detroit area to foreign firms with plants in the mostly non-unionized South. Yet despite all of this, South Carolina still has the third highest unemployment rate in the country. As I said, these are hard economic times.

Spartanburg is also the home of southern rockers The Marshall Tucker Band and of blues musician Pink Anderson (1900-1974). Pink Floyd came up their band's name by juxtaposing the first names of Anderson and North Carolina bluesman Floyd Council. According to legend, founder Syd Barrett noticed the names in the liner notes of a 1962 Blind Boy Fuller album, which read, "Pink Anderson or Floyd Council - these were a few amongst the many blues singers that were to be heard in the rolling hills of the Piedmont, or meandering with the streams through the wooded valleys."

I had no time to meander through the wooded valleys of the Piedmont today, however, as I was out here with several of my colleagues to try to win back the work from our former client (many of my present co-workers also used to be at my previous firm, and also consulted with our Spartanburg client). Yesterday's four-hour conference call was part of the planning process for today's meeting. We left the office in a rented van this morning, drove the three hours up I-85 from Atlanta, and headed back to Georgia after the meeting.

Despite the state's economic hardships, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, whose name was widely floated as a potential VP prospect for John McCain last year and is considered a possible prospect for president in 2012, has warned that the new stimulus package recently passed to help turn the economy around risks taking the U.S. from a free-market economy to a "savior-based economy," where businesses rise or fall depending on whether they are in the good graces of Washington, D.C. He and a few other Republican governors have voiced concern that the stimulus program will deepen the national debt without dramatically improving the economy. Last week, Sanford said, “I think the problem that was created with too much debt will never be solved by adding yet more debt. I think there are a number of wrinkles that have caused a number of us to say ‘Wait a minute, let’s take a look — a long look — at whether or not this really makes sense for our state.’”

But on further questioning, he said he still might accept at least some of the funds. “Being against it doesn’t preclude taking the money,” Sanford explained.

"You say you're against it but you still might take the money. Do you realize how some people might think that you're putting ideology ahead of the interests of your constituents?" he was asked. "If you're so against it, why take the money?"

Sanford replied, "Because ultimately I represent more than, um, almost 5 million people in South Carolina."

So Gov. Sanford appears to know that the funds are actually good for his state's economy, but is still taking a partisan stand against it, just like the Republicans did during the creation of the bill. This is disappointing, because governors are typically more pragmatic and less partisan then Congressmen, and it should be noted that some Republican governors, like California's Arnold Schwarzenegger and Florida's Charlie Crist, have been outspoken in their support of the stimulus.

But Alaska's Sarah Palin has said she may turn down stimulus money and Louisiana's Bobby Jindal announced Friday that he would only use a portion of the stimulus funds directed toward his state. The possible 2012 presidential candidate said that while he would accept money to increase unemployment benefits, he would not accept another part of the stimulus which he said would result in an unemployment insurance tax increase on Louisiana businesses. What with Louisiana's inadequate levees and New Orleans' vulnerability to floods, it would be particularly outrageous if Jindal were to also turn down funding to repair and upgrade his state's infrastructure. And if another Hurricane Katrina were to come along, wouldn't the resulting loss of life then be on Jindal's conscience?

Mississippi's Haley Barbour said, "There is some (stimulus money) we will not take in Mississippi. If we were to take the unemployment insurance reform package that they have, it would cause us to raise taxes on employment when the money runs out, and the money will run out in a couple of years. Then we'll have to raise the unemployment insurance tax, which is literally a tax on employment. I mean, we want more jobs. You don't get more jobs by putting an extra tax on creating jobs."

What this means, in all practically, is that Mississippi is trying to lure jobs to their state and incentivize industry to move there by creating a low tax structure. Fair enough, but their cuts in taxes come at the expense of those who need the new jobs the most - the unemployed and the poor. In essence, what they're saying is "Come to Mississippi, where you don't have to worry about paying benefits for the workers you toss away." Federal environmental standards were set to keep states from competing for industry by allowing more pollutants (like toluene and styrene) to be released to the air and water than their neighboring states, thereby lowering operating costs and bringing in money, although at the expense of their residents' health. Why then should they compete on the basis of lower unemployment benefits?

For this and other reasons, there's language in the 1,000-page stimulus legislation to ensure that Republican governors of states — particularly in the South — don’t hijack the funds for other purposes, or simply block the funds. This provision has even come to be called the "Sanford Amendment." One of my more reactionary co-workers, who fortunately wasn't along on today's trip, is particularly incensed about this aspect of the stimulus package. He feels that the provision is an inappropriate imposition of the Federal government on States' rights, and cites it as yet another example of what he believes to be President Obama's "contempt" for the Constitution, and further "proof" of what he thinks is Obama's ultimate goal - to transform the country into a Communist dictatorship.

Not only that, but he's predicting that the inevitable outcome of the so-called Sanford Amendment - as well as the rest of the transformation of American society into a Bolshevik state - will be an all-out civil war, ultimately leading to the dissolution of our society into chaos and anarchy and countless numbers of deaths. Based on this belief, he's buying guns and ammo as fast as he can so as to "protect" his property and family in this coming Armageddon.

All across the American South, there are a lot of bitter, white males like him who have not accepted the outcome of last year's election. Heavily armed and very angry, their hatred fanned by demagogues on AM and satellite radio, they represent an increasingly dangerous and unstable element to the current situation.

This is not a good thing.

Reset

Small turnout on this chilly night - two regulars and one first-timer. The first-timer was a college student "on assignment" for his religion class (we get a lot of those - four yesterday). One of the regulars regularly leaves after the first of the two periods, and he stayed true to form tonight. The other regular stayed the course, and he and the first-timer hung out for the full service and the discussion period afterwords.

It was a particularly frantic day at work today, featuring a (without fear of exaggeration) four-hour conference call. The other four hours were all playing catch-up with what I had missed during the call. So as hectic as the day was, it was refreshing to just sit one-on-one with the first-timer and explain the practice - how to sit, how to breathe, how to manage the mind, etc. - with total concentration and focus, not worrying about the crazy schedule. And to sit in zazen and just let all of those myriad things drop away (I couldn't have done anything about them at that time anyway, even if I had wanted to). A nice way to hit the "reset" button in the mind.

Small turnout but a good night.

Right Speech

In the Shobogenzo Sanjūshichihon Bodai Bumpō (On the Thirty-Seven Methods of Training for Realizing Enlightenment), Zen Master Dogen said, “Right speech is our Mute Self not being a mute. Those who are mutes among humans have never been able to express the truth. Those in the realm of the Mute are not mutes. They do not admire themselves as saints, nor do they pile something spiritual upon themselves. Right speech is mastery of the state in which the mouth is hung up on the wall. It is mastery of the state in which all mouths are hung on all walls. It is all the mouths being hung up on all the walls.”

In the Ippyakuhachi-Homyomon (108 Gates of Dharma-Illumination), Dogen further noted, "Right speech is a gate of Dharma-illumination, for with it we recognize that all names, voices, and words are simply like vibrations."

Our Mute Self is our Buddha nature, our true self that underlies all of the words and language that settle like dust upon us. But if we dwell in a state beyond words, we could never express the truth to others, we would never be able to fulfill our Bodhisattva vow to free all sentient beings. So those who have experienced the state beyond words nevertheless use words to try and at least point at the truth (since the truth itself cannot be described with words). But the words and labels don't stick to them, and they don't identify themselves by the words they use to point at the truth. They know that words are just sounds, mere vibrations in a column of air. To master the state of being beyond words is to be able to still use words, but not be limited by them. To be in the state beyond words is to directly realize an affinity with all sentient beings. When that affinity is realized, there is nothing left to realize it, there is just all sentient beings.

Forget Your Coat and Hat

Coats and hats are important - they keep us warm in the winter and dry in the rain. They protect us from the elements and keep us healthy. In some situations, it is not an exaggeration to say that they save our lives.

But once we are indoors, they are no longer necessary. So we hang them by the door and go about our business. Hanging them up and walking away does not mean they are no longer important, that we no longer value them, it just means that we do not presently need them, at least until our next trip out of doors.

So it is with words. We use them to communicate, to express the truth, to warn and advise others. But when we sit in zazen, words are no loner necessary. Nor are their internal component, thoughts. We might as well hang them by the zendo door along with our coats and hats.

So in this light, Zen Master Dogen composed the following poem to express this truth:

Natural wondrous wisdom itself is true suchness.
Why should we employ Confucian discourse or Buddhist texts?
Rely on sitting at ease at your place,
and hang your mouth on the wall.
Friends arrive here and are released from emptiness.
[Chapter 10 (Assorted Verses), Eihei Koruku]

Live At The White House

Earth, Wind & Fire, the 1970s R&B band, will perform at the White House on Sunday during a dinner for the nation’s governors. Yes, that White House, the one in Washington, DC. Clinton had them perform there back in 2000, but if the Obamas really wanted to take the house to places it ain't never been before, they should have booked the Art Ensemble of Chicago instead.

Watch Lester playing the drum at 3:40. Have you ever seen five men more obviously overjoyed to be engaged in the simple act of making music?

Old Rock

Bedrock recently studied in a portion of northern Quebec has been dated at 4,280 million years, making it the oldest known rock on Earth's crust, formed when the Earth was less than 300 million years old.

Scientists are intrigued, but some are not yet entirely convinced that the rocks are quite that old. The bedrock may be younger sedimentary rocks, formed from remnants of older rock that is indeed 4,28o billion years old.

Geologists avoid using the term "billion" because in one part or another of the English-speaking world, it refers to quantities that differ by three orders of magnitude - a billion in Great Britain is a 1,000,000 million.

Currently, the oldest known rock on Earth has been found in the Canadian Northwest, dated at 4,030 million years old. Geologists have also found crystals of zircon as old as 4,360 million years old embedded within younger rocks in Western Australia. The age of the Earth is more than 4,500 million years.

Radioactive elements trapped within zircons provide precise ages, but zircons have not yet been found in the Quebec rock. Instead, the age of the rock was determined from the amounts of neodymium and samarium, two rare earth elements.

If the rocks are as old as claimed, what is significant is that they’re not dramatically different from rocks you would find today in Japan or places like that. In fact, their chemical signature looks most similar to ocean floor that has been pulled under continents. That suggests that the process of plate tectonics, reshaping and moving continents, could have already started on the very early Earth. At the very least, the existence of rock 4,280 million yeas ago would run counter to the traditional image of the young Earth as a roiling cauldron of magma, a view that is falling by the wayside among researchers as more geological data is unearthed.

Maybe the young Earth wasn't so hot after all.

Rude Awakening

Last week the Federal Reserve released the results of the latest Survey of Consumer Finances, a triennial report on the assets and liabilities of American households. According to economist Paul Krugman, the bottom line is that there has been basically no wealth creation at all since the turn of the millennium: the net worth of the average American household, adjusted for inflation, is lower now than it was in 2001.

At one level this should come as no surprise. Writing in the New York Times, Krugman notes that for most of the last decade America was a nation of borrowers and spenders, not savers. The personal savings rate dropped from 9 percent in the 1980s to 5 percent in the 1990s, to just 0.6 percent from 2005 to 2007, and household debt grew much faster than personal income. Why should we have expected our net worth to go up?

Yet until very recently Americans believed they were getting richer, because they received statements saying that their houses and stock portfolios were appreciating in value faster than their debts were increasing. And if the belief of many Americans that they could count on capital gains forever sounds naïve, it’s worth remembering just how many influential voices — notably in right-leaning publications like The Wall Street Journal, Forbes and National Review — promoted that belief, and ridiculed those who worried about low savings and high levels of debt.

Those same voices are now ridiculing the stimulus package, saying that all we need are more tax cuts (presumably for the wealthy) to solve all of our problems. Their theory holds that we can ignore fundamental challenges like energy independence and the high cost of health care and still expect our economy to thrive.

The current state of the economy and the status of American consumer finances is a damning referendum of the economic policies of the last eight years, the winner-takes-all policies of tax breaks for the rich and reduction in aid for the less fortunate. Why are those proposing more of the same even given serious attention?

Alamo

Oh, by the way, did I mention that I was in San Antonio today?

I didn't take this picture - my camera broke during my trip to Oregon. I downloaded the pic from Wikipedia. But even if I was able to take a picture of the Alamo today, it wouldn't have looked like this - today is rainy and foggy in San Antonio, and visibility is at a minimum.

I'll be back in Atlanta tomorrow.