A Week in Review

Since I basically failed to check in at this week. Outside of the Grizzly Game Recap of course. I thought I would take a stab at giving my unedited viewpoint, my random thoughts, my very biased opinions on a few of the things that happened in the world this week. This will pour out of me unedited so you will have to deal with spelling and grammatical errors.

Let's start on the lighter side of things. Subway announced this week that it will phase out serving meat that has received any type of antibiotics. This is a trendy urban driven initiative that was started with Chipotle and followed by A&W here in Canada and now Subway, will follow. This isn't the first time that Subway has made changes based on fear mongering on social media. In the recent past they stopped using a preservative in their bread recipe due to a manipulative campaign of ignorance centered around the specific ingredient also being used in yoga mats. I'm sure it's used in a many different things. As a food additive, azodicarbonamide is used as a flour bleaching agent and a dough conditioner. It reacts with moist flour as an oxidizing agent. The main reaction product is biurea, a derivative of urea, which is stable during baking. It is also used a blowing agent in the production of certain plastics. A known charlatan who profits from selling alternatives took up the fear-based smear campaign of ignorance and scared the public into action and after a small dip in sales Subway capitulated and removed the useful additive. The same unmentioned ringleader also demanded Starbucks remove pumpkin spice from pumpkin spice lattes, claiming there was no pumpkin in it. She has recently been warning of the potentially harmful effects of di-hydrogen oxygen. Telling soccer moms that it can kill your kids. When public opinion over-rides scientific expertise it is a scary thing. Even worse is flip flopping. After making their industry wide announcement, Subway changed their tune a few days later. This is discussed better than I could manage here:  http://agricultureproud.com/2015/10/23/subway-updates-statement-on-antibiotic-use-in-livestock/ We all know my standing on this fear based, non science, ignorance from my tirades about A&W and their agnorance. Sometimes you have to ask a couple of basic questions to get the answer. Usually not many. Ask the farmers producing the meat why they use antibiotics, you might be surprised. Check out this simplistic summary of the preceding. https://www.minnpost.com/minnesota-blog-cabin/2015/10/top-5-things-subway-customers-need-know-about-company-s-antibiotic-free?utm_content=21915283&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter (sorry, I haven't figured out links yet)

What is lighter than food scares? Why politics of course!  This past week in our nation was the 42nd (not verified) election. The Liberals surprising routed the Tories. Pundits claim it was the long campaign that worked against Harper, or the negative smear campaign that tarnished his reputation. In reality people were sick of him and since the grass is always greener, they picked the greener candidate. Both figuratively and literally in this case. This is not a new trend in Canadian politics. We got sick of Trudeau, brought in Mulroney. Got sick of Mulroney and brought in Chretien. He bailed amidst scandals, Paul Martin stepped in and was ousted by Harper. Now we cast Harper aside for the next Trudeau. So full circle. Having the Liberals back in means more transparency in some places, bigger scandals, wild spending and a huge bill for the next version of the Conservatives to pay down. It's very cyclical with many power players hanging on despite who is in power. The man with the hair is planning to shake that up some with a gender balanced cabinet. At least he can balance that for us if not the budget which is supposed to balance itself. If my tone is bitter or negative here it's because the Liberal government that manages my home province has a mandate to destroy modern agriculture unapologetically for their own personal agendas. Money and political process don't seem to be a hindrance in this endeavour. As I work in agriculture and with farmers on a regular basis I can see the stress and difficulty these new fantasy regulations are causing. I am optimistic with the change though and hopeful that things will only get better in a pretty awesome country.

And finally, if you managed to hang on this long, I will give you a quick Tugboat update. I spent the majority of the week at work. It's corn harvest now and it's going quickly. We're almost half done after one week. I am hoping we get decent conditions next week to nearly finish it all off. There will be the odd hanger on but that is the name of the game. Which is an odd name in this instance. Oh shoot, I meant to include some photos. aw well. I have taken to skipping lunch and celebrating that when I get home with a light dinner. I'm not sure I'm eating enough but I have enough in reserve that I am not concerned. Any other details would only be seen as boring so I will cut myself off there. I hope to get some podcasts recorded this week so y'all can enjoy those. This is way too long but it would be the same spread over a number of days. Keep coming back now ya hear.