Category: Public Policy


Archive for the ‘Public Policy’ Category

Friday, December 16th, 2011

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Sunday, November 20th, 2011

Occupy your mind with a new idea about how to solve the really big problems in Washington, DC and around the world. Money is moving in the wrong direction. Big piles of money are now a person with civil rights and a vote. That’s because it’s easier to print money than it is to rally [...]

Sunday, October 16th, 2011

(This version is 300-words shorter and more focused on public policy than the original post.) My $4,500 Kidney Stone (Or, a case against health insurance mandates and for a community-based single-payer health care system)  By Billie Best, Published in Berkshire Trade & Commerce, November 2011 (download PDF file)   I woke up at 4:00 one morning in late [...]

Friday, September 30th, 2011

It’s not often my cows and global corporations cry together, but then it’s weaning time. Seis has been fed by her mother, Cinco, for so long, she has no idea what it’s like to go out and get food for herself every day, and by the sound of her voice, I’d say she thinks it’s [...]

Monday, September 19th, 2011

I woke up at 4:00 in the morning on August 24th feeling like I had been hit in the gut with a baseball bat. I assumed it was an evil bladder infection, so I chugged a pint of water. Within a few minutes I threw up the water. It definitely was not a bladder infection. [...]

Tuesday, September 6th, 2011

I spent the summer farming as much as possible, playing hooky from my consulting practice, limiting my volunteer work, squeezing out my writing, and ignoring my housekeeping. It was my fourth summer as the sole farmer on the farm. Finally I felt I perfected every mission critical task and process. I was gung ho to manage [...]

Friday, April 22nd, 2011

Here on the farm we’ve been looking for Earth Day inspiration and we found it in Texas where Governor Rick Perry yesterday proclaimed three “Days of Prayer for Rain in Texas” as a way to mitigate climate change. I guess if you’re going to kick a problem upstairs, you might as well kick it all [...]

Sunday, February 13th, 2011

A report this week from the Disassociated Press reveals government and industry consternation at the public outcry over tomatoes bio-engineered to thrive on animal and human urine. One lobbyist said, “All these years we’ve been bio-engineering vegetables to thrive on poisons that pollute the water and soil and may cause cancer, and the public has [...]

Wednesday, January 5th, 2011

Really? Is that a burger you’re eating? Burger is a beautiful thing if you know where it comes from. I hope you know the cow your burger came from, or the farm, or the values of the brand that made it. Otherwise you are very likely eating Canadian slaughterhouse floor sweepings mashed into cows born [...]

Sunday, December 5th, 2010

Although we may pretend at times we live in the 19th Century, my farm and I live in the modern world, and geopolitics directly impact our income and expenses. Each day I follow the news on the radio and the Internet. Then I have long periods of unplugged time when I can reflect on what [...]