The Tebow ad

I think I’ve finally seen most of the Super Bowl ads – had to watch them on-line in a friend’s office where we had a spirited discussion about one of the more (at least pre-game) controversial spots; the so-called Tim Tebow pro-life ad.

We watched it. Before I say anything else; like them or not, the Focus on the Family people are not stupid or naïve. My guess is they either pre-emptively edited the spot to please the CBS gatekeepers OR gave in to pressure from CBS so they could keep a coveted and sought after slot in the big game.

Now to the spot. Where was the controversial message? Mrs. Tebow talks about her miracle baby. How he almost didn’t make it. But she never says abortion, pro-life, choice or any of the hot button words. Mr. almost-Heisman again Tebow makes only a cameo.

I’m no professional spot writer but we also looked at Focus on the Family’s longer interview with the Tebows (mom and dad) and it seems to me somebody missed the story and a $3 million opportunity to reach more than 100 million viewers.

Mrs. Tebow was 37, pregnant and in a third-world country. Doctors told her she was carrying a mass or a tumor, it was not going to be a healthy child. As Christian’s (they were missionaries – perhaps still are) she said they had already decided years ago what to do in such a situation. Even though Drs. told her the best thing to do was abort her “baby”, she did not. And the result some 20+ years later became a great college quarterback.

But none of this even comes close to being mentioned in the spot.

If I had 30 seconds and several million here’s a thought.

Fade in:

Mrs. Tebow: I was 37 years old and pregnant. Already high risk and living in a 3rd world country. The news was not good. Doctors told me what I should do.

Tim Tebow comes crashing in (as he did in the original spot)

Tim Tebow: But Mom, I’m so glad you didn’t.

Bring in the logos, music up, fade out.

On My Nightstand

If you pay attention to the “What’s on my nightstand” section of this blog with a list of what I’m reading, the book, The American Future: a history, has been on and off it for some time now.

Even though it is taking me forever to read (370 pages) it is a very interesting look at our history primarily through the lens of the 2008 presidential election as a jumping off point. The history is somewhat obscure (meaning I didn’t study this level of detail in my history classes in high school) but revealing.

One thing that struck me in last week’s reading. An excerpt: (edits are mine)

“The trouble with immigrants was that they were clannish … many fugitives from justice …ignorant of the language … huddled together in rickety little towns .. if they aren’t stopped soon, they will swamp the native population and culture.”

Sound somewhat familiar? Well these were the comments from Mexico about all the people flooding into the Texas republic in the late 1820s.

I’m not about to weigh in on the immigration debate but it would seem prudent to study a little border history; heck history in general, before we start establishing or changing policies about who gets to come into the United States and under what conditions.

Sour grapes maybe but ...

Last night I was watching back-and-forth between O'Reilly's interview of John Stewart and the real deal John himself and somehow a commercial slipped in for Mercedes for a new (released in 2009) Attention Assist system. Simply put this monitors drivers' behavior and if you exhibit signs of being drowsy, it will alert you visually and then again audibly.

Jump back with me to somewhere between 1978 - 1980. We were living in Virginia and I had an idea. We were making regular trips back to Ohio and on these long trips I would, like most people, get drowsy. So I had an idea of putting some kind of device on the steering wheel that sensed your finger pressure. If you let off for more than a second or two, something would set off an alarm.

Now way back then there was no internet or any quick way to check this out but through the library I found that General Motors had a system for taking in consumer ideas. So I wrote them. I can not honestly say exactly what their response was and I have no written proof of this but I got something back to the effect of "thanks, but no thanks."

Ironic that almost 30 years later, my idea is actually out there in use. Maybe I should have written Mercedes instead.

The Brown Health Care Plan

Bet you didn't know soon-to-be Senator Brown from Mass had one. Neither did I and probably neither does he but that got your attention huh?

I really don't know anything about Mr. Brown right now other than the media is fawning over him (OK Monica Crowley on Imus was anyway). I suggest some caution for a bit here. People are already talking about him for 2012. Come on!

He may be handsome and the greatest thing since the Red Sox won the World Series (they did win sometime in the last decade right?) but I'm not sure we need to crown him prince of anything just yet.

Overall I'm glad he won if for no other reason that it sends yet another strong message to everybody that people in general my not be exactly thrilled with how things are going and more specifically how Obama is handling things. I'll include this quote from Imus this morning and leave it at that. "He's doing the best he can. But he's not even Jimmy Carter good."

If Brown's election does nothing more than send that message OK. But if it also gets DC pols to stop and take a breath over health care, then good again.

I know we need something but I'm not so sure anybody anywhere really has a good handle on what that something is.

I'd suggest reading this column in today's NY Times as a starter.

The Unkindest Cut of All

This post is rated D,S and V for suggestive dialogue, sex and violence. If none of those offend or bother you, read on.

I write frequently as a freelancer for a local Ag Magazine, Ozarks Farm & Neighbor and as a reader also my favorite column is by Jerry Crownover. Think Baxter Black but not as poetic. I got to meet Jerry at a writer's dinner late last year. I hope this is the kind of story he would write.

We begin ...

We have two Holstein calves that I call freezer beef; actually we sometimes call the calves Dumb and Dumber but they will end up in our freezer someday.

It is common practice to take male cows and render them male-less early in their short happy lives. We have always chosen the banding method. Simply put, you place a fat green rubber band around the male-bag-thing (OK scrotum) and after a few days the bag dries up and falls off. It only hurts the calf for a little while and since you don't cut them; there is no bleeding, and little chance of infection. We've been doing this on our male cows and sheep for years and it almost always works.

Earlier this year my wife and I banded Dumb and Dumber. I usually restrain the small calf and my wife finagles the rubber band around ... well you know where.

Fast forward to this past week.

My son-in-law the Montana cattle rancher was visiting with his wife - my eldest daughter and helping with chores and working with our horses (another story for a future post) and we both noticed Dumb was behaving rather affectionately toward my wife's old gelding horse. I won't provide details other than to say it looked unusual.

Dumb is rather friendly to people and can easily be touched. Caleb walked up behind him and reached between his legs to feel and lo and behold he still had a - caution sex word follows - testicle. He did not have a bag for it, it was just under the skin in the general area where those things reside normally.

Caleb asked if I wanted him to "cut" him - cut being the euphemism for - sex word again - castration. You get your dog "fixed" or "neutered" by a citi-fied vet but in the country people just say they "cut him".

For various reasons, you do not need to keep a bull around, even if he is only half a bull and a friendly one at that.

Caleb lassoed him, then bull-dogged him around the head to get him to flop to the ground at which point I jumped in to hold the rope on this 500 pound or so "half-bull" while Caleb did his best rodeo stuff to tie up his legs before he could do any damage to himself or either of us.

Prior to this Caleb had prepped his tools which mostly consisted of a very sharp kitchen knife (more on this later) and some iodine to pre and post treat the wound that was about to ensue.

My job was to continue holding down the big boy while Caleb proceeded to remove the remaining male part. Let's just say I'm sure it didn't feel all that great for the cow and it was all I could do to hold the rope and keep him on the ground. My daughter stepped in to help at one point. She got right in there with Caleb and held something while Caleb did the final cutting. You can't live on a cattle ranch in Montana (or anywhere for that matter) and be squeemish about these things.

After an incision, removal of one male organ part, some clamping, some iodine and a powder called Blood Stop, we let him go. He did not get up immediately and when he did, he was not too peppy. We watched him for awhile to make sure the bleeding had stopped.

The knife has returned to our kitchen although I'm not sure it will ever be used for anything involving food again.

Post-script: The morning after the procedure my wife noticed Dumb was laying down in the way cows don't typically lay down. I donned my muck boots and traipsed out to check on him fearing the worst - that he had started bleeding and died overnight. But as I approached the boy - now officially 100% steer, he got up and began walking. I guess he was still sore.

Post-post-script: Lest anyone think this qualified as cruelty to animals I'd like to point out that our steers get plenty of food and water, sunlight and are free to roam most of our forty acres until the day they end up in our freezer. Most beef is produced or at least finished in large confinement operations.

What's Wal Mart?

I was packing up some old dishes today and decided to use one of our collection of "Wal Mart" bags as padding. How come we don't say plastic bags or grocery bags etc? These have become so ubiquitous.

I imagine a time 50 or 100 years from now when someone finds one of these buried somewhere (like disposable diapers, I'm told these bags take decades to decompose and will likely outlast their namesake store) and reads the large Wal Mart name and asks a friend, "What's Wal Mart?" To which the friend replies, "I don't know, I guess they made plastic bags."

The Man on the Wire Might Get Loud

In the last week or so I've watched two pretty good documentaries" Man on Wire and It Might Get Loud.

Man on Wire is about Philippe Petit's high-wire walk between the two World Trade Center towers in 1974. I was struck by several things: of course seeing the two towers long before their demise and was reminded of my own visit to the top of one of them (I can't recall which one) in the late 70s. What affected me most was how single-minded Petit was in reaching this absurd goal that somehow he pulled off.

Personally I've never liked re-enactments but the way they handled it in this movie was better than most. Kind of mysterious.

I was amazed at the amount of archival material they could pull together of old film, newspapers etc. to help tell the story. Very watchable.

Last night I watched It Might Get Loud - again a different sort of doc about three guitarists - Jimmy Page, Edge from U2 and Jack White.

Again I was amazed at the archival stuff - more about Jimmy Page than anybody else but overall his story was more interesting to me. He's aged much better than Robert Plant and still seems to have the guitar chops. I'm no fan of Jack White's typical rock style but I have to admit he is one very talented and versatile young man. The interviews delve into his interest and influence by early blues-men.

The concept overall is clever. But I doubt if the average person could have pulled it off. The producer of "Loud", Davis Guggenheim, also did Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth" so I imagine having produced an Academy Award winner, people take or return your phone calls.

I like U2 but not sure I'd put Edge in the same league as Jimmy Page and while I've noted Jack White is supremely talented, I don't think he's near the guitarist Page is/was. But White has many years to carve out his own legacy. I guess the idea was to get the icon/mentor/elder statesman, one currently famous musician and the still up-and coming (lots of young people will say that he is already here) rock star and put them together and see what happens.

Easily watchable and worth the time. The opening credits are classy.