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Edited on Tue Jun-24-08 04:06 AM by Steerpike1
I received this in my e-mail today...
"Last time I looked , most of the people affected by the floods in Iowa do not live on farms. When I talk of my farming background, I'm talking about my ancestors and thousands more who arrived on the plains of Iowa 1846- 1860 with little more than their resolve, strong back, & very strong character. I know those attributes were passed to their children and grandchildren. The day of the 160 acre subsistence farm is gone. So it would be a good bet that many or most of the affected flood victims have a farm background, but no longer farm. The big factory farms along with manylocal, generational farmers who are smart enough and big enough to survive are very common through out the Midwest today My mother's father was the last farmer in our immediate branch of the family. He sold out in 1943 and moved to town. The depression saw to that. There was no money to help his six sons stay in the farming. They were all successful in other pursuits. My mother and three of her sisters were school teachers. All of them raised families and still managed to complete college. Personally, I was a depression kid who lost his father when I was 16 months old. My mother was four months pregnant then. Mom had originally trained as a legal secretary, but had to quit when I came along. She earned the money for business school by cleaning houses in Des Moines. She remarried three years later, but the years1936-39 were her personal hell. When my brother and I were in the military she returned to school and completed her bachelors. My brother used the GI Bill to earn both BS and MBA. MBA work all done while he was employed and raising a family. Any excuse to not get ahead in this country is just plain BS. Incidently, on that side of the family, I have 25 first cousins who all have been successful. There are two college professors, multiple school teachers at other levels, Navy officer, Airline pilot, businessmen and women, secret service agent, Iowa state cop, and on and on. So don't tell me college is out of reach of anyone. Of course you have to be intelligent and industrious. Are those the two ingredients missing in the average New Orleans citizen? Or is it an ingrained strain of defeatism? Insurance payoffs to flood victims seems to annoy you. Indiscriminate farm subsidies annoy me. You have a contract with an insurance company; you pay premiums, they cover your losses. As far as dealing with floods, I know quite a bit. After broadcasting had it's way with me, I became a government information officer and retired from the Army Corps of Engineers in Los Angeles where my primary PR account was the entire Los Angeles Flood control system. So, if you want to blame the Corps of Engineers for anything, just recall they do not solicit business. They build what and where they are told by who ever is in political office at the time."
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