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We pass dozens of empty wool warehouses when we drive into West Texas, through Menard and San Angelo, so we were excited to see a movement by the energetic Women’s Food & Farming Union of Great Britain to bring back wool. Carpets, clothing, even a wool badge or brooch for every competitor in the London 2012 Olympic games, the WFU has ideas aplenty.
First, though, they would like you to sign a petition, “The Woolie Petition,” here, and join HRH The Prince of Wales who has launched a three-year Campaign for Wool.
• The Washington Post has a story this morning about the contest between Democrat (and incumbent) Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin and Republican Kristi Noem for South Dakota’s lone seat in the House. Sandlin has won her last two races with more than 70% of the vote in a Republican state. With Democrats in disfavor this year, however, she faces a tougher road.
• “A coalition of national environmental groups working since 2007 on the effort to restore Louisiana’s crumbling coast believes BP’s bad behavior may end up saving more of those wetlands than it ever destroyed,” Bob Marshall reports in the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
The BP spill has raised awareness of the coast’s problems, the environmental groups believe, and BP’s cash could help pay for restoration projects stalled in Congress. Remember, Louisiana is losing 25 square miles of coastal wetlands every year. If nothing is done, most of southeastern Louisiana beyond the levees will be under water by 2050.
• Anti-abortion groups will oppose Planned Parenthood’s use of telemedicine to dispense abortion pills in rural Iowa. PP wants doctors to consult with patients via computer. If the doctor is satisfied the patient needs an abortion pill, he or she can unlock a drawer containing the medicine.
• Vermont’s Ag Secretary Roger Allbee writes that many of the farm issues today are the same faced centuries earlier. He quotes the Rev. G. F. Wright of Bakersfield, who told the State Board of Agriculture in 1872:
It is useless for the Vermont farmer to compete with those of the West in raising those few staples of product that can be naturally raised in the West. The great increase of population and of the wealth of the East indicates a growing market for milk, for first quality butter, veal, mutton, and for products from the garden, the beehive, the poultry yard and the fish pond. Only those will prosper who use their minds in studying how to cater to the demands of this growing market and this changing state.
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