THE LAND, AUGUST 19, 2011
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Is it a remarkable occurrence of events, by chance? Bloggers might do coincidence; journalists don’t. We do irony, maybe even I will concede it may be pure coincidence that allegory. Sometimes we the House Ag Committee’s website features no stray into ennui and fewer than 13 YouTube videos, 26 audio clips pathos. and 18 radio interviews of Frank Lucas, RCoincidence, however, feaOkla., the chairman of the committee, oppostures facts that aren’t tied ing almost everything in the world except as tightly together as we like. My Oxford Desk Dicbabies and the flag. tionary agrees. Coincidence, FARM & FOOD FILE it explains, is “a remarkable By Alan Guebert occurrence of events or circumstances, apparently fully, the journalists at even coincidental — is that you, me by chance.” the Wall Street Journal and the ag committees will play no role Does that mean, for said it was. “Investors (on in determining that final number example, it’s pure coincidence that Mon., Aug. 8) fled to the traditional because the just-created, not-nationOklahoma recorded its hottest July refuges: gold, currencies ... and, ironially-elected Gang of 12, those Congresever and its senior U.S. senator, James cally, the very securities that Standard sional members charged with lopping Inhofe, is Congress’s most outspoken and Poor’s downgraded on Friday, U.S. $1.5 trillion from spending in the next critic of global warming? Treasury Bonds.” decade by Nov. 23 (coincidentally, the day before Thanksgiving) will do all the Probably, but I don’t know because I Confused? If so, maybe you took a don’t do coincidence. wrong turn at the old coincidence-irony cutting. fork in the road. Let see if we can get Is it just a coincidence that this DesMaybe coincidence leans more on ignated Dozen is, by varying counts, quantifiable events like, say, the same you back on track. equities rating company, Standard & First, ironic is not a word you’d use to either the 16th or 17th “joint commitPoor’s, that gave its stamp of approval describe what the budget whackers in tee,” “bipartisan commission,” “blue ribto Enron just days before that firm’s either the House or the Senate have in bon panel” or “gang” of whatever formed to deal with Washington’s overspectacular crash downgraded U.S. store for the U.S. Department of Agridebt Friday, Aug. 5, or just three days culture and the 2012 farm bill. Already spending since the midyears of the Reagan administration? before the world rushed to buy U.S. the Senate wants $11 billion cut from bonds. farm programs while the House has No, the fact that no president or Conapproved $48 billion in cuts. gress, be they or it Republican or On second thought, that’s irony Democratic, in the past decade or the because, well, I know irony and, helpWhat is far more likely — maybe coming one, possesses the will to limit spending is testament to cowardice, not an example of coincidence. ‘Course it could be coincidence that many Americans — especially those involved in farming and ranching —
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have grown to see government as the foe when our (here comes more irony) government leaders use government money to underwrite public attacks against, yes, government. Yet, I will concede it may be pure coincidence that the House Ag Committee’s website features no fewer than 13 YouTube videos, 26 audio clips and 18 radio interviews of Frank Lucas, ROkla., the chairman of the committee, opposing almost everything in the world except babies and the flag. And, yes, it may be an even bigger coincidence that all the pictures and words of the arm-waving, leather-lung Lucas are taken from 2009 and 2010 when he was the committee’s ranking member, not its chairman. (To see and hear what could be actual coincidence, go to http://agriculture .house.gov/singlepages.aspx?NewsID=1 261&LSBID=23&RBSUSDA=T and click on, well, anything.) I can’t really say if all of this sound and fury, posted and maintained at taxpayer expense, is somehow linked to what the Committee actually does or actually will do. If any of it did, I guess, it would be “a remarkable occurrence of events or circumstances, apparently by chance.” Then again, I don’t do coincidence so I can’t say. ••• Alan Guebert’s “Farm and Food File” is published weekly in more than 70 newspapers in North America. Contact him at agcomm@farmandfoodfile.com.
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