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Farming Travails and Uranium Yellowcake

(AIA Unpublished)

Sometimes a task on the farm that should take 30 minutes gets stretched over a couple of days.  The other day, I was just going to go to the hayfield and move the equipment from Metropolitan Swatara to South Swatara, down to the old Daugherty homestead.  Since I needed to have a ride back, Management and the girls took the van and I took the little pickup.  We got there and the old Farmall tractor started up pretty good, that isn't always the case, so I should have known something would go wrong.  I walked around the haybine hitched to the tractor and noticed a flat tire.  Since I didn't have the air compressor along, we had to make the trip back home, air up the compressor, load it up and go back. 

 

We did that, came back and aired up the tire.  It had a leak, but it looked like it should make the five mile trip, so I started out with Management following.  It went well for about a mile, then we experienced a slow speed blowout, at 16 miles per hour the tire popped and we had to limp to the nearest place we could park the rig which happened to be the under construction Aitkin County - Swatara maintenance shop. 

 

We did that, Management took me back to my pickup and we went home where I located a replacement tire, a little weather-checked, but with a new tube, it should work.  I went down and replaced the tire, ran out of air so I couldn't air it all the way up but it looked like it would work.  By that time it was too dark to do any more, so I went home, I figured tomorrow things would go better.  The next morning, which happened to be Sunday, I figured I could sneak down before church so I got up really early, got the things I needed and went down to the tractor.  I got there and started airing up the tire, got some air in it and suddenly … KABOOM. 

 

I could hear the sound echoing for miles, the neighborhood dogs started barking.  The Moose-Willow Shooting Range is not too far away so the only strange thing about the explosion was that it was at 6:30 on Sunday morning and was not followed by a volley of shots.  I figured somebody might come by and check it out but nobody showed and soon Maxwell's rooster started crowing again.  I removed the rim and tire with a twelve inch split in its side and decided that the move would have to wait for much later in the day. I was scheduled to lead a church service at 9:30 and take the family to the Itasca County Fair later in the day so made instant plans to find another tire and tube and get the job done that evening.  

 

The family had fun at the fair, the kids got armbands and Management went to pick up the girl's fair entries at 5:00 PM and collect their prize money, they had done pretty well.  About 7:00 PM I realized I'd better head home if I wanted to move the equipment.  I rushed home and dismounted the demolished tire, found a better 14" tire in the discard pile, mounted it with a new tube nearly as quickly as a shop could have done it, I was in a hurry.  Headed down to where the tractor was, mounted the tire on the haybine, started up the tractor, tied my bike (Management was replaced by a bicycle on this trip, she being still at the fair with the girls) on the haybine and headed out.  It was nearly dark so I ran with the tractor lights on but it was an uneventful trip and dark when I got to the field.  I biked back the four miles to the pickup in the dark, the trip I'd planned on getting done in about 30 minutes the night before ended up taking about 26 hours.  

 

I don't feel too bad about my travails as a farmer in light of the events of the last week.  Something that should have taken a serious reporter about 30 minutes to clear up has taken the Main Stream Media at least 3 years to solve and report more or less correctly.  David Corn and Michael Isikoff are publishing a book that reveals that Richard Armitage was the source of the leak of Valerie Plame's identity, not Scooter Libby or Karl Rove as the media was so breathless to assert over the period of several years in a blatant attempt to drive the president's poll numbers down while the nation was at war.   This throws a different light on the whole affair, my conclusion is that most of the news organizations have known this for years but are now only willing to drop the charade because a couple of them have broken rank.   Hate to be a cynic, but it appears Corn's and Isikoff's desire to make some big bucks with a publication is the driver. .  

 

At this point, I'll toot my own horn a little bit.  In a column I wrote that was published on July 27, 2005 I discussed the affair and said this: Just about every assertion Joe Wilson made has been discredited.  From articles in the Financial Times we see that Iraq was trying to buy uranium yellowcake… Wilson has done everything he can to cash in on the event, appearing in Vanity Fair with his wife and writing a book about the events… It is not at all certain that Karl Rove was Robert  Novak's original source, in fact it is highly unlikely.  It is obvious that the person most responsible for outing Valerie Plame as a CIA agent is the one who has profited most from it: Joe Wilson

 

In a column dated September 1, 2006, the Washington Post editors said this: Nevertheless, it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming -- falsely, as it turned out -- that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials.

 

For years, the Washington Post has turned a blind eye to the obvious, it is nice to see that they have finally convinced themselves that they can be truthful about the affair.  A newspaper with a mission to tell the truth would have written that editorial 3 years sooner, I can only conclude the Washington Post has a different agenda.

 

Rob Crowe chairs the Aitkin County Republicans and raises kids and cows on a farm near Hill City.

 

Copyright 2006, Robert Crowe. All Rights Reserved.

Date: 09/06/06

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