A4 The Emery County Review, Tuesday, July 15, 2008 VIEWPOINT Opinion and Letters to the Editor Local Wild Horse and Burro Adoption Reflects Current Issues in National Program Established January 2, 2007 James L. Davis, Publisher & Editor w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w Colleen A. Davis, Co-Publisher, Office & Advertising Manager Josie Luke, Assistant Editor Lyndsay Reid, Advertising Design Charlotte Williams, Advertising Sales Kathy P. Ockey, Staff Journalist Casey Wood, Webmaster Our Vision To be a valued member of the communities we serve and to be trusted as an honest, truthful and reliable source of news. w w w Our Mission To inform, entertain and provide a public forum for the discussion of events impacting the people of the Emery County area and to inform with news and features relevant to those who call the Castle Valley area home w w w Our Principles We will be ethical in all of our efforts to provide information to the public. We will be unbiased in our reporting and will report the facts as we see them and do our best to focus on the good news of the county, its people, history and way of life. We will be strong and active members of the community and assist in any way that we are able. We will strive to provide the best quality product possible to our readers and advertisers...always. We will verify the details of news we are reporting and if a mistake is made on our part we will correct it immediately. We will always listen to suggestions on how to do our job better. Editorial Submission Guidelines The Emery County Review welcomes and invites letters to the editor and guest opinion articles on public policy or current events. We welcome letters of thanks to individuals who have helped make our community a better place to live, work and play. The editorial staff reserves the right to edit all submissions for space constraints, clarity and errors in fact. Submissions must include author’s name and contact information. Contact information will not be published. Letter’s and opinion articles can be sent to jldavis@theemerycountyreview.com, mailed to The Emery County Review, P.O. Box 487, Orangeville, UT. 84537 or faxed to 435-748-2543. Josie Luke Sometimes I find it difficult to formulate a solid opinion on certain issues. After reading an article recently about issues the Bureau of Land Management is having in dealing with their wild horse and burro management program, I found myself in just such a situation. On one hand, I understand that when people are put in difficult situations, sometimes undesirable things must be done to solve the problem, but sometimes those solutions are arguably worse than the initial problem. On June 28, the BLM held a wild horse and burro adoption at the Castle Dale Arena. They use such adoptions to find homes for many of the animals that they remove from BLM lands. They remove the animals to keep populations in line with the number of such animals they have determined can thrive on the land. The Castle Dale adoption proved to be somewhat of a disappointment for the BLM, because they only sold 12 animals– eight horses and four burros– at a venue where they usually do quite well. Price Assistant Field Manager Wayne Ludington put it tactfully, “It wasn’t as good as we’d hoped.” The result in Castle Dale reflects a national trend. In a fact sheet provided on the BLM’s website, it states, “The BLM attempts to place as many animals as possible each year into private care through public adoptions, but adoptions have been declining in recent years because of higher fuel and food costs. Adoptions declined from 5,701 in fiscal year 2005 to 4,772 in fiscal year 2007.” With the decline in adoptions, comes the need for the BLM to care for a greater number of horses and burros, but rising costs in caring for the horses are making that very difficult. Of the $37 million budget provided for the program, over $26 million is spent just on holding costs. “As of 2008, there are more than 30,000 wild horses and burros that are fed and cared for at short- and long-term holding facilities. Right now, the cost of keeping these animals in holding facilities is spiraling out of control and preventing the agency from managing other parts of the program,” reads a statement from the website. Locally, just such a thing has happened. The Price BLM office had planned on removing some animals from local herds this year with funds provided by the national agency, but because of an emergency round-up in Nevada, the money is no longer available. Ludington explained that for now, this does not put the local population in as dire a situation as is seen in other areas. The local office has a herd size range in which they consider the herds safe. He said that the number “has not exceeded the high level yet.” With the lack of funding, decline in adoptions, and herd populations that according to the bureau can double every four years, the BLM is being faced with an extremely difficult and painful situation. If the situtation continues to worsen, their first option is to “sell older and certain other unadopted animals ‘without limitation’ to any willing buyers,” and their second, awful option is to “euthanize those wild A handful of bidders gather at the wild horse and burro adoption in Castle Dale. horses and burros for which no adoption demand exists.” Though I understand that the BLM is in a tight spot, the question I have is “what got us to this point?” The first answer that comes to mind is human error. Whether that error comes from inadequate projections on the part of the BLM, or the more basic issue of a bad economy, produced because of what I see as ineffective legislation and poor international diplomacy, the animals didn’t put themselves in the current situation. Now, I’m not one of those “d#$% environmentalist, tree-hugging animal lovers” so many from the area love to hate, although I do understand their viewpoint more than most, I just hate the thought of horses being euthanized, period. I grew up believing that horses are not to be used as many other animals often are from my grandpa. Some of my favorite talks with him have been about horses. I love listening to him tell stories about riding when he was younger, explaining how to act around them, and especially talking about his favorite horses. After one extraordinary horse died unexpectedly about a month ago, I sat on the lawn and tried to be “tough.” While I was sitting there, my grandpa walked by me and said, “Posie, that just about makes ya sick.” I responded, “It does make me sick.” And then, I tried really hard not to cry. It didn’t work. So, in solving the situation with the wild horses and burros, my judgment may be a little clouded, but I hope we can figure out another way to deal with the problem. Though it may be much simpler to simply euthanize “excess animals,” I think those who have contributed to the problem need to take responsibility and figure out how to fix it. The Bureau of Land Management is encouraging public comment on their website, www.blm.gov/wo/ st/en/prog/wild_horse_and_ burro/Statement_06_30_ 2008.html, or by telephone at 1-800-710-7597. Hopefully those who are more educated than I am on possible solutions, can offer more positive alternatives. Republicans Shouldn’t ‘Misunderestimate’ Obama Pat Buchanan With 68 percent of Americans believing George Bush has done a poor job, and 82 percent saying the country is on the wrong track, the election of 2008 will turn on one issue: Barack Obama. If Sen. Obama can convince the people he is “one of us,” and not some snooty radical liberal from Chicago’s Hyde Park, who looks down upon white America as a fever swamp of racism and reaction, a la the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the senator will be the next president. The election of 2008 thus mirrors the election of 1980. Then, the country wanted Jimmy Carter gone. Americans had had enough of 21 percent interest rates, 13 percent inflation and 7 percent unemployment. They wanted the Iranian hostage crisis ended, violently if necessary. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, America wanted a leader who would not kiss Leonid Brezhnev on the cheek but reassert American power. The issue then was Ronald Reagan. Portrayed as some Al Capp cartoon of a crazed right-winger and B-Grade Hollywood actor given to spouting Reader’s Digest bromides, Reagan was regarded as ridiculous by much of the media and too big a risk by much of the nation. In one debate with Carter, Reagan erased the misperceptions and turned a close race into a cakewalk. That is Barack’s opportunity. A savvy politician, he has measured correctly the hurdle he must surmount and is moving expeditiously to alter an image of him forged by his own past associations and policy posi- tions. In three weeks, he has jettisoned his new politics in a stunning display of raw pragmatism. A prime minister must be “a good butcher,” H.H. Asquith told Winston Churchill on naming him First Lord of the Admiralty, “and there are several who need to be pole-axed now.” Four years later, Asquith would pole-axe Churchill over the Dardanelles disaster. Obama is not lacking in this capacity that Richard Nixon, too, felt was an indispensable attribute of a statesman. Samantha Power was tossed off Barack’s sledge after calling Hillary a “monster” and suggesting Barack’s Iraq timetable was not set in concrete. Robert Malley was canned for having talked to Hamas, though that was his portfolio at a think tank for conflict resolution. Barack pole-axed pastor Wright and, though he said he could no more repudiate his church than his family, shortly after the second time Wright went off, Barack severed all ties to Trinity United. Barack has spoken of how he cringed at the racist reaction of his white grandmother after she was accosted by a black man on a bus. Grandma has now been rehabilitated in a new ad as the loving woman who inculcated good old Kansas values into little Barack. When his own surrogate, Gen. Wesley Clark, suggested John McCain’s war service did not automatically qualify him as presidential timber, a storm erupted. Barack proceeded to cut the general’s legs off. His had been one of a few Senate voices to speak of Palestinian suffering. But Barack’s address to the Israeli lobby read like it was plagiarized from the collected works of Ze’ev Jabotinsky. When the Supreme Court declared every citizen has a Second Amendment right to a handgun, Barack stood with Justice Scalia. When Scalia said the court ought not to have taken away Louisiana’s right to execute child rapists, Barack was with him again. When Congress voted the telecoms immunity from prosecution for colluding with the Bush administration in wiretapping citizens, Barack stood with Bush and the telecoms. Fearing it might cost him his huge money-raising advantage over McCain, Barack tossed campaign finance reform over the side. In Ohio, Barack was a populist opponent of NAFTA. He is now a free-trader. Yet when economic adviser Austan Goolsbee told the Canadians pretty much the same thing, Barack disinherited him. As July 4 approached, Barack gratuitously dissed his friends at MoveOn.org for their “General Betray Us” ad mocking Gen. David Petraeus. And that flag pin Barack got rid of after 9-11, calling it a “substitute ... for real patriotism”? It’s back on the lapel. Last week, Barack said that, after he meets with Petraeus and his field commanders in Iraq, he might “refine” his commitment to withdraw all U.S. combat brigades within 16 months. And finally, Obama has co-opted President Bush’s faith-based initiative and claimed it as his own. What is Obama up to? Having secured the nomination, he is moving to convince the nation he is neither a black militant nor a radical, but a man of the center who will even listen to the right. Though infuriating to readers of The Huffington Post, this may save Barack. For in Middle America folks worry less about politicians adjusting positions than about True Believers willing to go over the cliff with flags flying - and taking us with them. Reagan was no Barry Goldwater. He knew when to “hold ‘em,” and he knew when to “fold ‘em.” Yet, America still knew who Reagan was. We may be misunderestimating Barack. But the question of 2008 remains: When all is said and done, who is this guy? (Copyright 2008 Creators Syndicate Inc.)