By E. W.
Lang
Block cheese lost 11 cents this week and barrels
lost 14 to close at $1.44 per lb., the lowest barrel price since late
March. Butter gained a quarter cent and
Class III Milk futures lost three to 75 cents per cwt., in each of the next 12
trading months, and range from $16.68 to $18.09 per cwt. Average price on Class IV for the rest of
this year is $16.15 per cwt.
Further pressuring cheese price are shipping
issues due to labor shortages and congestion at ports. Labor shortages are slowing cheese plant production,
as well. Remember that milk is a
perishable commodity that lends itself to every day processing, so that is a
battle in the milk plant as well as on the farm.
OCaM goes to a segment of the dairy population
that exhibits livestock for fun, as enterprise and adventure, for recreation
and vice. Last year state fairs were
cancelled and this year a few fair boards and managers are probably wondering
what is the last possible day they can pull the plug on their 2021 events in
the event of increased covid diagnoses of the Delta variety, here during the
middle of summer.
So, getting into the rationale of immunization
for measles, mumps, polio, the whooping cough, and a dozen other viruses that
no one gets any more, the small uptick in Delta flavoured covid may yet cause
some events to be cancelled, even as the funnel cake and cotton candy
distributors pull in to the fairgrounds right ahead of the livestock
exhibitors. No government agency,
private enterprise or even county fair board wants to defend itself against a
class action law suit brought by fair goers who went to an event were half of
those in attendance weren't somewhat immune to covid.
Vaccines might cause anaphylactic shock. I personally know that as well as anyone,
following a 1972 immunization that was administered in a public school, by
state authorities at the direction of the federal government.
Vaccines might also hurt, cause impure thought,
somehow be unchristian, and will also kill one in one-million of us as a result
of the injection, so like anything there are trade-offs.
That said, few, if any, of us know someone who
still suffers from polio, for instance.
Almost all of us know a few people who can not be vaccinated for
anything under threat of likely death.
As more health compromised babies survive, many live rather normal lives
but just can't take a chance at getting vaccinated because of some condition
that they have. This wasn't a life
choice these kids made on their own, rather it's their lot in life, and it's
affected by unvaccinated healthy people, often consumed with their own freedom
and their own standing among peers.
Most non-vaccinates among us are well meaning,
and feel they do things in the best interest of others before themselves, but
they're not. In this case they are
acting in their own self interest, and subjecting the less fortunate to the
rather threatening Delta variant. This
also threatens the commerce of mass gatherings, including the fairs and shows we
like to attend, so it's an economic, as well as social, issue.
I understand the social/political order of those
resisting vaccines. I also understand
the role that social and political orders played in slaughter during the
medieval crusades, generating European
fascism 100 years ago, and even drinking the grape Kool-Aid in 1978.
Sometimes society is better served when people
think and decide for themselves, rather than try to identify with their friends
and become another cold and timid soul among them.