Polygamy and the presidential race

For a biographer, the emerging matchup in the presidential campaign between Barack Hussein Obama and Willard Mitt Romney is about as American as it can get. Although the candidates are noted for their innate caution, their family histories evoke a kind of exceptionalism that defines the United States — not in some gauzy and false way, but in the reality of a national fabric woven from exotic threads. Where to start? How about polygamy?

Perhaps it is true of most people if you go back far enough, but with Obama and Romney, it can be said with certitude that neither would exist had their ancestors not lived with many wives at once.

The president's most virulent critics have tried for years to portray him as a stranger in our midst, someone outside the comfortable mainstream of American life; a Muslim socialist born elsewhere, probably in Kenya. The mythology is wrong on all three particulars about Obama, a Christian liberal born in Hawaii,Find the cheapest chickencoop online through and buy the best hen houses and chook pens in Australia. and its distortions are antithetical to historical inquiry, a manipulation of facts for ideological purposes. Yet the real story is colorful enough, and odd in a way that is foreign while familiar. Sit down long enough at any American family's table, and some strange history is likely to be served.

The line of polygamists in Obama's family can be traced back generations in western Kenya, where it was an accepted practice within the Luo (pronounced LOO-oh) tribe. His great-grandfather, Obama Opiyo, had five wives, including two who were sisters. His grandfather, Hussein Onyango, had at least four wives, one of whom, Akumu, gave birth to the president's father, Barack Obama, before fleeing her abusive husband. Obama Sr. was already married when he left Kenya to study at the University of Hawaii, where he married again. His American wife-to-be, Stanley Ann Dunham, was not yet 18 and unaware of his marital situation when she became pregnant with his namesake son in 1961.

The line of polygamists in the Romney family traces back generations, when it was an accepted practice in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His paternal great-grandfathers, Miles Park Romney and Helaman Pratt, were born in the United States but lived for decades in Mexico. Pratt was a Mormon missionary there; Miles Park Romney left Utah for Mexico with a tribe of polygamous Mormons after the practice was outlawed in the United States in 1890.

Pratt had five wives. Miles Park Romney had four, and 30 children, one of whom was Gaskell Romney. The polygamy stopped at Gaskell, who had a single wife and seven children. One of the children, George, was born in a Mormon colony in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico, although he was nonetheless a U.S. citizen. He was Mitt's father.

For both presidential candidates to have fathers born outside the United States — what could be more American than that? And the lives of both were shaped by evangelizing branches of Christianity — one family doing the proselytizing, the other being proselytized,Where to buy or purchase plasticmoulds for precast and wetcast concrete? sort of — again,Aeroscout rtls provides a complete solution for wireless asset tracking. how American.

All of the Romney men were Mormon missionaries at some point; it comes with the religious territory. Old man Pratt did his missionary work in Mexico. George Romney, before becoming governor of Michigan and a candidate for president himself, took his Mormon outreach assignments in Glasgow, Edinburgh and London. His son Mitt went off in search of potential converts in France. It turned out that neither George nor Mitt was particularly good at making converts during their overseas forays. They proved to be much better at making money back home, and were happier doing so.

As a member of the Luo tribe, Hussein Onyango encountered missionaries early in his life; it came with the cultural geography of western Kenya.I found them to have sharp edges where the injectionmoldes came together while production. This was not Mormon meets African, the central conceit of the popular Broadway musical "The Book of Mormon," which takes place in Uganda. The Latter-day Saints arrived in western Kenya long after the Seventh-Day Adventists.

It is an understatement to say that Mormons came late to a lot of things involving people with black skin. The first evangelist to reach the Obama homestead near Kendu Bay was Arthur Asa Carscallen, an Adventist pastor who grew up in Canada and ventured to western Kenya in 1906, tooling around in an elegant suit and necktie as he peddled the gospel. Carscallen learned the Luo language and built a missionary primary school atop a hill in Gendia, where he taught Luo boys, the first generation to become Westernized. Onyango was one of his students, setting the family on its unlikely path to the White House.

Years after learning English and adapting Western ways, Onyango converted to Islam. He added the name Hussein and lived out his days as a Muslim, although he did not follow all of the religion's strictures.A Plastic injectionmoulding company, This is where the myth of his grandson being a Muslim, which has no factual basis, took hold. Hussein Onyango's son, Barack Obama Sr., was an atheist by the time he reached adulthood. When I die, I will die thoroughly, he would say. Stanley Ann Dunham, the president's mother, was not religious in a church sense but was spiritual and had a deep interest in many of the world's religions.

Fickle winter weather jeopardizes farmers’ alfalfa crops

Mother Nature hasn’t been kind to farmers this winter.

Unusually mild and strange weather patterns have left farmers with alfalfa fields crossing their fingers, as cycles of freezing and thawing can cause winter kill by uprooting and damaging crops.

At stake is the alfalfa hay dairy farmers use as cattle feed, the loss of which can be major for small farms, said John E. Peck, 64, who operates a 347-acre dairy farm in the town of Champion with his son, John D., 28, who purchased the property from him in 2008.

“The one thing you get concerned with an open winter is it does leave the alfalfa crops vulnerable to frost damage,” Mr. Peck said, adding that the farm depends on the hay to feed a herd of 85 cows. “It can especially if we have zero and below-zero temperatures and the ground is bare, because the freezing action will heave the plants’ roots out of the ground.”

While a blanket of snow ordinarily covers the fields during the winter, serving as an insulator that guards the soil from freezing, that hasn’t been the case this winter, he said. Mild temperatures have kept snow off the ground, leaving the fields vulnerable.

“I’ve never seen a year like this, and I’ll be 65 in June,” Mr. Peck said with a laugh. “I didn’t plow snow in the farmyards until January 13, and it makes us nervous about the crops and what it could do.”

One advantage the farm has to ward off the weather, he said, is that its soil drains water well, lessening the amount of freezing caused by moisture buildup. Mr. Peck still is optimistic that his crops will be green when spring arrives. “I’m not looking for winter kill yet on our farm, but I’m more worried about what our water count in the soil come spring and summer will be if we don’t get enough rain,” he said.

Asked whether he’s concerned about his alfalfa crops, Douglas W. Shelmidine, owner of a dairy farm in the town of Ellisburg, said, “It’s too early to tell at this point, but it’s not the weather we want to have.”

But if the current cycle of freezing and thawing continues until late February, when alfalfa plants start to grow, that could jeopardize the crops, Mr. Shelmidine said.

“It becomes more critical as we get to that time when the plant starts to grow as the temperature warms up,” he said. “If the temperatures get cold enough and the ground starts to freeze and expand, that will pull the plants out of the soil.”

Farmers across the north country are concerned about how the strange weather patterns will affect their crops, particularly alfalfa plants, said Michael E. Hunter, field crops educator for Cornell Cooperative Extension of Jefferson County.

“Anytime we get fluctuating temperatures with freezing and thawing action, it will literally lift the alfalfa crown out of the soil,” Mr. Hunter said.

He said the plant’s taproots are pulled from the ground more easily than those with layers of roots, like grass. “The freezing and thawing can also break smaller roots attached, so that in the springtime, the plant can’t get the water and nutrients it needs and dies,” he said.

The low temperatures in January, coupled with less snowfall, have produced a dangerous climate for alfalfa plants, Mr. Hunter said. He said that temperatures dropped to as low as minus 24 degrees in January and that fields didn’t have adequate snow for protection.

Ideally, “you want to have at least six inches of snow cover on alfalfa fields to provide insulation for below-zero temperatures, which can kill plant tissue and cause winter kill,” Mr. Hunter said.

But while farmers can’t do anything to change the fickle weather, there are several controllable precautions they can take to protect their alfalfa crops in the fall, Mr. Hunter said. For instance, farmers should ensure their alfalfa stands are planted in fertile soil with a pH level of 6.5 to 7, which is the best level of acidity for absorbing nutrients. Older alfalfa stands, in particular, need to get the proper nutrition because they are more likely to die.

Farmers also should make sure the plants have enough rest time in the fall — at least 45 days — to store carbohydrates for the winter before the last cutting of the season, Mr. Hunter said. To do so, the fields should be cut in early August and again in October following the waiting period. The alfalfa should be cut to have at least 6 inches of stubble, which will help the plants trap snow and provide insulation.

“If you harvest the plants early, they don’t get the opportunity to build up root reserves needed because you’re intercepting the process,” Mr. Hunter said.

While this winter’s erratic weather has certainly increased the risk of losing crops, farmers who took the right precautions may be able to weather the storm, so to speak.

HEA responds to Soldotna, Cohoe outages

A large section of the Soldotna was without power Sunday morning. The outage started at 7:25 a.m. and impacted 2,317 homes and businesses. Homer Electric crews responded to the Corral Street area of Soldotna where they found a broken insulator on a power pole. The crew made repairs and had the power back on at 9:17 a.m.

HEA crews also responded to the South Cohoe Loop area for an outage that started at 5:30 a.m. and is impacting 94. Crews made repairs after finding a tree on the power line and wire on the ground. Power was restored to the South Cohoe Loop area at 11:40 a.m.
As a safety reminder, HEA would like to remind homeowners who own generators to make sure they are taking proper precautions. If operated incorrectly, the generator can send power back on to the electric system and cause serious injury or death to linemen working on the power line.

It is very important that a transfer switch exists between the generator and the HEA system. The transfer switch must be equipped with a visual open ensuring that the generator is not back feeding into the HEA system. Make sure that you have properly installed your generator and if you have any questions, please contact a qualified electrician before operating the generator.

HEA also reminds people to stay away from any downed power line. The lines are very dangerous and can cause serious injury or death if contact is made.

Winter’s Intellectual Blizzard

Today the snow came to Minnesota.  The neighborhood is full of people with shovels, snow blowers, and other winter apparatus who must clear the snow from roads, driveways, and sidewalks.  The first snow is usually welcomed; it virtually guarantees a “White Christmas” and serves as a beautiful sound insulator.  A meteorological calmness settles in.  Outside activities, while enjoyed by many people, keep most of us inside for most of the time.  With the change in daylight savings time, it gets dark very early and the days grow shorter and colder.  We northerners are “cooped up” inside for several months.

We can watch television for five months, hang out in bars, or we can turn to intellectual pursuits such as reading, writing, and (yes) thinking.  In places like Minnesota, Wisconsin, the Dakotas, and Michigan, for those of us who don’t spend a lot of time before the television, winter is the season for intellectual activity.  Hence, I’ve coined the term “Intellectual Blizzard” for the increased intellectual activity that occurs from December through March.

I don’t have any proof that intellectual activity is positively correlated to the weather cycle, but I’ve got some anecdotal evidence that I’ve noticed as a college professor.

1. A lot less partying goes on in college towns when cold weather comes early in the fall.

2. A lot more partying goes on in college towns when spring comes unusually early.

3. Students are much more distracted prior to major exams when the weather is warm.

4. During the dead of winter students appear more lethargic, but are less distracted from studies.

When winter comes to Winona I try to find activities that keep me outside, but it isn’t long before I’m in the chair reading academic material or even a good novel.  There must be thousands like me in this state.  Hopefully some great wisdom will come as a result of our brain-busting efforts!

The Freaker Keeps Your Bottles Freakin’ Cold (Or Freakin’ Hot)

“Freaker” is probably not a name I’d pick for a bottle/can/jar/glass insulator but that’s just what these folks named theirs. Of course, you probably wouldn’t expect something called the Freaker to be useful or functional, but this one surprisingly is.

It’s extremely elastic and stretchy and comes in a whole host of loud colors. The Freaker also swears that it can fit over anything and everything and keep your drinks either cool or warm, as you like them.

Bottle Freaker

Fit it over champagne bottles, beer cans, juice bottles, wine glasses, and even your own arm! These guys have been in the biz for a while now but the people behind Freaker have recently launched a new project to produce a special edition Kickstarter Freaker.

Fancy a Freaker with shades of blue or a pink one with a white skull in the middle? There are currently 30 designs for the Freaker so you might want to start collecting ‘em if they’re up your alley.

Bottle FreakerThere’s a whole list of offers and various Freaker packs they’re giving away to backers who pledge $25 or more. They’re also promising to throw you and your friends a BBQ or Grilled Cheese party for pledges ranging in the $2,000-$3,000 zone in the official Freaker box truck.

Want to get freaky? Check out their Kickstarter video below to learn more (and to get a few laughs.) If you’re sold on the idea, then head on over to Kickstarter to give a pledge.