The Real Cost of Expensive Fuel

By Alan Burkhart

I can't take credit for this awesome picture. It was e-mailed to me by a friend. I included it here because it fit's so well with this post.

For the last couple of years, not a day has passed without the high cost of gasoline being in the news. It’s a hot topic at home, at the coffee shop and at work. Everyone is concerned about what it costs to fill up these days.

I can relate. Even my tiny car with its twelve-gallon tank gets expensive to fuel when I’m paying $3.039 for gas. And yeah, I know that if you allow for inflation it’s actually cheaper now than it was twenty years ago. The pain comes not so much from the actual price but from the sharp increase over the last few years. We’ve had the cheapest gasoline on the planet for decades, and we’re spoiled.

But let’s talk a moment about the real cost of expensive motor fuels. It affects a lot more than the price of a fill-up for your car.

As my regular readers all know, I’m a cross-country trucker. I work for a small company in South Central Mississippi. My employer runs 33 trucks. On average, 25 of us fuel each day and we generally drive 600 to 700 miles per day.

So, at $2.959 per gallon, and an average of 100 gallons per fill…

That's $6,828.46 per day just in fuel costs for a small fleet - $2,492,388.46 per year - just for fuel.

It hasn't been that long ago that our fuel cost was about 27 cents per mile ($1.759 per gal). At 6.5 mpg, the present fuel cost is 45 cents per mile ($2.959 per gal). With a heavy load traveling through the West Virginia mountains (which I do often), the mpg's drop to anywhere from 6.1 to 5.9.

Add to all that my current wage (I'm paid by the mile).

Also add the per-mile cost allowance for permits, insurance, on-the-road-repairs, inspections, salaries for office & shop personnel, supplies for the office and shop (oil, belts, parts, tires, etc.), tags and utilities. And of course, taxes. Our per-mile charge to haul a load has to be enough to cover all the above and still have something left for the boss to put in his pocket.

Consider that virtually everything you own was transported by truck at least once, possibly by Yours Truly. Even with the increased use of piggy back rail containers, the trucking industry continues to haul a tremendous amount of freight each year. In 2005 the industry moved 10.7 billion tons of freight and collected $623 billion in gross revenue. Even with that kind of gross revenue, most companies are lucky to clear 5 or 6 cents per mile per truck.

And now Uncle Sam is introducing yet another regulation. The new ultra-low sulfur diesel is expected to cause a drop of 1 to 3 percent in fuel mileage. One won't notice it with a single truck, but with a fleet, this will be a significant cost increase. 2007 and later year-model trucks are forbidden by law to use anything other than the new fuel, as their engines are equipped with a special filtration device (making trucks heavier and more expensive) that reduces emissions.

The new diesel also lacks the necessary lubricity of earlier fuels, and this means that a lubricating additive must also be added to the mix. More ingredients equal an even higher fuel price. And all of this adds up to higher freight rates.

Consider a can of beans. A farmer usually hauls his own product to a co-op. From the co-op the beans get shipped via commercial carrier to a processing plant. Also coming into the plant by truck are additives, preservatives, labels, spices and of course the cans themselves. The vendors for all these products have built shipping costs into their prices.

Then it’s time to ship via commercial carrier to a distribution center. The processing plant has also built this cost into the product. Distribution centers generally have their own fleets for delivery to retail outlets, but they still face the same expenses as any other carrier. So, the grocery store chain also builds the cost of getting the beans to the store into the price you and I pay at the cash register. Transportation costs add to the ultimate price of an item at every phase of the manufacturing and distribution process. It’s unavoidable.

This is not an indictment of my industry, by the way. The trucking industry grows and contracts according to the demands of the economy. Tonnage is actually down just a bit this Summer from last Summer, due mainly to a slight cooling of the economy. Rail shipment, on a per ton or per mile basis, is actually cheaper than shipping by truck. And, about everything that can be hauled via rail is in fact being hauled by rail. But shipping by rail is a comparatively slow process. You don’t ship fresh produce across the country via rail. It’d be rotten to the core by the time it arrived.

Many factories and distributorships nowadays use the J.I.T. (Just In Time) method of warehousing. This means they have a bare minimum of inventory and depend on fast shipment by truck to keep them supplied. This helps keep their costs down, and this in turn lowers your costs as well. Trains can’t do J.I.T., for obvious reasons. It simply takes too long to get it there, and not everyone has a rail spur at their back door.

And of course, once a shipment arrives at a rail yard, it still has to be trucked to its ultimate destination. Same goes with air freight. I couldn’t begin to count all the loads of air freight I’ve delivered. If it moves, it moves by truck.

So what’s my point?

Simply this: As fuel prices increase, so will the price of just about everything you buy. Transportation has always been among the biggest costs to any manufacturer whether they ship by air, rail or truck. It’s not going to change until “Beam me up Scotty” becomes a reality. Fuel prices will in all likelihood continue to climb for the foreseeable future, and that means transportation costs will climb accordingly. In other words, it’s not going to get any better anytime soon.

All you can do is work harder, work smarter, budget your money tightly and drive an economical vehicle. And please buy lots of beans. I need the work.

Related Reading:

• Conversion could be behind Colorado rationing


• Container traffic sets a record pace


• Part of Prudhoe Bay still pumping, for now


• Diesel up another penny after passing $3

Dances With Pigs

By Alan Burkhart
NOTE: Please do not be concerned about me developing a fascination with pigs. I stumbled upon the story below whilst researching for my previous post. Really. No foolin' :-)

I don’t usually enter into the world of modern art. My sole qualification as an art critic is an oil painting by my mother hanging in the living room. Being one who deals with people all over the country via truck and laptop however, has allowed me to see Stupid in all of its various incarnations. Today I struck the mother lode.

We’ve all seen or heard of some of the more perverse forms of so-called art that go on display. Statues created from excrement, etc. But how’s about a woman who feels that she’s being artistic by lying around with a dead pig? That was a new one for me, and I’ve seen a lot.

British artist Kira O'Reilly’s current masterpiece, titled “Inthewrongplaceness” is essentially a peepshow. For a price, you can enter into a private room and watch Kira wallow naked with a dead pig for ten minutes. One viewer at a time. From all accounts, the pig isn’t just a prop. It’s a real pig. Dead.

This is one of those rare times when I’m in agreement with PETA. PETA released the following statement regarding Ms. O’Reilly:

"As Miss O'Reilly seems to have to depend on the shock value of using a murdered pig as a prop, perhaps lacking the talent to make it as a proper artist, may we suggest she take up a day job instead to pay the bills? Cruelty is not entertainment."

So… why would anyone wish to lie naked (or clothed) with a dead pig? Or a live one, for that matter? This isn’t art. This is a mental disorder. And no, don’t try to tell me that I lack the necessary sophistication to appreciate unusual art. This is the sort of stuff that high-brow lefties like to accuse us poor Southern hicks of doing. The woman is lying naked with a farm animal, okay? Bestiality and necrophilia all in one skinny little package.

If you require proof that Ms. O’Reilly is suffering from some form of dementia, I offer this little tidbit. It’s from the Tract Art Live website, which attributes the quote to her:

“The work left me with an undercurrent of pigginess, unexpected fantasies of mergence and interspecies metamorphoses began to flicker into my consciousness; making fiercely tender and ferocious identifications with the pig as stand in, double, twin, doll, imaginary self.”

Someone close to Ms. O’Reilly should send for the Dudes In The White Suits to come and collect her, and take her to a nice safe place where she can recover. Padded walls come to mind. And no pets.

So, does our girl Kira kill a fresh pig for each exhibit, or does she keep one in the deep freeze and thaw it out in a really big microwave oven? Will she eventually eat the pig? Will she one day have an attack of guilty conscience over all those dead pigs? And if she does, will she start using live ones instead?

Frankly, these are questions of which I am afraid of the answers. Our world just keeps getting a little sicker each day. Call me a stuffy old right-winger, but this isn’t art. This is a sick ritual involving an innocent animal being sacrificed to the God of Human Depravity.

Art can take many forms, from paintings to music to woodworking and beyond. Sick displays of the nature of Ms. O’Reilly and her Dead Pig aren’t art. They’re a warning to all of us that the lines between acceptable and unacceptable conduct were drawn for a reason. Ms. O’Reilly is an example of what happens when those lines are not respected.

Related Reading:

• Tract Live Art website with photo of Ms. O’Reilly and her pig
• TCV article
• Newlyn Art Gallery
• Excremental art

From Pigs to Petrol

By Alan Burkhart

Okay, I just finished reading an article in Jewish World Review about a University of Illinois professor named Yuanhui Zhang who has found a way to extract crude oil from pig manure. No folks, I'm not kidding. Let's think through the ramifications of this, shall we? We're looking for a way to lessen or eliminate our dependence upon foreign oil. A lot of that oil comes from the Middle East, where relations are... shall we say, strained? And - we know what Muslims think of pork.

This could be the ultimate smackdown! Every pig farm in America could have its own Pig Poop Pumping Platform out in the barn. Regional Pig Poop Pipelines could send the poop from the farm to the refineries, where hi-tech Poop Processors would squeeze millions of years worth of oil out of it in a matter of minutes.

Think of the benefits. Pig farms would smell oh so much better, once the farmers have a cash incentive to engage in some serious pooper scooping. You could even raise your pigs in your backyard - in town, even. If there's no poop, there's no mess and no odor. Imagine... a cottage industry, based on pig poop, that might have the potential to bankrupt the Arab oil barons.

Seem to good to be true? Here's a quote from the article:

In fact, the researchers have found the sludge contains three times the energy used to produce it. This energy ratio, combined with a technical breakthrough earlier this year that allows continuous feeding of the system with fecal matter, has been noticed by entrepreneurs.

Zhang is "the only researcher that's been able to use animal waste and get oil in an economic way," said Otis Jessee, co-owner of Worldwide BioEnergy, a company based in Jefferson City, Mo., that has licensed the technology from the university.

If the private sector is showing an interest in it, then there's money to be made. And the only way it can make money is if it works. By golly, if this isn't capitalism at work, then I'm the first pig farmer on Mars. :-)

Related Reading:
Article in Jewish World Review

Another Blow to National Security

By Alan Burkhart

Score another victory for Radical Islam and their partners at the ACLU. And chalk up another loss for American citizens. We’ve been rendered blind and deaf in a time when we desperately need to be vigilant. The recent plot uncovered by British MI5 agents to blow up commercial airliners is proof of the need for operations like the NSA Foreign Surveillance Program. And yet the left continues to tie the hands of those who are trying to lead the fight against international terrorism.

US District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor has ruled that the NSA’s Foreign Surveillance Program is unconstitutional. I find it cruelly ironic that the judge who struck the latest blow for radical Islam is an appointee of Jimmy Carter, who has been one of their greatest facilitators over the years. Judge Taylor also ordered that the program be suspended during appeals to be filed by the Justice Department, but that at least has been defeated. The program will continue through September Seventh, at which time there will be a hearing to allow the government to request a lengthier stay.

Osama bin Laden must be laughing himself silly right about now. And all the while he’s planning his next attack, which he recently promised would be quite impressive. By now he doubtlessly realizes that his greatest allies aren’t in Saudi Arabia or Iran, but right here in the USA.

The Mainstream Media has long mischaracterized the NSA program, referring to it as a “Domestic Spying Program” and an “Eavesdropping Program.” It is neither of these. All the program does is track phone numbers during international calls. If an international call is made and involves a number suspected of being used by a terrorist operative here or abroad, then further action is taken. Why would anyone have a problem with that? Big Brother isn’t listening to your conversations with Aunt Mable. They don’t care about how you order pizza. The Federal Government is trying its level best to prevent another 911-style attack on our soil, and yet the ACLU and other leftist groups seem almost eager for it to happen. And when it does, they’ll blame the Bush Administration for that, too.

Judge Taylor’s decision isn’t about protecting our constitutional rights. It’s about putting the Left back in power. The Left doesn’t care if another airliner smashes into another hi-rise. What they care about is getting back to the business of creating a socialist utopia in the USA. If that means making life easier for a pack of religious fanatics, so be it. Rank and file citizens killed in another attack would be considered nothing more than collateral damage. If you doubt me on this one, just take an unbiased look at what they’ve done over the last few years. Judge them on what they do, not what they say.

Perhaps when the next attack occurs, and thousands of innocent people perish, Americans will finally wake up to the fact that we’re at war. Not just in Iraq or Afghanistan, but with a global network of zealots who won’t stop until we either eradicate them from the planet, or they destroy Western Culture and replace it with Islamic rule. It really is just that simple. It’s them or us.

Pick one.

Related Reading:

• Federal judge orders halt to NSA spy program


• Text of Judge Taylor’s ruling (PDF format)


• NSA eavesdropping program ruled unconstitutional

What's in a Name?

By Alan Burkhart

According to an article by Jim Kouri, a half-dozen Indians have filed a petition with the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to force the NFL's Washington Redskins to change their name. Some may feel that this is another example of political correctness run amok. Still others may feel it's completely justified. The American Indians who have filed the petition evidently feel they are being disparaged.

A petition was originally filed in 1992 and the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board ruled in favor of the Indians. The decision was overturned on appeal and the Redskins kept their name. In this latest effort, Suzan Shown Harjo, lead petitioner in the original case and president of The Morning Star Institute, claims that she and her fellow petitioners seek to "…protect Native peoples from slurs and vulgarities." There are several points to address before one can form an educated opinion in this matter, the most relevant being the question of whether "redskin" is actually a derogatory term.

Let's review some history…

According to a paper by Ives Goddard (senior linguist in the Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution), the term "redskin" was first coined by American Indian tribes and was not a derogatory term. It was instead used simply to distinguish between American Indians ("red skinned men") and European settlers ("white skinned men"). This is little different than the non-pejorative use of "black" or "white" we see in modern times to differentiate between Negroes and Caucasians. Goddard concludes that white settlers began using the term after hearing it used by local tribes.

So, how is it that modern-day American Indians find it offensive?

I'd opine that as time went by and wars broke out between settlers and Indian tribes, the term "redskin" was used in anger by settlers. I don't doubt that "whiteskin" or "paleface" was also used in a similar manner by Indians. The words retained their original meanings but were being used in a different context. But, how much importance should we assign to context in matters such as this?

If a member of the KKK says, "I hate black people," does that automatically make "black people" a derogatory term? No, it doesn't. It just means that the guy wearing the white sheet and the over-sized dunce cap is a complete idiot.

It's also worth noting how the Washington Redskins came by their name. In the mid-1930's George Preston Marshall owned the now-defunct NFL Boston Braves. He renamed the team "Redskins" in 1936 and moved them to Washington in 1937. The name change was supposedly done in honor of "Lone Star" Dietz, who coached the Redskins in their early years. As it turns out, research by "American Indian Sports Team Mascots" has called into question whether or not William Henry "Lone Star" Dietz actually had even a single drop of Indian blood in his veins.

Does it really matter at this point if Dietz was a phony? It could, depending upon the context (there's that word again) in which the name was used. What did Marshall have in mind? Did he wish to portray his team as noble warriors? Or, as vicious savages? Did he know the truth of Dietz's ancestry? I doubt we'll ever know for sure. According to what I've read, Marshall was a racist, and refused to recruit any black players until the federal government threatened to revoke his lease at D. C. Stadium (since renamed to RFK Stadium).

At great risk to my career as a writer, I'll make a strictly hypothetical comparison here… What if the team's current owner, Daniel Snyder, renamed the Redskins "The Washington Niggers?" Or maybe the "Washington Wetbacks?" It'd almost be worth it just to see how badly the ACLU would come unglued, but no. These hideous words are truly derogatory and there is no context in which they could be used in a positive manner.

My point?

I doubt anyone (including Indians or the ACLU) would have a problem if Snyder renamed the 'Skins the "Washington Honkeys." In fact, the "Fighting Whites" were an intramural basketball team formed at the University of Northern Colorado in 2002. The team was formed as a sort of payback to all the teams across the country who use Indian names and symbols as mascots. The interesting part of this? White folks weren't at all offended, and when Rush Limbaugh pointed out the existence of the team to a national audience, calls for t-shirts and other merchandise began pouring in. There's now a Fighting Whites website where one can order the typical team-logo merchandise, and the proceeds go to the Fighting Whites Scholarship Fund. Nothing like good old American capitalism to cause people to show their true (ahem) colors, eh?

And let's face the fact that there is a certain amount of silliness inherent to the naming of any sports franchise. How many real Indians currently play for the Cleveland Indians? Has there been a real Dallas Cowboy since Walt Garrison retired? How many priests play for the San Diego Padres? Care to speculate upon how many members of the New Orleans Saints have been canonized?

But I digress. Should the Washington Redskins change their name to something less offensive? I doubt that George Marshall would have named his team after someone he didn't like. He wouldn't have named the team as such if he felt the name to be derogatory. Nope, he most likely felt that the name was in some way positive. Ditto the Kansas City Chiefs, the Atlanta Braves and the Cleveland Indians. The teams' names are in recognition of the bravery and honorable nature of the Indian warriors of old.

I guess some people are just more easily offended than others.
Hail to the Redskins.
Hail to the Chiefs.
And above all, go Cowboys!

Related Reading:

• Jim Kouri Article


• Ives Goddard Paper on the Origin of "Redskin"


• Use of words meaning 'redskin' and 'whiteskin' in the Meskwaki language


• Was "Lone Star" Dietz really an Indian?


• Fighting Whites Merchandise Website


• Archived Articles on the Original Fighting Whites (aka "Whities")


• Morning Star Institute


• Washington Redskins Website


• Wikipedia Article on George Preston Marshall

Images from the Southeastern US

I live in Southeast Mississippi. I've lived in the Southeast since 1998 and I love the people, the weather (except the hurricanes!), and the laid-back pace of life there. This image is on State Route 28 not too far from where I live. Sort of wrecks the tree-huggers' deforestation argument, doesn't it?

This is a shot of the leading edge of Hurricane Lili in 2002 as she approached the Gulf Coast (the outer bands). I shot this somewhat blurry image near Mobile, AL while traveling on I-10. Didn't get caught in the storm itself, although I did catch some of the "spin-off" the next day.

This somewhat embarrassing moment took place a few years ago in Vicksburg, MS. I'd picked up the load of plastic pipe in Texas and was attempting to deliver it when the lift operator made a careless move and created the mess you see here. Nobody was hurt, but it took an extra hour to get it all picked up.

Shot this one while crossing the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge, LA. One of these days, I'm gonna take the time to ride on a river boat. Looks like it'd be fun.

This was shot while crossing the Atchafalaya Swamp bridge on I-10 in Louisiana. The bridge is 18 miles long.

You don't have to go out west for a pretty sunset. This was just outside Atlanta.

This old locomotive sits at the junction of highways 27 and 28 in Georgetown, MS. It's since been "re-restored" but I keep forgetting to have my camera out when I pass through.

American Torture Chambers

By Alan Burkhart

Note: Please take the time to read opposing view at the end of the article - added (08/15/06)

According to an article posted at the Fox News website on July twenty-fourth, the City of Chicago has enacted a ban on serving Foie Gras in restaurants. I absolutely do not subscribe to the views of those who claim we should stop eating meat altogether. In the case of Foie Gras however, I am inclined to agree. It's one thing to kill and butcher an animal for food. A dead animal doesn't feel any pain. It's something else entirely when we torture an animal for days or weeks before killing it.

Let's compare…

I enjoy venison, and I don't mind going out early on a cold morning to get it. Do I torture the deer? No. I hit him with a high velocity round that drops him in his tracks. He never knew what hit him. Thus, I have not dragged Bambi to a torture chamber and tormented him. The deer dies much more quickly and cleanly than he would have if attacked by wolves or a panther.

On the other hand, Foie Gras is prepared by unnaturally enlarging the livers of ducks and geese specifically to cause an illness known as hepatic steatosis. This is done by force-feeding them with a tube. The birds often become so bloated they can't move, and investigators have reportedly even seen a duck being eaten alive by rats because it couldn't move to escape them. In many cases the birds' stomachs literally burst open.

A visit to the appropriate websites reveals images of ducks and geese with gaping wounds caused from ruptured organs, rat attacks, or maggot infestation. Other birds die from choking on their own vomit after having been force fed so much grain that their bodies simply rebel. They're trapped inside tiny, feces-coated cages and often die of disease before they're slaughtered.

Similar mistreatment can be found in the production of American milk-fed veal. In Europe, calves are allowed to suckle their mothers for a few days. They're then quickly slaughtered for the tender veal. There is little if any suffering on the part of the calf.

In the USA it's a different story. Calves are trapped in tiny (30" by 72") enclosures to restrict movement. This is so that the calves can't develop red muscle tissue. They're fed an anemic mix of nutrient-poor liquids and high does of antibiotics. The latter is to fight the various infections - many dangerous to humans - that result from the constant diarrhea after being intentionally fed a diet devoid of iron. They're also kept in absolute darkness 22 hours per day and suffer from swollen leg joints and atrophied muscle tissue.

And unlike European (mainly French) milk-fed veal, the calves aren't slaughtered after only a week or two. The whole purpose behind the American method is to keep the calf alive for 16 to 23 weeks before it's slaughtered. The calf grows larger, producing more veal and therefore more profit to the farmer.

So… am I advocating a total switch to vegetarianism for Americans? Nope. As a matter of fact I plan to head out to Popeye's in a couple of hours for some spicy chicken. And I'll eat it guilt-free. If PETA and other animal rights organizations had their way, we wouldn't even be allowed to have dairy products. PETA's stand on animal cruelty is the opposite extreme to those who advocate shoving a pipe down a bird's throat to produce a tasty hors d'oeuvre.

What I am saying is that we can do better. The process of preparing meat for the market is going to involve some pain somewhere down the line, but as a supposedly civilized culture we should take steps to ensure that animals are protected from the sort of abuse described above. You don't have to have Foie Gras to survive. Milk-fed veal isn't a requirement for a healthy diet.

And I, for one, can more thoroughly enjoy my meal if I'm eating it with a clear conscience. Foie Gras should be banned worldwide. Milk-fed veal should be produced naturally, rather than turning a calf's short life into a nightmare of darkness and pain. Want a tasty hors d'oeuvre? Try cheese on a Ritz.

Related Reading:

• Pictorial at goveg.com


• Foie Gras banned in Israel

Addendum...
Today (08/15/06) I received an e-mail from a gentleman representing the American Veal Association. He differs strongly (but very politely) with me regarding milk-fed veal. I present his opposing comments here in the interest of fairness.

Mr. Burkhart:

My name is Bryan Scott, and I represent the American Veal Association. I read with great concern your recent article in The American Daily, "American Torture Chambers". Most of the misinformation you espouse about veal is the expected PETA and HSUS backed propaganda. However, you go further and completely misrepresent several other issues including the practices of European veal producers.

Special fed veal production has it's roots in Europe, specifically Holland, not France. Today European production is found in most EU countries including, The Netherlands, France, Italy, Germany, and Belgium. The EU animal welfare commission, considered the strictest in the world, has consistently supported the practices used in special fed veal production. Calves in Europe are raised to an average age of 26 weeks, our U.S. production systems average 21 weeks.

The practice of slaughtering calves within a couple weeks of birth hasn't really occurred in any commercial setting anywhere since the mid 1980's. As dairy herds contracted around the world the calves were too expensive to buy without adding weight and value. Producers found ways to refine government surplus skim milk into a stable powder that could be fed to their calves. What could be a more natural diet than skim? No antibiotics are used in our all milk rations, unlike similar feed rations that are fed to heifer and steer calves used in dairy and beef production. However we do fortify our feed with over 20 vitamins and minerals, including iron, and a half dozen amino acids.

Unlike many other livestock industries our animals are left anatomically and physiologically intact. Our calves do not endure the stress of castration, dehorning, or debecking. They are raised in some of the most sophisticated and expensive indoor livestock facilities ever constructed. Every barn offers both artificial and/or overhead electrical lighting. It is only dark in our facilities if it is dark outside. All barns offer natural ventilation, and in many cases the natural ventilation is supplemented by mechanical fans which are controlled by advanced computer controlled thermostats. In addition, at an enormous cost to our farmers, our barns are heated to at least 60 degrees during the winter, and offer complete shelter from the elements and predators year round. Our calves have the lowest mortality rate of any production livestock industry, which is also substantially lower than that of calves left out to pasture.

Lastly, you insinuate that the reason for our current production systems is the greed of the farmers, "The calf grows larger, producing more veal and therefore more profit to the farmer". How many wealthy farmers do you know? Nearly 20% of our producers are Amish plain farmers. The average producer in our industry houses only 205 animals and earns around $30,000.00 per year, with no benefits. To suggest that a farmer's greed is at the heart of the "problem" is not only untrue but irresponsible.

If you'd like to learn more about our industry please feel free to contact me at calfdoc1@msn.com, or Steve Kraut, our General Counsel, at sjk1164@ameritech.com. Also, please feel free to visit vealfarm.com, or americanvealassociation.com. Finally, we would like to extend an invitation for you to visit one of our producers and their farm at your convenience. We look forward to working with you in an effort to give you a balanced and fact based understanding of our industry.

My regards,

Bryan S. Oedzes
Executive Vice President
Legislative & Regulatory Affairs
American Veal Association

Quiet, Please

By Alan Burkhart

A few weeks ago I was traveling up Interstate Fifty-five in Missouri and pulled into a small travel center for a cup of coffee. It was a lazy, muggy day and it seemed as if the world was moving at about three quarters speed. I was standing outside the building with my coffee and chatting with a young couple who'd been blessed with a singularly beautiful baby girl. The child was in a jovial mood, happily gurgling and pulling on my mustache with reckless abandon.

At the gas pumps, an elderly man was filling his tank, and a slow procession of customers was filing in and out of the convenience store. In other words, just another quiet day in Middle America.

I heard the rumble as they exited the freeway. Around the bend they came, driving way too fast and making more racket than a dozen semis. "They" were three bikers on their Harleys, complete with straight pipes, black leather, and shaggy beards flopping in the breeze. They couldn't be content to just idle their engines as they came under the canopy over the gas islands. They continued revving their un-muffled engines until they'd all found vacant pumps. No purpose was served by their incessant winding of their engines. It was noise for the sake of the noise itself, and under the relatively close confines of the canopy, the sheer loudness left everyone's ears ringing.

By the time the rumbling, roaring and backfiring was over, the aforementioned little girl was crying out of sheer terror, the elderly man was covering his ears with his hands, and I had ducked back inside to escape the painful assault on my senses. The bikers, for their part, seemed unconcerned that they'd shattered the peace of the day. They met the disapproving stares of others with utter indifference. I found their lack of consideration beyond offensive.

I don't expect every moment of every day to be quiet and peaceful. I will however take every peaceful moment I can get and I don't appreciate it when that peace is wrecked by some clod who deems it necessary to make as much noise as is humanly possible. Shouldn't we as a civilized culture have moved beyond such nonsense by now?

Noise pollution is everywhere, and a lot of it is unavoidable. Busy streets, freeways, airports, racetracks and industrial areas are expected to be noisy. But think how much quieter our world would be with a few more mufflers. With the amount of traffic on the roads today, loud pipes should be banned from any street-legal vehicle. I expect straight pipes on race cars because mufflers consume horsepower. But "regular" cars and trucks should be required to maintain the lowest possible noise level attainable without compromising performance.

Many cities have adopted more stringent noise ordinances in recent years. A trip up US 69 in Oklahoma will reveal signs in just about every town banning the use of "Engine Brakes" on trucks within the city limits. Given the fact that a Harley Davidson motorcycle sans mufflers is just as loud, one has to wonder why similar laws haven't been passed for them.

Another frequent offender is the low-rider Honda Accord with its stereo blasting out some unintelligible Hip Hop tune. You know the type… you literally feel the bass before you see the vehicle. I can remember sitting at a traffic light in Dallas one morning when just such a car rolled up on my left. The bass emanating from that car was so powerful that my windows began to hum. Is this really necessary? And what sort of damage was this so-called music doing to the ears of whoever was in that car?

And trains? Geez! Mister Engineer, is it really necessary to blast that mega-horn at 3:00AM whilst I'm trying to sleep? Yes, I know there are laws requiring that the trains honk their gigantic horns at crossings. But in the twenty-first century you'd think we could find a better way. And Heaven forbid that any more truckers install train horns on their rigs. You can always tell when a trucker gets a new train horn - he honks it constantly for about a week. It's embarrassing.

Continued exposure to excessive noise is not only detrimental to our hearing, but to other facets of our overall health. Stress levels can climb, leading to nervous disorders, hypertension and other maladies. Tempers can grow short and lead to a host of other problems none of us need.

The bottom line: Legislators need to take steps to turn down the volume on our society. There are situations in which noise pollution is unavoidable. But we can require quiet mufflers on motor vehicles. We can develop more efficient (and quieter) warning systems for railroad crossings so trains needn't rattle every window in town when they pass through. City managers can be more intelligent in developing zoning laws to isolate noisy industrial areas from residential neighborhoods.

We all need a little peace and quiet. But it's getting harder and harder to find.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: By the way - if you're wondering as to what an engine brake (aka "compression brake") is, there's a couple of links below to describe how they work and why they're a needed safety device for large trucks. I use one, but then again, my truck also has a muffler. I don't need the racket.

Related Reading:

• Compression Brake Laws and Restrictions


• How a Compression Brake Works


• Wikipedia Article on Noise Pollution and How It Affects Our Health


• American Indians confront bikers