View From the Backside

VIEW FROM THE BACKSIDE

by Barry Denton

Phonees & Phonies

One of the nicest aspects of living here at the ranch is that you get some slight feeling of isolationism. Since our ranch is located between two high mountains cell phone reception is almost nil.

Once in a while if the clouds are right and the birds are flying in the correct direction you might get a brief cell phone signal until you take a step forward. Your other option is to climb our highest windmill on the highest spot on the ranch.

However, who in their right mind would voluntarily climb a windmill? Sometimes the young people that work for us enjoy getting a text during the day, which do come through on occasion.

Phones on horseback are never allowed. It seems to me if you are working a horse properly, how would you ever have time to answer a text? Besides horses are much more interesting than any texter.

Romance and nonsense can be taken care of after work hours quite easily. I always figure that I don’t need to hear 99 percent of the news and there is not much I can do about Ukraine or North Korea. On the ranch me and ole’Pard are free from the outside world. How sweet it is!

Since the election just ended let’s talk about Arizona a little bit. For some reason

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there seems to be lots of shenanigans going on over here and it looks to me like the Republicans & Democrats are in bed together. Of course, as time passes, I’m thinking that we have a one-party system and we ranchers are going to get squeezed out by the city slickers eventually.

However, Arizona has a history of getting election results out promptly until the last few years after we got a Democrat Secretary Of State to oversee the elections. This year our Secretary Of State ran for Governor and never recused herself or resigned her position.

Since the election was certified, our present Republican Governor Ducey has welcomed the new Democrat Governor-Elect publicly with open arms. The odd thing is that our Republican Governor Ducey never once raised money nor campaigned for the Republican gubernatorial candidate or other Republican primary winners.

Besides, the Republican Minority Leader in the United States Senate Mitch McConnell pulled campaign monies from Arizona. Isn’t it interesting that the two driving Republican political forces backed the Democrat and wanted their own party to lose the Governor’s office.

That sounds like funny business to me. The race was very close, and probably a little party support would have won the governorship. I would suggest that both Arizona Governor Ducey and the Senate Minority Leader McConnell be thrown out of their own party as traitors. There is no chance that will happen as more than half the Republicans are in love with the Democrat party.

Like I said, it’s pretty much a one-party system.

If you stop and think about it, agriculture takes a beating every time a Democrat is in charge. The examples of that are getting cattle off federal lands in the West, shorting farmers of water for crops in California, and not owning up to federally created disasters such as out of control burns by the United States Forest Service and dumping dangerous mining chemicals into the Animas River in Colorado.

Now we have it once again in Arizona. I sure feel sorry for Arizona agriculture over the next four years. The trouble is it looks like New Mexico will suffer the same fate as they retained their Democrat Governor Grisham. Can anyone explain to me when it became fashionable to elect liberal old maids as governors of western states?

Why do we even bother to vote for two parties if they no longer exist? Happy New Year and good luck! ▫