New West Network Topics News

Out state owners of our airwaves shut down progressive talk once again..... 

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Wildlife

Year after year, the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee fails to provide for hunter safety while minimizing grizzly bear mortality. Here are eight solutions to the problem. 

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Opinion

In my opinion, Jill Kuraitis’s NewWest.Net article on the Parma research station (7-9-09) contained an error and omissions. The subtitle of the article indicates that it was a UI College of Agriculture committee that reversed the decision.

I don't agree. The article omitted the fact that it was lobbying by growers and a threat of legal action by the UI faculty union that forced the UI administration to reconsider closing this essential research station. Read the full version: www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/Parma.htm 

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Opinion

The U.S. leads the world in agricultural innovation primarily because of research done at the nation's land grant universities. One of the most successful experiment stations in Idaho is located in Parma, but the UI has just announced that it will be closed at the end of the year. The faculty union and growers are trying to get the UI administration to reverse this disastrous decision.

Esmaeil Fallahi, a world renowned fruit expert at Parma, is responsible for the fact that Idaho now grows Fuji apples, table grapes, and white peaches. In the recent years, hundreds of thousands of boxes of white peaches and table grapes have been shipped to Asia.

Saad Hafez, another researcher at the Parma station, brings in $500,000 a year in research and service funds for Idaho agriculture. Because of Hafez's work the nematodes that destroy Idaho crops, farmers saved $8.1 million annually over a 20 year period.

During a meeting with Parma faculty and staff on June 16, John Hammel, dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, was hammered about the closure decision and his mismanagement of the station.

Ron Mann, founder of the Idaho Table Grape Association and former advisor to President Reagan, asked Hammel why the growers were not consulted. Mann offered several viable alternatives to save money short of closing the station. In a phone conversation with Mann, he told me that the UI administration is "inept in the management of people and budgets."  

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Opinion

From 1904 to 1957 it was a tradition that every new member of Congress would receive a copy of the "Jeffersonian Bible." Judd Patton, a member of the conservative United Church of God has sought to revive this practice. Since 1997, Patton has spent $1,500 of his own money sending 753 copies of the book to members of Congress. Patton realizes that Jefferson was "not a believer in Christ," but he thinks that it is essential that America's representatives read about the moral essence of Christianity. Read the full version here. 

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On Monday, Governor Brian Schweitzer emerged from a closed-door meeting at Smurfit-Stone's Frenchtown mill, looked right into a video camera and declared, “If we can harvest 15,000 acres of the 2 million acres of dead and dying [trees] that we've got on federal land in Montana we can keep this mill open.” 

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