CALF News Aug./Sept 2018

48 CALF News • August | September 2018 • www.calfnews.net  CALF HUMOR On the Edge of Common Sense With Baxter Black Civilized WHEN YOU HEAR THE WORD UNCIVILIZED , what mental picture do you form? A grizzled trapper? Atilla the Hun burning and pillaging eastern Europe? American Indians before the Puritans and the Spaniards? And when you hear the civilized what comes to mind? English barristers wear- ing wigs? Nobility dueling and drinking tea? Miss Manners? By definition civilized is described as one who is courtly, urbane, educated and refined – qualities indicative of good breeding. A King vs. a peasant. A busi- ness tycoon vs. an immigrant laborer. A professional politician vs. a cowboy. A Wall Street banker vs. an Amarillo cattle buyer. Underneath this broad definition is the implication that a civilized person has accomplished the departure from manual labor. Has removed himself from the basic requirements to feed, clothe and shelter himself with his own hands. To become civilized means no one can survive without the knowledge of how to grow a crop, build a log cabin, dress a deer, tan a hide, sharpen a knife, find water, read a sign or make a ham. Civilizations are not new. They are as old as Noah’s banker. I’m certain there were civilized people in ancient Rome who could not milk a goat or catch a fish. Why Do You Read CALF News ?  Tell us why you read CALF News ! Go to our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/#!/calfnews Kevin Hill, DVM Merck Animal Health Kaysville, Utah “I read CALF News because it is an important source of new information, especially for animal health and products. It keeps me abreast of the latest and greatest.” Is America becoming more civilized? Certainly, according to the definition, there has been a mass exodus from the country to the city. The percentage of people who make a living off the land continues to decline. And the stigma of being less civilized still applies to farm- ers, lumberjacks, fishermen, hunters, miners, ranchers and cowboys – those whose jobs require exposure to the ele- ments, manual labor and physical risk. This stigma is a benign prejudice that allows opportunists to manipulate urban opinion to our disadvantage.“Stop the mining, curtail the drilling, up their grazing fee, steal their water, condemn their land, cripple their dirty little towns. After all, they’re only peasants. Not really civilized, you know.” We fight back with righteous indigna- tion, bluster and the moral conviction that we have rights. That our cause is noble, that our labors are worthwhile for the good of mankind. We feed, clothe and shelter ourselves and our urban neighbors. So, the fight goes on. From the Ottoman Empire, through our century and into the next. And we of the land manage to cling to the outskirts of civili- zation as unwelcome but as necessary as an IV tube in the vein of a feverish man, consoling ourselves with the knowledge that we can live without them, but they cannot live without us. Being civilized has as little meaning as being polka dotted. It says nothing about the heart and soul of a man.  Being civilized has as little meaning as being polka dotted. It says nothing about the heart and soul of a man.