A little time to reflect during calving season

February and the babies are coming, the babies are coming! There are two so far. One a frisky little black calf, jumping, twisting, running around days old. The other so fresh will wait until the end of writing this before checking on it out there by the pole barn. More will be coming. February is our official start of calving season. A heifer dropped hers a few days early but this second calf came as scheduled. The rest are bidding their time. Maybe waiting for a special occasion like President's Day to drop theirs.

Feb. 12 is Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin's 200th birthday. Also the day in 1999 when the U.S. Senate acquitted President Clinton of lying under oath and obstruction of justice in the Lewinsky case. And the same day in 1909 when the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, NAACP was founded. Gathered this information while waiting for calves to be born. During the day waiting is spent between checking new babies, feeding cows, cleaning ditches, burning brush, mending fences but at night reading passes the time.

Reading the Miami Herald there was story about a Gallup poll in 2008 stating two-thirds of Republicans reject Darwin's theory of evolution while a majority of Democrats and independents accept it. Another article stated a December 2008 Harris poll indicated more people believe in a devil, hell and angels than in evolution. NPR had a story about a privately funded creationist museum in Kentucky that opened in 2007 promoting the idea that the world is only 6,000 years old as a literal interpretation of the book of Genesis. Something's wrong in this information and Lincoln would not like it.

The Smithsonian states there is no written record to indicate Lincoln ever wrote an opinion on Darwin's theory of Origin of Species. But in Lincoln's biography written by his law partner William H. Herndon, Herndon states Lincoln read a book anonymously published in Scotland 15 years before Darwin published his Origin of Species on the same topic and "warmed to it his whole life."

Lincoln expressed, "The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to long complicated statements of Christian dogma."

What has happened to Lincoln's party and Darwin's supporters in 200 years?

In lighter reading, magazine articles question if black rappers will change some of their themes now that The Man, who is suppose to be the cause of their misery, is a man of color. The NAACP has moved forward in its 100 years.

The Monica Lewinsky issue with the 1999 US Senate was a waste of legislative time and talent. This public would be better served if today's Senate would stop nationalizing debt of companies who have selected poor business models unfit for survive into the future. Allowing some natural economic consequences will be painful. But reinvesting in the American worker, rebuilding our nation's infrastructure, up grading schools and streamlining taxes will let us continue to grow into one of the most exciting evolutionary stories of our time.

Reading can sure rile up a body late at night. Helps keep the blood flowing while searching dark fields for newborn calves.

n Marie Johnson is a Carson Valley rancher. Her column appears monthly in The Record-Courier.