Tri-State Neighbor: South Dakota Farm Newspaper

For our readers out there with Internet access, there's no doubt you've surfed news sites on the Web - including Tri-State Neighbor.

As I'm sure you've noticed, you can comment on any story instantly on most news Web sites. This provides a lively discussion for others reading the story.

It also allows readers to give their opinion on any topic no matter how knowledgeable they are about it.

For example, I was reading a story on www.abcnews.com the other day about the use of carbon monoxide in beef.

First off, I think ABC did a poor job of presenting the facts and created a state of fear with their reporting.

But that's another topic. I'd say of the 58 comments posted about this particular story, most of them have some sort of grammatical error. This drives me absolutely nuts.

Here's one example comment: “Thats sick. I think that I would got organic. I would rather look at a dull peace of meat than one that looks good but might harm my kids.”

I don't know if this person wants peace for their meat or a piece of meat. Maybe they want to go organic or get organic. Who knows?

Maybe they should invest in a dictionary since spellcheck wouldn't have even helped them in this case.

My advice to people who like to post their opinions for the world to see would be to know what you are writing before you post it so you don't look quite so dumb.

Also, from reading the comments on this particular story, I was somewhat surprised that a decent number had a good handle on beef.

Then there were the rest of the comments about vegetarianism, E.coli and 100 percent organic. I was especially disappointed with ABC's portion of the report that dealt with E.coli. Sounds like NCBA could give them a call and let them know some basics about the bacteria.

I'm glad that we have the freedom to let our opinions be known. Stories like this ABC one should give those in the beef industry a look at the American public's perception and hopefully they can use this information to better inform the consumer.

Give thanks this holiday for the freedom of speech. Be glad you live in America. And, give thanks to those who have served our country to give us that freedom. Happy Thanksgiving!

Here's a random, off-topic story from last weekend.

My dad had called earlier in the week to see what we were doing on Saturday. Nothing was the reply. Turns out, he had combined about three rounds of corn in his last field before he noticed something was wrong with the combine - it wasn't taking all of the corn off the ears.

So last Saturday, Mom, Dad, brothers, Adam and Nathan; sister, Crystal and her husband, Travis; my two friends, Laura and Ruth; and I walked the corn field picking up ears of corn. It's been many, many years since we have done that.

I think we all had a pretty good time on a wonderful weather day. The only problem was what had happened about an hour before we were going to start.

As you'll remember, I wrote about being in a hurry this harvest season about a month and a half ago. Here's the prime example of what hurrying gets you.

Brother Adam was moving the auger with his pickup. Well, apparently he didn't get it cranked down far enough and clipped an overhead powerline. Thankfully no one was hurt and they got the power turned off and then everything fixed.

I hope everyone stayed safe this harvest and we wish you the best as winter begins.

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