I wish I was in the land of ... corn?

Okay, while Ohio-born Daniel Decatur Emmett, credited by most with the composition of the song known as "Dixie." wouldn't recognize those lyrics, it is what it is.

Corn is the cash crop king in the Mississippi Delta these days, adding a third "C" to the region's revenue producers. At one time, just like it says in the song, it was all about cotton ... then, catfish swam into the picture and now, corn.

Fields that not too many years ago would have produced bale after bale and left modules all along the roads, waiting to be loaded and hauled to the gins, on Saturday (May 7) had a beautiful stand of corn about three feet tall.

"Best looking corn in years," said Randy Hill as he and friend Roy Lee Cleveland prepped Good Hope Baptist Church for the coming flood. "And we've got this (the flood)."

My Daddy was a cotton farmer, managing two plantations — Red Gum, where we lived, and Good Luck, not too many miles as the crow flies from Good Hope. Daddy probably raised 2,000 acres or so of cotton, averaging better than two bales an acre with ease and as much as three bales in some years.

Daddy knew how to grow cotton — or just about anything else. Just as his ancestors had done, he watched nature's signs ... the moon, the clouds, the sunrises and sunsets. And he was successful as he grew cotton, soybeans, oats and wheat 

Nowadays, there's nothing planted that my sister and I could see as we drove down Miss. Highway 14 past Red Gum. It's more profitable, you see, to sign papers with the government promising to not plant a crop than it is to battle the bugs and the elements and the markets and imports.

In fact, harvesting subsidies is pretty darn lucrative.

It should be noted that from 1995-2009, 59 percent of all farmers in Mississippi did not receive a subsidy. However, 10 percent of the farmers received 74 percent of the total paid out in the state.

Daddy worked for the Seward's ... however it was they structured their name. Best I remember, it was Seward & Son and from 1995-2009, they received subsidies (conservation, disaster and commodity) totaling $8,620,289 (Source: Environmental Working Group Farm Subsidy Database*).

That's a lot of cotton at $750 a bale ... a lot of cotton. Another associated company, Seward & Harris Planting Co., received $8, 077,955 for not planting.

Wouldn't that make it the Seward & Harris non-Planting Co.?

We lived out from Louise, Miss., which had a 1960 population of about 475 people. It's smaller now, but nine farming companies ranking in the Top 50 subsidy recipients in Humphreys County harvested $32.8 million between 1995-2009.

Think about that.

No seed. No fuel. No equipment. No insects. No employment liability. Heck, now that the government has done away with paper checks, you don't even need a pen or deposit slip ... just a tolerance for the cha-ching of the subsidy slot machine.

* - http://farm.ewg.org/top_recips.php?fips=28053&progcode=total&regionname=HumphreysCounty,Mississippi

Help Hardee's help our troops

Now, thru May 23, you can make a $1 donation at any Hardee's or Carl's Jr. fast food restaurant that will benefit our troops and their families. In return for donating to "Stars for Troops," you will receive a coupon book with $10 worth of coupons.

Funds raised during the campaign will assist troops and their families through two programs: Homes for Our Troops and USA Cares.

As the stepdad of a soldier who has done two tours in Iraq and a third in Afghanistan while his wife and two little boys were stateside, I'd ask you to help ... besides, their biscuits and gravy's pretty good.

Remember, this program benefits those who've got our backs.

God bless.

"How high's the water, Mama?"

In 1974, Johnny Cash sang the song, "Five Feet High and Rising" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91OIaPRrDts) about flooding on the family farm.

"How high's the water, Mama?" he belted out. "Two feet high and risin," was the reply, going on up the tape until it got to five feet.

And that's kind of the case out around the Wolf Lake Community thses days, where current and former residents have been advised by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that Wolf is rising at a rate of a foot-and-a-half a day. If it stays at two-feet and doesn't get any higher, a lot of folks will breathe easier ... but five feet? That's gonna be too deep.

The irony of everything is that some folks were loaded their belongings in trailers while others on the next place down the road were putting seed in the ground. I guess they were doing that "in case" the flood doesn't come although friend Harold Horton wonders if "they're watching the news on TV?"

Last Saturday (May 7), we got a shot of the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad depot in Vicksburg, which sits outside the protection of the now-closed flood wall, and is in the process of being rennovated. As I took the picture, you could see water bubbled under a large, sqaure utility cover of some sort in the drive. On Sunday, a photo was posted on a railfan website I visit and the water was lapping at the steps of the depot.

As we drove into Vicksburg on U.S. Highway 61, we laughed about having seen this rather youngish looking ninny on WAPT-TV out of Jackson, who actually asked a park ranger at the National Military Park about the danger of the graves nearest the highway being flooded ... but we wondered about the truck after truck after truck of dirt heading north that we passed.

As it turns out, there were boils showing up along the levees in the Eagle Lake area and the dirt was being rushed out there to help secure the area. The Corps, you see, will cover the boils -- places where water seeps under the levee and starts to break through on the inside of the levee -- with the dirt, then allow water to cover the area in an effort to stop it by pressure.

Oh, back to the flooded graves question ... if that happens, nobody's going to be around to ask about the water's depth!

"The Donald's" first victim

No, it's not the president and it's not the first one who ever heard the phrase "You're fired!" on The Apprentice. It's Meredith Vieira, who announced live on NBC's Today Show this morning that she would be leaving in June "to spend more time with her family."

If she had been in the newspaper business, the line would have been "to pursue other career interests."

Poor, poor Meredith. I wonder what kind of buyout she got for her early retirement? I know, one normally doesn't get a buyout for an early retirement unless they are with a company needing to trim fat, cut expenses or get rid of overpaid 60-year-olds ... you know ... you're not dumb.

And that's the reason Meredith will get a package. It's because of her widely criticized "softball" interview with Donald Trump, where he was actually allowed to put forth his position on the president's place of birth in great -- and repeated -- detail. Viera, you see, failed to interrupt, attempt to disrupt or otherwise try to talk Trump down. Too much of a softie, I guess.

Over the next 72 hours, Trump was interviewed several more times with most being likened to the effort from CNN's Suzanne Malveaux, who was credited with "being able to battle down" the birther issue. The translation of "battle down" means to continually interrupt, ask the same question in 13 dozen different ways and to try and keep your subject from getting a word in edgewise.

While you'll not see it happen, Vieira's interview of Trump could be compared to any of Katie Couric's interviews of the president -- from his days as a candidate until now. It had the tone of talking with a second grader about the Easter Bunny ... while Ms. Couric's take on more of a tone of an awestruck teen getting to interview the Beatles for the school paper.

I hate to see Vieira go. I like her and, despite what anyone says, her interview of Trump allowed him to hammer home the birther issue to the point that it got the president off his duff and provide the document that should have been provided the first time his eligibility was raised.

Will I vote for Trump? Nah. I'm still studying the qualifications of Larry ... since Moe's in the White House and we've been talking about Curly's interview with Vieira.