The drought and heat are spreading across the country, affecting almost two-thirds of it. I just returned from trips to Indiana and Kansas and the corn looks pitiful. Now Kansas is known for its wheat, not corn, and they harvested a good crop last month. But what little bit of corn I saw growing around Wichita and Salina has turned brown like it was October. And the ears, what there was of them, were puny. Indiana corn does not look much better. Soybeans and sorghum are still green, and those crops could be salvaged by a good rain.

I’m flying to Fort Worth, Texas for a meeting with hundreds of folks that work with farmers to conserve our soil and water. Fort Worth, the home of “my” old friend Amon Carter who owned the great newspaper, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. And like a lot of daily papers lately, it has gone through some tough times.

We are going through an economic slump that reminds us of the Great Depression of the 1930s. And with this drought, if it wasn’t for the changes farmers have adopted to protect their soil, we might be looking at a repeat of the Dust Bowl of the same era.

In the Presidential campaign, Mr. Obama told us last week that anyone who has a small business didn’t do it on their own, that somebody else made it happen.  That’s what he said. Well, one common way for a person to have a small business in 2012 was, about 3 or 4 years ago, to have had a big one. In that case, the President is right; it wasn’t the owner who made it happen.

Mrs. Romney has a horse, and some Democrats don’t like it. She has a couple of Cadillacs, and they don’t like that either. But here’s an oddity: if you offered a fine horse and a new Cadillac to those same critics, 99 percent of them would accept it.

Here’s my suggestion: instead of asking Mrs. Romney to give up her horse, President Obama ought to get one. Actually he should get four horses, so the whole family can ride. The grass around the White House would make a beautiful pasture. He could assign an employee from the EPA to follow the horses with a scoop shovel and wheel barrow. The little vegetable garden on the White House lawn looks a bit undernourished, and could use some fresh…uh… nutrients. You know, it’s possible that if the President spent less time sitting in a golf cart, and more time in the saddle, he would get a better perspective of where the country ought to be headed.

Historic quotes by Will Rogers:

“A man that don’t love a horse, there’s something the matter with him. If he has no sympathy for the man who does love horses, then there is something worse the matter with him.” WA #88  August 17, 1924

 “Flew through these dust storms last night with the pilot flying entirely by instruments. It’s a terrible thing, and it’s going to bring up some (peculiar) cases in law. If Colorado blows over and lights on top of Kansas, it looks kinder like Kansas ought to pay for the extra top soil. But Kansas can sue ‘em for covering up their crops.” DT #2697, March 28, ‘35