Mainstream media should respect farmers

On Feb. 3, I heard the best advertisement I ever heard on television on the Super Bowl, Paul Harvey said in his deep, deep voice “God looked down on the wonderful creation he had created and he made a “farmer.” He goes out before dawn and milks his cows and feeds his pigs and chickens. Then he goes out and plows a straight furrow and raises and harvests his crops to feed his animals and the rest of us all day.

Then he goes in and sits down at the table with the rest of his family, says a little prayer and eats a big meal. Then he goes out and milks his cows again. Then he goes to a school board meeting. After he goes home he goes out to the barn and helps a mare have a dead foal. He optimistically says, “Oh well next year will be a better year.” God made a “farmer.”

I don’t know what he was even advertising, unless it was milk.

My definition of a farmer is a “nature manager.”

I hear the mainstream media doesn’t think this is a very good ad, because most of the people in America live in the cities and suburbs and think “Who cares what a farmer does?”

Ample evidence shows that fracking has contaminated drinking water and polluted the environment. In Pennsylvania, we’ve seen families who — before fracking came to town — had enjoyed clean water for decades. Now that drilling has invaded their communities, their water is no longer safe to drink, cook with, or shower in. The gas industry is trying to cover up these problems, and they continue to deny the damage fracking has done. It’s clear that they have been, and will continue to be, dishonest.

Now, Governor Cuomo appears to be doing the same. The Governor proposed rules for fracking before the state has even finished studying its impacts to public health and our environment. How could we possibly know what rules are needed before we know the damage fracking will do? Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like Governor Cuomo cares. It looks like he’s in such a hurry to rubber stamp fracking that he’s cheating his own process.

Fracking in New York could mean more than just the contamination of our drinking water. It would also mean the destruction of thousands of acres of family farms and forests. Some of our most beautiful rural and natural landscapes will be leveled as gas companies reap the benefits. Governor Cuomo — do the right thing. Ban fracking in New York. State Senate serve to highlight the flawed provisions of the New York State Constitution that allow these procedures to occur.

There is in fact much in the Constitution, which was adopted in 1894 and has been amended more than 200 times since, that is obsolete, wasteful or simply unnecessary. In this time of instant electronic communication removing the requirement that all bills before the Legislature be printed would likely save the state a considerable amount of money as well mountains of paper.

Authorizations for bond issues long since repaid and land- swaps long since completed clutter up the document. Many of the verbose provisions regarding the Unified Court System could be dealt with by ordinary law.

At the same time there are items that ought to be added to the Constitution. Provisions to require fair apportionment of Legislative seats, discourage late state budgets, limit the urgent passage of bills to genuine emergencies, and prevent the imposition of unfunded mandates on localities are chief among them.

In 1997 voters of the state had a chance to call a state constitutional convention. Ostensible “good government” groups stayed on the sidelines during the campaign while the special interest groups that thrive on the current system were able to dupe voters into rejecting the proposal.

Voters get another chance to call a convention in 2017. The people of New York should begin thinking now about what the basic structure of state government should be and how they can achieve effective change.