Jamie

On the rugged plain, where weightlifting and writing keep me busy. Essays on cultural analysis. Psychology rides shotgun.

[Jamie @jamilianb_]

“All the time you spend tryin to get back what's been took from you there's more goin out the door. After a while you just try and get a tourniquet on it.”

[Words of McCarthy @WordsofMcCarthy]

If you could banish the fear of death from men's hearts they wouldnt live a day.

[Brian Roemmele @BrianRoemmele]

A country store in Person County, North Carolina, 1939.

[American Cincinnatus @OregonBlueDog]

"Cowboy Heaven"

Clark Kelly Price

[Jamie @jamilianb_]

Every destruction myth is someone’s total apocalypse, bounded by the horizon of whatever world that people collectively inhabit. America, uniquely, has never produced a unified destruction myth. It has never successfully produced a unified “cosmos” to destroy until Manifest Destiny succeeded itself to death. It’s a question as to what fills that vacuum, and what “destruction” looks like to the fragmented American.

[🇺🇸🦅☠︎︎ the great value aldo raine ♘ @rev3_s]

Literally and I’m not even joking you, join the army. Knuckle down, get some discipline, some good life experience, and run it. You’ll either find your career or have a good idea for stuff after

[Meriwether Farms @MeriwetherFarms]

The harsh reality is that you will be seeing more of these New World Screwworm (NWS) confirmations every 24-72 hours for the next few months—it’s really tragic

What’s more tragic is that that USDA had plenty of time to act in the last 15 months to minimize and even prevent this crisis from unfolding —it’s just where we are

However, we stand by the assertion that there are certain actions the USG could take right now that would minimize impact, and we pray the Administration takes them as soon as possible

So we’re going to stress a few points:

1. The beef that you eat is safe. Period.
— NWS infests LIVE warm blooded animals, it DOES NOT affect raw or cooked meat
— best thing you can do right now is find a local producer and support them

2. If you are a pet owner, practice vigilant wound care
— check regularly for open wounds, doctor them, keep them covered up, especially if you spend a lot of time outdoors

3. If you are a producer, you probably already know this, keep a closer eye on your herd and keep in close contact with your vet
— we have faith that the ranching community knows their herd better than anyone else, and that they will be extra vigilant monitoring and doctoring during this crisis
— early detection and treatment is key
— your vet will have the most updated information and treatment protocols available

4. If you need help, don’t ever hesitate to reach out to us. We’re not experts, but we can do what we can to inform or point you in the right direction

We love this country deeply and hate to see it suffer, but we believe in the resilience of American people

God bless you all and stay safe out there 🇺🇸

https://t.co/UyPyogfSRN

[Blood Meridian @BloodMeridianQT]

They rode like men invested with a purpose whose origins were antecedent to them, like blood legatees of an order both imperative and remote.

[Nomadic Warriors for Pritzker⚔️ @Nomads4Pritzker]

So, I've worked in the beef industry. I have a fairly detailed knowledge of beef markets, the supply chain, parasites and parasiticides, etc. Suffice it to say, this is a nightmare scenario, but one we've known was coming since at least 2022.

New World Screwworm was eradicated from North and Central America in the mid-90's. The US gov't (APHIS) funded a program of screwworm drops, where they bred sterile males so that extant populations couldn't reproduce and move northwards. But in 2022 NWS jumped the Darien gap and started moving northwards once again. It's most likely that they came undetected on livestock brought alongside migrants fleeing political instability in South and Central America. Elon Musk/DOGE, of course, cut several monitoring programs that would have detected this exact scenario. The screwworm drops are still funded, but the monitoring programs are what have been cut - a stupid move if there ever was one.

A serious Central/South America policy would have worked hand-in-hand with CA/SA governments to help contain this, but we've never had a serious policy towards South America, not during the Biden years, and especially not under Trump. The USDA broke ground on a sterile screwworm facility in Texas... last month. I worry it's too little, too late.

Screwworm is so dangerous because, unlike other fly larvae, they lay eggs and feed on living flesh. So something like a small scratch (or even bug bite) can quickly becomes infested, and the larvae will burrow into the flesh, growing the wound and attracting more screwworm. They don't only parasitize cattle, but will also feed on wildlife, domestic pets, even humans. Since they have detected screwworms in domesticated cattle right now, it's likely that there is a wild reservoir as well. We can quarantine herds and pets, but we can't quarantine deer and armadillos. They will move, and so will the NWS.

Under normal circumstances, cattle are moved around - a lot. Calves will be sent to stockers through their adolescence, then shipped to feedlots for finishing. A lot of calving operations (like 70%) are small, and small-time producers don't always catch parasite infestations. Cattle moved in-state don't require a certificate of veterinary inspection, so it's easy for an infested animal to be moved without being noticed. Animals crossing state lines do need a CVI, but Texas has such an enormous cattle population (something like 13 million head) that as goes Texas, so goes the nation.

Fortunately, we have a lot of drugs that treat NWS. The FDA has issued several emergency use authorizations in the last year or so. But every input raises the price of beef, and treatment only makes a difference if producers catch an infestation early. If an infestation spreads unnoticed on a large feedlot, it can hit hard, both in terms of cattle that have to be killed, and treatments that then have to be deployed. Producers will spend days at a time running cattle through the chute, inspecting them and applying parasiticides. It costs a lot of money, which is then passed on to the consumer.

What does that mean for you? Beef is a commodity, and just because there's no NWS up here in Illinois doesn't mean that prices won't skyrocket - and they will skyrocket. US herd size is already at record lows, and this will result in culls. Consumer prices also run 18-24 months behind, which means that shocks to the supply chain now are still going to be felt by consumers in 2028.

It's hard to say if our government will be able to muster an effective response - though I don't trust our current administration, which can't even throw a 250th anniversary party, to be able to deal with an ecological issue of this magnitude. It doesn't help that our current USDA secretary is a lawyer and think-tank creature. I don't much trust the state government of Texas either. The industry has also taken the workforce of large animal veterinarians for granted - a monopoly/market power issue that I just can't get in to here.

For me, it comes back to our federal government having an incoherent policy on Central and South America. We knew what was coming, we know what's going to happen, but we cut the program meant to prevent this scenario. Instead of taking those countries seriously as partners, the government has been stupid and domineering.

Here's the kicker: this is what the industry voted for. They might scream, they might get bailed out, but all that means is that you, the consumer, are going to be paying more for beef, plus whatever bailout gets shoveled their way. Until the industry accepts that they are part of a larger system; that they cannot eternally privatize the gains and publicize the losses of beef production; that they need to consider sustainability and stewardship in the management of their operations, this is only going to keep happening. Eventually, they may find that there is very little goodwill for them among the public, and people will decide that a Brazilian ribeye tastes just as good as one from Texas.

[Jamie @jamilianb_]

The most balanced stage of society seemed to be when wooden shacks met the still-green soil, when man had not yet learned to live at a distance from himself, when the land was still spoken to. It’s easy to fall into the despair of “modern society and its consequences,” but it may simply be a philosophical difference between the man of the East and the man of the West. One still holds some innate aristocratic air about him, accustomed to the refinement of Europeanism. The other is still grappling with his “descent,” and a far more recent one at that. It may all be conjecture, or something deeper altogether.

[Echoes of War @EchoesofWarYT]

“Cowboys seated around chuckwagon at campsite.” Belle Fourche, South Dakota. Taken in 1887.

[Things From the Past @pastarchive]

Gunnar Kaasen, a Norwegian musher and his lead dog Balto, who delivered diphtheria antitoxin to Nome, Alaska, saving the city from an epidemic, 1925.

[cinesthetic. @TheCinesthetic]

No Country for Old Men (2007) ending with Sheriff talking about his dreams instead of resolution is exactly why it lingers. That monologue about his father waiting ahead in the darkness turns the entire film into something existential by the final minute.

[Echoes of War @EchoesofWarYT]

Comanches chasing bison, painted by George Catlin. Bison were the primary food source for the Comanche.

[Echoes of War @EchoesofWarYT]

Three mounted Comanche warriors, left, Frank Moetah. Photo by James Mooney, 1892

[Bandy @bandy1803]

The Duel, Charles Schreyvogel, c.1900

[Echoes of War @EchoesofWarYT]

Comanche warrior Ako and horse. Photo by James Mooney, 1892

[Barbarian Herodotus @BBHerodotus]

The Buffalo Signal
-Frederic Remington

[Echoes of War @EchoesofWarYT]

A view of a burned out O.K. Corral in 1882

[Bandy @bandy1803]

Battle of the Rosebud, Bernard Preston Thomas, c.1965

The mural hangs in the saloon of the Sheridan Inn - Sheridan, Wyoming.

Photo: Joel Sartore