I asked a cow once what she thought of Ron Paul. She told me to moo-ve. I was surprised by the rude response. Looking down, however, I quickly realized that I was probably standing on her lunch. So, I moved off the patch of green grass. Then, I again asked Betsy what she thought of presidential candidate Ron Paul. Looking at me with those big brown eyes, her tail twitching, Betsy answered: "Ask the people in the house. I don't vote." 

Okay, that was a fair answer.  

People like those in the house do have an opinion about Ron Paul. Besides being generational family farmers, they are nearly fanatical about supporting Ron Paul for president. When asked why, speaking in unison, they say Paul has been attempting to protect the small farmers' rights in Congress. But protecting them from whom? 

If your holiday shopping this season finds you in a bookstore, ask for the section on presidential history and take a peek. I'll hazard a guess you'll find literally hundreds of works of presidential history, from the scholarly tomes with hundreds of footnotes to the downright silly works on presidential pets.

Now, take a moment and imagine it's 2033, and you're looking for a nice downloadable e-book history of the Clinton or Bush presidency.

"No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

- Article VI, U.S. Constitution

Growing up in the 1960s, I saw firsthand the religious bigotry that John F. Kennedy encountered over his Catholic faith.

While Ben Cohen's and Jerry Greenfield's goal of getting Iowa voters to pick a candidate in the upcoming caucus that will pledge to shift money from the Pentagon's discretionary budget towards domestic initiatives appears, at first glance, to be a noble effort towards ending unnecessary spending on defense programs that are no longer useful, one has to question how serious Cohen and Greenfield are about making these cuts a reality. (See "Guns and Butter: Can the Ben & Jerry's Founders Change Federal Spending Priorities?", River Cities' Reader issue #655.)