Market Troubles & Park Service Standoff

The government shut down is causing some trouble for the U.S. livestock market. The shut down has caused a disruption of data from the USDA and the livestock markets reply more heavily on that information than do the grain markets which are still trading unencumbered. Daily USDA market data is used by meat packers to determine how much they pay livestock producers for their cattle and hogs. The CME Group said if the shutdown continues, it may need to modify price settlement procedures at expiration for its lean hog and feeder cattle cash-settled futures.

House Ag Committee member Randy Neugebauer's confrontation with a Park Ranger over some veterans not being allowed past barricades at the World War II memorial has gone viral.

NEUGEBAUER: How do you look at them and deny them access? I don't get that.

RANGER: It's difficult.

NEUGEBAUER: Well it should be difficult.

RANGER: It is difficult. I'm sorry sir.

NEUGEBAUER: The Parks Service should be ashamed of itself.

RANGER: I'm not ashamed.

NEUGEBAUER: Well you should be.

Chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, Congressman Doc Hastings said it was ludicrous.

HASTINGS: The World War II is open. There's no gates around it at all normally. People can go in there 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and what this administration did - and I have to believe it's being done for political purposes, they put a barricade around an open monument.

Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Lacy Gray.

I've been told on occasion that I can be my own worst enemy. I think that can be said of all of us at one time or another, especially when it comes to our children's eating habits. We as parents often become our own worst enemy in the debate over "what to serve for dinner". Have you found yourself making two meals for dinner - one for the adults and one for the kids? Too often we feed our children something other than what we as adults are eating; either because the child has turned there nose up at what's being served, or we're afraid they'll object and we just don't want a scene at the dinner table. On those rare instances as a child, and I say that tongue in cheek, when I decided I didn't like what was being served for dinner, never mind that I hadn't even tried it yet, my parents' response was that if I got hungry enough, I would eat it. And nine times out of ten that was exactly right. Yes, children have their own individual tastes just as we adults do, but they should be required to at least try a new food item. This is how my son is raising his children and it seems to be working out pretty well. In fact, more often than not that picky eater pucker on my grandchild's face quickly turns into a sheepish "hey, that actually tastes pretty good" grin.

Thanks Lacy. That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.