What’s Next?

Over the last month it’s been tough to watch any news from around the world, and those who are in the world news business haven’t had to hunt for news lately.
Recently the world news has kind of looked like your worst week in the farm or ranch business – when you find yourself shorthanded, equipment breaks down, the creek through the place is flooding, sick animals appear from nowhere and you get a letter from the IRS stating that you owe them more money. That’s a bad week.  
I don’t want to be negative, but good news is rare worldwide. Iraq and Afghanistan have taken a back seat to the other news, which is too bad, considering American troops are still getting wounded or killed in that part of the world. Then you throw the other Middle Eastern countries into turmoil, like Syria and Yemen, and each one is a major happening. Then we have the country of Somalia, which is trying to steal everyone’s ships and hold the crews for ransom, and they’re doing a pretty good job of it. Now we have a big news story with Libya, and here they are tiptoeing around, bombing Gadhafi’s army to stop them from killing civilians and so-called rebels, where all they really have to do is bomb Gadhafi’s palaces and get rid of him. What worries us is who will take over these countries – will they be friends with America, or join those who wish to harm us?
All of this overshadows the big story worldwide – that of the earthquake and tsunami in northern Japan, where the final death toll is expected to exceed 18,000 people and the disaster has left hundreds of thousands homeless, with absolutely nothing left but debris where there used to be cities and farmland.  
One may lose their home in an average earthquake, but this one was huge, and in most places the 35-foot wall of water hit the shoreline and traveled as far as six miles inland, carrying bodies and debris back out to the ocean along with it. For someone living in Wyoming, that is hard to visualize.
Then the catastrophe gets worst. Four nuclear reactors at power plants that generate electricity for the region are located close to the ocean and were damaged by both the quake and the tsunami’s huge impacts, so now they’re dealing with a radiation issue. Only the Japanese people could cope with all of this.
Nuclear energy is a great thing for Wyoming, which is a source for uranium. I’m not sure we’re hearing the true stories about the reactors and radiation, as the press and everyone else tend to over-blow the issue when it is not so bad and understate it when it’s serious. We’ll just have to wait until it gets sorted out. Will it affect the uranium prices in Wyoming? Time will tell. We’re such a global economy now that it has to affect all nations that export or import commodities.
Say an extra prayer for these affected Japanese people. They are peace-loving and friends of America.
Dennis