News of the day

Thursday, May 1, 2008
CNN Student News Transcript: May 2, 2008

Getting Creative

AZUZ: It's really hard to be a good sport about this. You're not seeing things. That's four dollars per gallon for gas. It's on the high side, but the national average isn't far behind; the price of regular unleaded has increased for 17 straight days. All of us who drive are feeling it. This is part of the reason why a couple presidential candidates are calling for a gas tax holiday. Hillary Clinton and John McCain want to suspend the federal charge that comes with your fill-up over the summer. But Barack Obama is against this. He says the move won't really have much of an impact on people's wallets. In the meantime, some people are coming up with creative solutions to work around those increasing fuel costs. Dave Jordan of affiliate KWTV shows us how one farmer is going old school.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LONNIE SHOCKLEY, FARMER: Easy! Come here!

DAVE JORDAN, KWTV REPORTER: It looks like a scene out of the old west...

SHOCKLEY: Get up!

JORDAN: A farmer plowing his land with two mules.

SHOCKLEY: This sets the depth of it, how deep you're gonna plow. And this puts them both in gear in the ground.

JORDAN: But Lonnie Shockley is using this tried and true method to save some cash.

SHOCKLEY: The cultivation would take about 4 or 5 gallons probably with a tractor, but I can cultivate it in a day's time with my mules.

JORDAN: Four or five gallons of diesel fuel at a rate of 4 dollars a gallon: not a lot of money initially, but it tends to add up. Which is why he temporarily gave up the tractor to use Becky and Connie for this 6-acre spread. But some of his land isn't being farmed at all.

SHOCKLEY: I've turned a lot of my farmland into grass, so I don't have to farm it. And just run cattle on it. That way I don't have to plow it, grain to it, drill it, sow wheat to it or whatever I want to plant.

JORDAN: Shockley has planted about 60 acres of wheat, and while the price on that crop is up, there's little effect on his bottom line.

SHOCKLEY: By the time you figure out how much the gas and fuel and parts and everything, it don't offset it that much.

JORDAN: So for now, this retro yet radical way of cultivating will have to do.

SHOCKLEY: Nothing like plowing corn on a windy day!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Save some cash on gas - take the bus or walk as often as possible. It's about time we turn oil into a public domain and take it out of the hands of oil barons. I'm curious to see what new inventions actually make it into production. A friend of mine was telling me that a carburetor was invented 30 years ago that would increase mileage to double what it is now. The oil companies bought the patent and put it on ice. No one was going to interfere with their profits. Now that is stupid. And greedy.