First Pick

Notable Quotes …

… And a milkshake cup full or them.

By Henry Gantz
hgantz@meistermedia.com

“Even today, when I hear the Swingin' Medallions sing ‘Double Shot of My Baby's Love,’ it makes me want to stand outside in the hot sun with a milkshake cup full of beer in one hand and a slightly-drenched 19-year-old coed in the other.” -- Lewis Grizzard

I saw the Swingin’ Medallions once upon a time with my ex-wife in tow. We tied the knot when she was a slightly-drenched 19-year-old coed. We cut the knot years later, but it wasn’t because of the Swingin’ Medallions or a lack of milkshake cups full of beer. That much we had in common.

Okay, and on to the point of today’s exercise: Grizzard’s quote got me to thinking: When was the last time I heard a really great quote, good or bad? So I thought I’d dig around:

• William B. “Bill” Dunavant, III, writes in the May issue of Cotton Grower, “This may sound a bit crazy coming from a cotton trader, but I do not care what the world’s farmers plant, so long as they make money, retire debt and become more viable agribusinesses.”
  
  Not crazy at all, and I’m with him all the way. The problem with cotton right now is that there’s too much of it, and acreage reductions had to happen. But here’s where acreage reductions could get interesting: In India and China, Dunavant goes on to write, cotton acreage is about to give way to food crops. India will go from a net exporter to a net importer in the not-so-distant future. Available acreage to meet that demand is essentially limited to the U.S. and Brazil.
  
  With financially fit U.S. growers – flush with profits from grains – the opportunities for them to regain the throne as the world’s premier suppliers of cotton looks eminent.
  
  
• In London’s Telegraph, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writes, “Hedge funds played their part in the violent rise in spot prices early this year. To that extent they can be held responsible for the death of African and Asian children.”
  
  I suppose he’s saying hedge funds caused starvation. First, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard should be an expert on childhood pain. With a name like that, I’m sure he’s somebody’s whuppin’ boy. Second, what about African and Asian adults? Why were they exempt? Third, wheat and soybeans stocks were critically low before hedge funds sent the markets into a tizzy. And forth, hunger is a terrible thing, but not the fault of hedge funds.
  
  I also expect Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is taking a shot at American corn growers and the ethanol craze. But what Ambrose Evans-Pritchard needs to understand is that very little of our domestic production is exported. The West Africans blame U.S. cotton for their government-imposed problems. We are such easy targets.
  
  
• U. S. Senator Phil Gramm (D-TX) said, “Half the world does not know the joy of wearing cotton underwear.”
  
  And nowhere near half the world knows the pleasures of the Swingin’ Medallions, milkshake cups full of beer and slightly-drenched 19-year-old coeds. Is this a great country, or what?