The Prairie Panicle No. 21
A monthly report from West of 98
Welcome to West of 98! In addition to my weekly essays, I write a mid-month newsletter called The Prairie Panicle. It summarizes my writing over the previous month and offers additional reading/listening/watching recommendations that strike my mood in the moment.
Maycember Meets Summer
“Maycember” is a phenomenon of which I was mostly unaware until having school-age children. Then, without warning, it hits. The last month of school is filled with just about as many special programs, parties, and other events as the Christmas season. I saw the “Maycember” line used this year and it fits. It’s used partly to describe the harried busy-ness of the season, which can be exhausting to everyone involved (especially teachers and school personnel!) Yet, it’s also a reminder of something special. Our children are only five years old once, then six, then seven, and so forth. As much of a hassle as it can be to leave work, reschedule meetings, or do the other necessaries for “Maycember” activities, quality time with our children or supporting them is one of the most important things that we can do. And in the harried moments, it’s important to remind ourselves of it. That overflowing email inbox (yes, I’m talking about mine) will wait.
As Maycember turned to summer, my publication schedule has slowed. My writing time has been cannibalized by other things in life, from family time to mayoral duties to an overflowing to-do list at the law office. I’m giving myself some grace and I thank my readers for your patience if you’ve noticed a weekly email missing here and there. Look for it to pick back up in the summer and into the fall. I have some exciting writing plans in the work and I need to fully apply myself to bring them to life. When I do, it will be worth it.
What I’ve Written
Like I said, it’s been a short month since the last Panicle. We celebrated Memorial Day in Stamford with our second Decoration Day ceremony. It built on last year’s event and in this newsletter, I reflect on the nature of such an occasion.
For National Prairie Day, I re-published my essay from 2023 on that topic, with some of my thoughts on the complex prairie ecosystem and its unique influence on the lives of those who are shaped by it, myself included.
Online Reading
Organized crime is fully sanctioned in America. That’s my takeaway from the initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange by JBS, the world’s largest meatpacker. Don’t just take it from me, check out this headline (and informative primer) from Forbes, hardly a bastion of anti-capitalist thought: “Despite A History Of Bribery And Corruption Among Top Shareholders, The World’s Largest Meatpacker Prepares To Go Public.”
My thoughts on concentrated power in the meatpacking industry are no secret. The topic is a critical component of my letter to Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins about the future of agriculture. The top 4 meatpackers control over 70% of the beef processing in America and JBS is the largest of the lot. JBS also owns Pilgrim’s Pride, one of the four companies that controls over two-thirds of the chicken processing capacity in America. We need to bust up the companies that are strangling American farmers and ranchers with their monopolistic and often outright corrupt business practices. Instead, we’re enabling their leadership to get wealthier with American capital.
Theodore Roosevelt felt the way I do. When he instructed Attorney General Philander Knox to sue the “Beef Trust” in 1902, the top six meat packers controlled approximately 50% of the national meatpacking volume. In other words, the United States government broke up a conspiracy of meat packers that has substantially less market power than today’s meat cartel. You should read about Swift & Co. v. United States. It’s an incredibly important case in the annals of history and it’s time for us to bring that energy back to America.
Steely collects fascinating Southern literary history at his Substack “Folk Chain of Memory,” including exploring many rare and forgotten works. I’ll credit for sharing Chase’s work a while back and bringing him to my radar. Chase is also a great follow on Twitter. I’ll let his Twitter description introduce this piece that he re-shared for Father’s Day today:“Marion Montgomery writes a letter to his son at the beginning of his senior year as an exchange student in Germany. Montgomery links the most fruitful minds of Western Civilization to a garden-grown cantaloupe shared with his son on a truck tailgate.”
Book Recommendation
I’ll finish the final chapters of The Time It Never Rained as soon as I publish this newsletter. I’d forgotten how gripping and heart-wrenching it is. I need to write a full essay on it, because I am only starting to reckon with how it has helped shape my worldview, even though I haven’t read it in a few years.
This month’s recommendation is for a book set to be published in September 2025. It is only available for pre-order, but I cannot recommend enough that my readers get on the list for delivery. I’ve highlighted
in this newsletter before and linked his newsletter. His work on the idea of “The Machine” is incredibly important to me and his book on the topic is imminent. Here’s the description:“Against the Machine is an account of the technological-cultural matrix enveloping all of us. The culmination of two decades of my writing and thinking about technology, culture, spirituality and politics, it seeks to offer an insight into how the techno-industrial culture that I call ‘the Machine’ has choked Western civilisation, is destroying the Earth itself, and is reshaping us all in its image.
From the First Industrial Revolution to the rise of artificial intelligence, this book shows how the hollowing out of humanity has been a long game—and how our very soul is now at stake. Against the Machine is the spiritual manual for dissidents in the technological age.”
You can pre-order it through Paul’s website.
Wendell Berry Read of the Month
“Stupidity in Concentration” is an essay written in 2002 that opens with the following sentence: “My task here is to show the great stupidity of industrial animal production.” Wendell Berry has never been one to beat around the bush. It’s a great read about the economic futility of concentrated animal operations, which becomes more pertinent in that some view this as the model for all of agriculture. That should trouble and concern us all. Berry writes, “it ought to be obvious that in order to have sustainable agriculture, you have got to make sustainable the lives and livelihoods of the people who do the work.”
This essay is not available online in its full text, but I recommend the essay collection “Citizenship Papers,” which is available in both paperback and ebook format at Bookshop.
Listening Recs
The new-to-me “Yeoman” podcast has a great interview with my friend Lenny Wells aka “The Orchard Keeper.” It’s a fascinating discussion about his journey through life as a horticulture professor, extension specialist, pecan expert, and pecan farmer. He also details some experiences in rural Spain that provide an interesting comparison to rural life in America.
If you missed it last month, I appeared on The Rural Impact podcast to discuss my writing at West of 98 and my opinions about rural America. Check it out!
Support Your Local Bookstore
Heart of the South Crafting Co. is Stamford’s newest bookstore. Recently, I was in the market to buy a couple of new books and add them to my to-read pile. On a whim, I sent a message to the owner Kaitlin to see if she could get them. They were both somewhat obscure, so I was elated to discover that I could get them both and keep this money at home. I hope to do more of that in the future. I hope you do too, with your local bookstore, or if you don’t have one, support ours!
West of 98 Store
I just picked up some great commissions at Bookshop.org, thanks to some generous book shoppers! Any purchase at Bookshop supports independent bookstores instead of the Amazon leviathan, but if you purchase through my West of 98 bookstore. I receive a small commission that goes towards this humble project.
James Decker is the Mayor of Stamford, Texas and the creator of the West of 98 website and the Rural Church and State and West of 98 podcasts. Contact James and subscribe to these essays at westof98.substack.com and subscribe to him wherever podcasts are found.
Thank you for the kind words. Alan Cornett is a good man.