By now the hue and cry have died down, and the name of California Chrome – this year’s threat to win the Triple Crown of horse racing – is written in the books as a gallant and courageous near-miss.

If there is any good to come out of Cliven Bundy’s embarrassing standoff with the Bureau of Land Management in Nevada, it would be the broader awakening that the Endangered Species Act has become an anvil around the neck of today’s farmer and rancher.

Maybe it was the appealing price on sale. Perhaps it was the perception of “organic antioxidant” food being healthier for me. Or could it have been the nice picture of robust and juicy Oregon berries on the package?

The national news media apparently have the American public convinced that a confrontation boiling over in the Nevada desert between ranchers and the feds actually reflects the hostility between all cattlemen and the government.

Being a political junkie, I’ve been relatively torn between fascination and dismay when studying the results of the most recent presidential election.

When an audience member at National Cattlemen’s Beef Association convention asked McDonald’s Bob Langert what the biggest threat is to the company’s viability, he didn’t struggle for an answer.

American snowboarder Kaitlyn Farrington, a Hailey, Idaho native raised on a cattle ranch in nearby Bellevue, won the gold medal in the ladies' snowboard halfpipe Wednesday.

This month marks the return of the Winter Olympic Games, to be held this year in Sochi, Russia – a resort town I’ve neither visited nor learned to properly pronounce.

The beef industry will open 2014 with an unprecedented wave of good news that should bode well for the next few years. The key question remains whether cattle producers stand prepared to seize the opportunity before them.

The animal rights movement in the U.S., funded heavily by entertainment moguls, actors and performers, does a good job of demonizing agricultural practices that are deemed abusive by outside parties. But what about when the abusive patterns are fostered by Hollywood?