Wow, Deja Vu

<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/australia_drought_suicide_dc">Drought casts suicide shadow over rural Australia</a><br />n<br />n<blockquote>"Every day I look outside and I say to myself: 'I get so sick to death of blue sky'," wrote farmer Mick in a recent book, "Tough Times," in which 10 country men talk about their fight with depression and thoughts of suicide.<br />n<br />n"I just want to see some clouds and some rain," said Mick, who has lived on a small farm all his life.<br />n<br />n"The strain is just so constant and long and it's like someone grabbing at me by the throat and slowly choking you a bit more each day."</blockquote><br />n<br />nDamn, I know exactly how he feels, last year was the same for me and many other farmers/ranchers in Montana. I don't know what the suicide statistics are for Montana during our drought but I guarantee there were people that thought about it. They might not have acted on it but the thought was there and who's to say what is going to happen next year. One year of some moisture does not a drought break. There are a lot more smiling faces in the country but there could still be trouble down the road and then, who knows.<br />n<br />nThen check out the last section of the story.<br />n<br />n<blockquote>Drought, coupled with rapid economic and social changes in rural Australia, has seen the number of farms halved since the 1960s and those farmers left now feel abandoned, their cultural identity and national relevance questioned.<br />n<br />nDeputy Prime Minister John Anderson, himself a farmer, warns that more and more farmers are leaving the land.<br />n<br />n"If we're not careful, in 10 or 15 years' time we will have a serious shortage of farmers," said Anderson. "There's a limit to how much anyone can be reasonably expected to put up with."<br />n<br />n"There are young farmers everywhere saying, 'I don't want to give it away, but if there's no future, I'll have to'."<br />n<br />nBut as Coral Russell has found it's not that easy to walk away from a depressing dustbowl farm. "They (farms) are not selling, so you can't get out."</blockquote><br />n<br />nDoes this sound like rural Montana? It sure does to me. If you don't think so check out the series of articles in the Gazette, <a href="http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?display=modules/toc-unsettlingtimes.inc">Unsettling Times</a> to see for yourself. Kind of scary the parallels here.<br />n<br />n<b>I mean, we all have moments of deja vu, but this was ridiculous. Stanley Kubrick</b>