The Nebraska cluster of MIRA projects is about a four-hour drive from Denver airport. My last visit to that part of the country was a state technology conference sponsored by the Colorado Advanced Technology Institute in Yuma five years ago. Out of that conference came the annual Rural Telecon meetings in Aspen to which Kellogg sent numerous MIRA team members in 1998 and 1999.

Heading into Nebraska I kept listening to the AM stations targeting rural listeners. On the American Freedom Network a Christian gun show host has been lamenting the offences of the BATF, United Nations, and Washington while hawking pre-paid legal advice, herbal remedies, and books on the cultural meltdown in this country. A caller from southern Colorado objects to the host calling BATF agents "cowboys" because cowboys are good people. A Spanish language station advertises dresses for the Quincenera celebration that most fifteen-year-old Mexican girls celebrate. Ag-talk is worrying about hoof and mouth disease. The Brits are burning half of their livestock. If this hits the United States and cannot be contained, it will devastate rural America, especially the area where I am driving.