FiredUp Roundup: Farm life good for you, superbugs, Huron mail facility to close, education reform

A few items that might interest you today:

• Growing up on a farm is good for your immune system, according to a new study from the University of Bristol, as reported by The Rural Blog. It raises the number of T-cells a person has, which helps keep a person from developing allergies. However, your health might be compromised if the farm in question is one in which antibiotics are given to livestock in their feed, which has created antibiotic-resistant germs that can harm people. A new study shows how a Staph germ that had been treatable with antibiotics moved from humans to pigs, where it became resistant to two antibiotics, then moved back into humans. “It’s like watching the birth of a superbug,” one researcher said.
• It wasn’t too long ago that the U.S. Post Office shut down distribution work in Aberdeen, instead sending all that processing work to its new facility in Huron. On Thursday, the USPS announced that the Huron facility would also close, and that mail would instead be sorted in Sioux Falls. The processing facility in Rapid City would stay open. In North Dakota, processing facilities in Minot and Devils Lake are slated to close, but the facility in Grand Forks will stay open. ” These changes are a necessary part of a larger comprehensive plan developed by the Postal Service to reduce operating costs by $20 billion by 2015 and return the organization to profitability,” according to the USPS website.
• Don’t complain about the state of education in South Dakota, or try to offer legislative solutions, without giving specifics, argues Cory Heidelberger in an article on South Dakota magazine’s website. “So tell me: what is the problem with South Dakota’s public schools? Don’t slip into vague complaints about unions or bureaucrats or lazy teachers. Get specific. Talk about me,” writes the French teacher from Spearfish. He invites readers to go look in their own school districts to judge of they see failure or success. “[I]f you see success, if you see teachers and students busting their chops, why would you gamble that ‘success’ on ‘solutions’ from Pierre?” he asks.