This is the season of distractions. Sunny, warm, spring weather is certainly one distraction. We would all rather be outside enjoying the weather than just about anything else. And then there is that other March distraction – tournament basketball. Well, whatever your distraction, here are a few key news items you may have missed. Actually, you missed them because the media never reported on them. In some cases that was because they are not really news but in other cases because they do not fit into the media’s preconceived ideas of what news should be.

For example, the flawed and inaccurate study that suggested that if you eat meat you will die got plenty of press, but the fact that the President served bison at a state dinner did not. Mrs. Obama gets lots of media attention when she talks about fruit, veggies and eating local. Foodies fawn over her when she serves guests at the White House things grown in the White House garden. But the American buffalo took center stage at a high profile state dinner last week.

As President Obama hosted British Prime Minister David Cameron at the White House on last week, the two world leaders and their invited guests enjoyed a main course featuring Bison Wellington with Red Wine Reduction, French Beans, and Cipollini Onion. White House Supervising Producer Stacia Deshishku said, “The Main Course, Bison Wellington, is a perfect pairing of U.S. and U.K. cultures. The Wellington is a classic English dish given an American twist with the use of buffalo tenderloin.” Dave Carter, executive director of the National Bison Assoc., noted, “The White House knows that there is nothing better than bison when entertaining close friends and important guests. The selection of Bison Wellington demonstrates the versatility chefs enjoy when cooking with this uniquely American product.”

The March 14 event is not the first time that bison has been featured as the main course at a White House State Dinner. President George W. Bush served bison at a State Dinner for Mexican President Vicente Fox in 2002. I wonder when the last time veal was served at the White House.

Here is another food story you may have missed, but the folks at Consumer Freedom.com did not. “The United Nations has a bureaucrat with the title Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food, currently Belgian Olivier De Schutter. This might seem like the name of a mostly harmless office trying to reduce world hunger through aid, but if a late December report is any indication, the office wants state control of food. Not to ensure that people aren’t starving, mind you, but to take control of over 6 billion diets.

The report called for “fat taxes, food-ingredient regulations and advertising crackdowns.” The U.S. food police feel everyone has a right to have food, but how they define that right is what is scary. It’s not just having enough calories to eat, it’s having an “adequate diet providing all the nutritional elements an individual requires to live a healthy and active life, and the means to access them. States have a duty to protect the right to an adequate diet.”

My only solace here is that the UN is one of the most ineffective organizations in the world.

When Illinois lawmakers failed to protect farmers from frivolous lawsuits by passing legislation requiring actual proof of a problem, the activists shouted with glee. They hailed the so called “Ag Gag” bill as a victory. The fact that both Indiana and Iowa lawmakers passed such legislation did not make the headlines. So, expect a mass migration of high priced attorneys from Iowa and Indiana into the Land of Lincoln to harass CAFOs and other large farming operations with frivolous lawsuits.

And, finally, a livestock tragedy that for some reason just never got front page coverage. Til, a baby rabbit was born without ears three weeks ago in a small zoo in Limbach-Oberfrohna in Saxony, eastern Germany. Earless rabbits are very rare, and that factor combined with its cuteness had made it a media celebrity, especially in Germany, which has a history of worshipping furry baby animals. But tragedy struck last week. While the rabbit was being filmed by a news team, the cameraman stepped on it by mistake. The bunny didn’t suffer, said the distraught director of the zoo in Germany who had hoped to turn the rare rabbit into a media star. Til’s body will now be frozen while zoo officials decide whether to have it stuffed. Just goes to show how dangerous the news media really is.

The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with comments for Gary Truitt may write to him in care of this publication.