Tea and Entropy

[pause] OK. From Buenos Aires, photo by Luis Alejandro Sanchez for Proyecto Cartele.

And speaking of odd signs: over on the Pit Bull Forum a Northern California writer [and old hand at pit bull rescue] posted a sign she saw on a street in her neighborhood: "Pitt Bull Pups." "Blue Nose" Pitt Bull pups, whoa! Names of two famous commercial, high-volume breeders kennels were on the sign, too. Oy. It isn't just a West Coast thing, either — you can find bad breeders from coast to coast.

"I don’t understand why, if you’re going to spend the money, you don’t do your homework and hook up with a breeder who does it right."

Over on Save the pit bull, save the world, Katie has written a terrific post on the spring crop of puppies in Central Pennsylvania, among other places:

and it’s not just the Amish who are cashing in. I can’t tell you how many clients we see with their new puppies who assure us that, even though the pup came off a farm, raised in a barn and completely unsocialized, sold the moment they reach seven weeks if at all possible, it’s okay because the breeders weren’t Amish. And, see, he’s got papers! Papers mean quality!

Right, and I'm Britney Spears. Check out the entire essay at Katie's Underdogged blog.

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The best April Fool's Day headlines belonged to The Ethicurean. From Wendy's new starling burger to Autistic livestock expert accidentally slaughtered, The Ethicurean owned April Fool's. And check out the new BBC vid:



Hat tip to Living the Scientific Life, currently at the top of the Nature Blog Network.

In other bird news [and I'm delighted this is no April Fool] the endangered red knot got a helping hand from the New Jersey governor. Read about it [and much more] on David Sibley's blog.

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Two depressing items from the NY Times. In this article, people who want a dog, sort of, but just "can’t make that kind of emotional commitment" [shudder] can rent a pet. Far from ideal from the standpoint of animal care, but doG knows being a rental item has to be better than life as a Romanian street dog. Stray dogs are being rounded up prior to a meeting of NATO leaders:

Officials will not venture a guess at the number of strays, and estimates of the semi-feral population in the local news media range from 30,000 to 200,000 dogs.

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It's National Poetry Month! Here's Meat:

My brother saw a pig root in a field,
And saw too its whole lovely body yield
To this desire which deepened out of need
So that in wriggling through the mud and weed
To eat and dig were one athletic joy.
When we who are the overlords destroy
Our ranging vassals, we can therefore taste
The muscle of delighted interest
We make into ourselves, as formerly
Hurons digested human bravery.

Not much like this degraded meat — this meal
Of something, was it chicken, pork, or veal?
It tasted of the half-life that we raise
In high bright tombs which, days, and nights like days,
Murmur with nervous sound from cubicles
Where fed on treated slop the living cells
Expand within each creature forced to sit
Cramped with its boredom and its pile of shit
Till it is standard weight for roast or bacon
And terminated, and its place is taken.

To make this worth a meal you have to add
The succulent liberties it never had
Of leek, and pepper fruiting in its climb,
The redolent adventures dried in thyme
Whose branches creep and stiffen where they please,
Or rosemary that shakes in the world's breeze.

By Thom Gunn, from his Collected Poems. Check them out.