Killing the messenger

Trying to Connect the Dinner Plate to Climate Change
By CLAUDIA H. DEUTSCH
Published: August 29, 2007

EVER since “An Inconvenient Truth,” Al Gore has been the darling of environmentalists, but that movie hardly endeared him to the animal rights folks. According to them, the most inconvenient truth of all is that raising animals for meat contributes more to global warming than all the sport utility vehicles combined. (read more)

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I’m a bit conflicted about this campaign. I think PETA could get the message across about the environmental impacts of global meat production without attacking Al Gore. This isn’t the first time they’ve alienated me (I quit PETA years ago when they attacked The Nature Conservancy for killing feral goats on a preserve in Hawaii).

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Factory Farm Map

Ever wondered about factory farming in your neck of the woods (or elsewhere?) Here is an interesting site with a nice web mapping application to help you find out about the impacts of factory farming anywhere in the U.S.: factoryfarmmap.org

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Noodling

I saw this article in the NY Times over the weekend and remembered a colleague telling me about this odd southern pastime.

The Catfish Are Biting (and It Hurts)

COWDEN, Ill., July 22 — Stripped to the waist and armed with nothing but his bare hands, John Burns plunged headfirst into a half-submerged hollow log in the Kaskaskia River, hoping to encounter a male catfish guarding its nest inside.

Mark Ramsey, waist-deep in the Kaskaskia River, caught a catfish with his bare hands.

 

If all went as planned, the fish would attack and Mr. Burns would grab its powerful lower jaw and, with the help of his friend Howard Ramsey, hoist it to the surface of the river, just outside Cowden.

Mr. Burns and Mr. Ramsey were noodling, or hand fishing, a popular pastime on the lakes and rivers of the Southeast and Midwest. Noodling dates to the first American Indians. Depending on who is doing it and where, it may be called hogging, tickling, grabbling or stumping.

Then, there was a whole show about it on the GA DNR spot on public television on Sunday. Maybe somebody is trying to tell me something – not sure what.

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