BOULDER, Colorado -- As their economy totters on the brink of collapse, Russia's rich and powerful apparently cannot wait for squirrels and rabbits to run out before they resort to the next vital food source - endangered species.
On January 9, a helicopter carrying eight VIP passengers, including government officials and local businessmen, on a hunting trip to the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia crashed, killing seven passengers and two of the three crewmen. It took two days for rescue workers to locate the crash site and the four survivors in the remote mountains of Russia's Altai Republic. Among the dead was Alexander Kosopkin, the presidential representative to the State Duma.
These Russian high-fliers were up to no good on their hunting trip, however. Amidst the wreckage of the Mil-171 helicopter, several carcasses of Argali bighorn sheep, an animal that is classified as endangered in Russia, were uncovered. Ironically, among the dead in the crash was Viktor Kaymin, the chairman of the department of wildlife protection and management for the Altai Republic. Pictures of the crash showing the dead animals were released to the public (photo courtesy altapress.ru), and the director of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in Russia has asked local prosecutors to investigate whether these men were engaged in criminal poaching.
The cause of the crash has yet to be determined, but investigators speculate that it may have been the result of pilot error. Russia's less scrupulous tabloids have suggested that the chopper may have been shot down by local hunters seeking revenge for the slaughtered sheep.
Itchy continues to be obsessed with America's coming day of reckoning with the Chinese, and he's sounding increasingly like George Friedman, author of the 1991 (not 1941) classic, The Coming War with Japan. But in the current scenario, the US is actually much like Japan was in the early 1990's. After seeing a massive real estate bubble collapse, Japan suffered through a decade-long recession. America runs the risk of repeating Japan's mistakes - understimulating the economy with poorly-directed infrastructure projects and failing to adequately deal with all the bad debt that banks hold.
As for myself, I am looking beyond the horizon of the apocalypse, and I am more worried about how we will survive when all of our modern technology is lost in the vortex of deflation, bank nationalizations, and deadly moth swarms (seriously, can't Liberia catch a break?). We will all have to eat endangered species.
BOULDER, Colorado -- As our country spirals deeper into recession, the delicacies that we have enjoyed over these past fat generations may be beyond our reach - beef, pork, even the lowly chicken. Instead, Americans will come to rely on small woodland rodents for their protein, and if we're lucky, we can have a horse meat steak on Christmas.
But it appears as if the foodstuff of the future is in jeopardy. Up and down the east coast, acorns have vanished, and the squirrels that depend on them are dying off in large numbers. As you can see in my neighborhood, the squirrels have resorted to eating bagels.
The squirrel population is dwindling, but so are our resources to catch them. At least, that is according to the crazy customers in the gun store where my brother works; they are all convinced that Barack Obama is poised to strip us of our right to bear arms. So, when our guns have been taken away, and the few remaining squirrels are our last hope for survival before we begin consuming the flesh of other humans, we must all learn to master the slingshot. And the master of the deadly art is Rufus Hussy of Ashboro, Indiana:
DENVER, Colorado -- During this year's interminable election season, the McCain campaign resurrected a quaint yet poisonous notion: that we live in two Americas, one of them "real," and one of them "fake." Well, this past weekend I found the real America, and it was at the National Western Stock Show, the country's largest cattle showcase that has been held at the Denver stock yards since 1906. This is the second year in a row that I have gone to the stock show, and I thought I would share some of my highlights from this year's event.
Below I have posted a video of the Hereford cattle auction we attended. The bull up for sale in the video - his name was Patton, and he hailed from the Double L Ranch in Hearne, TX - sold for $57,500, and that was just for a 50% stake in him. The consortium of buyers that bought the share ranged from Montana to Illinois to Texas, meaning this young bull (he was just over a year old) will log a lot of miles traveling across the country to stud.
I found the auctioneer's voice mesmerizing, and it reminded me a lot of some sort of Central Asian throat singing. In addition to selling bulls and cows, embryos and sperm - as well as partial shares of them - were up for auction. Genetics and scientific breeding are a major part of modern animal husbandry, but it is still fascinating to see people buying and selling genetic material and advertising their animals' sexual functions. The stock yards are plastered with fliers advertising animals and their impeccable genetics, like the "Face of Change" pictured above. Another bull up for sale at the same auction carried this description in auction booklet:
861U is a fantastic prospect for the future! He is very easy fleshing with a huge hindquarter and powerful muscle from end to end. He is very sound with 100% pigment and a large scrotum. His dam [mother] is a very efficient, productive and fertile cow with an excellent udder.
Very few animals are actually sold at the stock show. Most farmers come to Denver simply to show off their livestock and have their pictures taken, in the hope that buyers will take notice of their product. People travel from as far away as New England simply to show off their cows. Obviously, they want their animals to look good, so washing and grooming is very important; often the result is cows that resemble show dogs instead of farm animals.
After the auction, we ended the day at the rodeo inside the Denver Coliseum. The competition was good, though there were a lot of "no times" in many events we saw on that particular evening. The slack (the entertainment in between the rodeo events), however, was fantastic. Mutton busting is easily my favorite rodeo event, when four- and five-year-old children are placed on the backs of frightened sheep and forced to hang on for dear life.
But the high point of the stock show, and perhaps this entire year for me, was definitely seeing a bunch of monkeys riding dogs and herding goats into a pen. I leave you with this amazing video:
BOULDER, Colorado -- Did you know that squirrel can be a delicious and nutritious meal? No, this is not a message from the Arkansas Chamber of Commerce, but rather from the people of England, who are gobbling up the rodents in everything from stews to Cornish pasties.
Annoyed at the infestation of their country by the American gray squirrel (an invasive species), which is squeezing out their beloved native red squirrels, the Brits have decided to kill and eat the interlopers. And as part of their effort to convince you that the United States is just weeks away from complete collapse into an Omega Man-style dystopian future (or perhaps another Charlton Heston film is a more appropriate analogy - Planet of the Apes? Soylent Green?), the New York Timeswants to tell you all about this absurd new cuisine. But the reporter concludes:
One might think that because of easy availability, squirrel would be the perfect meal-stretcher for these economically challenged times, but it takes a lot of work to get the meat off even the plumpest squirrel.
Squirrel is not that hard to skin and gut, actually. As the article points out, it is important not to eat the brains, as some people down in Appalachia have contracted ailments similar to mad cow disease from them. Today my friend Tyler sent me these helpful instructions from a Russian book about how to gut a rabbit, but this method could be easily applied to squirrels or other small woodland creatures (the original is posted here):
[A method for disemboweling the carcasses of wild rabbits
1. Firmly wrap your hands around the carcass in the area of the ribcage.
2. Strongly squeeze the carcass in the direction of the stomach, lift it above your head, and with one sharp, strong motion, similar to swinging an ax, swing it downward, bringing your hands between your legs.]
As an additional step, make sure no one is standing behind you when you fling the rabbit's innards out of its anus. As Michael Moore pointed out in his film Roger & Me, rabbits are often the first victims of a recession, as they are one of the few animals that American culture finds acceptable as both pets and meat. But if you lost all of your money in a pyramid scheme, and you are forced to rely on in-home animal husbandry for both your income and your sustenance, make sure you have the proper facilities to legally slaughter, dress, and butcher your furry friends.
Finally, I recently discovered a follow-up documentary that Moore made three years after Roger & Me, which includes interviews with many Flint residents from the first film, including the rabbit lady, Rhonda Britton. The title of the film is, fittingly, Pets or Meat, and you can watch it here on Youtube.
QUECHEE, Vermont -- The turkey is in the oven, the Lions are losing 38-10, and we are all waiting for my brother - it must be Thanksgiving.
Watching Sarah Palin visit a turkey farm brought back memories of picking out a turkey for Thanksgiving as a kid. Growing up in Connecticut, the only place to buy your turkey was Gozzi's Turkey Farm, located along Route 1 in Guilford. The place was always best known for the pastel-colored birds they had roaming a pen in front of their store (pictured above). Though the birds look radioactive, Gozzi's developed one of the most delicious and popular local varieties of turkey, the Gozzi White, without the use of hormones or genetic modification. It has been a family-run business since the 1940's, and founder William Gozzi's wife began coloring the display birds during the company's early days to attract customers.
Finally, can the Detroit Lions get in on the auto industry's government bailout package?
BROOKLYN, New York -- Alaska Governor Sarah Palin can't seem to catch a break. After a vice-presidential campaign that all but the Bible-thumping-est of the GOP would rather forget, she was part of a gruesome and comical scene back in her hometown of Wasilla on Friday.
Palin came to the Triple D Farm & Hatchery to take part in an annual Thanksgiving turkey pardoning ceremony. Unfortunately, local TV station KTUU filmed an interview with her in which birds were being butchered rather unceremoniously in the background.
This latest piece of political theater got me to thinking - how exactly do you kill a turkey? The man in the background was doing his best to be discrete about the grisly deed he was engaged in, apparently unsure if he was actually being captured in the frame (though he was so confident that he wasn't, after dispatching the first fowl, he came back with a second while the interview was still going on), so I thought I would investigate the business of turkey slaughtering.
Killing a turkey is a simple process. In this case, the turkeys were being slaughtered with the aid of a device called a "killing cone," which holds the birds in place as their throats are cut. The cone prevents the turkeys from thrashing around (though as you can see, they still tend to move quite a bit) and allows the blood to drain cleanly into the receptacle beneath.
Blue Oak Ranch, an organic poultry farm in Santa Barbara, California that raises "heritage poultry" - traditional varieties of birds that have not been genetically modified - describes their "hand processing" by means of a killing cone:
A bird is placed in the cone headfirst to restrain it during the killing process. I find the killing cones especially useful for the larger turkeys. My cone is a modified road cone - I find it a better size for processing large framed birds like turkeys than the smaller metal cones available commercially. All but the largest toms can fit in a generously sized road cone! Killing cones also restrain the bird better and prevent bruising of the carcass as the bird convulses. Simply chopping their heads off is messy - blood goes everywhere and can be aspirated back into the lungs. It also makes it hard to restrain the birds, and it flopping around can bruise the meat and even break wing and leg bones in the process, leaving an unappetizing appearance.
Many companies manufacture commercial killing cones, though a traffic cone with the end cut off will get the job done just fine. For a mature turkey, a cone 20" deep and 12" across is recommended.
Before birds can be slaughtered, by law they must be stunned - supposedly a more humane killing method - either by use of an electric shock or by a swift stab to the brain. In large commercial operations, birds have their throats cut along a conveyor belt and are suspended upside down by leg shackles. They then pass through what is called a "killing" or "bleeding tunnel," which is a large metal cabinet where most of the blood is drained from the body.
Back to the Palin fiasco, the cameraman responsible for the footage claims that he asked the governor if she wanted to move so the killing cone was out of the shot, to which she responded, "No worries," and the interview went forward from the same spot.
It appears as if most of the reporting on this story is actually being done by the evening entertainment news programs. Entertainment Tonight reported that the Palin camp is denying that the cameraman asked if the governor would like to move so the butchery was not in the shot, claiming they had no idea what was going on in the background. Even the television audience can clearly hear the bird struggling in the stainless steel death chute, so Palin and her staff must have been struck by an electric stunning knife (another implement used to kill poultry) if they couldn't hear that racket.
Another of America's favorite infotainment television nightmares, Inside Edition, managed to snap up an exclusive interview with the farmhand immortally captured on Youtube, Brian Tomes. He described his valiant efforts: "I thought they had panned in on her face…I did try and block the process," adding the nonsequitur, "Don't mess with my governor!" I didn't manage to catch this program, though I usually like to catch up on my celebrity rehab stories after Jeopardy! I will venture a guess that this segment lasted approximately 11 seconds. Great reporting, as always, IE!
Of course, the American people will fall into two camps over this story. Either they will believe that Sarah Palin is again the victim of a vast liberal media conspiracy to wreck her public image, or they will believe that she is blood-thirsty imbecile who revels in watching animals twitch in the throes of death. I think she just needs to be a bit more aware of her surroundings, and she should probably fire her entire incompetent staff.
Happy Thanksgiving, America! Eat turkey and stuffing until you pass out while watching football - my game of choice this week will definitely be the Egg Bowl, Ole Miss vs. Mississippi State in Oxford.
As a couple of former reporters who worked and lived in Russia, we created this blog in response to a worrying lack of expertise and critical analysis in the reporting on Russia by the English-language press. That is why we named the blog after Walter Duranty, a New York Times reporter posted in the Soviet Union during the 1930's. He wrote glowing reports about Stalin's show trials and the disastrous collectivization drives. Somehow, these fabrications won him a Pulitzer Prize. So we try to provide our own expertise and opinions about Russia to make sure another Duranty doesn't slip through the cracks. Russia can be a disheartening place, so more often than not, you will find we divert from our original purpose to take up other subjects and causes that are of interest to us - we hope they are of interest to you, too.
These Russian high-fliers were up to no good on their hunting trip, however. Amidst the wreckage of the Mil-171 helicopter, several carcasses of Argali bighorn sheep, an animal that is classified as endangered in Russia, were uncovered. Ironically, among the dead in the crash was Viktor Kaymin, the chairman of the department of wildlife protection and management for the Altai Republic. Pictures of the crash showing the dead animals were released to the public (photo courtesy altapress.ru), and the director of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in Russia has asked local prosecutors to investigate whether these men were engaged in criminal poaching.
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