News That Stays News
I was excited thinking I’d just read the best sentence that will be written all year, but it dates (by AP writer Charles Wolfe) from 1997:
Dr. Eric Weisman, a behavioral neurologist who practices in rural western Kentucky, reported in the distinguished British medical journal The Lancet that he has treated 11 people for Creutzfeldt-Jakob in four years, and all had eaten squirrel brains at some time.
The contrapuntal sequence of “behavioral neurologist”; “rural western Kentucky”; “the distinguished British medical journal The Lancet” (not to be confused with the undistinguished one of the same name); and “squirrel brains” thrills.
Via The Poorman Institute. There’s a Mike Huckabee angle.
Comment by Mona —
January 17, 2008 @ 12:09 am
Truly, I am not remotely suggesting they deserved it, but who in the hell eats squirrel brains?
Comment by Anonymo —
January 17, 2008 @ 1:06 am
Damn you cosmotarians! Yes, those of us without cushy jobs from the Kochtopus sometimes have to eat squirrel brains to get by. What of it?
But seriously, anyone doubt there’s a strong correlation between eating squirrel brains and voting for Huckabee?
Comment by Thoreau —
January 17, 2008 @ 1:07 am
Let me guess: Squirrel meat is part of the Huckabee diet plan?
Comment by Thoreau —
January 17, 2008 @ 1:08 am
Oh, and glad to see The Poor Man Institute is back!
Comment by tom moody —
January 17, 2008 @ 2:29 am
This is great–I remember that “hillbillies getting Creutzfeldt-Jakob from eating squirrel brains” story from the late ’90s. I should have immediately connected it to Huckabee. As I recall from the story (think it was the NY Times) this is an old custom and “the matriarch offers the brains to the rest of the clan who partake with spoons from the exposed cranium” or some such. Awesome.
Comment by Derek Copold —
January 17, 2008 @ 11:36 am
Laugh, but at the factory I worked at in Lufkin, TX, work all but stopped on the first day of squirrel season.
I could never understand it myself. Hell, they could go to Austin armed with nothing but a pop tart and a bat and get all the squirrels they wanted.
Comment by mds —
January 17, 2008 @ 12:04 pm
It helps to imagine Slim Pickens delivering this line.
Comment by diana —
January 17, 2008 @ 12:44 pm
Kuru is a brain disease that New Guineans got from eating the brains of their…uh, it was called “mortuary cannibalism.” I leave that to you to figure out…..
Comment by Monte Davis —
January 17, 2008 @ 1:58 pm
partake with spoons from the exposed cranium
Waitaminnit, that’s the heathen Chinee and monkey brains:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/010309.html
I’m all for globalization, but we gotta keep our urban legends straight, or mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.
Comment by dhex —
January 17, 2008 @ 3:06 pm
man that’s what motherfuckers get for eating the most hilarious creature on zod’s green earth.
Comment by Jesse Walker —
January 17, 2008 @ 3:17 pm
man that’s what motherfuckers get for eating the most hilarious creature on zod’s green earth.
They ate ERMA BOMBECK?