1998 december 03

pigs

gene took me to see babe: pig in the city last night.

i just adore that little optimistic pig, how no matter the amount of trouble he gets into he just keeps plugging away, trying to fix everything, hoping it will all come right in the end. of course the situations are at first all hopelessly muddled and then finally end crystal clear with all the deserving humans and all the animals living happily ever after. gives me a bit of hope, it does.

if babe can bring a pink poodle and a pitbull together, there may be hope for a middle east peace solution as well. too bad we can't send the pig over there to do the negotiating, accompanied by his enforcer. whatever the pig says, goes!

in an amusing turn of events, when we got home and brought in the mail, we found a catalog from the heifer project. i've put the link for the organization up top here, but in case you don't feel like surfing, i will tell you it is a charitable group that provides animals and trees to impoverished peoples the world over in an attempt to make them more self sufficient. they send cows to bangladesh to provide milk and income, geese to ghana to better nutritional intake and income through the sale of eggs and meat, pigs to the dominican republic to enable families to 'attain greater self-reliance.'

i would love to give a poor family a pig for christmas, but i don't want them to eat it. i suppose this somewhat defeats the whole purpose of the program but i have rather a soft spot in my heart for the little porkers at the moment. the brochure/catalog does say that pigs help generate income through the sale of their offspring and also from the natural fertilizer that nourishes crops and soil. no problem with that at all, no sirreebob. the part i have a problem with is the 'valuable source of protein', since i don't suppose they are going to benefit from that without first killing the piggie.

maybe if i ask very nicely, and send a little extra money along, they will let me buy three sheep and the pig. there is a program whereby you purchase a gift ark; they send all manner of mammals and birds and insects where they are needed most. perhaps i can persuade them that the sheep and the pig need to stay together. then the recipient family can train the little oinker to be a sheep pig! think of all the extra income that would provide.

come see the real life babe! the caribbean sheep coraller! come one come all, see this miracle of modern moviedom for a mere 75¢!

gives me warm fuzzies all over just thinking of it. if i had a tail, it would be curling in sheer joy.

thinking she should have a little farm, claire