Chicken captured near secure Pentagon area

An avian intruder was nabbed near the Pentagon early Monday morning. The chicken was intercepted and captured by security forces. Defense Department officials denied the feathered interloper intended harm to Colonel Sanders, and called any links between Chicken Kiev and the Ukraine crisis pure speculation.

The furtive fowl was tentatively identified as a Rhode Island Red, but communist ties are not suspected. Predatory poultry has been increasingly responsible for rogue incidents of urban terrorism over the past decade, as growing numbers of likely recruits have roosted in backyards across America, and are egged on by bandit bird ringleaders.

More:

“Chicken captured near secure Pentagon area,” Martin Weil, Washington Post

“The Inside Story of Pentagon Chicken’s Capture,” Tori Bergel, Washingtonian

______________
Shortlink: https://wp.me/p6sb6-yJp

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Backyard Chickens Spread Salmonella

Backyard chickens rule the roost at local regulation hearings, and designer coops and exotic chickens are the new status symbols. The media and Web may abound with pictures of cute kids cuddling hens, but pet family fowls are not an unmixed blessing:

“As of September 23, 2014, a total of 344 persons infected with the outbreak strains of Salmonella Infantis, Salmonella Newport, or Salmonella Hadar have been reported from 42 states and Puerto Rico.

31% of ill persons have been hospitalized, and no deaths have been reported.

Epidemiologic, laboratory, and traceback findings have linked this outbreak of human Salmonella infections to contact with chicks, ducklings, and other live poultry from Mt. Healthy Hatcheries in Ohio.

78% of ill people reported contact with live poultry in the week before their illness began.”

— “Multistate Outbreak of Human Salmonella Infections Linked to Live Poultry in Backyard Flocks,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

More:

“Backyard Chickens: Cute, Trendy Spreaders Of Salmonella,” Nancy Shute, NPR

 __________________

Short link: http://wp.me/p6sb6-jZa

Image from the National Nursery Book

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Add to: Facebook | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumbleupon | Reddit | Blinklist | Twitter | Technorati | Yahoo Buzz | Newsvine

Urban Eggs

Backyard Chickens are the new status symbol in hipster neighborhoods and upscale suburbs, a way to have pretty feathered pets and go green with local, fresh organic eggs. What’s not to like? Okay, aside from the noise and the odors and the expense and the cats and the authorities and the parasites and the thieves and  Avian Flu?

Plenty.

Chickens Rule!

Great cover story in the current Smithsonian magazine:

“How did the chicken achieve such cultural and culinary dominance? It is all the more surprising in light of the belief by many archaeologists that chickens were first domesticated not for eating but for cockfighting. Until the advent of large-scale industrial production in the 20th century, the economic and nutritional contribution of chickens was modest.”

— “How the Chicken Conquered the World,” Jerry Adler and Andrew Lawler, Smithsonian

___________________

Short Link:  http://wp.me/p6sb6-dcy

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Add to: Facebook | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumbleupon | Reddit | Blinklist | Twitter | Technorati | Yahoo Buzz | Newsvine

Sue Lowden’s chickens come home to roost.

Sue Lowden, former state senator and state Republican Party chairwoman, lost the Nevada Republican senatorial primary to the toast of the Tea Party,  Sharron Angle, a former Nevada state assemblywoman. Ms. Angle bucked the trend in other states, where insiders won primary battles. but this was no ordinary race. Nevada is a conservative state with legal prostitution and gambling, the highest percentage of foreclosures in the nation, and massive unemployment. It also had Ms. Lowden, whose idea of health care reform is bartering chickens for medical services, and Ms. Angle, funded by the national Tea Party Express.

Rogue Urban Chickens Terrorize USA!

Peaceful poultry lovers in the Urban Chicken Movement seek regulations permitting backyard fowl raising, but some activists are takin’ it to the streets. Hell-raising hens are on the loose across the country.

Radical movements flourish on college campuses, and this one is no exception. Emulating an extremist indigenous group at Harvard, a rogue chicken staged a lengthy occupation at Concordia University Chicago.  Known only by the code name “Rocky,”  the elusive avian anarchist was finally subdued and brought to a detention camp in Palos Park, Illinois for waterboarding  fricaseeing interrogation.