Of mice and men Friday open thread

I am more convinced of the existence of synchronicity, because as the Weiner gate storm was unfolding, there were news stories like this, that I put below the fold.

They are about the excitement of archeologists discovering sacks of human excrement discovered under the ancient Roman city of Herculeum. While the title sounds like their find was pre-bagged, reading the article makes it seem like 'sack' is actually a measure for human excrement. I have the urge to sing "99 sacks of .... on the wall' but that is probably just me.

This Daily Mail article has great pictures, but I'm sure that among the archeologists excited about digging into the past, there must be one who was thinking 'I bankrupt myself to get a PhD in archeology and for what? To be digging in people's...' On the other hand, the article has this appeal from one of the project leaders:

'We have only scratched the surface and have hundreds of bags left to go through and are offering people the chance to come and help us sieve through the poo and help us in the project.'

Many of the stories mention Romans eating dormice, and one story specifically said 'edible dormice'. Wikipedia hits the spot with this article about 'edible dormouse'. The Wikipedia article notes this:

It was farmed and eaten by the ancient Romans (usually as a snack), hence the word edible in its name.

I wondered on the unfairness of having the adjective edible right in your name and wondered if and why other mice were somehow inedible when synchronicity struck again, offering up this article about eating field mice in Vietnam. I love the first sentence:

As a matter of fact, field-mouse is a popular and attractive dish, which is considered as a specialty of hick towns.

from http://vntourism.info/cuisine/enjoying-dishes-field-mice.html

So an open thread about mice, men and poo sieving or anything else on your mind.

Comments

[joel hanes]

In one memorable chapter of Never Cry Wolf, the author Farley Mowatt (a Canadian wildlife biologist living alone in a tundra camp, studying wolf and caribou biology) notices that the wolves seem to fatten all summer on an almost-exclusive diet of mice. In the spirit of experimentation, he resolves to follow suit to see if humans, too, can live on mice.

[Slartibartfast]

I make a mean weed rat stew, you know.

[JanieM]

Taking it in another direction, Ben Kilham in Among the Bears writes about bears eating scat (from deer or moose in this case), asking, "Was deer scat a source of nutrition, or were the cubs benefiting from the organisms that help dissolve cellulose in a deer's digestive tract, or both?"

Dogs do it too, not to mention how much some of them love to roll in it.

Great book, by the way.

[hairshirthedonist]

The field mice reminded me of the muskrat some of the locals would bring in to work for lunch when I worked at a nuclear plant in deep southern NJ. In fact, the field mice look better.

After a quick google, I found this, just to prove it to those of you who don't know about the very rural parts of New Jersey south of the Philadelphia suburbs.

[Slartibartfast]

Great. Now I have this song going through my head.

[johnw]

Please tell Ms. Thompson I'll be delighted to help once the poo is in an acceptable form, like coprolite. I'm willing to wait while nature takes its course.

[JanieM]

Friday open thread, now for something completely different:

New York State comes on board. More than 10% of Americans now live in states where gay couples can get married.

No shit.

[JanieM]

Ooops, sorry, forgot the posting rules. Someone feel free to go substitute an exclamation mark for the "i" in that last word. I got carried away, what with the subject of this thread and the excitement of the moment.

[johnw]

JanieM, I do hope the part of your post that used a word that was on-topic is allowed. Certainly it is easy to get carried away in the excrement of the moment...I mean...

[bob_is_boring]

Slarti,

I was sure we were on the same page, but instead of that song I was thinking of [passively] this one.

(Oh feeble html skills, don't fail me now...)

[hairshirthedonist]

I sincerely apologize to Slart. I would never intentionally do that, even to my worst enemy - um, not that I'm saying you're my worst enemy.

I would also like to thank bob for teh awesome. I love the sound of Sabbath in the morning.

[Countme-In]

Schmoe Lame in a diary-ia at Redrum is on about John Lennon being a Ronald Reagan afficianado before the Second Amendment lover got him.

Lame goes with info from "loyal" Lennon aide Fred Seaman.

This Fred Seaman: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2002/sep/28/arts.artsnews

Republicans now emulate John Wayne Gacy AND Fred Seaman.

Now, I've no doubt that Martin Luther Lennon, as Paul McCartney once called him (the Beatles were funny even when pissed, unlike the humorless gets infesting us now) might have gone off occasionally about his "fooking" taxes in America, particularly considering the amount of his tax money that was spent by the co-founder of the modern Republican Party, Richard Nixon, the other being John Wilkes Booth(e), violating his civil rights and trying to keep him out of America, but as with the original Martin Luther King, we ain't talking your average cracker Republican here.

I also heard that Squeaky Fromme has signed Grover Norquist's No Taxes Pledge, garnering praise from Sarah Death Plain in a tweet, and Mark David Chapman will announce his candidacy in the Iowa Republican primary clown show under a combination NRA backed Beatle/cop killer bullet and U.S. debt pro-default platform.