Dowbrigade

BOSTON — A Boston University grad is raising some hackles with his new book, "The Absolute Worst Places To Live in America," which names Fitchburg, Mass., and Boston’s Allston neighborhood as among the worst.

Dave Gilmartin, 30, originally hails from New Jersey, which he said helped qualify him to rate crummy cities, according to the Boston Herald. He said he also lived on both Glenville and Pratt streets in Allston while enrolled as a BU student.

Gilmartin listed "faux Irish pubs, garbage and vomiting in the shrubbery" as some of the Allston neighborhood’s vices.

from the Boston Channel

And we always considered those Allston Irish Pubs with the bushes out front to be part of the old Allston-Brighton charm. And let’s nor forget the junk-furniture recycling stores, the colorful local characters living out of stolen shopping carts, and the leftover dregs of the day-labor market left over to wallow and dessicate on curbs and streetcorners all day….

Many cows, pigs and chickens will soon be living cushier lives. But in the end, they will still be headed for the dinner plate.

Whole Foods Market is preparing to roll out a line of meat that will carry labels saying “animal compassionate,” indicating the animals were raised in a humane manner until they were slaughtered.

While the animal-welfare labels are proliferating, it remains unclear whether they appeal to anyone other than a niche market of animal lovers, particularly since the meat and eggs are as much as twice as expensive as products that do not carry the labels.

from the New York Times

As a borderline animal lover as well as a confirmed cheapskate, we would be willing to pay more for pampered pigs – but not double. Certainly millions of our fellow-consumers agree. Somewhere there is a magic price/benefit point at which consumers will shell out higher prices to be clear-conscienced carnivores. We suspect it is somewhere between 25-40%. This will create a vast demand for high-comfort, low-cost animal breeding, sort of animal Motel 8′s, except when you check out, you really check out….

October 11, 2006 — Reports of an elephant crossing the river or people trying to smuggle an elephant across were rampant Tuesday while an elaborate political stunt was taking shape near the mouth of the Rio Grande.

It was a while later that the stunt, which was a photo shoot, was abruptly met by federal agents.

“The elephant never made landfall into Mexico, but I tell you something, he could have made 15 laps back and forth, but no one showed up,” said Raj Peter Bhakta, a former star on the NBC show “The Apprentice,” who also is a Republican candidate for the 13th District U.S. House of Representatives seat in Eastern Pennsylvania.

Three elephants, two African and an Asian, were taken out to a ranch near Boca Chica beach to perform, the 31-year-old Bhakta said.

Bhakta decided to see if he could get an elephant accompanied by a six-piece mariachi band across the river.

The mariachi band was not immediately available for comment.

from the Brownsville Herald