QotD
"It's an old human habit -- living off the road kill of the
planet. There's evidence, for example, that early humans were engaged
in scavenging before they figured out how to hunt for themselves.
They'd scan the sky for circling vultures, dash off to the kill site
-- hoping that the leopard that did the actual hunting had sauntered
off for a nap -- and gobble up what remained of the prey. It was
risky, but it beat doing your own antelope tracking.
"We continue our career as scavengers today, attracted not by
vultures but by signs saying 'Safeway' or 'Giant'. Inside these sites,
we find bits of dead animals wrapped neatly in plastic. The killing
has already been done for us -- usually by underpaid immigrant workers
rather than leopards."
-- Barbara Ehrenreich,
"Liposuction: The Key to Energy Independence", 2008-06-23