April 03, 2005
Gratuitous Llama Absenteeism
Sorry about the lack of posting today. Blame it on Spring. As has become an annual tradition with us, we suddenly noticed a) that the sunlight shining through the windows had changed and b) that in this new light, the house was a freakin' pigsty. Thus, my day has been spent neck deep in Fantastik, Clorox, Windex and Handi-Wipes.
The good news is that over the weekend I've been able to cobble together my next Fear and Loathing in Disneyworld installment. It should be good to go in the morning. Stay tuned.
Yip! Yip!
Posted by Robert at April 3, 2005 05:39 PMThought you might be interested in what your up-scale relatives are facing these days!
From the BBC:
Microchips to guard Peruvian alpacas By Hannah Hennessy BBC News, Nunoa, Peru
High in the Andes mountains, the air is thin, the climate is harsh and the land is barren.
Scraping a living in this part of Peru is difficult at the best of times. For thousands of communities, the sole means of survival is raising alpacas for their valuable wool.
At 14,000 feet (4,270m) few other animals will prosper
But that survival is threatened by the trafficking of thousands of the best animals across the border to neighbouring Bolivia or Chile every year.From there, they are sent to countries as far afield as Australia and the United States, where they are sold for their wool or as pets and can fetch thousands and thousands of dollars.
For many poor Peruvian farmers, it's a simple choice: sell an alpaca with high quality wool at home for a couple of hundred dollars if they are lucky or take it across the border, where it could fetch twice that....
The rest of the story is at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4314237.stm
