hilarious


>From: janet paterson <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: Parkinson's Information Exchange Network
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: NEWS: NYTimes: Adopt a Sheep, for Friend or Dinner Companion
>Date: Sat, 18 Nov 2000 12:02:48 -0500
>
>November 18, 2000
>
>ANVERSA DEGLI ABRUZZI JOURNAL
>
>Adopt a Sheep, for Friend or Dinner Companion
>
>By ALESSANDRA STANLEY
>
>NVERSA DEGLI ABRUZZI, Italy — In a new twist on long-distance adoptions,
>sheep lovers can now select their pick of the flock over the Internet. A
>$154 contract entitles adoptive "parents" to a year's supply of their
>chosen one's merino wool and fresh cheese, as well as a photograph and
>adoption papers.
>
>The less sentimental can also choose to receive their adopted pet in the
>form of lamb chops.
>
>The sheep adoption program was created by a farmers' cooperative in a
>medieval village in Abruzzo, a mountainous region in central Italy that has
>become one of the more depopulated parts of the country as traditional
>sheep farming dwindles and young people move to the cities.
>
>"People have tended sheep in this area for the last 2,000 years, and we
>want it to continue for another 2,000," said Manuela Cozzi, who with her
>husband's family runs an organic sheep cooperative and an "agritourism" inn
>in Anversa degli Abruzzi. "Sheep around here are in danger of becoming an
>endangered species, and we hope this initiative will help prevent that."
>
>The cooperative farm Mrs. Cozzi runs with her husband has 1,300 sheep. The
>local sheep farmers' association has 40,000. In all, Abruzzo has 350,000
>sheep; at its height, before World War I, the region boasted more than 3
>million.
>
>Mrs. Cozzi, who sells her organic, hand-made, smoked ricotta and wool socks
>by fax and over the Internet, said she sent her raw wool to her hometown,
>near Florence, to be spun or worked by local artisans because that cottage
>industry has all but died out in her area of Abruzzo.
>
>Her flock is tended by three shepherds from Macedonia, immigrants whom she
>credits with saving the farm since Italians are no longer willing to do the
>work. Her sheep feast on juniper and wild fennel, mint and oregano across
>vast, brambled pastures in the foothills of Mount Cocullo, part of Abruzzo
>National Park.
>
>"We feel a little isolated out here, which is why we wanted to use adoption
>to bring clients closer," she explained. She said she encouraged new
>"parents" to visit their sheep and stay at her inn to learn how to make
>fresh ricotta by hand.
>
>Since she started the adoption campaign last month, Mrs. Cozzi said, more
>than 100 applications have been received, ranging from a Muslim butcher to
>a college student.
>
>Daniele Romano, 25, a civil engineering student in Bologna who adopted two
>sheep and named one Franca after his mother and the other Deborah after his
>sister, said: "I am an environmentalist, and adopting a sheep seemed as
>good an idea as any. I tried to convinced my friends that they should do
>the same, but there were more who laughed than who adopted."
>
>Italy's minister of agriculture, Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio, adopted a ewe he
>named Medina. His action, however, drew complaints from an Italian
>children's rights organization, Friends of Children, which protested that
>long-distance adoption should be reserved for needy humans. He pledged to
>look into such programs for children.
>
>Local residents, as well as environmental groups, argue that the
>depopulation of mountainous regions in Italy and across Europe is a human
>problem. Villages like Anversa degli Abruzzi, where the population of 290
>is about a 10th of what it was 50 years ago, are essentially old-age
>communities. In Castrovalla, a medieval hamlet of Anversa degli Abruzzi
>perched high on San Nicola mountain, one child was born in January. It was
>the first birth in the hamlet in 26 years; the parents had recently moved
>home from Rome.
>
>The United Nations has declared 2002 the Year of Mountains, and there is a
>growing movement in Europe to try to preserve mountain communities.
>"Agricultural activity protects and stabilizes the environment, and it is
>what gives diversity, character and culture to these parts of Europe," said
>Frank Gaskell, president of Euro-Montana, a Brussels-based international
>association. "In a global age when people are bombarded with
>homogenization, the last reservoir for genuine products and European
>culture is the mountain communities."
>
>Mrs. Cozzi's farm produces fragrant cheeses, using their sheep's
>non-pasteurized milk. The adoption contract includes 11 pounds of sharp
>pecorino cheese, 6.5 of ricotta and a choice of raw wool or knitted hiking
>socks. Organic fertilizer made of sheep manure is also part of the adoption
>package. So are sausages, sheep's brains and legs of lamb. Seventy-five
>percent of the flock is destined for a tidy white slaughterhouse behind the
>main barn. Mrs. Cozzi is not squeamish about killing off her woolly
>charges.
>
>"I would never eat meat from a butcher, but I am not a vegetarian," she
>explained. "I eat meat, but only if it is from one of ours."
>
>New sheep owners find this harder to accept.
>
>"I know that in Abruzzo, lamb is a traditional dish," said Luigi Marangoni,
>53, a Milan-based ceramics executive, who traveled to Anversa delgi Abruzzi
>and adopted a baby sheep of his own. "But I first saw my little lamb
>prancing in the green hills, and now I cannot think of him in another,
>perhaps tastier, state."
>
>Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company
>http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/18/technology/18ITAL.html
>
>janet paterson, an akinetic rigid subtype parkie
>53 now /44 dx cd / 43 onset cd /41 dx pd / 37 onset pd
>TEL: 613 256 8340 URL: http://www.geocities.com/janet313/
>EMAIL: [log in to unmask] SMAIL: POBox 171 Almonte Ontario K0A 1A0 Canada

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