I Heart Goat Meat

Straight from the mind of Peter Holslin. Freelance writer, frontman of Bruisecaster, novice barista, full-time bruiser. Follow me on twitter @peterholslin and check my website: iheartgoatmeat.com

[iheartgoatmeat]

Trouble in Paradise

Note: I just found this essay in my documents folder. I wrote it a couple years ago, or maybe a year ago. I don’t remember. It was a submission for San Diego’s literary reading night VAMP but I never submitted it because I moved to L.A.

I went to visit my dad in Albuquerque recently. I flew out from San Diego, and my dad picked me up at the airport. He drove me to his house on the outskirts of town and showed me around. Finally, in the bathroom, he took off his T-shirt and showed me the scar.

In the area where a plump, healthy man-boob should be, there was nothing. The right side of his chest was completely flat, and it was cut across with a long, freakishly winding line sewn together with medical string. It looked like something out of a sci-fi novel. He looked like a mutant. It actually looked kind of awesome.

My dad was recently diagnosed with Stage IIA breast cancer. It wasn’t a threatening cancer, apparently, just a small bump. But it was enough to scare the shit out of my dad. When he called me to break the news, I thought he was laughing when he told me.

“I have—breast cancer!”

But he was actually crying. This was the second time I’d witnessed my father cry. The first time was just before his mom died over a decade ago—of cancer.

A week after my dad got his diagnosis, he went into surgery to have the cancerous growth removed. The doctors took everything; they didn’t even leave him a nipple. The whole procedure seemed really normal to me. The surgery went off without a hitch. The doctors had a solid plan worked out. My dad had even been assigned a nurse whose job it was specifically to help him cope with the experience of having breast cancer.

I wanted to be concerned, I really did. But even more, I just wanted to not think about what was happening. I wanted to proceed through my life without an interruption. I didn’t tell anybody what was happening. That's how I coped. I sent this experience off to a deep recess in my brain and focused on my work.

I didn’t know what to expect when I went to Albuquerque. I figured things would be more emotional, more sad. I figured there would be tears. But more than anything, being in Albuquerque was just horribly boring. My dad lives on the outskirts of town, in a cavernous white house in a winding suburb full of cavernous white houses. I didn’t have access to a car, and it took fifteen minutes to walk to the nearest piece of civilization. And that was a Costco.

All day, the sun beat down hard against the pavement. I would go on walks, plugging my iPhone into my ears and listening to heavy metal at top volume. The heat weighed hard against my back and shoulders. It drank up my energy, and as I walked around aimlessly I soaked in the blistering doom of a band called Pallbearer. The guitars were thick and heavy, and they crawled along at a regal pace. It was just enough to bring my dormant sadness to a simmer.

Back home, I sat in a La-Z-Boy in the living room, watching TV. The chair was incredibly soft and plush, really comfy. But after a while, it started to hurt, sitting in that chair. I could feel the metal mechanisms of the recliner poking into my back. I wanted to go back outside, but the world had sucked out my energy.

That’s cancer to me. Being stuck in a really comfy chair, with nothing to do. Dwindled options, and nowhere to go.

[alexmacpherson-blog]

I wrote about Future Brown last week. When the piece was published on the Red Bull website last week, a couple of people groused about the apparent disjoint between its content and the platform. This was a dumb criticism on a few levels. Firstly, the dominance of Red Bull Music Academy as curator,...

[iheartgoatmeat]

great essay, terrible decision on Red Bull's part to remove it.

[iheartgoatmeat]

10 Best Albums I Listened To In 2014 That Didn’t Come Out In 2014

This week I’ve been reading lots of year-end lists anointing the top albums of 2013. But everybody knows that music isn’t something you can properly digest in 12-month cycles. Sometimes you listen to an album the day it comes out. Other times, you listen to it a decade after it comes out. And even then, it might take you another decade to truly understand it. So, here are the 10 best albums I discovered or rediscovered this year that didn’t come out in 2014. (see also my list from 2013.)

Pedro the Lion, Control

I left San Diego this year for L.A., and for about a week before my big move I spent long hours driving aimlessly around the city where I grew up, reminiscing and thinking. The whole time I was listening to this album. I've always loved David Bazan. He isn't the most imaginative songwriter when it comes to melody or arrangements, but his lyrics are vivid, surprising and often brutally honest, and songs like "Rapture" really spoke to me, especially when I was younger. During my new transitional phase, I was drawn to this almost instinctively, and I think it's the intensity that brought me back.

The Blood Brothers, Burn, Piano Island, Burn!

For a hot minute this year I seriously considered writing a book about the history of the much-maligned hardcore punk/emo subgenre called screamo. I even came up with a title: What Went Wrong: How "Screamo" Developed from an Underground Movement into a Commercial Monstrosity. The book would trace screamo's roots across the United States and examine how it turned from a rich and artistic outgrowth of hardcore into a horrible major-label cash cow, eventually becoming the kind of thing that seeps into the stuff of toxic rock-star d-bags like Ronnie Radke. The book would also examine the etymology of the word "screamo" and offer a revisionist, positive reinterpretation of this rather goofy term. So, uh, why was I getting all inspired to write this book? Because the fucking Blood Brothers got back together! Nostalgia, man. It's a hell of a drug.

Aphex Twin, Drukqs

I moved to Los Angeles in July, and for a while it was a lonely time. I wasn't getting any work, I was broke, I knew hardly anybody. I was eating random concoctions like spaghetti and eggs with sriracha sauce every day. (Seriously, WTF was I thinking?) I almost gave up on writing, several times. I was seriously this close to throwing in the towel. When Richard D. James announced he was releasing a new album this year, I don't know, it just hit a nerve. I was just like, "Fuck this," and I spent days and days just lying in bed, going through his insanely deep catalog. I didn't care about writing or having a career or pitching stories or making money. Maybe I wanted answers, unconsciously hoping Aphex Twin might somehow rewire my brain, put me on new bearings, give me a fresh perspective on things. It was around this time that I realized that Aphex Twin's 2001 album -- roundly panned by the critics-that-be when it first came out -- was actually one of the most important and meaningful albums I've ever listened to. So, yeah. The power of music is real, people.

Choubi Choubi! Folk & Pop Sounds from Iraq

Speaking of important and meaningful albums... Seriously, just read this essay I wrote for Passion of the Weiss about Choubi Choubi! and you'll get the idea. Also, take note -- the zanbour drum is the best drum.

John Zorn, Archery

Many moons ago I threw down a lot of money to buy John Zorn's famous game-piece opus Cobra on Amazon. I was in college and my dorm-mates were all jazz heads, and so they were mightily intrigued that I'd spent such a pretty penny on an album by one of the NYC downtown scene's most unpredictable musical madmen. Well, I popped the CD in my computer and we all listened eagerly, and then out spewed a bunch of random, weird-ass atonal noise. My roommates just shook their heads and went back into their rooms to smoke weed and listen to Brian Blade or whatever. "You wasted your money, dude," I remember one of them telling me. I shelved the album and never listened to it ever again. But in recent months I've been thinking... maybe we're all crazy and John Zorn is actually the only sane composer in this world. So when I was back in NYC in September I ventured down to the Chinatown basement quarters of the proudly avant-garde record store Downtown Music Gallery and picked up Archery, an earlier example of Zorn's game pieces, in which he was known to rely on shuffled cards and hand gestures to dictate the direction of an improvisational ensemble piece. I still haven't completely wrapped my head around this massive, three-disc collection, and I probably never will. But this time around I'm willing to surrender to the thickets of weirdness, the freaky sound effects and odd twists, the rushes of atonal dissonance, and just see where it takes me.

Dan Curtin, The Silicon Dawn

God bless Gelato Vero Caffe for letting me listen to whatever music I wanted. This is definitely one of the loveliest finds I played over the sound system while pulling espresso shots and scooping up cups of gelato at this rad coffeehouse. Dan Curtin's techno is definitely robotic and the beats can be off-kilter like some of the best techno beats can be, but the whole album is also warm and sensuous. I know some people can't get into the deep '90s electronic dance music stuff, because it's dated or self-serious or cheesy or all of the above. But this album suited my moods just fine.

Dr. Dre, The Chronic

This and Doggystyle were on heavy rotation in the days I was spending up in L.A. looking for apartments. They were on heavy rotation in many other instances as well. Honestly I don't think anyone in Southern California is a true Southern Californian unless they've got a beaten-up much-listened-to CD copy of The Chronic sitting around somewhere. I'd say something about my nuts being on someone's tonsils but this is a family blog.

Three 6 Mafia, Most Known Unknown 

I'll never forget the day I was scooping up cups of sweet gelato to a young woman and her younger companion -- a child who couldn't have been more than 12 -- as this album was playing over the sound system. I thought I'd be able to wing it and get them in and out without having to switch the music off or turn down the volume, because what's the fun in that? But then "Don't Violate" came on. I was in the middle of topping off a cup of gianduia and pistachio, and suddenly the words "Put your foot up they ass!" rang out in a chant across the cozy shoppe. For the next minute or so I awkwardly completed my transaction while the two customers pretended to not hear the music overhead. They left without leaving a tip, obviously.

The Offspring, Smash

I was probably 10 years old the last time I really actually listened to this album, but I broke it out recently and, holy shit, it stands up! I know the Offspring aren't what they used to be, and that music video they released for "Cruising California (Bumpin' In My Trunk)" a couple years back was certainly the most horrible and embarrassing thing I'd seen all year. But seriously, grab a glass of wine, an easy chair, kick off your shoes, lean back and give Smash a listen. It's the perfect expression of SoCal youth rage.

"The Tank CD"

From a Facebook message a friend of mine sent me on April 4, 2014, at 10:25 pm:

Hey Peter! Here's a rambling story about how I came to finding a link to one of your articles today. When I first moved to SD in '03, I ended up in the possession of an unlabeled cd for for a short time that my roomie and I just called "the tank cd". It was a series of short songs with a robot voice claiming to be the tank that got driven around in Clairmont back in the 90s. In it's robotic voice, for many, many ridiculous short songs, allegedly left on an answering machine, the Tank threatened a person named Jason. Is this ringing a bell? Anyway, the cd was only around for a few months. Subsequently, I've gone on a number of fruitless internet searches to see if anyone had a copy or knew more about its origins. Today was the day I found a link to a download of the entire thing on a message board last updated some years ago...

According to blog lore, this "Tank CD" was the handiwork of a musician central to San Diego's short-lived Mutant Punk movement. So I went ahead and downloaded this mysterious "Tank" CD, and indeed it's every bit as weird, fucked up and hilariously amazing as my friend describes -- all cheapo FruityLoops beats and psychotic robot-voice murmurings ("We're in the tank / outside your house"; "Get in the fucking tank!"; "The tank is waiting for you"; etc. etc.). Apparently the songs were made as a joke for a guy who lived in the apartments near where Shawn Nelson went on his infamous 1995 tank rampage through the streets of Clairemont. Listening to "The Tank" now, it almost seems like these robot voices are urging someone to snap all over again. Download it here. Listen if you dare...

[iheartgoatmeat]

A Fourth of July Tribute to America’s “Founding Goats”

This Fourth of July, let us not forget the goats who were there during the singing of the Declaration of Independence, and who drafted their own version of this historic document, which the goats then ate because they were hungry.

From the Declaration of "Goat-dependence," finalized on July 4, 1776:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all goats are created equal, that they are endowed by their Goat Master with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Plentiful Weeds. That to secure these rights, Farmland is instituted among Goats, deriving their just powers from the consent of the gated. That whenever any Form of Farmland becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the Goats to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Field, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Goat-iness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Fields long established should not be changed for light and transient causes, such as lack of sufficient weeds, for those weeds shall certainly grow back; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that goatkind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the gating, feed pellets and playground obstacles to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and goat slaughterings, pursuing invariably the same Hunger for Weeds evinces a design to reduce them under the absolute Despotism of the Slaughterhouse, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Goat Chains, and to provide new Farmers for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Vibrant Goat Fields; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Goating. The history of the present King of Great Britain's Goat Farm is a history of repeated injuries and slaughterings for meat, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these Goated Territories and the denial of freedom to frolic, baah, and eat weeds. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

May we always remember the Founding Goats, as well as the Founding Fathers, who created this great nation of ours. I ask you now to rise, put your hand to your heart, and sing the National Anthem along with this chorus of baby goats:

[iheartgoatmeat]

Introducing… THE GOAT BACKPACK®!

For millennia, goats have been at our service. If the dog is man’s best friend, the goat is our right-hand beast. Eating our weeds. Irrigating our farms. Providing us milk, meat and endless entertainment. But for too long, the goat has fallen short in one realm: carrying things. The goat doesn’t have the endurance of the camel, or the shamelessness of the mule, and so when we’ve needed to haul something — food supplies, say, or illicit substances — we’ve turned to another animal.

Until now.

Want to know more? Continue reading about this modern marvel of engineering at IHeartGoatMeat.com...

[iheartgoatmeat]

The Secret Pro-Goat Message of Chris Daughtry’s Song “Home”

This video is very touching, isn’t it? I think it has a lot to do with the song. I looked it up, and it’s by the rock band Daughtry. It’s called “Home,” and it was released in 2007. A lot of people don’t know this, but I did some investigating and found it’s actually about the relationship between a man and his goat, and the power of love to bind them even when they’re up against the toughest odds. Continue reading on IHeartGoatMeat.com...

[iheartgoatmeat]

Frosty the Snow Goat is, just, wow...

I have shed many tears in my life. Tears of sadness, and tears of joy. But now my tears are all dried up, for I've spent them all on Frosty the Snow Goat. Watching this video is like listening to a kindly kindergarten teacher read Thomas the Tank Engine to a flock of rapt pupils, while a thousand Christmas carols -- superimposed on top of each other in such a way as to make that sound perfectly and miraculously harmonious -- plays in the background. This is, quite possibly, the most adorable and heart-warming thing in the universe (or at least on the Internet) right now. Go, Frosty, go!

[iheartgoatmeat]

All hail Octogoat!

NAAAAAAAAAAAANTS INGONYAAAAAAAAAMA BAGITHI BABA! The circle of life makes another round, and the animal kingdom pays heed. Birds hitch a ride on elephants' tusks. Zebras splash through the water. Giraffes take to the dusty savannah with their cute giraffe children in tow. All arrive at the bottom of a great cliff, craning their necks up to pay witness to the coronation of the new Goat King.

Potential usurpers may scoff, but their schemes will fail. For this is no average four-legged sovereign. Many goats have ruled the lands with strength, benevolence and a hunger for bushy weeds. But our new leader brings all that and more. It has double the strength. Double the benevolence. Double the hunger. And double the legs. For it is Octogoat, Crown of Eight Continents, Possessor of Eight Legs.

Now walk, my beautiful octoped. Walk ever forward in time, so that you may rule us all with your mischievous heart, rectangular pupils, double genitalia, and, of course, your eight legs. All hail Octogoat!

[Via Huffington Post]

[iheartgoatmeat]

Opinion: Smuggling Cocaine in Goat Meat is a Waste of Perfectly Good Goat Meat

You can smuggle drugs through underground tunnels. You can smuggle them in your crotch. Hell, you can smuggle them in children's dolls for all I care. But when you use perfectly good goat meat to smuggle your cocaine, that is going one step too far.

Gawker reports (via Trinidad Express) that a man was arrested at JFK airport in New York last month for doing just that. Arriving on a Caribbean Airlines flight from Trinidad, Yudistir Ma­haraj was selected for random inspection by Customs and Border Protection agents, who soon discovered that the three (presumably delicious) chunks of frozen goat meat he was carrying in a suitcase were stuffed with over 7 pounds of cocaine. As the Express writes:

When the officers examined the suitcase, they found three packages in the suitcase, which Maharaj claimed “in sum and substance contained frozen cooked goat meat. The three packages were X-rayed revealing a square-like object inside of each one”.

The CBP officers later took Maharaj into a private room and, according to Martinez in the court doc­ket, “drilled into the packages and discovered a powdery-white substance, which later tested positive for the presence of cocaine.”

The Express values the cocaine at somewhere between $1.2 million to $1.8 million, while Gawker gives the lowball estimate of between $80,000 and $165,000. But what I'm wondering is how much this goat meat cost. Was it off some old goat, and therefore not very valuable? Or was it tender meat from a freshly-killed kid? I'm guessing the goat meat wasn't of a very high quality, or else somebody wouldn't have used it to smuggle drugs. But come on, people, this is perfectly good goat meat we're talking about here, and now it's all gone to waste. Not cool, man.

H/t to Hannah Rappleye for sending me the link.

[iheartgoatmeat]

The Most Blissful Beasts of All

This music video nearly brought a tear to my eye. It is for the song "Dance Under Water (Surface&Arrival)," by the California beatmaker BastienGOAT and it depicts a herd of pixelated goats moving together like synchronized swimmers in a pool of low-budget, Windows 95-style computer graphics. The song seems more like a sketch than a fully composed piece, and the video is very hard to describe. There are alien heads, WiFi icons, clouds and lightning, all set against warped, tropical-like backgrounds. But the feeling it gives me... this sensation of contemplation, of bliss... it just carries me away....

The track appears on BastienGOAT's new album, SWIM, which he describes as such:

This album is an adventure that begins in a submarine that just surfaced just off of the shore of my island. As the day progresses, so will the weather and music. What starts off as a sunny happy day, becomes a dark scary and stormy night, but do not fear, for my island is full of homies and good times.

Stream it below, and may your goat-like spirit be well.

SWIM by BastienGOAT

[iheartgoatmeat]

BREAKING: Goat army threatens Washington D.C.

Has the human-goat war reached a dangerous new stage? It appears so, as the wires are reporting that an army of approximately 10,000 goats, "wearing full body armor and horns that have been sharpened into bayonets," has massed on the outskirts of the nation's capital. The herd is reportedly led by an enormous mountain goat by the name of Hircus Horridus, who is demanding the release of all domesticated goats on farmlands across the United States.

"The goats of this nation have suffered for far too long, and we shall suffer no longer," Horridus announced, according to The Associated Press. "Release our goat brethren now or your capital shall be plundered. We will kick down your doors, ram your children and eat your documents. And when all is said and done there shan't be a leaf of shrubbery left under which your Congressmen might receive shade, nor a single soda can that has not been punctured with our teeth."

Government buildings have been evacuated and President Obama has reportedly been taken to a secret underground bunker, along with members of his cabinet. The National Guard has been dispatched to Washington in order to fight off the goats. This is an ongoing story... please continue checking in for further updates. In the mean time, click here.

Goat warrior art by Nero-tbs.

[iheartgoatmeat]

Goat Simulator is really happening.

This trailer for the Goat Simulator nearly brought a tear to my eye. For over a month I have waited and wondered, hoping against hope that this glorious game would become a reality. And now, it is. Now, my wildest dream -- of pretending to be a goat in virtual space so I can smash stuff and wreak havoc -- is finally coming true.

The game is coming out on Steam on April 1. It costs $9.99. The only problem is that Goat Simulator won't be nearly as ambitious and immersive a gaming experience as I imagine it could (and should) be. In a disclaimer, the game's website tells us not to expect much:

Goat Simulator is a small, broken and stupid game. I t was made in a couple of weeks so don’t expect a game in the size and scope of GTA with goats. In fact, you’re better off not expecting anything at all actually. To be completely honest, it would be best if you’d spend your $10 on a hula hoop, a pile of bricks, or maybe a real-life goat.

Whoa, Grand Theft Auto with goats? I never even thought of that. Maybe some day....

[iheartgoatmeat]

Goats Are Smarter Than Chickens, Dumber Than Dolphins, Study Finds

If you've ever seen a goat escape from their pen or pull off an impressive feat to get food, you'd know the weed-eating quadrupeds are pretty damn smart. Well, now there's some scientific evidence to support what we goat observers know from evidence: These mischievous beasts are secret geniuses. In a new study published in Frontiers in Zoology, researchers from Queen Mary University of London and Switzerland's Institute of Agricultural Science report that goats are able to learn a challenging cognitive task and remember it many months down the line. As Smithsonian Magazine reports:

To find out just how smart goats really are, the researchers presented the animals with the “artificial fruit challenge”—a cognitive game originally developed by primate scientists. The researchers place fruit inside a box, which could only be reached by solving a puzzle. In this case, the goats had to use their teeth to pull on a rope to activate a lever, and then lift the lever up with their muzzle. If they correctly performed the task, they received a food reward that dropped out of the box.

First, the researchers attempted to teach 12 goats to complete the task. Of those 12, nine were able to master the task after about four tries. Of the three who failed, two tried to take a short cut and use their horns to pry open the box—therefore being disqualified—and another “showed no signs of improvement” by her 22nd try, the team writes, so they wrote her off as a hopeless case.

After identifying the nine winners, the researchers then waited for 10 months and presented the same animals with the food box puzzle to test how long it took them to re-crack the snack-delivering code. All of the goats remembered how to solve the problem, and were able to access the fruit in less than a minute. “The speed at which the goats completed the task at 10-months compared to how long it took them to learn indicates excellent long-term memory,” said Elodie Briefer, the lead author of the paper, in a statement.

The article in Smithsonian points out that goats belong to a sect of mammals called ungulates, which includes chickens and donkeys but also dolphins and whales. The Frontiers in Zoology study shows that goats aren't as dumb as their barnhouse friends, and are actually up there with the more sophisticated ungulates. Still, the study's authors say, goats aren't that smart since they're domesticated and don't need to survive in the wild.

Phew. For a second there, I thought the study was going to conclude that goats are as smart as humans, and one day they'll be capable of taking over the world and killing us all. But no, we needn't worry about that. Not in our lifetime, at least.

[iheartgoatmeat]

"Earthquake. We're having an earthquake!"

Just get a look at that news anchor's face. His reaction time. The way he puts up his hand to feel out the motion in the earth. His instinctual response to duck under the desk. And then he gets right back up and immediately turns it into the station's lead story. This guy knows what's up. He's like Spider-Man or something. His earthquake senses are tingling! KTLA should get an award for this.

[iheartgoatmeat]

Goat heads found in Prospect Park

Whoa. Gothamist reports that somebody's been leaving decapitated goats and their heads all over Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Has the human-goat war gone too far? Or is this something different -- a sacrifice for a Santeria ritual, perhaps? A priest of "African Traditional Religions" tells Gothamist that, if somebody was offering up a four-legged creature to an all-powerful deity, they were doing it wrong:

Not giving away secrets, but, when an offering of a four legged animal is done, its either for something major taking place, so its not done often nor likely.

And, importantly, its done respectfully because the animal is giving its life for something, therefore its done quickly and as painlessly as possible.

Depending on the situation, more often than not, the rest of the animal is prepared properly and cooked. Only in certain situations is the animal not cooked and eaten.

On a side note, I ate roasted goat head when I was in Kenya back in 2008. It didn't taste the greatest and my friend and I both got sick afterwards. But I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Photo by David Rabig

[iheartgoatmeat]

Must-read story about Alabama debtors' prison

My good friend Hannah Rappleye writes amazing articles with frequent collaborator Lisa Riordan Seville about poverty, immigration, criminal justice and economic inequality. Their latest story, published in The Nation, describes a "debtors' purgatory" in small-town Alabama that's built around the private probation services of a sketchy company called Judicial Correction Services. The story, which took Hannah and Lisa a year to complete, begins with a harrowing tale of how one woman ended up in jail, buried under thousands of dollars of debt, all because of a simple traffic violation. Here's the first two grafs:

At the single stoplight in Harpersville, Alabama, Debra Shoemaker Ford saw the police lights flash. On that January day in 2007, she steered her beat-up black Chevy Blazer into the parking lot, under the big red dot advertising Jack’s restaurant. The officer said she had a taillight out. He asked to see her license.

Ford didn’t have one. Her license had been revoked after she failed to pay a court judgment against her for a traffic ticket in a nearby town. She hadn’t worked since a car wreck a decade earlier, surviving instead on disability payments of about $670 a month. That meant generic washing powder instead of Purex. Cigarettes, when she allowed herself, were rationed, each drag a pleasure measured in pennies. To pay the ticket, plus the fee to reinstate her license, would have meant going without essentials. Though she knew she shouldn’t, Ford, a small white woman in her 50s with a fringe of bangs and a raspy voice, regularly climbed behind the wheel of the old Chevy. In rural Alabama, it’s the only way to get around.

With outstanding reporting and analysis, the story explores the dysfunctions of the Harpersville court system, the history of private probation services, and the future of it as a business. I don't know what's more frightening: The fact that this is going on in America today, or the fact that America is increasingly moving in the direction of privatizing public services, leaving the most vulnerable citizens helpless to predatory corporations and broken justice systems. I'm just glad that people like Hannah and Lisa are out there, paying attention. Read their story here.

Photo by Hannah Rappleye

[iheartgoatmeat]

Billy goats engage in battle with English townsfolk

The human-goat war has many fronts. This weekend, a battle between bipeds and four-leggers flared up in Lynton, a small town in northern England. As the North Devon Journal reports:

A band of marauding billy goats which upset the people of Lynton by eating their gardens has been chased out of town.

The goats are supposed to stay in the nearby Valley of the Rocks but occasionally stray into town where they have been accused of trampling on flowerbeds.

So a group of locals, including hoteliers, took to the streets to chase them out of town on Friday morning.

Elizabeth Rodway, the keeper of the goats, tells the Journal that the goats got into the town through holes in a gate that was supposed to keep them in the Valley of the Rocks. Though the goats were "as good as gold," she said the townspeople won't back down to another fight: “If we need to do it again, we’ll do it again.”

Stay tuned for more updates on the human-goat war.