On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 03:03, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
On 08/29/11 11:47 AM, Milos Rancic wrote:
Sparrows [1], but Serbian Wikipedia article "sparrow" leads to "passer" and I am bad in flora and fauna terminology.
Eating sparrows is one of the commons issues during the first phase of the Great Leap Forward during Mao and was a product of centralized economy.
The anecdote goes: Mao woke up one day and said "Sparrows are guilty for everything!" After that, it a country-wide hunt on sparrows have been made. Then, fields without sparrows became easy target for grasshoppers and the next couple of years were known as the time of great famine in China [2]. Eventually, even during Mao's rule, China abandoned centralized economy.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passer [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine
Not that I want to carry this diversion too far, but sparrows are normally seed eaters.
Actually, found article on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign