[Foundation-l] Chapters

[Milos Rancic]

On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 03:03, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at 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