Well, given that the call for discussion of deconstructed kinky sex only brought forth sheep riots in New Zealand, I thought that I would follow up. No, this will not be about the implications for biotech stock of the cloning of Dolly, the sheep, although who knows what that will do to sheep sex.
1) It has been widely reported that humans initially contracted syphilis from sheep. Oog. That was in the so-called New World.
2) Syphilis and maize ("corn" to ignorant Americans) were both carried to the Old World by you know who in 1492.
3) Maize got from Spain to China by 1509, whereas maize amazingly took nearly a century to do so. Well, I guess that shows what is really matters! (Freud to Marx: "Take that and dream about it!")
4) The first futures markets in world history were for wool. They were established in England in the thirteenth century by Cistercian monks. I don't know if the monks got any STDs from the sheep.
Maybe the sheep riots in NZ triggered the human riots in Indonesia. Amaizingly those have not yet rocked the bulls on Wall Street. Or maybe they are all just irrationally exuberant sheep climbing up a mountain... (baaah!) Barkley Rosser
-- Rosser Jr, John Barkley rosserjb at jmu.edu