Mongolia

Scattered on the high plains of Mongolia, peasants live with their way of life on a daily basis -- actually live with it, because it’s made of meat. They don’t keep the warm blooded meat with them in their yurts, because some separation is necessary to maintain their pride.

 Barren, treeless, with only poop to stoke their nightly fires on fringed nights, these peasants depend on the humble horse to provide them all their needs for surviving and thriving in a land many outsiders consider stupid.

They nick the horses veins to make tea from the blood; they milk the horse (mostly the female) for cheese and, well, milk. From the nappy hair that grows lush and oily, they make very pretty pull-over sweaters that are prized by collectors around the known world and East Texas.

Their horses don’t run fast because they are anemic and have lots of pain in their legs – but they are slowed down anyway by the female horse’s heavy udders. Some compromise was found necessary to keep the hoards from crushing flat parts of the earth again.

When their horses die, they crush the bones for calcium and use the big chunks for making needles and buttons, and with special, endowed horses, larger kitchen utilities.

Skin from the dead horse is made into heavy skin overcoats for their cold winters, as well as coverings for their yurts. Excess material is carved into small pieces and used by Japanese baseball players for the webbings of their gloves – providing a modest hard currency income for the struggling peasants.

This brings me to OPEC, and the concept of greed.

What did the greedy bastards think when the price of oil went to $150 a barrel? And now that it is under $50 do they see any correlation?

I guess the message is: When sucking blood from  horses, stop before they faint. Once they tip over, it’s hard to get them back up.