[photo has been removed; “This content has been removed due to copyright infringement.”]
by Zoë Pollock
From a poem allegedly composed for the Mammoth Cod Club, by Mark Twain:
I thank Thee for the bull, O God,
Whenever a steak I eat,
The working of his mammoth cod,
Is what gives to us our meat.And for the ram, a meed of praise
He with his mighty cod
Foundation for our mutton lays
With every vigorous prod…Of beasts, man is the only one
Created by our God,
Who purposely, and for mere fun,
Plays with his mammoth cod.
Twain said he wrote the letter (a parody of anti-masturbation literature) “to show the youth of the country that animals do better by instinct than man does by reason, unless properly guided.” The full poem is here.
(Photo of a brown bear napping with a salmon under her arm at Alaska’s McNeil River, by Rick Sheremeta, entered into National Geographics‘ Traveler Photo Contest.)
The Dish 