Rain Gryphon (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rain_gryphon) wrote2018-04-25 08:32 pm
rain_gryphon) wrote2018-04-25 08:32 pm
Four Thousand Spies
Why does the Rose of Lancaster appear on the Norwegian Intelligence Service's arms? The ravens are quite obviously Hugin and Munin, (and just *so* satisfyingly appropriate), but why the rose? Norway had a single Plantagenet queen back around 1400, it seems, but that's surely not it. It's not in the national arms, nor in the military's (of which Intelligence is a part) either.
*****
So, I needed eggs. I had no fewer than four separate brands of free-range eggs from which to choose. Most of the rest were "cage free". The only ones where the packaging didn't give some assurance of the chickens' living conditions were the big semi-generic 100 egg institutional packages. And this was at Giant Eagle. Only a few years back, the only way you could get even cage free eggs was at places like Whole Foods or Fresh Thyme, or by driving out into the country to buy them directly. I have to conclude that it's market pressure at work crowding out the battery-hen eggs. That's reassuring.
*****
So, I needed eggs. I had no fewer than four separate brands of free-range eggs from which to choose. Most of the rest were "cage free". The only ones where the packaging didn't give some assurance of the chickens' living conditions were the big semi-generic 100 egg institutional packages. And this was at Giant Eagle. Only a few years back, the only way you could get even cage free eggs was at places like Whole Foods or Fresh Thyme, or by driving out into the country to buy them directly. I have to conclude that it's market pressure at work crowding out the battery-hen eggs. That's reassuring.