22 October
'Chickens do not avoid Mike who, however, has shown no tendency to mate.'
This was how Life magazine captioned a photo of a headless chicken called Mike in a story it ran on 22 October 1945. A farmer in Fruita, Colorado, had missed his aim when he went to chop off Mike’s head, leaving the bottom part of his brain stem and now open oesophagus intact.
When the headless Mike didn’t die, the farmer spotted an opportunity to make more money out of him than he’d ever have got from selling him as meat. Feeding him with an eyedropper direct into his oesophagus, he put him on show in Salt Lake City, where he charged people 25 cents apiece to have a look.
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The radical potential of the Corbyn project
Even worse than failing to win office would be winning it while unprepared for the realities of government. Christine Berry considers what Labour needs to do to avoid the fate of Syriza in Greece
The crisis of Conservatism
The Conservative Party is in a process of ideological decline or even disintegration, argue James Butler and Richard Seymour.
Why we’ve joined the global climate strike
Landry Ninteretse and Ian Rivera share perspectives from Kenya and the Philippines and call for universal energy systems that are clean and renewable, public and decentralised
The World Transformed, FYI
Red Pepper’s picks of The World Transformed festival, in Brighton from 21-24 September
Take part in building a people’s manifesto for the movement
Winning elections is not enough. To transform society we need to involve the people in policy making, argue Kerem Dikerdem and Annie Quick
This is how we build a National Education Service in the UK
Chloe Tomlinson lays out the battle lines for a more egalitarian, democratic and holistic education system. Essential reading ahead of The World Transformed education sessions
Nurses say: Patients’ rights have no borders
As a US-friendly no-deal Brexit inches closer, Bonnie Castillo of National Nurses United explains why US nurses have joined the fight against NHS privatisation. Recommended reading ahead of The World Transformed health sessions
