Pity the poor beasts. High-school high jinks are alive and well in the New York Jets locker room, where it was revealed that the “overpowering stench of death” emanating from linebacker Eric Barton’s locker was a bag filled with the “blood and guts” of a wild turkey that quarterback Brett Favre had stashed as a prank (hey, what a guy); last week the Wall Street Journal coined a new phrase — “mackerel economics” — to explain the cans of mackerel used as currency by inmates in federal prisons in California; last month the Humane Society endorsed a presidential candidate for the first time, citing their opposition to Sarah Palin‘s support of aerial wolf hunting as the primary factor; and tiger-hunting Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin received a special birthday gift — a tiger cub. Kipling would weep.