I’m of course not the suspicious sort, but doesn’t it seem odd that two of the three hometown newspapers we get delivered on the weekend had the same commodity crime story, featuring the same victim? So I’m not surprised that neither delved into the uglier part of the tale: If you lose 150 hogs and don’t notice right away, you’re raising them wrong. The WSJournal had the numbers (and the proper terminology): “The hogs are sequestered in four rooms, about 1,000 in a group.” I could joke that that sounds like the GOP dream for class size, but it’s actually sickening, almost literally. And if the burglarized farmer feels “a little bit violated,” imagine how those animals suffered their whole lives, probably dreaming of the lush lives of ducks destined for foie gras. At least I got out of Iowa in time, before it became a stinking waste pond, from the sound of the coverage. The only hogs I saw there in the Seventies ran free in the mud. And no one was thieving. One little suggestion for the elusive pork burglar: Next time sneak in a camera. Show the true price of cheap bacon.