Turkey Pardoning

I've wanted to write this post since the 25th, when I saw this bit on the Maddow podcast, but the video wasn't up. Also, my daughter was in town, and frankly, I think the furious pace of pre-election blogging has finally kicked me in the head because I'm really having trouble finding stuff to write about lately. (I am still enjoying the limited traffic I'm getting from the right-wing blogs who are palpitating over my anti-Wal-Mart post, however.)

The point of this post, though, is best summed up by the following video, starting at about 1:43 in. It's a behind-the-scenes look at the show that is the Presidential turkey pardoning process. It's actually a disturbing story.

"While President Bush will pardon the turkeys he receives, Subway customers can look forward to enjoying a tasty turkey sandwich from those beautiful alternates." Yikes.

I'm not a vegetarian by any stretch--I'd chase down a cow in a field with a fork and knife and a butane lighter. Seriously, though, I think it's important that we actually know where our food comes from. There was a lot of dismay over Governor Sarah Palin's turkey pardoning photo op, because turkey slaughtering was going on in the background, but I was actually glad to see it. See, when I was seven, my family moved to south Louisiana, and we lived in the boonies for the better part of three years. We got some chickens from a person who sold eggs for a living--they were headed to the slaughterhouse otherwise--and we raised a series of calves purchased at dairy auctions, with the foreknowledge that they would wind up on our dinner table eventually. My sister and I named one of them "Steak;" we had a dark sense of humor from an early age.

My point is that we knew where the meat we ate came from, even though we bought a fair amount of it from the store. One of the problems with our processed food system is that we don't see where the meat comes from. If we did, factory farms wouldn't exist, and if they did, they'd be a lot less horrible than they are. And things like the turkey pardoning ceremonies wouldn't be as cutesy as they are. Maybe that would be a good thing.

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