Those Turkey Pardons

by Cheryl Rofer

I just took my desktop in to the computer guys because it was making strange noises, and we all know that the one moving part in a computer is the hard drive. Noise equals wasted energy equals stuff going wrong. I've bought a cute little mouse that will make the laptop easier to work with, although it's newer than the desktop and has a number of other advantages...

I've been contemplating the vision of Sarah Palin standing in front of the turkey executions even as she pardons one of them. I must admit that my irritation predates that governor's rise on the national political scene: what is this turkey pardoning business?

One article said that the tradition reaches back to the beginning of time, or something like that, but it seemed to me that I distinctly recalled when the president was not required to appear with what Ben Franklin thought should be our national bird. I kind of like sandhill cranes myself, but I digress.

I've had this conversation with a couple of vegetarians, but the problem goes beyond that. What is this business with "pardoning" turkeys anyway? They are being executed for crimes? Heck no! They are raised for food and, as we see in Governor Palin's video, killed industrially.

What is the purpose of this? To show the great humanity of our elected officials? But then they wouldn't eat a turkey that hasn't been pardoned for Thanksgiving, right? If it's wrong to kill turkeys for food, then they will become rational vegetarians.

Or is it to promote the turkey industry, one of the silly things presidents do, like accepting multiple Christmas trees? Again, if we don't want to eat turkeys because they have done nothing wrong, then this is hardly (with the addition now of a bloody trough in our field of view) a recommendation for that industry.

This appears to explain the origin of the practice in a way consistent with what I recall. It was George Bush the Elder who started pardoning turkeys. (Well, the Thanksgiving kind, anyway.)

Maybe Sarah Palin has done us a favor in highlighting the central hypocrisy of this absurd practice. I'm hoping President Obama will have better things to do, like playing tag on the White House lawn with his children and dog.

Comments

[Ward Wilson]

I'm really with you on this one, Cheryl. It's ludicrous and embarrassing that we don't seem to be able to have a sensible attitude about what we eat. Either we're meat eaters and we're good with that or we should all be vegetarian. This kind of sham reluctance - "Well, I don't really want to kill turkeys . . . "

Pfah!