"Catch and handle your birds gently and calmly, and there will be less stress (for both you and the bird!)"

Okay. This ain't easy for us. Ann Althouse dismisses the snuffing of a turkey in the background of a Palin interview (above) with "Deal with it, you candy-asses. If you eat meat, something like that is going on in the background for you too." And it is. Two 12-15 pounders are on deck for Thanksgiving down Goomp's this Thursday.

Sarah Palin's turkey has come home to roost. We watched drumstruck dumbstruck as each side of the political divide came down predictably for or against the horrifying spectacle of the former Republican VP candidate's recent interview set against a backdrop of turkeycide. From the reflexively Sarah-dissing "Dish Rag" blog at the LA Times:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin pardons Tom the Turkey, then babbles on, making little to no sense (as usual), while talking turkey and politics to a news crew.

What she does not know is that at least two helpless turkeys are being slaughtered in the background, their legs wiggling as their heads are stuffed into a grinder by a smiling camera-hog executioner.

"The turkey goes into the killing cone headfirst," according to Blue Oak Ranch Pastured Poultry. "Catch and handle your birds gently and calmly, and there will be less stress (for both you and the bird!). Restrain them by holding the shanks, and try to avoid rough handling. The first cut to sever the jugular vein and carotid artery are made just behind the tendon attachment for the beak and tongue. You can feel the hard cartilaginous piece behind the jaw attachment and ear canal."

Turkey butchery is not for the faint of heart. We were horrified ourselves, being totally empathetic with our fellow sentient creatures, but "stuffed into a grinder" set our nose for news aprickling, and we discovered that the torture chamber reported repeated by all the news outlets to be a "grinder" was no such thing at all. The alleged grinder was a "cone killer," where you put the trusting beastie upside down in a metal cone, pull its head out the bottom and slit its throat so it can bleed unto death. They say the turkey goes into shock and loses consciousness within seconds. Let us pray that is so. As Michelle Malkin suggests, not without irony, "I guess they’ll all be going tofurkey this Thanksgiving."

Comments

[Clay Bowler]

I doubt any kind of slaughter is pleasant for most people, but the facts are that if there wasn't controls on animals, they would populate and starve to death. That seems a much crueler fate. I know I won't feel guilty on Thursday.

[retrorepublican]

I think this just testifies to how removed the average American is from day to day farm life. It's really due, in part I think, both to the compartmentalization of society, but also to the elitist separation between snobby intellectuals and the hard-working lower classes - like watching Paris Hilton on her "Real Life" reality show, visiting dairy farms.

Since when is butchering poultry an extreme sport? I suppose one could mark the growth of post-war suburbia as a time when agricultural life receded into a comfortable, distant background. The liberal illuminati may not like where their turkey dinner comes from, but then Al Gore has a fuel-guzzling private jet, too, so consistency hasn't exactly been their strong suit.

[goomp]

This story takes me back to the days on the farm in the 1940' when we killed our oun chickens to eat.

[Solomon]

RetroR has got it. I'm astounded, though I shouldn't be, that someone can actually be serious about condemning Palin for this in any serious way -- well, at least if they're going to be eating turkey this Thursday. That's where food comes from, kids! Butterballs don't grow on trees.

[pam]

I'm with goomp; I remember killing our own chickens, turkeys, rabbits... though some things were shipped off to the butcher's for obvious reasons.

That's food. Until I name it. ;)

[EW]

Unfortunately, it takes very little more than her parting her hair wrong for the leftist illuminati to criticize Sarah. It's pretty ridiculous. She DOES live in Alaska, not New York City

[Teresa]

Reasonable people know that there is such a thing as a food chain. Apparently the appalled reporters are even more deficient in education than we ever knew. heh.

Of course - isn't it interesting that the film crew managed to get pictures of the other turkeys being prepared for market in the background. There was no where else to have the interview? Last time I looked, Alaska was a pretty large state - I'm sure that even on the turkey farm they could have moved to a different area to do this. *sigh*

And once again... Republicans fail to take the perfidious press into account. It's simply fodder for the idiot news people. After all the brouhaha during the election campaign, you'd think someone would make an effort to take "appearances" into account. But like the press, I guess I'm aiming a little too high for clueless politicians who never seem to learn. *sigh*

[Donna B.]

I understand your point Teresa, but I like the Palin "this is who I am, this is where I live" persona too.

One does not have to go back to the '40s with Goomp, as I well remember "helping" my Mom and Dad skin, gut, butcher, wrap, and freeze deer meat which fed us through several winters before we were able to afford to buy a beef already cut and packaged for our freezer.

I also remember many meatless meals of beans, potatoes, and cornbread.

It pains me to think so, but perhaps I am getting old.