Saturday, December 11, 2010

Whole Lotta Gobblin' Goin' On (mainly ours): The annual slaughter of turkeys is underway

As I write the annual Christmas Dinner turkey slaughter--a holocaust for those birds--is underway around the Northern Hemisphere.

Here's an article headed "The Shocking Secret That Will Put You Off Your Xmas Dinner" that makes you hope this 'practice' is not too common - but with the millions of turkeys being slaughtered worldwide right now, and in such a short time period too, you have to (sadly) wonder...

And here's an Esquire magazine piece on how to slaughter your own turkey. At least reading this, and looking at its photographs, one can't maintain that conscious denial--the disconnect Jeffrey Masson talks about in The Face on Your Plate--about what really has to occur to get that creature on the table.

Lastly, a little poignant little song my daughter learned in Kindergarten which sums it up from the turkeys' POV but which trivializes the turkey holocaust by trying to make it sound 'cute:'

  I heard Mr. Turkey say
    "Gobble, Gobble, Gobble.
  Soon it will be Christmas Day
     Gobble, Gobble, Gobble.
  People say that it's such fun...  
  But I think that I will run...
  And hide until the day is done
     Gobble! Gobble! Gobble......"

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