Turkey Pardons (reprised)

David Cassuto

As I sat down to type some Thanksgiving thoughts, I found myself returning to what I wrote a couple of years ago, back when this blog was first beginning.  I’m still saddened and bewildered by the idea of pardoning turkeys.  And, since not many people read the blog back then, I offer those now two-year old thoughts back up again for your consideration.

Much has been said about the ritual of Thanksgiving and its accompanying slaughter of hundreds of millions of defenseless birds, most of who lived short lives of unrelenting and abject misery. I have little to add to what’s already out there except my own indignation and sorrow. But I do have something to say about the Thanksgiving ritual, particularly the embedded legal contradiction in the practice (discussed by Luis below) of pardoning turkeys.         

Vilsack Going South on Us

My low expectations for Secretary Vilsack (USDA) were briefly raised with Kathleen Merrigan’s appointment to the #2 spot over there (see post here).  Then I read stuff like this, where Vilsack tells Congress that the “vast, vast, vast majority of farmers who are raising livestock are very sensitive” to the need to be careful about the management of their animals.  When asked about regulating the industry so as to give animals some space, thereby helping prevent disease transmission and perhaps easing the torture which they daily endure, Vilsack replies that the USDA is working with the Food and Drug Administration to ensure “that sound animal management practices are the standard.”

If Dick Cheney were Secretary of Agriculture, I bet he’d sound just like that.

–David Cassuto