Friday, November 23, 2007

President Bush Pardons a 21 Week-Old

(This was meant to be my post for yesterday, so forgive me for posting something Thanksgiving-related today)

Out of the 265 million turkeys raised just this year, two were spared from ending up on a dinner table thanks to the annual presidential turkey pardon started by President Harry Truman exactly 60 years ago.

Last Tuesday, President Bush pardoned 21 week-old May as this year's National Thanksgiving Turkey and Flower as May's alternate. May and Flower were raised in Dubois, IN under the direction of Ted Seger, chairman of the National Turkey Federation. After the National Thanksgiving Turkey presentation, May will be flown first class to Orlando to be grand marshal of Disneyworld's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Knowing that one turkey gets first class treatment, doesn't make me feel too bad for the millions of other turkeys that end up getting killed. As admirable as the tradition of saving one (or two!) turkey's life is, I hope you all had a delicious one yesterday!

5 comments:

Allen Kim said...

haha.. that's cute. :)

William Chen said...

I didn't know they pardoned turkeys...

Anonymous said...

This just seems like a publicity stunt that turned into a tradition, and it doesn't really say anything.

Even if they do "pardon" a turkey or two, they're still going to eat the next few turkeys. So what's the point in this?

Anonymous said...

I agree with Wilson. I think that it's ridiculous and a waste of time and money.
Do you know what's also ridiculous? The so-called "Black Friday." We as Americans have a holiday where people wake up early to buy things. So silly...though I wonder what that one day does to the economy.

Ryan Landis said...

What happens to the turkeys after the parade? Kind of nice though, but not fair to the other millions of turkeys now is it!