Letters to the Editor
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Oooommm...mmmoooooooo
"go out in the country and find a field where cows graze. Stand quietly at the fence. Greet them, then be quiet. Just stay in their presence until something comes over you. See what it is.... See if you are open to change."
What makes you think I haven't done this already? Geez, I have literally spent YEARS doing precisely this. And I still think it's OK to eat cows. Steers, to be more precise, but you get the idea.
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I understand you are being practical
I understand you are being practical and dabbling as an urban farmer. All the same, I hope you have nightmares about eating your pet and allowing the female turkey to be killed by irresponsible husbandry. Pathetic.
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That's a good Vegan for you...
"I hope you have nightmares..."
Wishing ill upon another human being, that seems to go with the Vegan religion. Do you know exactly how ridiculous you sound? It's FOOD, man. Food. If not for a human then for another animal. This turkey, and all turkeys, will be eaten by something, somewhere 100 percent of the time. No turkey escapes that fate. All turkeys get eaten. Every single one of them.
P.S. Your sense of moral superiority is laughable.
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Sick!
How could this woman form a trusting relationship, a bond with the turkey and then betray him with murder? Maybe some day aliens will do to us what we do to other species on the planet.
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Pot Calling Kettle
What's laughable, Farm Boy, is that nobody posting here is more dogmatic than you. And if you're really a "committed environmentalist" interested in "saving the world from habitat destruction," then I can only assume you are equally as appalled by factory farming as any vegan here. Being so well read, you must be aware of the huge amount of environmental damage caused by factory farms not only in their immediate vicinity, but around the globe.
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Riana sent this to me -- thanks!
Hi Novella -- this piece totally rocks. Brilliant writing and wickedly smart. Please write more soon. If you don't remember, I'm Riana's ex landlord in los feliz who became involved in some unpleasantness involving heroin and whatnot. I CANNOT believe the icky invective heaped on this great piece. But they are in the minority, I think. Wow!
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Factory farming sucks
I am, indeed, very aware that factory farming represents an environmental catastrophe on a global scale. But to claim that eating a vegetarian diet somehow magically cures that ill is silly. It would be like not wearing clothes because textile factories engage in unethical labor practices. You still wear clothes, but you simply choose not to buy them from companies who support slave labor. If you really want to stick it to factory farms, patronize local, organic farmers who sustainably produce animal products, because that actually takes market share from big agribusiness and provides an alternatives means of production for the 97 percent of Americans who still eat meat. And to call me dogmatic-- well, that's pretty amusing to me. I have actually been a vegetarian in the past, and I continue to eat a mostly vegetarian diet. But having actually worked on farms and harvested my own meat in the wild by hunting and fishing, and by actually paying attention to the science, I believe I'm actually paying attention to the facts and not pledging obeisance to a religion.
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Don't give your food a name.
Okay. Here's my problem with this whole experiment. The author made the turkey a pet, gave him a name, raised him from a chick and then..killed him. It was a betrayal of trust. The turkey was given the mistaken impression that its humans loved it, cared for it and trusted its humans not to hurt it. That'll teach those domesticated animals to trust us!
Whether you're vegetarian or not, this is a far cry from hunting a wild animal or mass killing a chicken that you have no relationship with. If you're really into killing what you eat, then give the animal a fighting chance and get a license to hunt wild game. Don't make a animal trust you and then slaughter it. That's just wrong. I don't care what kind of spin she puts on it.
I just hope the author doesn't have a collie or something for a pet. It may have to watch its back...
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Noble Savage
Raising a turkey, befriending him and then eating him is not something I care to read about. I skimmed this article to see if the turkey was actually killed. I am very sorry I read it. I am not vegetarian and will have turkey but I don't care to read the gory details of how our noble savage writer dispatched her turkey. Perhaps Jeffrey Dahmer might enjoy such, but not me.
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I really hardly know what to say....
....I don't find this a bit entertaining...nor funny..nor sweet...nor cute. Life is life. And your story is very very sad and just reinforces my reasons for becoming a Vegan. Humans are selfish and SO greedy. Killing another being JUST for the taste of it...when there are other FOODS to nourish our bodies. Turkey is NOT food...it is LIFE. Very sad. Since you are one that KNEW the truth before...and yet you disregard it.
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Salon ...
You know? Novella's just kind of dim, philosophically speaking. She was excited about the drama of the whole thing.
Compassion isn't dramatic. Slaughter is. We got bloodlust. But we can evolve out of it. It's a choice.
Salon's way of tweaking its readership (me) with what the Eds apparently think is "edgy" or "daring" discomfits me too. Sooo many articles lately lean toward the salacious or brutal.
Dunno, maybe they're projecting, but I'd love to see some editorial leadership that isn't so blunted.
If a magazine has a personality, I'm finding Salon disturbed.
(When I first discovered Salon I felt I'd found a friend, and now I find this friend makes me uneasy. We have issues.)
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This is what I am talking about
"Turkey is NOT food...it is LIFE."
Turkey, actually, IS food. Undeniably so. In fact, turkey consumption in the US was 17.3 pounds per person in 2003. So it is eaten by hundreds of millions of people on a regular basis. I guess by any reasonable definition in any dictionary that would make turkey food.
But you know, evidence and facts and stuff aren't the strong suit of militant Vegetarians. I don't what to call it. Wishful thinking? Fantasy? Lying?