That is just sick! What a doorknob!

On several levels.

My God, I think she is going after Tina Fey's job.

We need you Sarah!  The nation needs you, not just Alaska. One event like this per month will keep things light.  Happy Thanksgiving!

I was so fascinated by the procedure going on behind her that I scarecely heard her comments... I take it those were live turkeys being stuffed head first into that cone, where, I suppose, they were decapitated, then removed to be plucked and gutted? Why wasn't the Governor doing that part, if she's "in charge of the turkey?" ("Turkey",what a metaphor for the government, by the way) Or, does she let the dirty work be done by some one else, so she can be clean in public while getting plaudits for the final result (tasty dinner) with all the nasty part tucked out of sight?

I remember visiting my Southern grandparents for, say, Thanksgiving, and on a typical "frosty mornin'" the cook would go into the barnyard, pick out a couple of chickens, snatch them up, hold them by their heads and, with a quick twist of her wrist pop off their heads, dropping the bodies to flop headless about the backyard for a moment, then she would collect the bodies as the rest of the flock continued obliviously pecking their breakfast around her feet. She'd go to the kitchen with her kill, scald and pluck it, gut, chop off the parts, and shortly we'd sit down to a meal of glorious Southern fried chicken.  We, pecking away at the dinner table, pretended to be every bit as oblivious to the process which preceded our dining as the chickens in the barnyard.

Now that I think about it, it works exactly the same way in politics between the master cook, the chicken population of taxpaying followers, and the killing, plucking, and dinner table gluttony by the elite.  

They describe the procedure in a bit more detail.  My recollection is that the cone is designed to secure the bird and keep it still, and hold it in the correct position while the blood drains.

This is a highly worthwhile book in any case - that's just one small part of the whole deal..

Great book that makes you think about where your food comes from.  It highlights very prominently Polyface Farms, a wonderful self-sustaining and organic farm in Swoope, Virginia, near Staunton.  The owner has an "open-farm" policy and slaughters his chickens in an open-air abattoire that anyone can observe because he believes everyone has a right to know firsthand where their food comes from, and should know.

in Massachusetts.  After Sunday Mass we'd pile into the car and drive to a local farm, where she would scrutinize each bird, find a victim, have the farmer slaughter it for her, then drive home with the still warm, feather-clad corpse in a box in the trunk.

She'd pluck the outer part of the bird - the wings and back, but it was my job to yank those godawful tiny, downy feathers from the chest and underside.  I remember my hand cramping from the effort, and how the feathers stuck in the creases of my hand and the way the pins itched and scratched.  The longer I went the sweatier the hand and the harder it was to get the feathers off the hand for better traction with the rest.  What a miserable experience.  

The soup, on the other hand, was always delicious, and the eggs from inside the bird were much sought after by the adults.  We kids thought they were too rubbery and weird.  However, she'd use the broth to make her classic pastene, a soup with tiny pasta pellets instead of noodles.    

If everyone watched this, including the kids, maybe we wouldn't waste our food, or eat meat so gluttonously.  Good thing they didn't show the slaughter and dressing of a cow! Lord almighty, the wailing. If you eat meat, you either kill, or have it done by your proxy.  

This is exactly how production poultry slaughter occurs, with the exception that in most cases the bird is left to drain in the cone.  Too bad they didn't show the plucking. This is messy work.

I was surprised by the media reaction to this video.  We need to grow up as a nation.  And I hate to say it, but having ol' Sarah standing there during the kills shows a strength I can respect. She's tougher than I thought she was.  

it was so disgusting!  I wasn't listening to anything she was saying either.  Those poor turkeys, and yes, I'm a vegetarian so I'm not a hypocrite.  

in my opinion, vadem, I mean the whole video sequence as presented here on RK. But I am not yet a dedicated vegetarian, so discount my opinion if you choose.  

it didn't bother me.  I couldn't even really tell what I was seeing.  By the second time I saw it, I figured out what the deal was with those cones, and why the whole machine was shaking, but I read Upton Sinclair in high school.  I know how sausage is made.  

I hope that people don't think that you have to be squeamish to be truly liberal.  

Did you read my earlier note, an account of how we cooked chicken dinner unsqeamishly in the South Carolina Low Country (it was long ago, but I am sure it's the same today, where they prefer fresh food rather than store-bought and plastic-wrapped); we even churned our own butter... where do folks think buttermilk comes from? And then there was hog-killing time in the fall after the first frost.,,

My grandfather had a hog which was like a pet. One day he grabbed a gun and said "Time to kill the hog". He just put a bullet in its head so I guess it was more humane than bleeding it to death. I guess it was pretty happy while it was alive.

Turkeys in the foreground, turkeys in the background, turkeys everywhere.

We raise more than 21 million Turkeys per year for slaughter here in Virginia.  It is a $260 million/year business.  We are the 4th largest production state in the nation, and Rockingham County is the second biggest producer in the nation.  

Just saying.

Does that make her a Latte drinking liberal?

I am just amused.

There's another picture of her holding a martini glass. Maybe she is aspiring to elitism.

I guess none of those turkeys were mavericks.