The folks over at Huffington Post are shocked, shocked I tell you, that Sarah Palin would be interviewed while turkeys are slaughtered in the background.
Here is the story:
They just can't believe it. It is "positively surreal". Huffington even has to put "slaughtered" in all caps. They have to use two exclamation points to make their point. It is "gruesome." OK, watch if for yourself.Some videos you just have to see to believe. On Thursday, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin appeared in Wasilla in order to pardon a local turkey in anticipation of Thanksgiving. This proved to be a slightly absurd but ultimately unremarkable event. But what came next was positively surreal. After the pardon Palin proceeded to do an interview with a local TV station while the turkeys were being SLAUGHTERED in the background!!
Seemingly oblivious to the gruesomeness going on over her shoulder, she carries on talking for over three minutes. Watch the video below to see for yourself. Be warned, it's kind of gruesome.
I am really not grossed out. I am not shocked.
I did not grow up on a farm, but we had a couple acres and raised chickens and pigs. I never witnessed the slaughter of the pigs, but saw the dead carcasses after they had been killed and cleaned. I have eaten the sausage and bacon and ham of the pigs I fed every morning and enjoyed it. I have caught chickens and cut their heads off for my mom to cook for dinner. My classmates were farm kids and raised calves for their 4-H project. They fed them and groomed them and showed them at the county fair where they were sold at action to become meat.
I never went hunting myself; my dad was not a hunter. But, I grew up with people who regularly went hunting. The seasons of the year were rabbit season, and deer season, and dove season.
I think that Sarah Palin can give an interview in front of a man going about the business of killing turkeys and think nothing about it, is an indication of a cultural divide. I doubt people in Alaska think it is that unusual that animals are killed for food. It is probably something they take for granted. I doubt Sarah Palin has been socialized to be squeamish about it or be sensitive to the squeamishness of others. The fact that animals are killed for food is not something so strange for her or for many of us who grew up in rural areas. I know that fewer and fewer people have a connection to the food they eat, but guess what: that meat in the supermarket wrapped in cellophane and Styrofoam was once an animal. Shocking to discover, I know. I have known for a long time were meat comes from.
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