November 30, 2008

• Life and Death in America

  Craig Medred writes the Outdoors column for the Anchorage Daily News.  For several years after he started the column, I didn’t much like the guy.  He seemed to me like a city guy with pretensions to the wilderness life.  Since then, he has spent more time in the wild, as have I, and both of us have had some rough experiences and got through them alive, against the odds.  I’m liking him better all the time, and that is only partially because of the woods cred he has gained, and his more philosophical tone in general.

  His column today is worth reading in its entirety, and I’ll give you a few highlights to tempt you.  He starts off talking about this weird country where, when an attention-hungry politician “pardons” a Thanksgiving turkey — while in the background wholesale bloody turkey slaughter is going on…

  …journalists decide the turkey pardoning and the turkey slaughtering are important enough to warrant national attention, but not something the average American should see. So MSNBC-TV fuzzes out the turkeys dying over the left shoulder of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as she babbles on about the “brutal” nature of American politics.

  This being the Internet age, however, no video stays fuzzed out long. Pretty soon the unfuzzed version is up on YouTube.

  All of which sets people to arguing over whether Palin was set up by the media or somewhat foolishly chose to stand in front of turkeys being slaughtered while talking about the state of national politics. Whether you are bothered by turkeys dying or not, there is no doubt that what is going on in the background of her interview is distracting.

  So maybe the governor was trying to make some sort of symbolic statement about the cycle of life.

  Everything dies. That’s the way nature works.

  After enlightening the clueless among his readers that their Thanksgiving turkeys were once living, breathing, beings, he goes on to clue them in to who Sarah Palin is:

  A way out-of-the-box pick by Republican presidential candidate John McCain, she was such a friendly, smiling, charismatic presence on the campaign trail — even when she said mean things — that she became an instant celebrity, sort of the Paris Hilton of American politics.

  In the midst of his philosophical musings on politics and culture, Craig asks, “If Turkeygate is a story because Palin engages in the silly business of “pardoning” a turkey then does an interview while the rest of the flock dies, how do you not show the dying turkeys? That’s the whole point of the story, and it’s not like a turkey never dies on TV.”

  At the end, he finishes up with these words that have earned him an even greater measure of my respect:

  At the risk of being classed among those big meanies of the press beating up on Palin, I’ve got to confess the video left me wondering how it looked to Alaska Native elders steeped in the idea of how we should all show a deep and honest respect for animals even in the process of killing them so we might eat.

  Follow this link to read all of ‘Turkeygate’ fiasco is prime example of weirdness.
  

  • 5:03 pm
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