Your turkey’s a Muslim

You’ve got the bird home, dressed it in its best Thanksgiving suit, and placed it in the warmth of the oven or the stove, the heat causing the flesh to melt softly inside and the juices to spill out and settle over its body. You will bring it out for the family dinner – an event so positive, so traditional. The turkey is only one of the many rituals.

You have been to the butcher’s often or to the food store. You checked the meat for health and bite. You are a carnivore and relish the tartness of plump flesh in your mouth, the chewiness of the white insides. Turkeys – or other birds and animals – do not have a religion. There are, of course, ways in which some faiths choose to kill. That is how everyone did at one time. But the times, they are a-changing, and what’s on your plate could decide how devout you are.

That is what American Thinker’s Pamela Geller asks rather ominously:

“Did you know that the turkey you're going to enjoy on Thanksgiving Day this Thursday is probably halal? If it's a Butterball turkey, then it certainly is -- whether you like it or not.”

There is challenge in this, as though you are a poor little thing forced to put up with it. She believes “that much of the meat in Europe and the United States is being processed as halal without the knowledge of the non-Muslim consumers who buy it”.

Under the pretext of the awful slaughter methods – she has nothing to say about fox-hunting and open barbeques that are pretty common in the west, or even the choice of steaks rare – she is driving home the point that this is an Islamic plot. Yes, in the heart of America and the western nations, where turkey is consumed more than in any Muslim country, these Muslims are managing a major coup by not labelling the meat separately as halal and non-halal. Do they own all the meat companies?

She managed to verify just one such manufacturer. Wendy Howze, a Butterball Consumer Response Representative, said: "Our whole turkeys are certified halal.”

Butterball is in trouble, because Ms. Geller is starting a campaign in the US:

“Across this great country, on Thanksgiving tables nationwide, infidel Americans are unwittingly going to be serving halal turkeys to their families this Thursday. Turkeys that are halal certified -- who wants that, especially on a day on which we are giving thanks to G-d for our freedom? I wouldn't knowingly buy a halal turkey -- would you? Halal turkey, slaughtered according to the rules of Islamic law, is just the opposite of what Thanksgiving represents: freedom and inclusiveness, neither of which are allowed for under that same Islamic law.”

I understand her pain, and more so of the turkey. But she is the antithesis of the “freedom and inclusiveness” she is talking about. She is emphasising the differences. American butchers are not all Muslim, and they do not run the industry anyway. This halal stuff gets to be tiring, whether it is those who want it and those who don’t. Especially if the motives are religious.

America is not a religious state, although Abraham Lincoln did use faith to explain Thanksgiving:

"…announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord… But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, by the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own… It has seemed to me fit and proper that God should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people…"

If the 16th President of the United States declared it a national holiday, it was for all citizens. This can be seen beyond faith as it was thanking for a good harvest initially. It can be a gesture of deep gratitude for so many things in life.

Geller is exaggerating and making an issue where there is none. If people like her are so concerned, they can just go chase a bird and put it to sleep in the gentlest manner possible. Or, better still, get a soya turkey.

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"Thanksgiving comes to us out of the prehistoric dimness, universal to all ages and all faiths. At whatever straws we must grasp, there is always a time for gratitude and new beginnings."

- J. Robert Moskin

The 'spy' who loved Saudis

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a plan!

I think the Saudis have a point. That vulture that strayed into their territory could well have been a “Zionist plot” set up by Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad.

It is possible that the Saudis thought it was a plane. The bird has a wing span of 8ftx8in, and if people can see UFOs, why can they not imagine spying? Besides, our pigeons can carry information, so vultures are known to be far more ambitious.

It carried a tag of Tel Aviv University. This was an educated bird, see? It was either a sophomore sent on training or one with a seasoned doctorate, perhaps even a professor. These Mossadis are known to be quite academic. But it ventured into the ‘No Fly Zone’, so its intentions may well have been deliberated.

It carried a GPS transmitter. The Israelis say they were monitoring migration patterns of the rare bird. Aha, now Wiki (pedia, not Leaks) says that the Griffin Vulture belongs to the old school and its population is mostly resident. So, what migration is possible?

It was found in the rural area when it was arrested. Since it is a scavenger, are Saudi Arabia’s villages located on mountains (the bird likes to feed and breed at a height) and have many dead animals that they wish to hide from the world?

I know the Israelis and most people are having a good laugh, but let us just say that their little big birdie is not up to much. It cannot study migratory patterns, loses its way, cannot lay its hands on a proper meal, does not even find a decent mate along the way, lacks any urban graces and goes to some stupid rural area and gets caught by the Saudis who usually prefer looking down at their oil wells.

I think this is a Saudi plot and the bird is really a falcon, its national bird.

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Image: Mirror, UK

A Little Birdie Told me

That albatross round your neck is a loyal dog, but adultery rules in the avian kingdom. Bird-watching has got a fresh connotation in an upcoming book The Bird Detective by Bridget Stutchbury.

This might not have ruffled my human feathers at all for the simple reason that the concept of institutionalising relationships is the trait of homosapiens and the world of fauna is fairly liberal, if we see this as one aspect of liberalism, and not tied down by any moralistic constraints. It is true that birds too try their best to attract the opposite sex; they too cohabit like good people of religion for mainly procreative purposes, although their faith rises when the heat in their bodies does; they like building nests, laying eggs, taking care of their young. But we also don’t expect them to be steadfast since no one is going to sit in judgment and shame them.

Therefore, I do not understand the purpose behind such a book venture and, more importantly, the findings. Take this one example:

The book shows male Acadian flycatchers fertilizing females far away from their home nests, and female blue headed vireos premeditating divorce by checking out new mates before they abandon their young.

The main discovery is that so many birds do divorce for what humans would describe as selfish reasons, Stutchbury said, noting that females may seek out males that are more colourful and better singers, or look to step up in the world and move to areas that are safer and have more food.

How can the word divorce be used here? Abandonment, yes. Multiple partners, fine. Glad eye, okay. Selfishness, true. How do birds divorce? Does the erring partner make it clear that s/he is quitting the home-nest? Is there an understanding about territory? Who gets custody of the children? Now, in this respect there are anyway fairly clear ideas regarding who does what that Discovery Channel tells us.

From the little bit that one has read, it seems the females are really on top. Some choose the rakes; others the security. And they plan their moves.

99 per cent of the flamingoes have broken marriages and the wandering albatross merely wanders and returns to the spouse.

I don’t think I will be able to look at any of the birds in the same manner. I know there is a crow that keeps staring at me while I write. He perches himself on the cable wire outside my window and looks. I blush sometimes, but all along I thought he was being a moral support. Or that parrot that occasionally sits on the kitchen window sill? Does she want a bite or does she want me to help her out of a sticky situation? There is a kite that appears rarely. Now I know why. Fidelity is not on the cards. As for the pigeon, I can hear him moaning and groaning and I get irritable or listen quietly depending on my frame of mind. Now I wonder whether he was in desperate need of counselling.

And for those whose cuisine includes fowl, have we ever thought that the bird must have been suicidal anyway after Monsieur Cock gave Madame Hen the documents to undo their ‘I do’?

I am warming up to the author’s effort. I think it should qualify as chick lit!