There's a reason we eat turkeys on Thanksgiving

And you want to know what that reason is?

It's because turkeys are aggressive, kill crazy birds that are increasingly marauding into suburban backyards across the nation, and they need to be controlled, that's why.

Ben Franklin understood the true nature of the turkey, and wanted the turkey to be used as the symbol of our great nation instead of the bald eagle. He undoubtedly knew the fear that the warlike turkey would strike into the hearts of enemies:

For the Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America . . . He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard...

Yes, it's true that reasonable people have far more to fear from alligators than from turkeys. For now. But that doesn't mean we should, for a moment, let our guard down.

Witness the horror of this unprovoked attack. Anecdotal evidence clearly proves that turkeys are increasingly targeting the youngest and most vulnerable among us:



Witness this unprovoked attack on a woman in North Olmsted, Ohio, as she's driven back into the safety of her home by a rampaging tom:



As I said before, this phenomenon is not limited to one region. Attacks have been documented throughout the midwest as well as in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. The Boston Globe recently ran a helpful article titled Tips to stop wild turkeys from terrorizing you. As a public service, I'll reprint some of the best advice from the article:

• Don’t let the turkeys intimidate you. Don't hesitate to scare or threaten a bold, aggressive turkey with loud noises, swatting with a broom or water sprayed from a hose. A dog on a leash is also an effective deterrent.
• Cover windows and other reflective objects. If a turkey is pecking at a shiny object such as a vehicle or window, cover or otherwise disguise the object. Harass the bird by chasing it, squirting with a hose or other means of aggression...
• Educate your neighbors. Pass this information along: Your efforts will be futile if neighbors are providing food for turkeys or neglecting to act boldly towards the birds. It requires the efforts of the entire neighborhood...

"Educate your neighbors. Pass this information along..." Sound advice, my friends.

Finally, one last video that offers hope. It is much the same with turkey attacks as it is with flesh eating zombie outbreaks: very often the gun-happy redneck is best equipped to recognize and deal with the threat. This video is a perfect illustration both of the turkey's aggression, and the appropriate human response. Watch as the savage tom turkey pwns a decoy, and is in turn totally pwn'd by a trio of hillbilly ninjas somewhere in Florida:



CONSTANT VIGILANCE!

Ralph Stanley

I just found out from the good Doctor MVM that one of my all-time favorite musicians, Ralph Stanley, endorsed Obama and did a spot for his campaign.

Here it is:




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I love this

It's quiet, no one's stirring yet and I have time to go over lists and just...sit. We've got some gardening and tidying to do out in the yard, and today looks like a perfect day for it. Costco and the Jewels will be getting a decent amount of my money later today; Binny's Beverage Depot already got their cut.

MizBubs got the day off work and she's sleeping in, bless her heart.

_____________________

I'm about halfway through a really good book: Deer Hunting With Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War by Joe Bageant. If you liked What's the Matter with Kansas? but wished it had been more brutally direct, or set in Appalachia, then this is the book for you.

The author, Joe Bageant, has a great home page here. You can read some of his essays, pungent little exercises with titles like "The audacity of depression" and "Pissing in the liberal punchbowl again."

The very first thing I ever read by him was this piece:

Welcome to middle class lockdown. Now shut up and buy something.

It opens with this quote:

"Take away America's Wal-Mart junk and cheap electronics and what you have left is a mindless primitive tribe and a gaggle of bullshit artists pretending to lead them."

The instant I saw the term "bullshit artist" I was hooked.

A little farther down I came to this passage, and as someone who is actively contemplating his exit to that imagined simpler, more pastoral life, this really hit me:

Now it took me one helluva long time to claw my redneck self into the middle class and it took me even longer to figure all this out about its inauthenticity. Always one to fuck up right in front of the whole damned world, I loudly declared American middle class life to be a crock of shit and vowed to kiss it off. Go someplace simpler. Run nekkid in the surf in Saint Kitts or smoke pot in Belize. Catch my own damned salmon on the Galician Coast. But whoaaa hoss! This bad news just in: Not only do you have to buy your way into the American middle class through forceful consumption of the lifestyle, but you have to buy your way out of it. I'm serious. Buy your right to live in poverty. Let's say you've managed to get your kids through college one way or another, usually via a second mortgage and loans, and you decide like I did to say: Fuck this. I've done right by my family. Now I've got high blood pressure, a bad back, and a million other stress ailments. I'm overweight and have terrible lungs. Now I want to escape the ever rising cost and stress of playing the game, the grinding chase after enough net worth to feel safe about such things as health care and a safe place to shit. Spend a few years in some warm place blinking at blue, unpolluted sky before I go tits up. To my mind, these are completely understandable sentiments for any reasonable person. But, alas dear hearts, the American middle class is a lockdown facility. One that takes a lot of cash bribes and blackmail payoffs to break out of.

_____________________

Sorry if that seemed like a little bit of a downer. I didn't mean for it to. I actually find his writing to have a galvanizing effect on me, which I need more often than not. As the holiday approaches we need a Joe Bageant to cut the grease from all the "God bless the USA" we're going to be subjected to for the next couple of days.

Yep, we're getting ready

Cousin Clete is all excited. He took the gate off the neighbor's dog run and he's getting all set up for the big party this weekend. He felt cheated when we didn't throw a party last year, and he's promised to make up for lost time.

Florida will not destroy me

The Waffle House around the corner from my hotel is full of rock slingers and rednecks, and their grits were lumpy. The wildfires have created a "smoke layer" that the pilot has to warn you about as you approach Jacksonville, so that you don't panic if you smell smoke in the cabin as the plane descends. I discovered that, when you see a sign at the beach that warns you not to swim because of "dangerous rip tides" and the wind is 30 mph, it's a good idea not to swim.

None of this matters; Florida will not destroy me.

I've been on the ground since 7:30 EST Sunday night. The wildfires have apparently driven the alligators deeper into their swamp dens--I didn't have to drive over a single one in the hotel parking lot, or on my way to meet the client. I almost feel cheated. Normally the gators are scampering around down here like squirrels in Grant Park.

I just finished the second night of surveillance and I'm sneaking in a quick post while I finish my beer. Then it's nap time, and then back to interview some people for the rest of the work day. I think I've successfully killed off whatever circadian rhythm I had left.

On a positive note, I had a great shack dining experience at Singletons: a great meal of raw oysters and fried sheephead, washed down with a cheap longneck beer. Singleton's is right next to the 1A ferry landing, next to the Navy base. The pelicans kept me company. Pelicans are regal birds; regal and ridiculous at the same time, which is cool. I got to see the absolute frenzy that hundreds of gulls and pelicans flew into when some shrimping boats came in. Amazing.

Another positive: I found out that, after 1am, I got really good reception for WSM Nashville. I gotta tell you, it's pretty cool to be up all night in a creepy industrial area, sitting alone in your car waiting for something to happen, with old-time hillbilly music as your soundtrack. When the train whistle sounded down the road it created a perfect moment. Made me wish I smoked cigarettes and wore a fedora so I could've felt more like Robert Mitchum.

I better get some sleep.

Hot Dog

I have got to train my dogs to do this: