I'm a movie critic just like many of you are. No special credentials. I just know what I like! Let me recommend one I just finished: Frozen River. I was riveted by Melissa Leo's performance as a poor woman trying her hardest to keep her family together near the U.S. Canadian border. The movie was nominated for two Oscars, including Leo for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role. She earned the nomination completely, but (obviously) didn't win the Oscar.
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May 28, 2009
A Movie Recommendation
I'm a movie critic just like many of you are. No special credentials. I just know what I like! Let me recommend one I just finished: Frozen River. I was riveted by Melissa Leo's performance as a poor woman trying her hardest to keep her family together near the U.S. Canadian border. The movie was nominated for two Oscars, including Leo for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role. She earned the nomination completely, but (obviously) didn't win the Oscar.
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Seeing that K-car on the ice... well, that's just too funny!
ReplyDeleteIt's a throwback to irony, is it not?
It also reminded me of the climactic scene from the movie "Fargo," which it seemed Sara Palin was apparently hoping to recall to the American public's mind, when she appeared standing in front of a turkey farming operation in AK (that's "postal" for "Alaska") before Thanksgiving last year while a turkey was being slaughtered.
Of course, we here in Alabama give thanks with much more style and class!
Many - if not most - are familiar with the Governor's participation in a long-standing tradition of pardoning Clyde, the Thanksgiving turkey, which has to date, been raised by Bates' Turkey Farm.
That's an entirely dignifying seasonal photo op, I know. But it has also become a time-honored tradition, one which sets aside the often partisan bickering to which we've become accustomed from Goat Hill.
Which brings to mind another interesting point... turkey and farming.
My dad spent many years in the poultry supply industry, and Bill Bates was his customer. And as often is the case, they became good friends.
The Bates’ farm, since its 1923 inception, has led because they’ve always raised their turkeys as “free range.” It wasn’t because of pressure from any animal rights organizations, it was just the way they farmed.
ref: http://www.batesturkey.com/aboutUs.aspx
While they have expanded their operations, it could be that Bates Turkey Farm is among Alabama’s best kept secrets! You know the saying... “A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.”
California supplies much of our nation’s food, and for over a decade has produced nearly TWICE as much milk as Wisconsin (formerly known as “America’s Dairyland”). For example, in ‘08, CA produced 41,203M lbs, while WI produced 24,417M lbs. Arkansas is known for their poultry production, and is a top turkey producing state as well; but while AK produces more carcasses, CA often produces nearly as much weight, sometimes with half as many bodies!
ref: nass.udsa.gov
I can’t imagine that any farmer would deliberately mistreat his animals. Yet I was shocked to learn from testimony before The House Committee on Agriculture, Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy and Poultry, May 8, 2007 by Gene Baur, a Cornell University educated agricultural economist, that large-scale corporate-farmed chickens and turkeys (NOT the Bates’ Farm) “have been genetically altered to grow twice as fast and twice as large as normal, reaching slaughter weight at just 6 weeks of age. The animals are pushed to their biological limits and millions die every year before reaching the slaughterhouse because their hearts and lungs cannot sustain their abnormal size and growth rate. The birds’ legs and joints have difficulty supporting their unwieldy bodies, and often fail, leaving the birds crippled and in pain. Deaths and suffering are tolerated as acceptable economic losses since the financial benefits associated with using faster-growing birds are greater than the losses.
“Like chickens, turkeys have been genetically altered to grow fast and large, and they also experience coronary risks and crippling leg and joint disorders. Commercially raised turkeys have been anatomically altered to have more breast meat because it is the most in demand and profitable. This anatomical manipulation has made it impossible for turkeys to mount and reproduce naturally, and the industry now relies on artificial insemination as the sole means of reproduction.”
Why?
An Internet-based search of “artificial insemination poultry” yields many bona fide results:
Give Thanks? Science Supersized Your Turkey Dinner
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/11/turkeytech/
Poultry Artificial Insemination
http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/index.jsp?cfile=htm/bc/205700.htm
In the Turkey Breeding Factory
http://www.upc-online.org/fall94/breeding.html
This isn’t science fiction.
It’s science Friction!