TUESDAY 25 NOVEMBER 2014 • [email protected] • www.thepeninsulaqatar.com • 4455 7741 inside Hunger Games tops CAMPUS box office with • Hundreds attend award ceremony of Science $123m opening India Forum - Qatar P | 4 P | 8-9 RECIPE CONTEST • Send in your best recipe and win a dinner voucher for two P | 6 Typically on the day before Thanksgiving, US president, the man FOOD who makes decisions about wars, • Baking Chez virus outbreaks, terrorism cells and Moi, a crisp, other dire matters of state chooses filling effort to pardon a single turkey. P | 7 HEALTH • Overweight cancer patients may be malnourished P | 11 TECHNOLOGY • Samsung Galaxy Note Edge: Curved screen is more than a gimmick P | 12 LEARN ARABIC WHITE HOUSE • Learn commonly used Arabic words PARDONS TURKEY and their meanings P | 13 2 PLUS | TUESDAY 25 NOVEMBER 2014 COVER STORY President Barack Obama, accom- panied by his daughters, Sasha and Malia, pardons Popcorn the turkey during the annual event in 2013. Why does US president pardon a turkey (or two)? By Tim Carman by the president (or anyone else) this year. The activist-minded, of course, pounce on The pardoned pair will not exactly earn their the question as a way to underscore the schism very year for a quarter-century now, unconditional freedom, either: After the cer- between this intellectually convoluted ritual and the president of the United States has emony, the turkeys will go straight to Morven the reality of most farmed turkeys raised for the pardoned a turkey. Consider this for a Park in Leesburg, Virginia, to live as tourist Thanksgiving table. Emoment. Typically on the day before attractions, following almost the same path as The “pardon speaks to the conflict between Thanksgiving, the man who makes decisions last year’s poultry stars, Popcorn and Caramel. our human desire to act with kindness and about wars, virus outbreaks, terrorism cells and They’ll be there as long as the broad-breasted the violence associated with a holiday tra- other dire matters of state chooses to pardon a whites live, which typically isn’t long for a com- dition centred on the body of a dead bird,” single turkey (plus an alternate, which presum- mercial breed raised to be abnormally large. Such emails Gene Baur, co-founder and president ably takes the place of the officially pardoned bulk can be hell on a turkey’s legs and internal of Farm Sanctuary. It’s worth noting that the should he or she not be able to fulfill the duties). organs. nonprofit organisation promotes a meat-free The birds for this year’s ceremony are already “Popcorn passed away, unfortunately, in July on diet. bulking up for their moment in the Rose Garden one of those really hot days,” said a spokeswoman “It is a way to validate our humanity,” Baur with President Barack Obama. for Morven Park. “He just didn’t make it through adds, “while also enabling the brutal slaughter The two toms — their names still under con- the heat.” Caramel is doing great, thank you. of tens of millions of innocent animals.” sideration as of press time — were hatched in July This White House ceremony clearly is not for Bev Eggleston, president and founder of and raised at Cooper Farms in Ohio, a family- the benefit of the creatures receiving the pardon. EcoFriendly Foods, latches on to the term owned operation that processes about 4.6 mil- So, what is the point of the ceremony, and why “pardoned.” He points out that while the birds lion turkeys annually. The feathered duo, one have we paid attention to it every year since it bound for the White House are among a small could assume, are too young to have committed began — not with Abraham Lincoln nor with flock raised in Ohio, the millions of turkeys crimes requiring a pardon — such as, say, terror- Harry S Truman, but with George H W Bush in bound for our dinner tables are isolated on ising toddlers at a 4-H fair. In fact, at only a few 1989? It’s a question few seem to have considered, large industrial farms, where the creatures months old, they are roughly the same age as the as if the point were either self-evident or too silly are basically incarcerated and treated as pro- 46 million other turkeys that will not be spared to ponder in the first place. duction units, not animals of any sentience. PLUS | TUESDAY 25 NOVEMBER 2014 3 “I find it really interesting that we use the semantics of imprisoning,” Eggleston says. “What really needs a pardon is our social disgrace, that we accept the unacceptable.” Michael Pollan, a writer known for analysing the food industry from multiple perspectives, views the tur- key ceremony through an almost religious prism, as if it toys with the Old Testament ritual of animal sac- rifices, designed to atone for our sins. “It’s sort of an animal sacrifice in reverse — instead of killing the one to stand symbolically for the many, we free the one and kill the many,” Pollan offers in an email. She doesn’t come right out and drop the word “sin,” but Marion Nestle, author and professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University, fig- ures the White House is applying balm to ease our troubled conscience. “I’m guessing that a lot of peo- ple feel vaguely guilty eating meat from animals and birds raised for food, and being responsible for their death,” Nestle writes via email. “The turkey pardon symbolically lets them off the hook. It lets everyone feel good about some meaning of Thanksgiving beyond an excuse for gluttony.” On November 22, 2000, the National Turkey Baur at Farm Sanctuary finds Federation presents a turkey to President Bill the practice of naming the turkeys Clinton that the president then pardoned. curious, an act designed to draw Americans closer to animals that will eventually land on our dinner “Still,” Baur adds, “a couple of group usually gives the president a and give a couple of turkeys to the plates. saved lives is better than no saved pair. president.” “Farmers often deliberately don’t lives.” “As this tradition observes the So, how can the average American name [or get close to] their animals He then puts in a plug for an opening of a season of thanks,” reconcile the perspectives of the because they don’t want to get emo- alternative to the pardon: Farm Williams notes in a statement, “we activist and the turkey farmer over tionally attached to them,” Baur Sanctuary’s Adopt a Turkey Project, come to reflect on the president’s this ceremony? For help on the mat- notes. “Naming these individuals which helps support the care of res- words of an America mindful and ter, I turned to Gregory Kaebnick, can be a way to personify the birds, cued animals, including 65 turkeys thankful of its history, purpose and a scholar at the Hastings Center, but within the context of a national at three shelters. “Our turkeys traditions.” a bioethics research institute in holiday that celebrates killing these live longer lives than most indus- This year’s federation chairman Garrison, New Yprk. Kaebnick animals by the tens of millions, it’s trial breeds,” e-boasts Susie Coston, is Gary Cooper, and he’s no actor. devotes significant brain power to painfully ironic.” national shelter director for the non- He’s the chief operating officer for pondering the moral issues around profit group. Some live to be 10 years Cooper Farms, a 76-year-old opera- our relationship with nature. He old, she adds. tion that’s raising the turkeys for finds value in the turkey pardon. (Other animal protection groups, the White House. At 59, Cooper has “There are a few small things such as the People for the Ethical spent his entire life on farms, amid to like about it,” Kaebnick emails. Treatment of Animals and the these squawking creatures of ques- “It’s a tiny signal of restraint and Humane Society of the United tionable temperament. He can talk moderation on a day that, at least States, take a different tack and sug- turkey. at my house, is about getting as gest Americans adopt vegetarian and As a major producer of turkeys — much as possible into the oven. It’s There are a few small vegan menus for the holiday, support a bird native to North America and live and let live, even if it’s just things to like about humanely raised foods or even rent symbolically aligned with our coun- turkeys.” it. It’s a tiny signal of the animated film “Free Birds” to try’s colonial roots — Cooper and When I mention that Kaebnick promote turkey compassion.) his family have played an integral is one of the few people I’ve inter- restraint and modera- Turkey producers, as you might role in the Thanksgiving holiday, viewed who are outside the tur- tion on a day that, at guess, don’t brood as darkly over bringing Americans together over key industry and still support the president’s poultry pardon as the table for decades. To Cooper, the the ritual, he types back another least at my house, is do the activists. Keith Williams, turkey pardon is a moment of pro- response: “I suppose it could be about getting as much vice president of communications fessional pride. It’s the fulfillment of adapted to accomplish something,” and marketing for the National his American dream: His farm will he offers. “Perhaps Michelle Obama as possible into the Turkey Federation, plays up the forever be a part of presidential and could use it to talk about industrial oven.