Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Flying Turkeys of Yesteryear

It's not every day you get to write a sentence like this:

As Keith Olbermann was making a pumpkin pie with Martha Stewart yesterday, they discussed the video of Sarah Palin cheerfully pardoning a Thanksgiving turkey with others being slaughtered in the background, as he recalled the classic 1978 WKRP sitcom episode of turkeys being dropped from a helicopter on the mistaken assumption that they could fly.

In the context of politicians scrambling around to give Citibank, AIG and other plummeting turkeys a soft landing, there is something symbolic about Palin's rescue plan for one bird while others are going down.

After all this, the nostalgic may opt for a Thanksgiving dinner of moose chili and watching tapes of Jimmy Carter's fireside chats about the ailing economy back then.

2 comments:

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

Why is it that this Palin/turkey story (yes, I get the humor, irony, etc.) gets tossed around for a week (and counting) but when Biden says that Roosevelt talked on TV in 1929 (he wasn't president in '29, nor did many people even have televisions) to calm the nation, this gets virtually no attention? I mean, I think I know the answer but, still, thoughts, anybody?

Anonymous said...

Philo Farnsworth transmitted the first live human images with his non-mechanical television in 1929.

FDR was Governor of New York in 1929.

If Philo broadcast Elma, his wife, why would he not have broadcast Franklin?

Who is Palin?