In response to my earlier
post about Talon News (the propaganda site for which Jeff Gannon "reported") striking me as a bit fascist-sounding, a reader writes to endorse another form of fowl as our national symbol:
The eagle was the symbol of the Roman legions, and it is still the symbol of their weltenschaung. This was precisely why Ben Franklin nominated against the eagle... The Wild Turkey (a -native- bird, no less, one of this continent's great gifts to good eating) for National Winged Thing. Peaceable, wily and agile, with a strong familial sense and an ability to dissolve into the forest that remains legend, the wild turkey represents the future that Franklin and Jefferson imagined, as opposed to Hamilton's mercantile wet dream or Adams' de facto aristocracy.
The reader also provided this
link to remarks by Ben Franklin favoring the turkey over the eagle. I don't know, making it our national symbol right now would probably be an insult to the turkey.
posted by Jen, 4:30 PM -
link |
