Today, November 24th is Teacher’s Day in Turkey. Since so many of our readers are teachers (or once were) I’m wishing you all a happy Teacher’s Day.

Even though teachers have been my enemy since 1rst grade – none of you guys have tried to educate me, so we are on good terms? 😀

Beesides, who needz two lurn anythang frum skool dat you is can’t already be learnin on da streetz yo!

I stumbled across this a while ago and thought I’d share for anyone who hasn’t heard of Tarkan (the guy who wrote that catchy “Kiss-Kiss” song). Anyway, hearing him in English kinda made me laugh, yet cringe at the same time.

You can listen to some here – the picture is for the ladies.

Although, I gotta say that song is kinda catchy..

By the mid 1630s, a new group of 700 even holier Europeans calling themselves Puritans had arrived on 11 ships and settled in Boston-which only served to accelerate the brutality against the Indians.

In one incident around 1637, a force of whites trapped some seven hundred Pequot Indians, mostly women, children, and the elderly, near the mouth of the Mystic River. Englishman John Mason attacked the Indian camp with “fire, sword, blunderbuss, and tomahawk.” Only a handful escaped and few prisoners were taken-to the apparent delight of the Europeans:

To see them frying in the fire, and the streams of their blood quenching the same, and the stench was horrible; but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave praise thereof to God.

This event marked the first actual Thanksgiving. In just 10 years 12,000 whites had invaded New England, and as their numbers grew they pressed for all-out extermination of the Indian. Euro-diseases had reduced the population of the Massachusett nation from over 24,000 to less than 750; meanwhile, the number of European settlers in Massachusetts rose to more than 20,000 by 1646.

The Real Thanksgiving

I’m not saying don’t enjoy your meal, but I thought that we should at least be aware of the turkeys killed and the fact that there is no legislation (at least in the United States) against cruelty towards these animals.

Every year in the United States over 270 million turkeys are killed for their flesh. More than 45 million of these turkeys are killed for Thanksgiving alone, and over 20 million are killed for Christmas. Almost all of them spend their entire lives on factory farms and have almost no federal legal protection from cruelty.

Turkeys raised on factory farms are hatched in large incubators and never see their mothers or feel the warmth of a nest. When they are only a few weeks old, they are moved into filthy, windowless sheds with up to 25,000 other turkeys, where they will spend the rest of their lives until they are sent to the slaughter plant. To keep the birds from killing one another in such crowded conditions, parts of the turkeys’ toes and beaks are cut off, as are the males’ snoods (the flap of skin under the chin). All this is done without any pain relievers…