Reconsidering the turkey

The other day my son and I were driving in the country when we saw a small rafter of wild turkeys hanging out by the side of the road. We stopped to watch, which eventually caused the big tom to lead the dozen or so females and adolescents back to the tall meadow stand at a leisurely pace, one eye on us and one on his charges. He perched in a low tree, puffed up and giving orders in what sounded like a calm but firm voice, not descending until it was time to form a rear guard of one. It was very cool.

For a 10-year old, Harrison is a fount of history and science trivia. As we pulled away he asked me if I knew that Ben Franklin thought the turkey would make a better national bird than the bald eagle. “I did know that,” I replied. “Do you know why?”

“Because he thought turkeys were smarter and more honest than eagles, and that was a better symbol for America.” I asked if he agreed.

“I think,” he replied, “that the turkey would be a better symbol of how we should be, but the eagle is more accurate for how we are.” Indeed.

Benjamin Franklin’s now-famous thoughts on the turkey were disclosed in a letter to his daughter in 1784:

“For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. …[T]oo lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the Support of his Mate and young Ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him. … [L]like those among Men who live by Sharping & Robbing he is generally poor and often very lousy. Besides he is a rank Coward: The little King Bird not bigger than a Sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the District. He is therefore by no means a proper Emblem for the brave and honest Cincinnati of America who have driven all the King birds from our Country…For the Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird …He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage…”

Franklin never petitioned his idea formally. Maybe he already had a sense of the direction in which things were headed and didn’t see the value in ruffling any feathers (sorry). He was, after all, a pretty smart guy, and eerily prescient on a host of matters.

Philosophically, as a publisher, I’m probably a lot like Ben Franklin, who worked as a civil servant late into his life, more interested in improving the postal service, the library system and municipal functions than holding great power on the world stage.

So when you read VITAL Source online or in print, you’ll mostly find thorough coverage of the city’s cultural life, civic engagement and community development initiatives. We don’t do much political coverage because, frankly, my co-publisher and I are squeamish about the typically toxic, yet symbiotic, relationship between politics and the media. We believe that telling you how to think not only insults your intelligence: it’s patently self-serving in a system where there no longer exists even a façade of consistent party doctrines.

But it’s still critically important to know where your officials stand. In this issue, as we prepare for one of the most momentous elections in our country’s history, VITAL offers what we believe is a refreshing approach to finding out what’s high-priority for the people you put into office: we asked them. Willie Hines, Scott Walker, James Sullivan, Jim Sensenbrenner and Russ Feingold were each given the same single question and 500 words to answer it. We were looking to gauge the priorities of sitting officials whose work was underway in earnest. The results, found beginning on page 6, don’t offer much in the way of fresh policy ideas (with one notable exception), but they do provide one of the most interesting composite political sketches we’ve seen in a good long time.

Government is more accessible at the local level. I’ve said many times that to truly effect change, start in your neighborhood. And so we are, finally, in the pages of VITAL. Turn to page 10 for our new column, “Behind the Scaffolding,” penned by Dan Corcoran. It’s your guide to City Hall issues that affect Milwaukee residents directly, related in short segments from Dan’s entertaining and well-informed perspective. We hope you’ll read it every month.

Do you know someone who’s fearless in their commitment to their community, either professionally or personally? Nominate them to be one of VITAL’s Fearless Leaders, who will be honored in our January 2009 issue. We’re very excited and hope you’ll participate. Details are on page 11 or on our website (vitalsourcemag.com), with more information to come soon.

At VITAL, it’s always been about tending your backyard garden while keeping an eye on the sky. And just in the last few weeks it has become increasingly evident that so much around us is exceedingly complicated, even completely out of our control. This is a hard pill to swallow for a nation of individuals historically raised to believe that our country’s position of strength was inviolable and that our personal success rested on our own abilities. I wonder if Ben Franklin could have predicted the current meltdown of the economy and global hostilities raging out of control; I bet he could have seen a black man and a woman in the same presidential race. Sadly, it’s too late to take his advice on the turkey, but he also left us this: After crosses and losses, Men grow humbler and wiser.

Let’s hope so. VS