452:
Poultry Slam 2011
Originally aired 12.02.2011
We bring you our sort-of-annual holiday tradition: The Poultry Slam! Stories of what happens when humans and fowl collide, including the tale of one notorious turkey who unleashed a long reign of terror on an unsuspecting neighborhood.
Ira Glass talks with Scharlette Holdman, who works with defense teams on high profile death row cases, and who has not talked to a reporter in more than 25 years. Why did she suddenly end the moratorium on press? Because her story is about something important: Namely, a beautiful chicken.
(2 1/2 minutes)
Scharlette Holdman's story continues, in which she and the rest of a legal
defense team try to save a man on death row by finding a star witness—a
chicken with a specific skill.
(10 1/2 minutes)
The number of wild turkeys in the United States has risen from 30,000 at the
beginning of the 20th century to an estimated seven million today. And it's
common for them to get aggressive with people. But the average turkey
doesn't come close to the reign of terror unleashed by one particular
turkey, named Tom, on Martha's Vinyard in 2008. Sam Bungey tells the story.
Sam edits the online magazine The Racket.
(15 minutes)
In order to make foie gras - goose liver - the birds have to be treated
inhumanely, strapped down and force-fed huge amounts of food. So when a chef
named Dan Barber heard about Eduardo Sousa, a Spaniard who had supposedly
found a way to make foie gras without mistreating the animals, Dan didn't
believe it... until he went to Spain to investigate. Dan runs the New York
restaurant Blue Hill. (20 minutes)
Song: "Don't Fence Me In", Louis Armstrong and His All Stars
