Thanksgiving is second in a slew of holidays at this time of year that have become one extended caloric nightmare.  Marketers have successfully driven consumers to celebrate these holidays in an atmosphere of frenzied food consumption, often from everyday pre-packaged products festooned with special holiday cheer.  However, you can say no to the pre-packaged cheer and have a hearty, sustainable meal.  Below are 10 tips to a healthier, humane, sustainable, “low carb(on)” and labor friendly Thanksgiving from some fantastic organizations, some of whom we’re working with for the Social Action campaign for our film, Food, Inc.

1. Buy produce from your local farmers market.  Rather than eating grapes from Mexico, apples from Argentina or potatoes from China, purchase as much of your holiday produce from a local farmer! takepart with the Eat Well Guide to find one near you.

2. Buy organic produce whenever possible.  Organic produce is safer, tastes better than conventional produce and is readily available at farmers markets and supermarkets nationwide.  Also, look for organic wines, beverages and condiments.

3. Support a farm worker.  Thousands of migrant workers labor in dangerous, brutal conditions for little pay to bring food to our table every day. takepart to help to improve the lives of farm workers and their families through the United Farm Workers.

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I don’t really understand the whole concept of a politician “pardoning” a turkey. In this MSNBC video Sarah Palin pardons a turkey however, while being interviewed, you can see others being slaughtered behind her. (WARNING THIS VIDEO IS NOT FOR ANYONE WHO DOESN’T WANT TO SEE HOW TURKEYS ARE KILLED)

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, more than 45 million turkeys are cooked and eaten in the U.S. at Thanksgiving. That’s alot of birds!

Want to do something to takepart on Thanksgiving? Visit http://www.volunteermatch.org/ and find volunteer opportunities to participate in on Thanksgiving. Volunteer Match pairs volunteers up with volunteer opportunities.

*Bye-bye bananas?! Will bananas disappear by 2010?

*Hundreds of farmers from 26 countries worldwide are gathering in Jakarta for an International Conference on Peasant Rights, from June 21 to 25.

*Turkey is not prepared for global food crisis

* When inflation means starvation- giving timely assistance to ward off further suffering among the world’s poor has become a moral obligation.

* The World Bank estimates that high food prices will quickly pull 100 million people back below the poverty line.

* UK food production industry will see a spike in food industry mergers and acquisitions over the next two years

* It would cost $30 billion a year to solve the food crisis.

takepart with Oxfam America

Social Action + Cinema Videos of the Day:

1) Human Rights Watch : Cluster Munitions - A Weapon Out of Control

For the Cinema YouTube Video of the Day, Click here >>>

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PETA, in conjunction with their new veggie testimonials site, has announced a video contest! The contest asks folks to make their own “veggie testimonial” or video that explains why they are a vegetarian. Here’s an example:

Think you can make a better one?

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Fatih Akin has been on my movie radar since I saw his 2000 film In July. From there I saw his short film in the program Visions of Europe, which I enjoyed and then on to the first film in his Love, Death, Devil trilogy Head On, which I absolutely loved. I was lucky enough to see an advanced screening of the second film in that trilogy, The Edge of Heaven on Saturday afternoon (part of The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Film Comment Selects series.)

The Edge of Heaven, as you might imagine, deals with death, but it does so through a moving examination of fathers and sons and mothers and daughters as they navigate between two countries whose connection is always changing, Germany and Turkey.

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Staying up till past 1am watching results come in for both the Republican and Democratic nominations in yesterday’s Super Tuesday voting, I couldn’t help but think of The West Wing. It seems to me that with the closeness in both party races, we are in for a intense few months leading up to November, proving that each vote does count and that we are still very much divided as a country.

What I enjoyed about The West Wing was how, despite one party being in the fictional White House, the show focused on the issues and often on people coming together to work to make this country better.

In that spirit, watch one of my favorite (more lighthearted) clips from The West Wing below and in the coming months remember to focus on the issues and not the mud that I suspect might be flung. And even though I posted this yesterday, if you haven’t already, please please please to register and vote!

I hope you’ll indulge me as I write aloud. Turkey’s lifting of its ban on head scarves raises an interesting and complicated question, by no means limited to Turkey or to head scarves. To some, enforcing a ban against women wearing head scarves is about enforcing secularism, freedom and… oddly enough, tolerance, albeit in an intolerant and compulsory way. On the other hand, allowing women to do what they want with their heads, taking a more “my head scarf, my choice,” can be seen as a more tolerant position, but one that allows for (what some would deem) intolerant practices, such as covering your head. Of course, there is a difference between you covering your own head, and you being made to cover your head. Ultimately, I think, the case can be made that there are women who want to wear a head scarf, who aren’t victims, who don’t do it for men. In fact, many Muslim women are offended by the way Western feminists take on a cause which they may not understand, onto which they impose their own values, which may or may not be imperialist, Orientalizing etc. But it becomes more complicated when discussing practices such as clitorectomies as shown in the debate in the New York Times. Genital mutilation really does push the limits of cultural relativism arguments.

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