Turkey time is always an interesting time around the Turkewitz household. Always has been and always will be given the easy play on the name.

But that won’t stop us from throwing the football around tomorrow in our annual game, called…wait for it…The Turkey Bowl.

It’s also a good time to remember that Ben Franklin wanted the wild turkey as the national bird, due to its courage. I suspect my childhood would have been a bit different this time of year if he had prevailed. He wrote in a letter to his daughter, comparing the turkey with the bald eagle:

For the Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America . . . He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on.

But instead, we gobble them up this time of year, which might be good for us but not so good for the actual turkeys.

May the day be a happy and peaceful one for all. It’s a good time to remember those who have less, and if you are reading this then you have a computer and that means there are billions of people who have less.

Shea Stadium is being demolished as we speak. A new stadium is ready to go for the New York Mets, with Citibank having bought the naming rights for 20 years for $20 million per year.

The new stadium’s name, Citi Field, could be worse, of course, but that isn’t the reason for this brief post. It seems two NYC councilmen don’t think Citibank ought to have their name on a field given the Citi bailout and the fact that this naming nonsense is now being paid for with our tax dollars. And Citibank has no plans on pulling out of the deal.

Their councilmens’ solution? Call it Citi/Taxpayer Field, which is of course a dumb name but makes a good point.

My own suggestion for a name — since I don’t really want my tax dollars to go for promoting Citibank by wasting it on a baseball field, and big corporations aren’t likely to be stepping up to the plate with piles of money for naming rights any time soon — is to name it for the one man who wore the uniforms of all four big league teams to play in New York: The immortal Casey Stengel. (“Good pitching will always stop good hitting, and vice versa.”)

Citi Field should be out and Stengel Field should be in.

Unless, of course, someone out there has a better name?

So there I was reading the paper in court this morning and I saw this great story on the front page of the New York Times about the Santa Monica police busting people for exercising on the median of a popular roadway (Where the Traffic Median Is a No-Pilates Zone).

Why are the health nuts congregating there? From the Times:

The ocean view, the air and for some the architectural spectacle have transformed the area into a huge outdoor gym rimmed by multimillion-dollar homes.

And how much time and effort are being spent on this little project? Back to the Times:

Since the patrols began, the city has issued eight citations for the flouting of the median law — the fine is $158 — and has given warnings, which are generally heeded, to about 600 people a month.

Of course, not everyone feels like complying with the orders of the cops, no matter how many of them patrol the area, so that means legal challenges. And more costs.

Now the last time I checked, we had two wars going. Our economy is in the stinker. State governments from sea to shining sea are facing massive cutbacks due to a sudden drop in tax receipts.

And the the good folks out in Santa Monica are busting folks for acting healthy.