My youngest had her first practice “chicken showing” at the fairgrounds yesterday. She oiled up his beak, comb, wattle, feet, and legs while he stood on the kitchen table the night before. She could not have been prouder walking about with her giant rooster, which she can barely get her arms around. Roosters are just guys (with feathers) and can get pretty aggressive. Bumblebee, however, is as gentle as a lamb (and a whole lot louder). We were sorry to learn that the 4-H spring poultry showing at our local fairgrounds has been cancelled, suggesting that there may be no birds at our fair this summer. Oh well.

I honestly don’t know if this move makes sense from a statistical perspective or not. Some fairs in North America last year did not show poultry, and the French government banned poultry at their big fair just last week. But, having witnessed the rash of public event cancellations and the spike in duct tape sales following 9/11, one can hazard a guess as to what the public reaction might be, regardless of statistics, now that word about poultry show cancellations is getting onto the front pages of America’s mainstream press.Just to make this post longer, I’ll make some predictions that people can argue over and hold me accountable to later for being completely wrong.

  1. The news will cause a domino effect (sometimes called a media circus or feeding frenzy).
  2. The specter of a nervous public impacting fair revenues will force the hand of other fair committees to follow suit.
  3. Eventually, it will catch the attention of politicians who will all jump on the bandwagon, falling over each other to be the first to publicly proclaim support for the decision, photo ops to follow (this is probably how “In God We Trust” got printed on our money).
  4. Poultry shows in all fairs across the United States will be cancelled.