Tofurkey of the Week # 6

Ahh, the Tofurkey. The Daily Suppository's award for all those found acting like a total turkey in an environmentally sensitive manner. This award has become somewhat of a fixture around here, athough everyone has been very kind to not point out that it hasn't been as weekly as the name would indicate.

Regardless, I have found another candidate for the award, and this week it goes out to the wife of fellow Tofurkey alumni, Pete Bethune.

Pete Bethune, erstwhile "Captain" of the doomed Ady Gil Trimaran and all 'round danger to the public, has just landed in Japan, where all his, um...tofurkeys, have come home to roost in the form of an arrest for tresspass. This charge is for his ill-advised boarding of the whaler Shonan Maru II, and may attract a sentence of up to three years or a hefty fine. Pete can console himself with the fact that it could have been worse, he could have been charged with piracy.

Sharyn Bethune, Pete's wife, has earned herself a tofurkey for expressing "shock" at his arrest.

Sharyn was quoted as saying:

“You can't just shrug it off. It's a long way for his kids to go and see him - a Japanese jail.”

Which came as a bit of a shock to me, too, as I assumed given the way Pete has been gallivanting around the southern ocean throwing butyric acid missiles around and generally having a, forgive me, whale of a time, that he mustn't have any kids.

Blind Freddy could have seen this arrest coming, so the Tofurkey is also awarded on the basis that people with dependent children should not knowingly put themselves in such a compromising situation and then plead for sympathy when the inevitable happens.

The New Zealand foreign minister has also stated that he is not going to intervene on Pete's behalf, and is happy to leave him to the tender mercies of the Japanese judicial system. Which, as mentioned previously, has a track record of a 98% + conviction rate.