[Updated from title being the Thanksgiving comment]
Yesterday, the thing I most wanted to say instead of "Happy Thanksgiving", was:
"Happy Stealing Things from Indigenous Peoples Day".
But I didn't. Maybe that's wrong or right. I'll go to a T-Day dinner with friends this Saturday, and I think I'll be able to use that line and be understood.
So back to my normal passions: Did you do anything to green up the planet today? Or yesterday? Do you have green plans for today?
Not only are they the division rivals of my team (to the extent I have one. Week 12? Seems about time to shift my attention from Baseball.) the Giants, but they are also the most arrogant team in the NFL.
America's Team?
Fuck you.
I have hopes for an upset since it's always a pleasure to see the 'Boys lose but I have no expectations the Raiders can deliver.
You know, back when I worked retail I was always happy to come in on holidays for a few reasons not the least of which was the time and a half. It was also dead slow which appeals to my laziness.
But most of all I felt I was providing a public service for people who needed stuff when most places were closed.
Just so I'm happy to provide a little light entertainment for you this Thanksgiving in case you need an excuse to get away from your relatives.
Or at least it will give me an excuse to get away from mine.
Anyway I'll start off this morning with a Macy's Thanksgiving Parade Open Thread.
40 years ago the first UnThanksgiving Day happened.
Oh, it wasn't called that then. Nor was it called that the following year. You see, it wasn't about Thanksgiving at all. It was about the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, and federal policy for native Americans.
I have a Thanksgiving story for your consumption that has nothing to do with turkeys or pumpkin pie or crazy uncles.
Instead, in an effort to remind you what this holiday can really stand for, we'll meet some people who are thankful today for simply being free.
It's a short story today, but an especially touching one, so follow along and we'll take a little hop across the Atlantic for a trip you should not miss.
A Thanksgiving offering (maybe this is becoming a traditional post)
A ritual and a practice.
At our house, when we have Thanksgiving dinner, we like to stop eating and talking to go around the table clockwise so that each person present can say what s/he is thankful for. When we first decided to do this, some of our guests felt this was awkward, perhaps embarrassing. But we don't start with the guests, so they can get an impression of what expressing gratitude and hearing others express it feels like. Those in our immediate family understood this and were comfortable enough with it. After all, at birthdays, we like to go around the table to tell the person celebrating the birthday our many appreciations of him/her. So on Thanksgiving, it's a natural enough question, "What are you thankful for this year?" The answers aren't always surprising. We're thankful for being here another year, for our health however it might then be, for family and friends, for the lives of those now departed, for whatever abundance we may have received, for creativity, for our pets, for our relationships, for our businesses, for our politics, for our dreams and aspirations and hopes, and so on. We're thankful for all kinds of things. You get it, you can probably feel it even reading about doing this. It's a Thanksgiving ritual we love. Feel free to try it out.
I always loved Thanksgiving because, however it was intended or begun, it seemed to be about gratitude. For years I've had a practice I've done. Sometimes I do it every day. Sometimes I do it once a month. Sometimes I don't do it for a long time. It depends. What do I do? I make a list of the things I am thankful for. I number them as I write them down, and I feel my gratitude for each item as I write it before going on to the next. So, I write, "1. my good health, 2. the life of Dr. King, 3. compassion for my seeming enemies, 4. the novels of Cesar Aira." And so on. Until I reach 50. I do this, writing and feeling, until I have a list of 50 items or more that I have enjoyed and felt my thanks for. When I am feeling pinched, stressed, exhausted, depressed, or any other "negative" emotion, it seems to take me a very long time to find items, to write them down and really to feel them. When I am feeling expansive, relaxed, rested, optimistic, or any other "positive" emotion, it takes me virtually no time to write and enjoy the list. Why do this exercise? Because it's almost magical. And it lights me up. Feel free to try it out.
Was it Meister Eckhart who wrote, "If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, 'thank you,' that would suffice?" I agree.
I will not stand still for a surge in Afghanistan. I am going to take action against it. Americans hardly remember they are at war. I am going to be there to remind them. I invite you to do something similar in your hometown.
On the day after Thanksgiving, I am going to go to downtown Chicago, probably around Macy's, and hold an good-size antiwar sign so all the shoppers can see it. One side will be a big, visible peace sign; the other side will just say "Stop Your Wars."
I see this time in Obama's administration as a crucial turning point in Americans' perceptions of the president. Americans are about to see that Obama is oriented toward continuing the war. It is especially important during this time that Americans be allowed to see first-hand that there are citizens who, maybe just like them, disagree with Obama's position toward escalating troops.
And it is true generally that most Americans tend to forget we are even at war at all. I think those of us who do remember have the responsibility of reminding everyone else who has forgotten. We cannot rely on the media to do it. So that really is all I want to do, remind Americans, as they enjoy their holidays with their own families, that they are still killing other people's families. I just don't feel it's fair for Americans to be able to forget the kinds of activities they are involved in.
So I invite anyone who strongly opposes escalation in Afghanistan to seek out the shopping district in your area, find a visible location, and demonstrate against the US wars on the day after Thanksgiving. Lots of shoppers will be out, so lots of people will see you and think about our wars. This is a very useful time. I hope other people will join me and make the best of it.
If not you in your town, then who?
And if my way of doing things isn't right for you, figure out another way to remind people we are at war. It is up to you. The media won't do it.
Whether you are going out to a family gathering, having the clan over or just a quiet dinner for two, Thanksgiving can be a daunting affair and for some more stressful than enjoyable. For the last 20 or more years I haven't cooked Thanksgiving dinner. My daughter took over that task because I was usually working the night before and that night. Emergencies usually don't take a holiday break, in fact they usually break out. This year is no different except that I only work per diem in a very small ER 5 minutes from my house. I still do some of the shopping, pre-prep and desserts. Anyway, I digress.
I am going to post a few of the healthy easy to make recipes for side dishes that are tasty (tested a few of them on my fussy food critics) and can be prepared ahead, easing some of that stress on the big day. I'm also going to give you the best instruction for a roast turkey that will be cooked through and NOT dry compliments of Alton Brown who makes cooking entertaining and educational. There are several web sites that I use and I found them well worth the free subscription. Epicurious is indispensable. The site also helps with wine selections.
I do not stuff the turkey either. It takes less time and the turkey cooks more evenly.
There one piece of equipment that is worth the investment and, if you're a cook, will wonder how you ever lived without it, an oven thermometer with a probe and an alarm that tells you when the correct temperature has been reached. The one I have also gives the oven temperature. It's not absolutely necessary but takes out the guessing if the meat is done.
For those who are vegetarians, The NYT has quite a few recipes for Thanksgiving
"In a little more than one hour, five or six hundred of these barbarians
were dismissed from a world that was burdened with them."
"It may be demanded...Should not Christians have more mercy and
compassion? But...sometimes the Scripture declareth women and children must perish with their parents.... We had sufficient light from the word of God for our proceedings."
-Puritan divine Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana
I've been moving all day so I'll keep this brief. This is my happy Thanksgiving wish for you all.
I think it's interesting how artists can be ahead of their time in ways that maybe even they don't understand. Some works of art only resonate the more as time passes. Orwell's 1984 for example.
I felt that way about Paul Simon's American Tune, and I think Jackson Browne speaks to our time in a similar fashion in Before the Deluge.
At our house, when we have Thanksgiving dinner, we like to stop eating and talking to go around the table clockwise so that each person present can say what s/he is thankful for. When we first decided to do this, some of our guests felt this was awkward, perhaps embarrassing. But we don't start with the guests, so they can get an impression of what expressing gratitude feels like. Those in our immediate family understood this and were comfortable enough with it. After all, at birthdays, we like to go around the table to tell the person celebrating the birthday our many appreciations of him/her. So on Thanksgiving, it's a natural enough question, "What are you thankful for this year?" The answers aren't always surprising. We're thankful for being here another year, for our health however it might then be, for family and friends, for the lives of those now departed, for whatever abundance we may have received, for creativity, for our pets, for our relationships, for our businesses, for our politics, for our dreams and aspirations and hopes, and so on. You get it, you can probably feel it even reading about doing this. It's a Thanksgiving ritual we love. Feel free to try it out.
I always loved Thanksgiving because, however it was intended or begun, it seemed to be about gratitude. For years I've had a practice I've done. Sometimes I do it every day. Sometimes I do it once a month. Sometimes I don't do it for a long time. It depends. What do I do? I make a list of the things I am thankful for. I number them as I write them down, and I feel my gratitude for each item as I write it before going on to the next. So, I write, "1. my good health, 2. the life of Dr. King, 3. compassion for my seeming enemies, 4. the novels of Cesar Aira." And so on. Until I reach 50. I do this, writing and feeling, until I have a list of 50 items or more that I have enjoyed and felt my thanks for. When I am feeling pinched, stressed, exhausted, depressed, or any other "negative" emotion, it seems to take me a very long time to find items, to write them down and really to feel them. When I am feeling expansive, relaxed, rested, optimistic, or any other "positive" emotion, it takes me virtually no time to write and enjoy the list. Why do this exercise? Because it's almost magical. And it lights me up. Feel free to try it out.
Was it Meister Eckhart who wrote, "If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, "thank you," that would suffice." I agree.
I've again been entreated by numerous people to post the Thanksgiving Diary that I've put up here the past four years. I'm reposting a slightly edited version of last year's entry. For those of you who've read it before, I apologize. I also urge you to read my friend Winter Rabbit'sThe Massacre For Which Thanksgiving Is Named.
• • •
I forced myself to watch the History Channel's Desperate Crossing: The Untold Story of the Mayflower last weekend. I don't feel as if I totally wasted my time. Including performances and interviews of some Wampanoags, descendants of the indigenes who saw the Pilgrims make landfall 388 years ago, made the program a good deal more palatable than it might have been.
I would have preferred a bit more about how one reason the Pilgrims were "persecuted" in England and Holland was because of their efforts to get everyone to comply with their own crabbed view of religion. Something they and the Puritans who followed them also did here in America. Not dissimilar from what some modern day others would like to do now. But what an improvement the program was over past efforts.
Well, that gosh darn liberal media is up to their same ol' tricks again! I'm tryin' to do this cute thing about pardonin' a turkey there in the spirit of Thanksgiving. Good patriotic folks love it when I do that stuff! But can ya trust a liberal elite cameraman to frame the shot to not make me look stupid? Or clueless? Or insensitive? I think we all know the answer to that question.
(Now, I should warn ya that the following video may be disturbing to some viewers because I attempt to speak the English language. Oh, and also some turkeys get killed.)
"In a little more than one hour, five or six hundred of these barbarians
were dismissed from a world that was burdened with them."
"It may be demanded...Should not Christians have more mercy and
compassion? But...sometimes the Scripture declareth women and children must perish with their parents.... We had sufficient light from the word of God for our proceedings."
-Puritan divine Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana
Reform Immigration -
March on Washington
