When you think about it, Thanksgiving is a terrible holiday, one of my least favorite. The only good thing about it is that I intend to get completely caught up on my grading over a four-day weekend, and otherwise…we’re having a normal dinner (no turkey, no overeating), no traveling, and we’re not going shopping. I recommend restraint. It makes the day so much more pleasant.
That’s a subversive meme you found, there. Quite topical.
Still arguably better than celebrating Good Friday (the torture and murder of a certain person), Passover (the murder of every firstborn in egypt except for the jewish ones) and the Feast of Sacrifice (the willingness of Abraham to murder his son).
I thought Thanksgiving was first made an annual feast to celebrate the extermination of the Pequot tribe of Connecticut in 1637. Various other feasts took place after the massacres of other indigenous groups. So many of these celebrations happened that by the late 19th century, it became necessary to group them all together.
The 1621 gathering of Native Americans and the alien invaders was a one-off kind of thing.
Not celebrating Thanksgiving (German “Erntedank” was a while ago and I don’t thank any gods for the work of farmers), but on pure coincidence dinner is ver yLas Américas tonight: oven roasted butternut squash and potatoes, with feta cheese and bacon on top.
Thanksgiving is a harvest feast as found in many cultures.
“Obama pardons turkey in stunning abuse of executive power”
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/low_concept/2014/11/white_house_thanksgiving_will_the_president_s_turkey_pardon_start_a_wave.html
For a brief moment I mis-read the last words of PZ’s post as “more pheasant”.
@6, birgerjohansson
You know, I get that it’s supposed to be cute and that it’s tradition, but the whole turkey pardon schtick always struck me as being in poor taste for a number of reasons. Particularly because we’re celebrating the “exoneration” of a creature that ranks slightly above a peanut butter sandwich in terms of intelligence yet so many people give precisely zero fucks about the injustices perpetrated by the state on it’s citizenry (unless they want to complain about oppressed peoples getting angry at their oppression).
Celebrating. Love it. There are many secular things to be thankful for.
Matrim@8: I’m not sure I would take it that seriously, but yes, I could see how one might feel that way when it is juxtaposed with the latest botched execution in the US:
“Mr. President, I have here a request for clemency concerning the pending execution of a prisoner in the south…”
“Let’s see here…black…all white jury…PD was disbarred…shaky eyewitness testimony…horribly abused as a child…last two executions in that state were horror shows…NAH…fry the bastard. It’s an election year! What’s next on the agenda?”
“You’ll be pardoning a turkey on the south lawn.”
“Let’s do this!”
Working today. Since I don’t get off until 10 pm, the only Thanksgiving feast I have to look forward to is a reheated plate of whatever my father and his friends leave me.
re @6:
I can’t believe Slate has turned into The Onion. That story was so full of WTF that I had to keep checking the URL for “Onion”. I can’t believe that the anti-obamists are so opposed to this holiday’s show of faux mercy: granting a doomed turkey absolution from execution, that they will accuse the Pres of overreaching his authority. Surely they are speaking in metaphors…if he pardons this turkey, he’ll pardon everyone for any offense. They’re expanding the “slippery slope” argument way too much. But that just reflects their everyday activities: distorting reality to the extreme to make some fallacious argument appear “reasonable”.
Yay. Another passive-aggressive holiday.
re @12:
Then why did you? (Believe it, that is.)
That meme…
That’s the quickest I’ve ever done “right-click, Save Image As…” in my life.
Restraint? Nah, I’m doing Turkey Day with friends. Michael is a 4-star chef, and his cooking is to die for! I plan to get completely stuffed, smoke lots of weed, and play games until I’m comatose. Restraint is what my belt is for, and I’m letting it out a notch.
That image explains exactly what the immigrations haters are scared of.
Locals welcomed immigrants despite no proper legal status.
Immigrants muscled in and took over.
Immigrants wiped out locals.
Immigrants are going to wipe out Proper God Fearing Murrikans! Some of them are even Idol Worshipping Heathens! Some of them are Brown!
Oh noes, ban … everything!
Fie on gratitude.
Antiochus Epiphanes
Thank you.
woozy @14 wrote, asking me:
Good question. Exactly why I wrote that comment about the experience. I want to disbelieve that they would object so passionately, while also believe, cuz that seems so similar to what they always say in ref to Obama. IDK, IDK
Just found out today I’m losing my MediCal over a paperwork snafu which means I won’t be able to see a doctor and my prescriptions will cost over $600 of my monthly disability payment until it’s resolved. Second time this has happened.
Last time took until August of the following year to get resolved.
I am not thankful.
To the OP: bah, humbug. I’m having a bunch of friends over for dinner, because having friends over for dinner is fun joyful times — this year, my mom even happens to be in town! It’s not even a holiday here, but who cares, I’ve got a US passport, I should use it once in a while, and excuses to have people over for dinner don’t grow on trees.
To Jafafa Hots: holy fuck that sucks.
We treat it as a memorial holiday for the the millions of indigenous Americans murdered in colonial genocides.
For me the time between Halloween and the day after Christmas is a time of sadness, depression. The shorter, darker, colder and damper days don’t help any. Trees stripped of their leaves look like I feel. I just want to sleep through it. Wake me when the sun gets warm again.
The whole idea of scheduled and obligatory merriment feels so forced and artificial it resembles dancing on a broken leg. It is getting worse as businesses start the celebrations earlier every year. I can manage a few days like a sport, but two solid months is just impossible. A long lead in also means building up expectations that grow every year. Fine for capitalists driving a consumer market to ever greater heights but tough on average folks. Not meeting expectations means you’re a failure. There is just no winning. Exceed expectations this years and you doom yourself to failure the next.
All the holidays grouped into a couple of months also means the supply of goodwill toward men is depleted early. Two months of obligatory happiness and kindness, as the days are dark and cold, feels like a grand way getting it out of the way to we can get back to kicking in teeth and slitting throats for fun and profit. Supping with forced smiles and passive-aggressive kindness toward people who are quietly wishing under their breath you would have a cerebral aneurism sets the stage for testiness and treachery the rest of the year.
Celebrate with the orphans today and foreclose on the orphanage tomorrow is a regular theme. Not too long after the natives helped the pilgrims the immigrants repaid the debt by slaughtering them.
With my family, hey… any excuse to party!
I worked.
Scheduling snafu had me starting at store open rather than half an hour or an hour before, which was a problem as certain things were supposed to be done by store opening(and the announcement of this came to my work email, which I can’t access at home, after my shift on Wednesday). At least that wasn’t my fault.
Had a lot of boot orders to fill, first thing because they were pickup in store orders. Where did several dozen people descend upon the instant the doors opened? Boots. It was insane. As it was at just before 6, I had to say “excuse me” a dozen times just to get to the door, worried enough about someone going nuts over cutting that I had my employee ID held up.
Then the entire backend system slowed to a crawl, I had my handheld crash, swapped it out, and the second one randomly rebooted itself(and boot times are several minutes). Then I had to spend several minutes sorting out the mess this left in our picklists.
Then the store ran out of letter paper for the printers. I “borrowed” some from another printer and randomly stumbled across some in receiving, so I was ok, but this really could have been a problem. They should have more by now, our manager would probably personally drive to Staples to get some before letting us go completely out(most of our printers had some loaded, we had *none* in the supply area).
I still have no clear view of what the status of the picks was at the end of my shift, that part of the system had crashed entirely. I think we were in an OK spot, but I’m really not sure- there are goofs people can make that I wouldn’t immediately notice. I’m expecting to have to clean up at least a few messes tomorrow.
They did feed us, which was nice, and time and a half for a 10 hour shift isn’t bad either.
I’m seriously wondering why so many people want to shop on Thanksgiving. And I’m not sure it got us much extra revenue, rather than the insanity of a Black Friday morning, that was just shifted a few hours earlier.
The history notwithstanding, Thanksgiving is fast becoming my favorite holiday, because it’s one of the only times a year I can actually meet up with family I haven’t seen, all together. Plus, the leftovers last all month. Nothing wrong with that!
Besides, it’s one of the few buffers left to prevent Christmas from utterly destroying Halloween on it’s rampant course backwards through the calendar.