Another Thanksgiving has come and gone and, this morning, as I sat down with a breakfast of turkey omelet, I began to think back over the things I have to be thankful for. It was a sobering collection of brain spasms.
The original pilgrims had such fare as swan, lobster, and seal on their menu, among the various agricultural wealth at hand. They celebrated the bounty of their harvest with the Wampanoag Indians, who added venison to the list of choices. Life wasn’t always so bountiful then, but there was still much to be thankful for. Throughout the last 385 years, we have continued to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday, though the menu has changed somewhat.
Thanksgiving is a tradition, meaning we always do the same thing over and over again; we spend hours in a hot, humid kitchen, as though our lives served no purpose other than to generate a week’s worth of turkey-related leftovers. Sometimes we throw a changeup into the mix and make pork-related leftovers, but the end result is the same; an endless parade of soups, casseroles, sandwiches, and the occasional bowl of turkey chili.
The leftover problem has escalated since 1621, with the advent of modern refrigeration and the abundance of other sources of food than the family kitchen. This doesn’t mean that we won’t have a close encounter with a developing lifeform when we clean out the refrigerator in the spring, it just means that we have a longer time to eat the same meal in various forms before it goes all blue-green and fuzzy. Even so, we still take chances as we move into the second and third week of reruns. There are so many uncertainties. Should you worry about mushrooms going bad? They used to grow on things that had already gone bad. I don’t care if the Romans called them ‘the food of the gods’, that’s just disturbing.
Personally, I would love to know who the first person was to look at a mushroom and say, “I think I want to try eating that funny-shaped thing growing out of that rotting log/corpse!” There has to be a first time for everything, I suppose, but how desperate do you have to be? I would have liked to see the face of the first person to bite into an onion, though.
This is a country in which thirty percent of the population looks like they ate the remaining seventy percent. I can only guess that to be the reason that many fast food restaurants are staying open during the holiday. For some, this has become an alternative to the traditional meal, though I’m not certain it should be a welcome one, since the average fast-food sandwich has the calorie content of a Thanksgiving plate-mound. Personally, I’d take a pound of turkey over a pound of grease and fat without hesitation, even if it meant I had to cook it.
We press on, though, dismissing all the troubling issues of life and remembering the many things we have to be thankful for. We are thankful for happy, healthy children, and a good home (that we didn’t burn down during the cooking); we are thankful for cartoon marathons when we are trapped in the kitchen; we are thankful for the fact that the mid term elections ended political ads (for the time being), and we are thankful for brothers and sisters, and good friends, though they be far away.
Now, I wonder if there’s any of my ‘food of the gods’ gravy left in the fridge. . .
Friday, November 24, 2006
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Politics, and Other Tasteless Humor
I want to tell you all a story, as it was told to me.
A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. Seeing a woman on the ground, he descended and shouted, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."
The woman replied, "You are in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above the ground. You are between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude."
"You must be a republican," said the balloonist.
"I am," said the woman. "How did you know?"
"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I am still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help, so far."
The woman below responded, "You must be a democrat."
"I am," replied the balloonist. "But how did you know?"
"Well," said the woman, "you don't know where you are or where you are going. You have risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air, you made a promise which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, only now, somehow, it's my fault."
My friends, the mid-term elections are less than a week away and I, for the love of all that is holy, cannot begin to say how depressed I am at the choices we face. Partisanism is the weakest link in our chain of government and, as I'm sure a large portion of you are becoming aware, it is only getting worse.
The problem, though, is that not enough people are realizing what has happened over the last two centuries. In a nation that was founded on the precept of 'Government BY the people, FOR the people', we have slowly crept into the murky waters of Government OF the people WITHOUT the people.
The war between the Democrats and Republicans has been raging for some time, overwhelming all other parties' bids for the Top Job. The last president not of either party was Andrew Johnson of the Union Party, successor to Abraham Lincoln. Since that term, the battle for the White House has escalated to the farce that was the 2004 election. As seen in recent days, the shouting match has found new life as John Kerry continues to show his skill at inane insults and flip-flopping. Personally, I don't care who he was trying to insult. I just want him to go away.
I have always voted on issues and integrity, a stand that has become more and more difficult, of late. I do not care about party affiliation. I would vote Democrat or Republican, depending solely on my perception of the best choice. We, as a nation, are becoming so wrapped up in the political chaos that we are losing sight of this. Would you make an axe murderer the leader of your group, just because you belonged to the same fraternity in college? I seriously doubt it. Minus the 'axe murderer' part, that's what we do every election. Are we, as a nation, just saying, "we're tired and want to finish this with as little trouble as possible so we can get back to our reality television"?
The 'Democrapp-Repulsican' war has even become automated. In recent days, I have received several automated phone calls (sometimes in reruns) from one politico or the other, to say nothing more than how badly their opponent will handle their term in office, if elected. Couple this with the radio and television ads we are bombarded with, and the term 'mud raking' seems wholely inadequate. It has taken me, literally, weeks to research the candidates I am responsible for choosing in this election. Who is lying? Who is telling the truth? Did that guy really run a cat up a flagpole when he was in college?
And then there are the issues. . . We need stable public school funding, but one side calls it 'lobbying for higher taxes'. We want to bring our troops home as soon as possible, but we don't want to allow the Middle East to collapse into total chaos. My favorite, so far, is a proposal up for vote in our state to make it legal to hunt mourning doves. I come from a family of hunters. Having shot and hooked more than a few meals in my day, I appreciate the rights of the American hunter. You can, in no way, however, make me believe that if we don't legalize the hunting of these little-bitty doves the 'environmental extremists are going to take away all our hunting rights'.
So, it will be with heavy heart that I trudge, wearily, to the polls this November 7th. We need to take back our government from those who hold office for naught but their own gain. The people have merely lost sight of the fact that their governments belong to them. Every election, we are 'hiring' these people to do the jobs we cannot; to make our voices heard. I don't want a representative that votes the way they want to vote. I want a representative that votes the way the people in his or her district wants to vote. That is the way it should be, simply because it's too damned hard to crowd 300 million people into Washington D.C.
Face it, the plumbing can't take it.
A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. Seeing a woman on the ground, he descended and shouted, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."
The woman replied, "You are in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above the ground. You are between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude."
"You must be a republican," said the balloonist.
"I am," said the woman. "How did you know?"
"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I am still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help, so far."
The woman below responded, "You must be a democrat."
"I am," replied the balloonist. "But how did you know?"
"Well," said the woman, "you don't know where you are or where you are going. You have risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air, you made a promise which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, only now, somehow, it's my fault."
My friends, the mid-term elections are less than a week away and I, for the love of all that is holy, cannot begin to say how depressed I am at the choices we face. Partisanism is the weakest link in our chain of government and, as I'm sure a large portion of you are becoming aware, it is only getting worse.
The problem, though, is that not enough people are realizing what has happened over the last two centuries. In a nation that was founded on the precept of 'Government BY the people, FOR the people', we have slowly crept into the murky waters of Government OF the people WITHOUT the people.
The war between the Democrats and Republicans has been raging for some time, overwhelming all other parties' bids for the Top Job. The last president not of either party was Andrew Johnson of the Union Party, successor to Abraham Lincoln. Since that term, the battle for the White House has escalated to the farce that was the 2004 election. As seen in recent days, the shouting match has found new life as John Kerry continues to show his skill at inane insults and flip-flopping. Personally, I don't care who he was trying to insult. I just want him to go away.
I have always voted on issues and integrity, a stand that has become more and more difficult, of late. I do not care about party affiliation. I would vote Democrat or Republican, depending solely on my perception of the best choice. We, as a nation, are becoming so wrapped up in the political chaos that we are losing sight of this. Would you make an axe murderer the leader of your group, just because you belonged to the same fraternity in college? I seriously doubt it. Minus the 'axe murderer' part, that's what we do every election. Are we, as a nation, just saying, "we're tired and want to finish this with as little trouble as possible so we can get back to our reality television"?
The 'Democrapp-Repulsican' war has even become automated. In recent days, I have received several automated phone calls (sometimes in reruns) from one politico or the other, to say nothing more than how badly their opponent will handle their term in office, if elected. Couple this with the radio and television ads we are bombarded with, and the term 'mud raking' seems wholely inadequate. It has taken me, literally, weeks to research the candidates I am responsible for choosing in this election. Who is lying? Who is telling the truth? Did that guy really run a cat up a flagpole when he was in college?
And then there are the issues. . . We need stable public school funding, but one side calls it 'lobbying for higher taxes'. We want to bring our troops home as soon as possible, but we don't want to allow the Middle East to collapse into total chaos. My favorite, so far, is a proposal up for vote in our state to make it legal to hunt mourning doves. I come from a family of hunters. Having shot and hooked more than a few meals in my day, I appreciate the rights of the American hunter. You can, in no way, however, make me believe that if we don't legalize the hunting of these little-bitty doves the 'environmental extremists are going to take away all our hunting rights'.
So, it will be with heavy heart that I trudge, wearily, to the polls this November 7th. We need to take back our government from those who hold office for naught but their own gain. The people have merely lost sight of the fact that their governments belong to them. Every election, we are 'hiring' these people to do the jobs we cannot; to make our voices heard. I don't want a representative that votes the way they want to vote. I want a representative that votes the way the people in his or her district wants to vote. That is the way it should be, simply because it's too damned hard to crowd 300 million people into Washington D.C.
Face it, the plumbing can't take it.
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