Here comes Thanksgiving, a once-grand holiday of sharing and gratitude, slowly having the joy wrung out of it by the usual mob of angry dimwits who spend their days moaning and weeping over the fact they aren’t happy, and weep and moan to prove it.
You know the drumbeat: The world isn’t perfect, there are differences in wealth across the globe, America is a criminal enterprise and turkeys are being murdered while Dick Cheney goes free.
Not that there isn’t anything to complain about during the holiday season; Pumpkin Spice has a lot to answer for. Pumpkin Spice beer, for one, followed by Pumpkin Spice cologne, Pumpkin Spice toilet paper and probably Pumpkin Spice turkeys.
So let’s talk turkey: I promised a Thanksgiving column in the first sentence and can’t go wrecking my credibility in the fifth. Some say it’s a crime that turkeys are born only to die and get eaten. These folks want you settle down next Thursday to a delicious meal of gourds, gruel, succotash, a napkin and some dead lettuce from a garbage can behind Applebee’s.
Yes, turkeys are indeed bred to be eaten, but that’s a much more agreeable scenario than the reverse: big hungry birds chasing me down and tearing my flesh to shreds (“Would you pass me a wrist, Butterball? More pancreas, Diestel?”).
I prefer things as they are. In 1824 I’d have had to kill some poor beast to feed my family. Here in 2024 we give grateful thanks to Safeway’s fine meat department.
I don’t regard eating meat as immoral and I don’t grant turkeys the same ethical value as I do Auntie Petunia. Turkeys aren’t gurgling infant babies, nor are they cute bunny rabbits or dolphins (who by reputation are smarter than you). Turkeys are the dunces of the animal kingdom, the only ones I know of whose IQ goes up when you cook them.
The fine folks at PETA may quibble. But consuming a turkey isn’t the end of it with people who want Thanksgiving to be as miserable for everyone else as it is for them. They’re also the ones to lecture us about other nonsense, such as:
1) Our ancestors arrived on the eastern shores of the Indigenous Peoples world and bought some land with beads. Then they used a rather obscure concept called “adverse possession” to take “legal” possession of the midwest. Soon Native Americans were sipping Pumpkin Spice lattes like everyone else in America. I honestly apologize.
2) Anyway, once those bad white men got here (without being invited!) they had a big holiday party, and asked their Indigenous Peoples friends to come share the bounty. This was a clever alternative to white folk being hunted down and eaten. I think it disproves something, but it doesn’t make much sense anyway.
3) Pilgrims learned about fertilization techniques from the wise stewards of the land who came before them, and then used that newfangled agricultural knowledge to invent the Dow Chemical Corporation, which later caused global warming.
4) From there it was just a matter of time until shopping, commercialization, Black Friday sales at Walmart and inflatable Thanksgiving-themed yard decorations swept the land. This ruined everything the anti-holiday grumps didn’t like, so what’s the complaint?
5) Complaint? No, nothing other than the Pumpkin Spice stuff, and we’ve already covered that. Thank you.
Things you didn’t know:
1) The amount of carbon in earth’s atmosphere is 0.04 percent.
2) The Measure B committee, assigned to improve mental health practices a few decades ago and now sitting on many millions of dollars, has released its 32-page report detailing which members get preferred parking for meetings.
3) The Cleveland Rams of the NFL moved to LA in 1945.
4) “All Along the Watchtower” is the most frequently played song through more than 60 years of concerts in Bob Dylan’s career.
5) Joe Allen, former Mendocino County DA has been disbarred by California’s State Bar Commission.
(Tom Hine has Happy Thanksgiving wishes to all his many readers and admirers. TWK only says what Mr. Hine allows him to say.)
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