The Commentariat -- Nov. 26, 2015

Internal links removed.

Nearly four centuries after the Mayflower set sail, the world is still full of pilgrims -- men and women who want nothing more than the chance for a safer, better future for themselves and their families, What makes America America is that we offer that chance. -- President Obama

White House: "In this week's address, the President wished everyone a happy Thanksgiving, and reflected on America's history of welcoming men and women seeking a safer, better future for themselves and their families":

Afternoon Update:

Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. Linda Johnson of the AP: "After weeks of criticism from patients, doctors and other drugmakers for hiking a life-saving medicine to more than 50 times its former price, Turing Pharmaceuticals is reneging on its pledge to cut the $750-per-pill price. Instead, the small biotech company is reducing what it charges hospitals, by up to 50 percent, for its parasitic infection treatment Daraprim. Most patients' co-payments will be capped at $10 or less a month. But insurers will be stuck with the bulk of the $750 tab. That drives up future treatment and insurance costs."

*****

** Harold Meyerson of the Washington Post: "Thanksgiving is our holiday of refugee commemoration.... For today's Republicans -- including [Donald] Trump's rival candidates afraid to call him out for what he is -- celebrating Thanksgiving is an act of high hypocrisy.... To find Trump's antecedents, you have to go back to the Southern segregationist demagogues who whooped up their crowds by affirming the rightness and necessity not merely of their racism but of racist violence as well.... Trump, the Republicans' Southern Strategy -- pioneered by Barry Goldwater and perfected by strong> Ronald Reagan -- has hit bottom.... Trump's distinctive contribution to this decades-long process has been the rawness of his racism, the thuggish tone of his speech and the huge growth of anti-minority police powers that he has championed." Thanks to Janice for the link.

The First Thanksgiving:

... Francis Wilkinson of Bloomberg: "Thanksgiving is a political holiday. It honors and mythologizes the comity -- based on a formal treaty -- between two peoples who needed what the other had to offer at a particular point in time. Delighted not to be starving, the Puritans of what is now Massachusetts feasted for three days in 1621, and entertained the local Wampanoags as their guests.... What brought them together was not shared identity but shared interests: Trade. Protection from common enemies. Mutually valued exchanges of technology and skills."

Just Another Brooklyn Thanksgiving:

Thanks, Adele:

"As God Is My Witness, I Thought Turkeys Could Fly":

... The turkey drop was actually a real incident. It was at a shopping center in Atlanta; I think it was Broadview Plaza, which no longer exists. It was a Thanksgiving promotion. We thought that we could throw these live turkeys out into the crowd for their Thanksgiving dinners. All of us, naïve and uneducated, thought that turkeys could fly. Of course, they went just fuckin' splat. -- Clarke Brown of WQZI Atlanta (CW: You may want to read the linked group interview, conducted in 2012.)

President Obama pardons two turkeys. Unlike WKRP station manager Arthur Carlson (and real-person Clarke Brown), Obama is aware turkeys can't fly:

As you may have heard, for months there has been a fierce competition between a bunch of turkeys trying to win their way into the White House. -- President Obama, at the turkey-pardoning ceremony, clearly alluding to a different flock of turkeys

The First Family serves Thanksgiving dinner (Wednesday) at Friendship Place, a Washington, D.C., organization that helps homeless people:

Hiroko Tabuchi & Nelson Schwartz of the New York Times: "In 1939, the nation's largest retailers sent Franklin D. Roosevelt an urgent plea. Thanksgiving fell on the last day of November that year, giving merchants too few days before Christmas to unleash the season's sales.... Wouldn't Mr. Roosevelt consider moving the day up by a week? The president's acquiescence to retailers helped cement the pre-eminence of the post-Thanksgiving sales rush, now known as Black Friday.... Seven decades later, Black Friday has lost its distinctive edge.... The relentless race for holiday dollars has blunted the day's oomph, as stores offer deep discounts weeks before Thanksgiving and year-round deals in stores and online are breeding sales fatigue.... The history of Black Friday tracks the history of modern American retailing, and of personal consumption in the United States, which makes up a bigger part of the economy than in almost any other industrialized country."

Real News

Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Obama reassured Americans on Wednesday that there was no known terrorist plot against the United States at the moment and urged them to go about their Thanksgiving holiday weekend activities without undue fear":

Rod Nordland of the New York Times: "The top American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John F. Campbell, said Wednesday that several service members had been suspended from duty after an internal military investigation of the American airstrike on a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz last month. Calling the airstrike a 'tragic mistake,' General Campbell read a statement announcing the findings of the investigation, which he said concluded that 'avoidable human error' was to blame, compounded by technical, mechanical and procedural failures. He said that another contributing factor was that the Special Forces members in Kunduz had been fighting continuously for days and were fatigued."

Cindy Boren of the Washington Post: "Frank Gifford, the Hall of Fame NFL player turned broadcaster, was suffering from 'the debilitating effects of head trauma' from playing football when he died last summer at the age of 84, his family said in a statement Wednesday afternoon.... 'While Frank passed away from natural causes..., our suspicions that he was suffering from the debilitating effects of head trauma were confirmed when a team of pathologists recently diagnosed his condition as that of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) -- a progressive degenerative brain disease.' [his family said.]"

The Palinization of the GOP. Martin Longman of the Washington Monthly: "... something broke on the right when they were forced to spend September and October of 2008 pretending that it would be okay if Sarah Palin were elected vice-president. The only way to maintain that stance was to jettison all the normal standards we have for holding such a high office. But it also entailed simply insisting that the truth doesn't matter. And so, now..., it's gotten to the point that Republicans have realized that they can say anything they want and just blame media bias if anyone calls them on their lies. Palin basically invented this is a survival strategy after she fell on her face in her first big interview with Katie Couric. It's now more than a survival strategy. It's the Republican Party's modus operandi."

Linda Greenhouse: The Supreme Court will take up two cases this year where sex & religion collide (CW: as they so often do). Greenhouse cites a 1989 opinion by John Paul Stevens: "Our jurisprudence ... has consistently required a secular basis for valid legislation." Greenhouse: "... what the Supreme Court may or may not grasp is that it has on its hands something deeper yet: a struggle over modernity, a battle for the secular state in which women can make their choices and design what Justice Ginsburg calls their life course, free of obstacles erected by those who would impose their religious views on others and who find in recent Supreme Court decisions encouragement that this time they might get their way."

In today's commentary, Marvin S. puts his finger on the real motivation behind the GOP's overweaned "fear of terrorism."

Wes Enzinna, in the New York Times Magazine, on the Kurdish quasi-state of Rojava, in which "women had been championed as leaders, defense of the environment enshrined in law and radical direct democracy enacted in the streets." Thanks to Victoria D. for the link.

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Clueless Press Corps Stars in Futile Search for Clue. Citations (from Sunday's "Meet the Press") & identifiers by Driftglass:

There's no consequence for them to say anything that they want to. They can make things up, they can go out and say flat out untruths and nobody's challenging them.... -- Helene Cooper, actual, grown-up professional American journalist

... And Donald Trump says that he saw in Jersey City thousands of people cheering when the Twin Trade Towers came down, it's completely wrong. It did not happen. He did not see it. But who's there to challenge him on that? -- Tom Brokaw, famous teevee person, dean of NBC network news and, ironically, the revered, rose-colored-glasses chronicler of America's battle against fascism during World War II

Who, yes, who? If only there were some kind of job where the workers were tasked with confronting the lying liars, then telling all the rest of us the lying liars were lying. -- Constant Weader

P. S. Leave us not forget these gems:

We all sit there because we know the first time we bark, it's the last time we do the show.... All the sudden nobody will come on your show. -- Chuck Todd, "Meet the Press" star, explaining why the media don't challenge politicians' lies, November 2014. Chuck goes on to suggest that political satirists are responsible for "creating a more cynical public citizen."

What I always love is people say, 'Well, it's you folks' fault in the media.' No, it's the President of the United States' fault for not selling it. -- Chuck Todd, then-NBC White House correspondent, explaining why the media are not responsible to call out Republican lies about ObamaCare, September 2013

Matt Taiibi of Rolling Stone: "America is now too dumb for TV news. It's our fault. We in the media have spent decades turning the news into a consumer business that's basically indistinguishable from selling cheeseburgers or video games.... What we call right-wing and liberal media in this country are really just two different strategies of the same kind of nihilistic lizard-brain sensationalism. The ideal CNN story is a baby down a well, while the ideal Fox story is probably a baby thrown down a well by a Muslim terrorist or an ACORN activist.... What this 9/11 celebrations story shows is that American news audiences have had their fantasies stroked for so long that they can't even remember stuff that happened not that long ago."

Presidential Race

New York Times Editors: "Senator Bernie Sanders released his immigration plan on Tuesday.... Since the immigration reform bill was killed, in 2013, the party that killed it -- the Republicans -- has dragged the immigration debate to grotesque depths that go well beyond the usual nativist bigotry.... Mr. Sanders ... starts with the right premise: that immigrants should be welcomed and assimilated.... His proposals seek to uphold American values, bolster the rule of law, bolster the economy and protect and honor families.... Mr. Sanders's immigration plan is ... reality-based, moderate, practical and hopeful." ...

... Sanders' immigration plan is here. As the Times editors write, every citizen should read it. ...

** Katharine Seelye of the New York Times: "As Mayor, Bernie Sanders Was More Pragmatist Than Socialist."

Paul Krugman: With many GOP leaders espousing ridiculous conspiracy theories, "how are base voters supposed to know that Trump's claims that the media suppressed films of Muslims cheering on 9/11 mark him as crazy, while all the other conspiracy theories on the right are OK?... Sorry, guys, you created this monster, and now he's coming for you." ...

Possible Photoshop, by Driftglass.Let the National Witch Hunt Begin. Mark Hensch of the Hill: "... Donald Trump said late Tuesday that everyday Americans should monitor their neighbors for questionable behavior. 'The real greatest resource is all of you, because you have all those eyes and you see what's happening,' he told listeners in Myrtle Beach, S.C. 'People move into a house a block down the road, you know who's going in,' Trump continued. 'You can see and you report them to the local police. You're pretty smart, right?' he asked his audience. 'We know if there's something going on, report them. Most likely you'll be wrong, but that's OK.'" ...

"The New Colussus" -- Emma Lazarus

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

"The Newer Colussus" -- Donald Trump, for the Republican Party

"Turn in your tired, your poor,
You may be wrong, but that's okay.
They're wretched refuse, that's for sure.
Turn in the neighbors down the way,
Lift up your lamp to peek inside their door!"

... Greg Sargent: "Trump and his campaign are actively charging the liberal media with covering up evidence that American Muslims did in fact celebrate the 9/11 attacks in great numbers." ...

... In that context, Donald Trump mocks a New York Times reporter's physical disability. CW: There is no low where Trump won't go. The Guardian has video. ...

     ... The Politico story, by Ben Schreckinger, is here. ...

... MJ Lee of CNN: "Conservative warnings about Donald Trump have grown increasingly somber. At first he was just an entertainer; then he became a worrisome distraction, and soon, there was fear that he would permanently scar the reputation of the Republican Party. But it was after Trump started calling for stronger surveillance of Muslim-Americans ... that a handful of conservatives ventured to call Trump's rhetoric something much more dangerous: fascism.... Conservative Iowa radio host Steve Deace ... [tweeted] last week: 'If Obama proposed the same religion registry as Trump every conservative in the country would call it what it is -- creeping fascism.'... Historians say they see other characteristics of fascism in Trump in addition to his propensity for racial and ethnic stereotyping. Among them: nativist undertones, attempts to control the media; and even condoning violence against his critics." ...

... CW: Bearing in mind that Trump's penthouse is four miles from the site of the World Trade Center, see Ophelia M.'s comment in yesterday's thread. If you still believe Trump saw with his own eyes people jumping from the World Trade Towers on 9/11, you'll have to conclude that Ophelia is, like, Mrs. Magoo. We all have horrible memories of that day & its aftermath, but Trump, like many people, exaggerates his own "participation" in this terrible event. ...

... Paul Campos in Lawyers, Guns & Money: "For a generation now, America has been bombarded by the message that the market is the proper measure of all things, and that pretty much everything ought to be sold to the highest bidder. The result is the disgusting spectacle of Trump campaign, which probably started out as a shameless publicity stunt, but is now getting such great ratings that there's a non-trivial chance he could become president of the United States." ...

... Matea Gold & Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "Plan A for GOP donors: Wait for Trump to fall. (There is no Plan B.)... The absence of a big-money response to Trump is especially striking, given the mounting anxiety among GOP leaders about his lasting dominance in the race and his accumulation of incendiary statements." ...

... Driftglass: "It turns out that however often the donor and brain caste of the GOP meet in quiet rooms and strategize about assembling an acceptable Establishment Candidate out of snips from old Jerry Ford speeches and dollops of Ronald Reagan's hair dye and Third Way/No Labels Both Siderist soft-core pornspeak, it turns out the Base of their party doesn't really give a shit about their schemes anymore.... The Base wants torch-lit rallies full of spellbinding speeches about their surpassing awesomeness and moral superiority. They want to make a bonfire of the Enlightenment and dance around the flames, armed to the teeth, braying about Freedumb and Murrica. And EstaBushment Fix It Man Jeb! ain't that guy."

In essence, if we are ever ordered by a government authority to personally violate and sin -- violate God's law and sin -- if we're ordered to stop preaching the Gospel, if we're ordered to perform a same-sex marriage as someone presiding over it, we are called to ignore that. So when those two come into conflict, God's rules always win. -- Marco Rubio, in a Christian Broadcasting Network interview, vowing to violate the Constitution & the law, if God says so

Marco should become a professional conscientious objector, not POTUS. He cannot agree to the terms of his oath of office. It is notable that he has taken similar oaths more than once. -- Constant Weader

Looks as if the end of Carly Fiorina's campaign is in sight. The New York Times just dumped a pile of research in the form of a story.

Beyond the Beltway

Jesse Wegman of the New York Times: "Gov. Steven L. Beshear [D] of Kentucky did a good thing on Tuesday when he issued an executive order making about 140,000 residents of his state with a nonviolent felony conviction immediately eligible to register to vote.... Nationwide, nearly six million Americans are unable to take part in the defining feature of a democracy. Naturally, the effects of these laws are as racially discriminatory as the criminal justice system from which they spring. In Kentucky, an estimated one in five African-Americans is barred from voting."

Richard Perez-Pena of the New York Times: "Pennsylvania lawmakers took a significant step Wednesday toward removing from office the state attorney general, Kathleen G. Kane, who faces criminal charges. And Ms. Kane vowed a wide-ranging investigation into embarrassing emails from state officials, raising the stakes in a drama that has transfixed the state government for months. A bipartisan special committee of the State Senate found 'a sufficient basis for the Senate to move forward' with hearings on whether to force out Ms. Kane, a Democrat, because her law license has been suspended, limiting her ability to do her job."

Julie Fancher & Avi Selk of the Dallas Morning News: "The organizer of a recent armed anti-Muslim protest at an Irving mosque published the names and addresses of dozens of Muslims and 'Muslim sympathizers' online Wednesday. David Wright III copied an Irving city document that included the personal information of people who signed up to speak before the City Council voted in March to support a state bill aimed at blocking Muslim influence. Wright, who organized Saturday's armed protest against the 'Islamization of America' outside the Irving Islamic Center, posted on Facebook the name and address of every Muslim and Muslim sympathizer that stood up for .. Sharia tribunals in Irving.'... Shortly before Wright posted the list online, he wrote on Facebook: '...We like to have guns designed to kill people that pose a threat in a very efficient manner.'" CW: In the accompanying photo three of the six "protesters" are wearing masks. ...

... Yo, Marco. You want a "clash of civilizations"? Go to Irving, Texas, where it's in full view. Here is a photo of a member of Wright's group stalking a Muslim woman this past Sunday. No cops around, I guess, because this is a town where the idiotic mayor & council endorsed a proposal for a state law barring (nonexistent) Sharia courts of law. Would you fear for your life if you were this woman? I would. Apparently masked gunmen menacing women is all nice & legal in Texas. Via Raw Story:

The Assholes of Irvine are not the only ones troubled by people wearing exotic outfits. We turn now to Lowndes County, Georgia:

Juanita Jean sez, "I think this is the deal: You can be wildly racist or you can spell. Apparently you cannot do both." ...

... CW: That's one way of looking at it, Juanita Jean, but I think the Georgia Concerned Citizens are right -- if we assume the Muslin Invasion is where all the KKK freaks turn up of an evening in their specially-tailored white sheets. Maybe it will turn out that all of our outrage has been over a yuuuuge Emily Litella sort of misunderstanding -- perhaps the GOP is not a national hate organization but a vast support group for oddballs with a peculiar cotton phobia. Maybe we should be helping them out by supporting flax farm subsidies & public sheep-grazing lands.

AFP: "Multiple arrests were made overnight in Chicago and New York during protests over police shootings of two black males."

** American "Justice," Ctd. Curtis Black of the Chicago Reporter on "how Chicago tried to cover up a police execution. It was just about a year ago that a city whistleblower came to journalist Jamie Kalven and attorney Craig Futterman out of concern that Laquan McDonald's shooting a few weeks earlier 'wasn't being vigorously investigated,' as Kalven recalls. The source told them 'that there was a video and that it was horrific,' he said. Without that whistleblower -- and without that video -- it's highly unlikely that Chicago Police officer Jason Van Dyke would be facing first-degree murder charges today.'" ...

... Paul Campos: Chicago Mayor Rahm "Emanuel's attempt to cover up the city's cover up by turning a story of systemic legal and political corruption into a banal tale of one trigger-happy cop is just a continuation of an ongoing crime." ...

... David Graham of the Atlantic: The Chicago protests are about more than just one vicious killer-cop. And Mayor Rahm Emanuel doesn't get it. (CW: Or doesn't care.)

... Chris Thompson of Gawker contrasts the police version of the killing of McDonald (all lies) & civilian accounts of the McDonald's murder (consistent with forensic & videotape evidence). ...

... Bradford Richardson of the Hill: "President Obama was 'deeply disturbed' by the footage showing the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, he said Wednesday evening." Here's President Obama's full statement on his Facebook account.

Peter Holley of the Washington Post interviews a man named Tim Foley who leads an armed vigilante group that patrols the U.S.-Mexican border looking for ISIS terrorists & drug-runners. Foley is a bitter out-of-work former construction foreman who says he has given up on the American dream. "His goal, he noted, is to eventually buy a dude ranch where military veterans with PTSD can heal their minds by patrolling the border, getting outside and enjoying the company of people they can relate to." CW: That sounds safe. There are many ways to volunteer ones services to make the U.S. a safer, more hospitable nation. Suiting up in camo, guns & ammo & going hunting for terrorists & drug mules is not one of them.

More News from Georgia's Finest: Y'all (well, some of y'all) Come on Down. Thanks to Unwashed for the link:

... Lindsey Bever of the Washington Post: "Harris County Sheriff Mike Jolley put up the sign because, he said, over the years he has seen 'the silent majority' grow even 'more silent.'" CW: Would that "silent majority" include, say, folks at Donald Trump rallies, reproductive-rights foes & Christianist "religious freeedom" champions? Yeah, they're all cowering in their hovels, afraid to speak their minds lest Obama's politically-correct enforcers whisk them away & cart them off to re-education camps where they implant a liberal chip in everybody's brain.

Way Beyond

Andrew Roth of the Washington Post: "Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday called for tough sanctions against Turkey that could bite into more than $30 billion in trade ties between the two countries, as police here began seizing Turkish products and deporting Turkish businessmen."

News Ledes

Guardian: "Sex abuse allegations against priests at St John's Abbey in Minnesota were revealed in stark detail on Tuesday with the release of confidential documents concerning five priests accused of child sex abuse."

Reuters: "A 23-year-old Indiana man has pleaded guilty to breaking into a medical museum and stealing preserved human brains that he then sold online. David Charles, of Indianapolis, pleaded guilty to six charges including receiving stolen property and burglary in a Marion county court. Magistrate Amy Barbar sentenced him to one year of home detention and two years of probation, county prosecutor spokesman Anthony Deer said."

Comments

[D.C.Clark]

And now for something completely different:

As Marie has linked, this week is the 100th anniversary of the publication of Einstein’s general theory of relativity. PBS Nova is airing a new special on the subject featuring Einstein biographer Walter Isaacson.

I’m looking forward to watching it. I’m pretty sure I’ve read everything Einstein ever wrote, as well as several Einstein bios. Isaacson’s contains the best, most accurate, accessible and apprehensible, explication of Einstein’s work for the intelligent lay reader, I’ve ever encountered.

I’ve told a generation of NASA student interns: you know that you’ve understood one of the really big theories (relativity, quantum mechanics, evolution…) when you understand that things just couldn’t be otherwise — that it is not possible to construct a sanely coherent model of reality that does not contain those principles. Isaacson’s book can take you a long way toward that understanding.

Unfortunately, Nova is followed by “Einstein’s Big Idea” which first aired in 2005, the centenary of Einstein’s Wunderjahr. That program was unbearable to me. A childishly inane costume drama of the “ooh, scientists are so cool and sexy” genre. A solid 9.9 on the Smarmy Meter, apparently aimed at viewers whose intellectual capacity would make them more at home on Barney. I’d give it a miss, but don’t take my word...

[Gloria]

I'll probably be banned for this, and I'm so sorry, but I can't resist - The Muslin Invasion. Fanatics in frocks brandishing bandages.
I'll get my coat ....

[Marvin Schwalb]

The Muslim invasion story is not about terrorism. Terrorism is just the convenient excuse to go after the real problem for a chunk of our nation: Anyone who is not exactly like themselves. Of course the chunk is largely the former Confederate States of America. So racism is no longer just about race, it includes religions. Or we need a new word. How about cowardism.

Also I am giving the 'Donald' a new name: Adolf Trump.

[Janice]

Harold Myerson offers a brief history of American nativism, and the rise of Trump via the Southern Strategy: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/for-todays-gop-thanksgiving-is-the-ultimate-hypocrisy/2015/11/25/3c66f29c-93a3-11e5-8aa0-5d0946560a97_story.html

"It’s all a far cry from the spirit of the holiday we celebrate today. For today’s Republicans — including Trump’s rival candidates afraid to call him out for what he is — celebrating Thanksgiving is an act of high hypocrisy."

[Victoria D.]

A happy Thanksgiving to all, and especially thanks to Marie for posting the cool Thanksgiving videos and trivia. I especially enjoyed the SNL skit (proving the show can still be very funny, when it doesn't stink) and the info about the turkey drop. Yikes. It's a nice bit of fun before barking on the ordeal of cooking a huge dinner when I'd rather be out playing in the sunshine with everyone else in the family!
If anyone has the time I want to recommend a beautifully written article about a Kurdish minority in Syria which has set up it's own government, and highlights education for all and equal rights for women, and most strikingly: democracy. This is a long piece, but highly worth reading as it also features information that gives detail and context to the mess in the middle east, but also a small sliver of hope.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/magazine/a-dream-of-utopia-in-hell.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=photo-spot-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
P.S. Having switched to Windows 10, I can't seem to make the hyperlink work; apologies.

[Ophelia M.]

In spite of our nation and world - in the words of a friend - "going to hell in a hand-basket", I remain grateful (if sometimes struggling to remind myself to be) for many, many things. A few:

For parents of humble origins whose views & beliefs were the right ones (as in Left: Our congregation's leader was a friend & frequent cell-mate of Martin Luther King. And so, as a young person, I met and, as if in a dream (and he had a Dream!) shook the hands the late Dr. King) and who were both hard-worked to make certain we had food & shelter, chores & curfews and the best love they could offer.

For devoted friends ("There's no accounting for other people's poor taste") - a few, yet, from childhood & many more who have sprouted along the way.

For still having my health, despite a few bumps along the road.

For somehow (?) misleading people into thinking I might be in my forties (must be the sunglasses) when I've not been back there in a very long while (kindly forgive me, but Vanity most unexpectedly manifested during my Middle Ages).

Etc, etc, etc, blah-blah-blah.

I am also grateful to Marie & this intensive Labor of Love (& Dedication) that she calls Reality Chex. ("Weader" = A salute to a favorite writer who pooh-pooh-ed The Pooh?). And also for the bright lights her contributors "bring to the table".

To A Better World With Best Wishes To All -
Ophelia.
P.S. Marie - I so appreciated your posting of the summer camp Thanksgiving recital from The Addams Family! Gotta love those films (R.I.P. Raul Julia: A brilliant, and humble, actor of stage & cinema) and the inimitable Cristina Ricci.

[Ken Winkes]

Thinking this Thanksgiving morning of food, refugees and the evil our consumer culture has worked over the years on the national soul.

I Imagine we will all eat well today and perhaps give perfunctory thanks for the abundant fare. But because our commercial culture is designed to satisfy our individual needs, often adding wants that go well beyond any biological requirements, the center of everything we do is always ourselves. It is our role to consume and keep consuming, and because we are trained to it, we do it well. Turkey Day and Black Friday are natural partners.

But consumerism elevates the self and the present out of all proportion. The locus of successful human cultures has never been limited to the individual. Viable cultures throughout history acknowledge and support the needs of communities. "All men..." we once said and have apparently forgotten, not just me.

So this morning I'm not thinking the majority, even the majority of the Cruzers, Carsons and Trumpsters, are stupid. That explanation is too easy, just as it smack of arrogance on the part of those asserting it, and it is wrong. Too many of us have just been very successfully taught to look no farther than ourselves and our own comfort. Our world stops at the checkout counter, where with every purchase we fulfill our life's purpose.

How then can such a people think kindly of refugees from another culture who look and act differently, by their mere presence making them uncomfortable? Intruders have nothing to do with their daily lives. At best they are disruptions who might take from us something that is ours, and then there are all those people telling them in loud voices the intruders might not just take our jobs and our money; they might blow us up.

Our consumer culture, which focuses on creating and satisfying immediate needs has the effect of overwhelming the sense we should have of our history, obscuring the fact that our ancestors not too long ago were likely refugees themselves.

Historically speaking, the U.S. on this Thanksgiving Day is a gigantic refugee camp which has done very well for itself, now denying entry to others who want to get in. We want all the goodies for ourselves, so we close our doors.

Found this in the local paper this AM. Our overconsumption has made us so fat that our excess weight doesn't just split our seams; it warps our values.

This editor from the South notices and tries to set straight. We need more like him.

http://savannahnow.com/opinion/2015-11-25/values-jesus-fit-today

Nothing like comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable on Thanksgiving Day.

Have a good one, all.

[Ophelia M.]

<< "The Newer Colussus" -- Donald Trump, for the Republican Party >>

Excellent!

[Ken Winkes]

Lotsa Bernie is good in the NYTimes lately. Glad to see it.

Wonder what Ms. Clinton thinks?