Archive for November 24th, 2011

November 24th, 2011

Give thanks for one day off from politics by Marjorie Arons-Barron

by Tony

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. Check it out.

There’s something mindless about preparing for Thanksgiving: getting out the good china and other holiday accoutrements, preparing the vegetables, concocting the cranberry sauce, cleaning and stuffing the turkey. It’s satisfying to know what the goal is, take the steps necessary to achieve it, and have the power to effect the outcome. It’s hard work, but the end is almost always worth it. (Maybe that’s why 93 percent of Americans surveyed by the Washington Post like the Thanksgiving holiday.)

To be sure, there’s the occasional politically contentious guest to curdle the gravy, but you can always take solace that your dinner table arguments are so nasty because the stakes are so low.

That can’t be said for the turkeys in Washington who actually do have the power to make a difference, but failed miserably in taking responsible steps to get the economy moving and set in motion a plan to curb the deficit. How can they have failed to understand how angry the vast majority of the American people are? Failed to recognize that the cynicism they are feeding could weaken this country both domestically and internationally.

The Supercommittee was not only a Superfailure but a Superfraud. Perhaps it was never going to work but was just a way of kicking the can down the road (as they like to do inside the Beltway) and get the debt ceiling lifted. Perhaps Washington officialdom assumes that sequestration will never be allowed to kick in but will simply represent another artificial deadline which our leaders will miss. The game plan is all too reminiscent of that Dr. Seuss line, “Could this go on all day and night? It could, you know, and it just might.”

Democrats and Republicans both been talking taxes pro and con, not serious deficit reduction. As the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein wrote, this impasse is all about the Bush tax cuts.
In the recent kabuki theater, the Democrats moved their plans a little to the right, and then the Republicans moved the markers further to the right. The Supercommittee’s failure to act could ironically go further and faster toward serious deficit reduction than either party has proposed. Unless the Republicans pull off an electoral perfect storm of overwhelming victories in House, Senate and Presidency, there’s a serious showdown coming.

But today is a day off from ruminating about all the unintended consequences, and frankly I like it that way.

Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below.

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November 24th, 2011

Thanksgiving on the South Common

by PaulM

It was quiet on the Common at 7 a.m. when I made the circuit with our Boston Terrier, Ringo. How cold was it? Not very. Enough for a seasonal edge. The leaf-trees are empty. On the ground all the color has drained from the leaves, which from a distance resemble light brown scatter rugs under the grayish trees. The firs and pines appear to be an even darker green for being the remaining filled out tree tops. The grass is still green but not as lush as in high summer. In the shade, frost whitened the papery brown leaves. Across on the north rim, under the Eliot Church spire the volunteers had gathered to prepare the vast community meal that is a tradition on Summer Street, at the spot where the 17th-century Christian preacher from Boston approached the local peoples who had been coming to the fishing grounds between the two rivers for hundreds of years or more.

There’s a big brass sign from 1930 that was installed in front of the church on the 300th anniversary of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Among other points of interest, Rev. John Eliot translated the Bible into the local language of pre-Lowell, Wamesit, being the Algonquian language, and later wrote a book calling for an elected theocracy to be the ideal form of government. Considered a religious extremist in England, he had shipped out to Massachusetts in 1631, which means he was a peer of the pilgrims who got involved with the natives down Plymouth way and cooked up the first Thanksgiving feed, which some contrary historians locate in 1565 St. Augustine, Fla., or 1619 at the Virginia Colony, both of which celebrated good harvests with feasts according to the sources at Wikipedia.

So there’s a little bit of Puritan dust in the dirt along the edge of the South Common. The spirit of charity prevails in the good deeds at today’s church that gathers its congregation from contemporary pilgrims of a different kind, people from far lands who found their way to America to start over, people who fill in the wooden benches alongside parishioners with long roots in this place. They’re all there today making a meal for their neighbors who will be thankful to have one this mid-day.

CategoryCulture, History, Lowell | CommentNo Comments »

November 24th, 2011

Thanksgiving Day Quiz

by Marie

 

“The First Thanksgiving” by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris

Thanksgiving Day Quiz:

On what ship did the Pilgrims sail to “America”?

Where was the first Thanksgiving celebrated?  What year?

Name the truce  signed by the Pilgrims following the landing.

Name three foods served at the first Thanksgiving?

What Indian tribe was invited to spend Thanksgiving with the Pilgrims? Who was the tribal leader?

Name a Native American that was invited to the first Thanksgiving  feast.

What is a female turkey called? a male turkey?

How many million turkeys are eaten each Thanksgiving Day? 10, 25, 45 or 95 million?

What other country celebrates Thanksgiving Day?

Which President established Thanksgiving Day as a national holiday? Why?

What sport has become “the” game to play on Thanksgiving Day?

 

Answers:

The Mayflower carried 101 souls -men, woman and children – across the Atlantic Ocean.

A 3-day celebration of thanksgiving took place in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1621.

The Mayflower Compact was the first governing document of Plymouth Colony. It was written by the colonists, later together known to history as the Pilgrims, who crossed the Atlantic aboard the Mayflower. Almost half of the colonists were part of a separatist group seeking the freedom to practice Christianity according to their own determination. It was signed on November 11, 1620 by 41 of the ship’s 101 passengers while the Mayflower was anchored in what is now Provincetown Harbor.

Foods probably eaten at the first thanksgiving: turkey, fowl, game birds, corn, squash, dried fruit, clams, lobster, eel, venison, onions, pumpkin and Indian pudding.

The Wampanoags and their representative and translator Squanto joined in the first thanksgiving celebration.

Female turkeys are called hens and they cluck! Male turkeys are called Toms and they gobble, gobble!

These days 45 million turkeys are consumed on Thanksgiving Day – from frozen Butterball to fresh from Elm Farms.

Our neighbors to the North - our cousins in Canada – also celebrate Thanksgiving Day – but on the first  second Monday in October.

President Abraham Lincoln first establish Thanksgiving Day  as a national holiday in 1863 in thanksgiving for “general blessings.”

Are you ready for some football?

Have a wonderful and  blessed Thanksgiving Day – 2011!

Note: Questions and answers were updated at 9:30am. 

CategoryCurrent Events, History | Comment2 Comments »