The True Meaning Of Thanksgiving

[thedrifter]

November 24, 2005
The True Meaning Of Thanksgiving

Christmas Season starts this week beginning with Thanksgiving. While I was looking for something to post this Thursday I ran across this article and decided now is a good time to share it.

From The Branson Courier:

Thanksgiving is all about to whom the “Thanks” is “given!”

Common sense tells an Ole Seagull that something celebrated as “Thanksgiving Day” should be a day of “giving thanks.” Generally speaking, who among us says “thank you” to “no one?” Generally, when thanks is given it is for something and is “given” to the person or entity believed to have provided that something.

Yet, even as some would take “CHRIST” out of CHRISTmas they would take the “Giving” out of Thanksgiving. To whom are we giving thanks? From Coronado’s 1541 Thanksgiving in Palo Duro Canyon, in what is now West Texas, through the 1600 Puritan Thanksgivings in New England, history testifies to the fact that our modern day Thanksgiving is rooted on giving thanks to God for blessings bestowed.

The true meaning of “Thanksgiving,” and its involvement with the very foundation of our Nation can be readily gleaned from the Proclamations establishing it and history itself. One of the “First Thanksgiving Proclamations,” issued in 1676, by the Governing Council of Charlestown, Massachusetts proclaimed, “a day of Solemn Thanksgiving and praise to God for such his Goodness and Favor.”

On December 18, 1777, after the victory over the British at Saratoga, the Congress recommended, “That at one time, and with one voice, the good people may express the grateful feelings of their hearts, and consecrate themselves to the service of their divine benefactor; and that, together with their sincere acknowledgements and offerings they may join the penitent confession of their sins; and supplications for such further blessings as they stand in need of.”

On November 16, 1789, the First President of the United States, George Washington, issued a Thanksgiving Proclamation stating, “Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor, and Whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint committee requested me to ‘recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanks-giving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many single favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.’”

Perhaps Abraham Lincoln, in his 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation said it best. “No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.”

Particularly at this time in our Nations history, it would seem appropriate, during our Thanksgiving celebrations, to stop and give “thanks” to Almighty God for the many blessings he has bestowed upon this Nation and its people. As Lincoln so beautifully said, “No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God.”

Words that everyone should live by all the time not just during the Christmas Season .

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Saltwater, fresh food
MU students to train Navy chefs, cook for crew aboard USS Peleliu during Thanksgiving break
By LAUREN McKAY
November 21, 2005

Thousands of Marines serving aboard the USS Peleliu will get a taste of Show-Me State hospitality with their Thanksgiving dinner this year. A team of MU students majoring in hotel and restaurant management will grill, boil and bake — not to mention dress up the buffet — to make the holiday meal at sea more pleasant.

Leslie Jett, a chef and instructor in MU’s hotel and restaurant management program, and six of his students will board the naval ship today as part of the U.S. Navy’s “Adopt-a-Ship” program. The program gives civilian chefs the opportunity to work in naval kitchens, instructing their culinary specialists on new techniques and more efficient ways to cook for their crews.

For the next six days, Jett and the students will spend hour upon hour in the ship’s kitchens, called galleys, immersing themselves in naval life.

This is Jett’s eighth voyage and his second year in Adopt-a-Ship; he took a student crew last year as well. The MU crew is the only student team to participate in the program.

Most of the students — five men and one woman — are instructional assistants for Jett’s hotel and restaurant management classes.

Laura Clark, who comes from a big military family, jumped at the opportunity to get involved. Clark, an MU senior, said she does not mind being the only woman in the group.

“I am mostly nervous about being a civilian on a Navy ship,” Clark said. “I don’t want to be perceived as just a college student and not be taken seriously.”

Jett has taken measures to ensure his team is prepared. They have done a variety of catering and have taught groups of all ages throughout the semester.

On Friday, most of the crew and Jett were in the kitchen at MU’s Eckles Hall getting ready for a catered VIP luncheon. As the students sliced vegetables and prepared fish, Jett went over last-minute details for the trip. New chef jackets seemed to bring more excitement than anything else.

They have cooked for big luncheons and events but never for as many people as they will aboard the Peleliu, an amphibious assault ship.

“It’s a great learning experience for the students, and they are excited about what they are going to take in, especially regarding mass production,” Jett said. “They are going to be involved in and experiencing turning out meals for two to three thousand people.”

The chefs face a strenuous week. They will rise as early as 4 a.m. and work throughout the day, ending about 6 p.m. after the dinner rush. Seth Weinberg, a student on last year’s Adopt-a-Ship, said they were often so exhausted that they would go to sleep as soon as the shift ended.

Jett and the students were scheduled to go sightseeing in San Diego on Sunday, to have to have some fun before the long week. They also planned to pick up supplies and ingredients before boarding.

A challenge for cooking on a deployed ship is that the food supply must last as many as 45 days, Jett said. The culinary specialists strive to cut down on wasting food while still providing different and appealing meals.

The Navy sent Jett topics in which they would like instruction. The MU group will teach on four areas: herbs and spices, soups and sauces, knife skills and bakery techniques. They will also work on visual preparations such as napkin-folding, table-setting and “dressing up the buffet.”

“(The Navy’s culinary specialists) have the experience of feeding 3,000,” said Dan Meyer, one of the MU team. “We’re just there to help them do it better.”

The Navy has many regulations about the food that is served, so the group will work with a menu that is already set. However, the group will help create Thanksgiving dinner, drawing from their own recipes and recipes from the Marines.

Clark said she does not mind spending the holiday away from her family this year.

“I have never been farther west than Kansas,” she said. “I’m excited to say that I spent Thanksgiving on a ship.”

The group will be divided among the three galleys in the ship. They will rotate throughout the week, experiencing new people and new settings daily. Clark said she is looking forward to being around people of different backgrounds. She foresees herself learning from them, even though her role is to teach.

Jett said he expects that each of the students will get something different out of the trip.

“Everyone is going down different career paths,” he said.

Clark, for instance, wants to be a pastry chef. She hopes to spend some time in the ship’s bake shop.

“I think they will gain a perspective they never even dreamed of or thought was out there,” Jett said.

Brian Moxey, another student chef, will graduate this December, then will attend the French Culinary Institute in Manhattan. He looks to the trip eagerly.

“I think it’s going to be a really unique experience,” Moxey said. “A once-in-a-lifetime deal.”

Ellie

[thedrifter]

As Thanksgiving Approaches <br />
By Ben Stein <br />
Published 11/21/2005 12:10:11 AM <br />
<br />
Herewith, admittedly from the safety of the glorious nation called The United States of America, far...

[thedrifter]

Tips for not hosting Thanksgiving dinner next year
BY DAVE BARRY

(This classic Dave Barry column was originally published on Nov. 15, 1998.)

So this year, you agreed to host the big family Thanksgiving dinner. Congratulations! You moron!

No, seriously, hosting Thanksgiving dinner does NOT have to be traumatic. The key is planning. For example, every year my family spends Thanksgiving at the home of a friend named Arlene Reidy, who prepares dinner for a huge number of people. I can't give an exact figure, because my eyeballs become fogged with gravy. But I'm pretty sure that Arlene is feeding several branches of the armed forces.

And Arlene is not slapping just any old food on the table, either. She's a gourmet cook who can make anything. I bet she has a recipe for cold fusion.

She serves moist, tender turkeys the size of Arnold Schwarzenegger, accompanied by a vast array of exotic hors d'oeuvres and 350 kinds of sweet potatoes made from scratch. I'm pretty sure Arlene threshes her own wheat. If you were to look into Arlene's dining room at the end of Thanksgiving dinner, it would at first appear to be empty. Then you'd hear groans and burps coming from under the table, and you'd realize that the guests, no longer able to cope with the food and gravity at the same time, were lying on the floor. Every now and then you'd see a hand snake up over the edge of the table, grab a handful of stuffing, then dart back under the table again, after which you'd hear chewing, then swallowing, then the sound of digestive organs rupturing. Some guests have to be rushed by ambulance to the hospital, receiving pumpkin pie intravenously en route.

The question is: How is Arlene able to prepare such an amazing feast for so many people? The answer is simple: I have no idea. I'm always watching football when it happens. But my point is that, if you want to provide your Thanksgiving guests with a delicious home-cooked meal, one approach would be to go to Arlene's house and steal some of her food when she's busy churning the butter. She'd never notice. She has enough leftovers to make turkey sandwiches for everybody in Belgium.

If you prefer to do your own cooking this Thanksgiving, your first step is to calculate how much turkey you need. Home economists tell us that the average 155-pound person consumes 1.5 pounds of turkey, so if you're planning to have 14 relatives for dinner, you'd simply multiply 14 times 1.5 times 155, which means your turkey should weigh, let's see, carry the two ... 3,255 pounds. If you can't find a turkey that size, you should call up selected relatives and explain to them, in a sensitive and diplomatic manner, that they can't come because they weigh too much.

In selecting a turkey, remember that the fresher it is, the better it will taste. That's why, if you go into the kitchen of top professional homemaker Martha Stewart on Thanksgiving morning, you'll find her whacking a live turkey with a hatchet. In fact, you'll find Martha doing this every morning.

''It just relaxes me,'' she reports.

Your other option is to get a frozen turkey at the supermarket. The Turkey Manufacturers Association recommends that, before you purchase a frozen bird, you check it for firmness by test-dropping it on the supermarket floor -- it should bounce three vertical inches per pound -- and then take a core sample of the breast by drilling into it with a ]-inch masonry bit until you strike the giblets. If supermarket employees attempt to question you, the Turkey Manufacturers Association recommends that you ``gesture at them with the drill in a reassuring manner.''

When you get the turkey home, you should thaw it completely by letting it sit on a standard kitchen counter at room temperature for one half of the turkey's weight in hours, or roughly 19 weeks. ''If you see spiders nesting in your turkey,'' states the Turkey Manufacturers Association, ``you waited too long.''

Once the turkey is defrosted, you simply cook it in a standard household oven at 138.4 degrees centimeter for 27 minutes per pound (29 minutes for married taxpayers filing jointly). Add four minutes for each 100 feet of your home's elevation above sea level, which you should determine using a standard household sextant. Inspect the turkey regularly as it cooks; when you notice that the skin has started to blister, the time has come for you to give your guests the message they've been eagerly awaiting: ``Run!''

Because you left the plastic wrapper on the turkey, and it's about to explode, spewing out flaming salmonella units at the speed of sound. As you stand outside waiting for the fire trucks, you should take a moment to count your blessings. The main one, of course, is that you will definitely NOT be asked to host the big family Thanksgiving dinner next year. But it's also important to remember -- as our Pilgrim foreparents remembered on the very first Thanksgiving -- that two excellent names for rock bands would be ''The Turkey Spiders'' and ``The Flaming Salmonella Units.''

[thedrifter]

Sappy Thanksgiving

November 22, 2005
by Jonathan David Morris

Ah, late November, that special time of year when Americans of all ages come together to celebrate victory over the Indians in the Battle of Thanksgiving. I don’t know about you, but this is one of my favorite times of the year. This is when the leaves turn colors and fresh fires burn from chimneys. America is at its best during Thanksgiving. At no other time is America more American.

The original Thanksgiving is reported to have been a three-day feast. Today, though it’s largely regarded as a one-day holiday, Thanksgiving remains a three-day affair. Each of its days represent one of America’s all-time favorite pastimes: mindless drinking (Wednesday night, when people drink because, hey, there’s no work tomorrow); reckless eating (all day Thursday, when people eat because, hey, it was there); and shopping for the sake of shopping (Friday morning, when people run through the aisles of Best Buy at 6 AM because, hey, it was open). No other American holiday comes so close to defining the American way of life. Halloween perhaps comes the closest, since it consists of an evening of breaking stuff followed by an evening of hiding our faces while we beg for free food. And I suppose Black History Month is another good indicator of this thing called Americana, since it somehow manages to overcompensate and undercompensate for past racial injustices. But still, none of these holidays are as distinctly American as Thanksgiving. There’s no traditional Flag Day Detroit Lions game. There’s no such thing as the Macy’s Secretary’s Day Parade (though that would be interesting).

People like to talk about exporting American values such as democracy and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Those are great things, and I agree they ought to be exported. Maybe Cracker Barrel, too, if we have enough time. But if you ask me, the best American export would be Thanksgiving. If other countries would simply partake in this holiday, all would be well (bird flu scares notwithstanding).

For example, Thanksgiving is a bringer of peace. Granted, the question of “Where to spend Thanksgiving?” often tears us apart, even as it tries to bring us together. But that’s small potatoes. More importantly, no two countries that celebrate Thanksgiving have ever attacked each other. Ever. Except for the War of 1812, which doesn’t really count.

Thanksgiving also quells human beings’ more superficial tendencies. Finally, a holiday that respects who you are on the inside. Nobody cares if you’re fat on Thanksgiving. In fact, getting fat is the whole idea behind the holiday. You’re not supposed to be able to go to bed with your belt still buckled. Thanksgiving is the only holiday where you’re actually expected to overflow from your clothes. (I feel weird writing this paragraph. I’m not the kind of person who naturally cares about losing and gaining weight. That just happens to be one of the prevailing themes of the holiday. And I’m just trying to make a point.) (By the way, am I the only one who finds it somewhat ironic—or maybe oxymoronic—that Americans are considered both fat and obsessed with their image? There seems to be a disconnect here. Someone should choose what we are already. Are we a nation of Patrick Swayzes, or a nation of Chris Farleys?)

Finally, Thanksgiving is nice because it gives people an excuse to stop *****ing for one day and actually be thankful for something. What that something is, of course, I’m not entirely sure. It’s up to interpretation. The “Thanks” in Thanksgiving can mean whatever you want it to mean. Just like the “Labor” in Labor Day, or the “Christ” in Christmas. It can mean you’re thankful for living in a country that celebrates Thanksgiving. It can mean that you’re thankful for democracy, Lynyrd Skynyrd, or Cracker Barrel. It can even mean that you’re thankful to be thankful for nothing. Whatever your heart’s desire. The world would be a better place if, for just one day, people pledged to stop killing people and start killing turkeys. Think about it. Unless you’re a turkey, everybody wins.

So there you have it. Thanksgiving is basically the best holiday around.

[thedrifter]

A Thanksgiving proclamation

By George W. Bush

Thanksgiving Day is a time to remember our many blessings and to celebrate the opportunities that freedom affords. Explorers and settlers arriving in this land often gave thanks for the extraordinary plenty they found. And today, we remain grateful to live in a country of liberty and abundance. We give thanks for the love of family and friends, and we ask God to continue to watch over America.

This Thanksgiving, we pray and express thanks for the men and women who work to keep America safe and secure. Members of our Armed Forces, State and local law enforcement, and first responders embody our Nation's highest ideals of courage and devotion to duty. Our country is grateful for their service and for the support and sacrifice of their families. We ask God's special blessings on those who have lost loved ones in the line of duty.

We also remember those affected by the destruction of natural disasters. Their tremendous determination to recover their lives exemplifies the American spirit, and we are grateful for those across our Nation who answered the cries of their neighbors in need and provided them with food, shelter, and a helping hand. We ask for continued strength and perseverance as we work to rebuild these communities and return hope to our citizens.

We give thanks to live in a country where freedom reigns, justice prevails, and hope prospers. We recognize that America is a better place when we answer the universal call to love a neighbor and help those in need. May God bless and guide the United States of America as we move forward.

Now, therefore, I, George W. Bush, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim Thursday, November 24, 2005, as a National Day of Thanksgiving. I encourage all Americans to gather together in their homes and places of worship with family, friends, and loved ones to reinforce the ties that bind us and give thanks for the freedoms and many blessings we enjoy.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this eighteenth day of November, in the year of our Lord two thousand five, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirtieth.

[thedrifter]

November 22, 2005, 8:29 a.m.
Thanks!
A list of gratitude.

'Tis the season to give thanks. Here are things I'm grateful for:

The U.S. Coast Guard. While the rest of us pointed fingers and bemoaned all that divides us during Hurricane Katrina, the Coast Guard was saving more than 20,000 people from the floodwaters. It was responsible for what should have been some of the most enduring images from the hurricane: rescuers and the rescued — black and white, young and old, male and female — intertwined in one another's arms as they ascended in harnesses toward helicopters, and safety, overhead.

Haqy Asaad. An explosives expert with the Iraqi interior ministry, Asaad became adept at defusing roadside bombs, at great personal risk. "I can't just leave these bombs in all these neighborhoods. I want to live in a peaceful Iraq someday," he explained. It will be his kind of bravery that will save Iraq. He was killed by insurgents in August. RIP.

Google. Can anyone imagine life without it, and similar Internet search engines? More information is at our fingertips more quickly than ever before.

The U.S. economy. It has created 57 million jobs since the 1970s, while Europe has managed only 4 million. It shrugged off Katrina and Rita like a couple of summer showers, growing at a 3.8-percent rate in the third quarter. It is a dynamic engine for opportunity and change.

Rosa Parks. The late civil-rights pioneer demonstrated how the assertion of a simple moral principle can move the world.

The rule of law. The indictments of former Majority Leader Tom DeLay, former Dick Cheney Chief of Staff Scooter Libby and GOP lobbying powerhouse Jack Abramoff show that no one is above the law (even if the indictments themselves are of varying quality). In America, even the high can be brought low. And so we have cracked the problem that has bedeviled so many societies: How to hold their ruling classes accountable.

David McCullough. He is the most famous of a group of historians — including Richard Brookhiser and David Hackett Fischer — who have revived the historiography of the American Founding. Their books are readable, and unashamedly vouch for the greatness of the events and the men they portray. What a national service.

The Orange and Cedar revolutions. The most powerful force for freedom is an aroused civil society that doesn't fear its oppressors and eschews violence. Ukraine and Lebanon made new starts for themselves on the basis of such civic action.

Parents of Down syndrome children. A new test will make it possible to identify children with Down syndrome earlier in the womb. As it is, 80 percent to 90 percent of parents decide to abort children with Down. Those who don't, embrace life in all its heartbreaking and wonderful diversity, and believe in the redeeming power of love.

American generosity. The Asian tsunami and Katrina prompted massive outpourings of private aid — $1.5 billion and $2.7 billion, respectively. Every year Americans give more than $200 billion annually to charity, a rolling testament to our amazing civic-mindedness.

The drug companies. They get a bad name because no one wants to pay for their products, but from AIDS to heart disease to — one hopes! — the avian flu, they protect our health and ease our discomforts.

Penguins. With all the catastrophes, it wasn't a good year for nature. But the documentary March of the Penguins reminded us of the astonishing intricacy, weirdness, and marvel of animal life. It's why we follow the mating patterns of pandas, work to restore grizzlies and wolves to the West, and consume so many books, TV shows and movies about critters.

The Chicago White Sox. The World Series winners did it with pitching and good fielding — no steroids required.

Members of the U.S. military. How to credit their bravery and steadfastness? While the Beltway seems ready to quit on Iraq, re-enlistment rates for men and women who have served there are exceeding Pentagon goals. Semper fi, indeed.

— Rich Lowry is author of Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

A Hymn's Long Journey Home
The surprising origins of "We Gather Together," a Thanksgiving standard.

BY MELANIE KIRKPATRICK
Tuesday, November 22, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST

Its mention of God makes it verboten in schools today. But not too many years ago this was the season when teachers would lead their students in the great ecumenical Thanksgiving hymn, "We Gather Together to Ask the Lord's Blessing." It's a singable melody, and the stirring lyrics speak directly of the Pilgrims' experience in overcoming religious persecution.

Or do they? With the exception of Native Americans, we're all the descendants of those who came to the New World from somewhere else. So too, it turns out, did "We Gather Together," whose origins are Dutch and speak of religious persecution that predates the first Thanksgiving. It's appropriate that a hymn we sing to celebrate a quintessentially American holiday is, like most of us, a transplant.

The melody can be traced back to 1597 and is probably older than that. It started out as a folk song, whose secular lyrics set a decidedly nonreligious tone. "Wilder dan wilt, wie sal mij temmen," the song began, or "Wilder than wild, who will tame me?" Folk melodies have a way of wanting to be sung--think "Greensleeves," which has numerous sets of lyrics associated with it--and "Wilder dan wilt" was no exception.

Its transformation into the hymn about overcoming religious oppression began on Jan. 24, 1597. That was the date of the Battle of Turnhout, in which Prince Maurice of Orange defeated the Spanish occupiers of a town in what is now the Netherlands. It appears likely that Dutch Protestants--who were forbidden from practicing their religion under the Catholic King Philip II of Spain--celebrated the victory by borrowing the familiar folk melody and giving it new words. Hence "Wilt heden nu treden" or, loosely translated, "We gather together"--a phrase that itself connoted a heretofore forbidden act: Dutch Protestants joining together in worship. Its first appearance in print was in a 1626 collection of Dutch patriotic songs, "Nederlandtsch Gedencklanck."

It's tantalizing to think that the English Pilgrims--in exile in Holland, the only place in Europe where they could worship freely--might have been familiar with "Wilt heden nu treden." There's no record that they were, but the circumstantial evidence is strong. Some of them spoke Dutch, attended Dutch churches and even became Dutch citizens. "It's possible, I'd even go so far as to say it's probable, that the Pilgrims knew the tune," says John Kemp of Plimouth Plantation, the living-history museum of 17th-century America.

But to the Pilgrim mindset, "We Gather Together" would have been a secular song. It wasn't the direct word of the Bible, which meant they would not have sung it at church. The Pilgrims, like the Dutch Calvinists, sang only Psalms in worship and then without musical accompaniment or even harmony, which they considered "man glorifying in man's art," says Mr. Kemp. They saw any song except a Psalm as a violation of the commandment against idolatry.

So how did "We Gather Together" get from a 17th-century Dutch songbook to 20th-century American churches and schoolrooms?

One answer is Dutch settlers, who brought it with them to the New World, perhaps as early as the 1620s. The hymn stayed alive in the Dutch-American community throughout the centuries, says Emily Brink of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship in Grand Rapids, Mich. In 1937, when the Christian Reformed Church in North America--a denomination that began with Dutch immigrants who sang only Psalms--made the then-controversial decision to permit hymns to be sung at church, "We Gather Together" was chosen as the opening hymn in the first hymnal.

Another answer has to do with a Viennese choirmaster by the name of Eduard Kremser, whose arrangement of "We Gather Together" was published in Leipzig, Germany, in 1877. Enter Theodore Baker, an American scholar studying in Leipzig. Baker translated the hymn into English in 1894 as a "prayer of Thanksgiving" to be sung by a choir.

From there it was an easy step to congregational singing. According to the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada, which maintains a database of popular hymns, "We Gather Together's" first appearance in an American hymnal was in 1903. Over the next three decades it showed up in an assortment of hymnals in the Northeast and Midwest and in school songbooks. Its "big break" came in 1935, says Carl Daw, executive director of the Hymn Society, when it was added to the national hymnal of the Methodist-Episcopal Church.

The association with Thanksgiving helped popularize the hymn, and the country's experience with war also contributed to its spread. "By World War I, we started to see ourselves in this hymn," says Michael Hawn, professor of sacred music at Southern Methodist University's Perkins School of Theology. Even more so in World War II, when "the wicked oppressing" would have resonated with a public engaged in the fight against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. "People take stock of themselves at Thanksgiving," he says. "We've all survived some turbulent times."

"We Gather Together" has all the elements that make a hymn great, says Prof. Hawn. Its melody is accessible, it has a catchy "incipit" or opening phrase, and it has a message that unfolds through the stanzas and carries the congregation with it to an uplifting conclusion: "O, Lord, make us free!"

On Thanksgiving Day, that's a sentiment that all Americans, wherever we are gathered, can share.

Ms. Kirkpatrick is the associate editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Thankful to God for America
November 23rd, 2005
J. James Estrada

From the Pilgrim’s William Bradford to George Washington to George W. Bush, I am thankful that this nation is led by those who recognize the hand of God that both guides and provides. May His blessings be abundant in your homes and communities this and every year we observe Thanksgiving and remember its commencing.

“Being thus arrived in a good harbor, and brought safe to land, they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of Heaven who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean, and delivered them from all the perils and miseries thereof, again to set their feet on the firm and stable earth.”

So is the tale of the 103 souls of the tiny ship Mayflower which sailed from England to America in 1620. The journey across the Atlantic took over two months. Missing its intended destination of Jamestown, the Mayflower landed instead at Plymouth Rock. The fierce winds had blown them off course, but had it really?

The first Thanksgiving was a celebration of life. The weary travelers, who sought religious freedom in this new land, shared their belief in God with the native population, even as they struggled to survive. And survive they did.

The words above were penned by the colony’s first Governor, Bradford. That America sprang from the sacrifice of a people who overcame severe hardship and great trial, is an indication of what makes this country great. That the winds that take us off course can be acknowledged as the guiding hand of Providence, is a tribute to an endearing religious spirit. And that, too, makes this country great.

One hundred and sixty-nine years later, The Proclamation of National Thanksgiving was given by President George Washington. We are now 216 years beyond that date, but we still celebrate the words and the spirit of that proclamation:

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor, and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me “to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.”

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be. That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks, for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation, for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his providence, which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war, for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed, for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted, for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions, to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually, to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed, to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shown kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord. To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease of science among them and Us, and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

The Thankful Tree
By Michelle Malkin
November 23, 2005

"So, what did you do in school today?" It's the question I greet my daughter with every afternoon after she returns home from kindergarten. Usually, she recycles three jaded answers delivered with 5-going-on-16-year-old aplomb: "I don't remember," "I did the monkey bars," and "I drank chocolate milk."

This week was different. She came home yesterday bubbling about a new holiday art project: The Thankful Tree. "You trace your hands and cut them out and then you write what you're thankful for on the hands," my enthused daughter explained, "and then you paste them onto a paper tree!" She eagerly recited her thankful list from memory: "Friends. Food. My fish, Rainbow. And my little brother." (Yes, in that order.)

This morning before leaving for school, my daughter decided we should make our own Thankful Tree at home and left me this question to ponder: "What are you thankful for, Mommy?"

Staring at my construction-paper hand, here's what I have written in the palm: Our Troops. And in the five fingers, I've written these names of heroes who we'll honor this Thanksgiving:

Tyrone L. Chisholm, 27, of Savannah, Ga. An Army sergeant and father of two, Chisholm was killed Nov. 11 when a string of roadside bombs exploded near his Abrams tank in Tall Afar, Iraq, along the Syrian border. He was assigned to the 2nd Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment at Ft. Carson, Colo. His aunt, Delores Baron, said: "He was really excited about the Army. He was proud of what he was doing, and he died doing what he wanted to do: serve his country."

Roger W. Deeds, 24, of Biloxi, Miss. A lance corporal in the Marine Corps and father of two, Deeds was among five Marines killed last week during Operation Steel Curtain in Ubaydi, Iraq, a terrorist stronghold also near the Syrian border. His mother, Joyce, said: "The Marine motto is 'Semper Fi -- always faithful.' They have a saying that no one is left behind. And that's how my son died. . . . He was faithful to God, country and family."

James S. Ochsner, 36, of Waukegan, Ill. An Army sergeant 1st class, Ochsner was killed last week when an improvised explosive device detonated near his armored Humvee during a supply distribution mission in Orgun, Afghanistan, near the Pakistani border. "He was going out to distribute some goods to the local people," Ochsner's father, Bob Ochsner of Beach Park, told the Chicago Sun-Times. "He loved the Afghan people; he really enjoyed them," Bob Ochsner said of his son. Sgt. Ochsner believed it was his duty to serve in the armed forces, Bob Ochsner said.

Donald E. Fisher II, 21, of Avon, Mass. An Army corporal from a large military family, he was one of two soldiers killed Nov. 11 when their convoy vehicle was involved in an accident in the northern city of Kirkuk, Iraq. "Even as a young child growing up in Brockton, patriotism surged through Donald E. Fisher II," wrote the Boston Globe. "'We're talking about a kid who, as a kid, cried because someone stole the flag off our flagpole,' Donald Fisher of Tacoma, Wash., said of his son. 'He was very committed.'"

James E. Estep, 26, of Leesburg, Fla. An Army staff sergeant and father of three, he was among four soldiers killed when an improvised explosive device detonated last week near their Humvee in Taji, Iraq, north of Baghdad. "He loved the military," said his brother, Michael. "He loved doing his job." His sister, Becky Buskill, added: "He died for a cause he believed in."

Can we bow our heads in union for one day and give thanks for our men and women who choose to fight, refuse to lose, and believe in their mission? Can we do it without distorting their legacies and pandering to anti-American elites worldwide and using their deaths to embarrass and undermine our commander in chief?

This is my prayer and the start of our new family tradition. In small gestures, deep-rooted gratitude grows.

Michelle Malkin is author of the new book "Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild." Her e-mail address is malkin@comcast.net.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Ben Franklin's Politically Incorrect Thanksgiving
Posted Nov 23, 2005
Did you know that the day we celebrate as Thanksgiving was supposed to be a fast?

It took one politically incorrect farmer to change the course of history. When the government tried to impose a fast, he called for a grand feast—thanksgivings—so that Americans could celebrate their bounty and nourish their bodies, not lament their hardships through hunger.

Ben Franklin’s tale of the first Thanksgiving is revealed in a soon-to-be-released book, The Compleated Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin, edited by Franklin descendent Mark Skousen, a professor at Columbia University.

The Compleated Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin takes up where Franklin's original autobiography left off—in 1757. This new volume covers Franklin's final 33 years, including some of the most important in our nation's history.

"The Real Story of the First Thanksgiving," as told by Franklin himself (below), is just one of the many topics covered in The Compleated Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin.

The Real Story of the First Thanksgiving
By Benjamin Franklin (1785)

“There is a tradition that in the planting of New England, the first settlers met with many difficulties and hardships, as is generally the case when a civiliz’d people attempt to establish themselves in a wilderness country. Being so piously dispos’d, they sought relief from heaven by laying their wants and distresses before the Lord in frequent set days of fasting and prayer. Constant meditation and discourse on these subjects kept their minds gloomy and discontented, and like the children of Israel there were many dispos’d to return to the Egypt which persecution had induc’d them to abandon.

“At length, when it was proposed in the Assembly to proclaim another fast, a farmer of plain sense rose and remark’d that the inconveniences they suffer’d, and concerning which they had so often weary’d heaven with their complaints, were not so great as they might have expected, and were diminishing every day as the colony strengthen’d; that the earth began to reward their labour and furnish liberally for their subsistence; that their seas and rivers were full of fish, the air sweet, the climate healthy, and above all, they were in the full enjoyment of liberty, civil and religious.

“He therefore thought that reflecting and conversing on these subjects would be more comfortable and lead more to make them contented with their situation; and that it would be more becoming the gratitude they ow’d to the divine being, if instead of a fast they should proclaim a thanksgiving. His advice was taken, and from that day to this, they have in every year observ’d circumstances of public felicity sufficient to furnish employment for a Thanksgiving Day, which is therefore constantly ordered and religiously observed.”

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Thanksgiving Memories
by Linda Chavez
Posted Nov 23, 2005

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday. One of my first memories is of sucking on a big turkey drumstick, which remains the most prized part of the turkey. My family’s meals were never as elaborate as the ones pictured in ladies magazines or posted on the bulletin boards in school, but they were special nonetheless. Since my mother worked full time, unusual in that era, our cranberry sauce came from a can, a thick gelatinous concoction that wobbled on the plate like Jell-O. But the turkey and the gravy were homemade, as was the sage stuffing, which I refused to taste until I was a teenager.

Meals in my family were always quick affairs, hastily put together and eaten on TV trays in front of the television set, with Chet Huntley and David Brinkley providing the only dinnertime conversation. But Thanksgiving was different.

My mother brought out the tablecloth her mother had crocheted and set the kitchen table with platters, a gravy boat, and silver-plated flatware handed down from her grandmother. She would get up at the crack of dawn, often still tired from working late nights in a restaurant, dress the turkey and put it in the oven to cook slowly all day. My job was to baste the bird every 20 minutes, until it reached a lovely caramel color, and peel the potatoes that my father would later mash with lots of butter until they turned a creamy consistency with not a single lump. After my mother took the turkey out of the oven to “set” before carving, she whipped up a batch of biscuits that somehow managed to have a crunchy crust with a fluffy center, a feat I have yet to master.

Thanksgiving dinner was never complete without my father telling the story about his own childhood memories of the holiday. Growing up in the Depression was difficult enough, but for much of my father’s early childhood, his father was in prison in Leavenworth, Kan., for violating the Volstead Act, which prohibited the sale of alcohol in the United States. My grandfather, Ambrose, was abstemious himself but saw no reason why others shouldn’t enjoy a glass of whiskey or a beer or two on occasion, and was happy to supply much of Albuquerque with alcohol he obtained by regular runs across the border into Mexico. The federal government saw things differently. Ambrose spent 11 years in the penitentiary, leaving his wife and four children in desperate poverty. My father would always begin the meal by telling of the time an uncle dropped by before Thanksgiving to give the family some money for their dinner, but it was only enough to buy a pound of bologna at the local market. He described his humiliation standing at the butcher’s counter waiting to buy the lunchmeat while his neighbors collected their turkeys and yams.

The story made me feel both thankful and a little guilty. We had so much more than my father did when he was a boy, but we would probably be considered poor by today’s standards. We lived in a two-room basement apartment until I was 13. My parents slept on a pull-out couch in the living room, while my sister and I slept in one bed in the tiny bedroom, and we shared a single bathroom with several other families in the apartment building. But we always had enough food to eat, and we never missed a Thanksgiving meal. Television was a less pernicious influence then in fostering a sense of deprivation than it is today. There were many working-class characters on TV in the 1950s, and I could identify with the shabby little apartment that Ralph and Alice Kramden shared on “The Honeymooners,” while aspiring to a room of my own like Betty’s in “Father Knows Best.” Still, like most kids, I envied what some of my friends possessed. My father’s stories helped put everything in perspective.

My father died in 1978, but every Thanksgiving I remember his story as if it were my own. Like the cranberries that I now cook from scratch, it gives the feast its bittersweet edge to remind me how truly thankful we all should be every day of the year.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Giving Thanks
Posted November 23, 2005
The Claremont Institute.

Though celebrated privately in homes, Thanksgiving is a public opportunity for Americans to bring the sacred into our lives. Our two greatest presidents, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, understood this connection between the public and the private in their proclamations of Thanksgiving as a national holiday. They were proclaiming a holy day, a day for prayer and recognition of Almighty God's authority over man. Religious liberty is one of the blessings of constitutional government we must be thankful for. In this spirit, presidents, with the approval of Congress, have provided a public occasion for prayer—which is of course what a thanks-giving is.

We forget too easily the meaning of this national holiday as it was first established by George Washington on October 3, 1789 and reaffirmed as we know it today by Abraham Lincoln on October 3, 1863, exactly 74 years later. A mere glance at their Thanksgiving proclamations reminds us of the noblest purposes of government, including its greatest endeavors—fighting war and educating its citizens.

A close reading of these two messages reveals a careful and subtle teaching about the higher purposes of government and of human life. Washington urged prayer "to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed...." Prayer should also lead this nation of "civil and religious liberty" to "promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among [other nations] and us...." God and the human mind are in alliance. We are most human when we honor our duties, to our country and to our Creator, and the wisdom that unifies these duties.

Even in the midst of "the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged," Lincoln first paints a picture of a prosperous, free, and indeed flourishing land. These are the "gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American People." At the end of the proclamation, Lincoln asks for prayers of thanks but also with expressions of "humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience." Thus do we "commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers" in the war. Have we, as those Americans did, taken to heart the Thanksgiving prayers Father Abraham urged upon us?

As our soldiers fight and die in Iraq and around the world, we should remember the wartime wisdom of Lincoln and the founding wisdom of Washington on Thanksgiving Day. Guided by prayer, we should recall our higher purposes. We enjoy the fruits of our leisure this Thursday on account of the wisdom and sacrifices of others present and past.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Giving Thanks for the Free Market
By Michael Franc
Heritage Foundation | November 24, 2005

Recalling the story of the Pilgrims is a Thanksgiving tradition, but do you know the real story behind their triumph over hunger and poverty at Plymouth Colony nearly four centuries ago? Their salvation stemmed not so much from the charitable gestures of local Indians, but from their courageous decision to embrace the free-market principle of private property ownership a century and a half before Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations.

Writing in his diary of the dire economic straits and self-destructive behavior that consumed his fellow Puritans shortly after their arrival, Governor William Bradford painted a picture of destitute settlers selling their clothes and bed coverings for food while others “became servants to the Indians,” cutting wood and fetching water in exchange for “a capful of corn.” The most desperate among them starved, with Bradford recounting how one settler, in gathering shellfish along the shore, “was so weak … he stuck fast in the mud and was found dead in the place.”

The colony’s leaders identified the source of their problem as a particularly vile form of what Bradford called “communism.” Property in Plymouth Colony, he observed, was communally owned and cultivated. This system (“taking away of property and bringing [it] into a commonwealth”) bred “confusion and discontent” and “retarded much employment that would have been to [the settlers’] benefit and comfort.”

Brink of Extermination

The most able and fit young men in Plymouth thought it an “injustice” that they were paid the same as those “not able to do a quarter the other could.” Women, meanwhile, viewed the communal chores they were required to perform for others as a form of “slavery.”

On the brink of extermination, the Colony’s leaders changed course and allotted a parcel of land to each settler, hoping the private ownership of farmland would encourage self-sufficiency and lead to the cultivation of more corn and other foodstuffs.

As Adam Smith would have predicted, this new system worked famously. “This had very good success,” Bradford reported, “for it made all hands very industrious.” In fact, “much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been” and productivity increased. “Women,” for example, “went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn.”

The famine that nearly wiped out the Pilgrims in 1623 gave way to a period of agricultural abundance that enabled the Massachusetts settlers to set down permanent roots in the New World, prosper, and play an indispensable role in the ultimate success of the American experiment.

A profoundly religious man, Bradford saw the hand of God in the Pilgrims’ economic recovery. Their success, he observed, “may well evince the vanity of that conceit...that the taking away of property... would make [men] happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God.” Bradford surmised, “God in his wisdom saw another course fitter for them.”

Amen to that.

Thanksgiving Story: 2005

Plymouth’s Pilgrims may have survived that near-fatal brush with socialism but, sadly, many political leaders remain transfixed by a blind faith in the ability of government to shape and set the course of human behavior.

Case in point: the tenacious liberal belief that no connection exists between the tax burden we place on capital formation and the economic behavior of those who must shoulder that burden.

The liberal creed holds that investors will take economic risks and create jobs no matter how punitive the tax regime. To liberals, lowering that burden through reductions in the rate of taxation simply bestows an unwarranted windfall on the “rich” and deprives the government of much-needed tax revenue.

Of course, incentives matter every bit as much today as they did four centuries ago. The latest proof comes from figures released by the Treasury Department for the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30. They vindicate the predictions of conservative economists that the 2003 law, which included a number of pro-growth provisions such as cutting the top tax rate on capital gains and dividends to 15 percent, would be a raging success.

Compared to the previous year:

Total federal revenues grew by an astonishing 14.6%.

Corporate receipts exploded, increasing by 47%.

Payroll tax receipts, an indicator of employment growth, increased by a respectable 8%.

We have much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving season.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

'The Turkey Has Landed'
An immigrant celebrates the most distinctively American holiday.
BY CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
Thursday, November 24, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST

Concerning Thanksgiving, that most distinctive and unique of all American holidays, there need be no resentment and no recrimination. Likewise, there need be no wearisome present-giving, no order of divine service, and no obligation to the dead. This holiday is like a free gift, or even (profane though the concept may be to some readers) a free lunch--and a very big and handsome one at that. This is the festival on which one hears that distinct and generous American voice: the one that says "why not?" Family values are certainly involved, but even those with no family will still be invited, or will invite. The doors are not exactly left open as for a Passover Seder, yet who would not be ashamed to think of a neighbor who was excluded or forgotten on such a national day?

Immigrants like me tend to mention it as their favorite. And this is paradoxical, perhaps, since it was tentative and yet ambitious immigrants who haltingly began the tradition. But these were immigrants to the Americas, not to the United States.

You can have a decent quarrel about the poor return that Native Americans received for their kindness in leading Puritans to find corn and turkeys in the course of a harsh winter. You may find yourself embroiled, as on Columbus Day, with those who detest the conquistadores or who did not get here by way of Plymouth Rock or Ellis Island. ("Not for us it isn't," as the receptionist at Louis Farrakhan's Final Call once glacially told me, after I had pointed out that her boss had desired me to telephone that very day.) Even Hallowe'en is fraught, with undertones of human sacrifice and Protestant ascendancy. But Thanksgiving really comes from the time when the USA had replaced the squabbling confessional colonists, and is fine, and all-American, too.

As with so many fine things, it results from the granite jaw and the unhypocritical speech of Abraham Lincoln. It seemed to him, as it must have seemed in his composition of the Gettysburg Address, that there ought to be one day that belonged exclusively to all free citizens of a democratic republic. It need not trouble us that he spoke in April and named a regular calendar day at the end of November, any more than it need trouble us that he mentioned "God" but specified no particular religion. No nation can be without a day of its own, and who but a demagogue or a sentimentalist would have appointed a simulacrum of Easter or Passover? The Union had just been preserved from every kind of hazard and fanaticism: Just be grateful. If there were to be any ceremonial or devotional moment at Thanksgiving, and I am sure that I wish that there were not, it still might not kill the spirit of the thing if Lincoln's Second Inaugural were to be read aloud, or at least printed on a few placemats.

Any attempt at further grandiosity would fail. To remember the terrible war that saved the Union, or the Winthropian fundamentalism about that "city on a hill," would be too strenuous. And there are other days, in any case, on which one may celebrate or commemorate these things. I myself always concentrate on the dry wisdom of Benjamin Franklin, who once proposed that the turkey instead of the eagle should be the American national bird. After all, as he noted, the eagle is an inedible and arrogant predator whereas the turkey is harmless to others, nutritious, thrifty, industrious and profuse. Pausing only to think of the variable slogans here ("Where Turkeys Dare"; "The Turkey Has Landed"; "On Wings of Turkeys" and, by a stretch, "Legal Turkeys") I marvel to think that a nation so potentially strong could have had a Founding Father who was so irreverent. I also wish that I liked turkey. But there is always stuffing, cranberry sauce and gravy--to be eked out by pumpkin pie, which I also wish I could pretend to relish.

Indeed, it is the sheer modesty of the occasion that partly recommends it. Everybody knows what's coming. Nobody acts as if caviar and venison are about to be served, rammed home by syllabub and fine Madeira. The whole point is that one forces down, at an odd hour of the afternoon, the sort of food that even the least discriminating diner in a restaurant would never order by choice. Perhaps false modesty is better than no modesty at all.

Never mind all that. I am quite sure (indeed, I know) that many a Thanksgiving table is set with vegetarian delights for all the family. And never mind if you think that Norman Rockwell is a great cornball as well as a considerable painter. Many people all over the world, including many members of my own great profession of journalism, almost make their livings by describing the United States as a predatory and taloned bird, swooping down on the humble dinners of others. And of course, no country would really wish to represent itself on its own coinage and emblems as a feathered, flapping, gobbling and flightless product of evolution. Still and all, I have become one of those to whom Thanksgiving is a festival to be welcomed, and not dreaded. I once grabbed a plate of what was quite possibly turkey, but which certainly involved processed cranberry and pumpkin, in a U.S. Army position in the desert on the frontier of Iraq. It was the worst meal--by far the worst meal--I have ever eaten. But in all directions from the chow-hall, I could see Americans of every conceivable stripe and confession, cheerfully asserting their connection, in awful heat, with a fall of long ago. And this in a holiday that in no way could divide them. May this always be so, and may one give some modest thanks for it.

Mr. Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair. His most recent book is "Thomas Jefferson: Author of America" (HarperCollins, 2005).

Ellie