[Oe List ...] Thanksgiving musing

Mon Nov 26 22:23:18 PST 2012

Thanks Jann, for the news on the wild turkeys.  Am definitely behind the times with both the breeding programs and the release in the wild that now makes the wild turkey common in many wooded areas particularly in the west and southwest.  I was going by memory of an old article from New England, which I was too lazy to double check.

In any case, the Peking duck I had for Thanksgiving was neither from Peking nor a wild duck!  After the price, I AM an endangered species!

j'aime la vie

Yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In all, Celebrate!

-----Original Message-----
From: LAURELCG <LAURELCG at aol.com>
To: oe <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
Sent: Tue, Nov 27, 2012 4:58 am
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Thanksgiving musing

Jaime,
As usual, I enjoyed your article, but hardly think the wild turkey is endangered. I could be wrong, but they are quite numerous in coast range hills of California.

Blessings,
Jann McGuire

In a message dated 11/20/2012 4:51:35 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, svesjaime at aol.com writes:
The usual   caveat: curious, welcome; not, see you at the bend.

j'aime la vie   

Yesterday,   appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In all,   Celebrate!

-----Original   Message-----
From: Jaime R Vergara <jrvergarajr2031 at aol.com>
To:   jayvee_vallejera <jayvee_vallejera at saipantribune.com>; mark_rabago   <mark_rabago at saipantribune.com>; editor   <editor at saipantribune.com>
Sent: Tue, Nov 20, 2012 8:48   pm
Subject: For Thursday

T-Day

Three   perspectives underlie the structure of Christian thought in the last two   millennia.  The most familiar one is transcendence where paradise in the   metaphor of heaven is located elsewhere than where we currently are.    Then there is earthly immanence, the transformation that occurs when one   unconditionally embraces the fullness of life in the here-and-now.  The   third is the spirit of freedom, transparent exercise of responsibility in the   realm of finite historical choices.

In   ritual, these perspectives were intoned in the medieval formula of naming   realities, "In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost!"  In   current parlance, that would be rehearsing the role of the Terminator, the   Transformer, and the Turkey!

Human   civilization ritualize certain events like the culmination of a harvest, the   completion of a monumental task, or just the satisfaction over the passing of   a crisis.  Gratitude is a garden variety of human virtue.  It joins   other modes of affirmed consciousness in the practices of personal confession,   societal petition, and relational intercession, long observed in prayerful   communities.

We tarry   along the religious path of this national holiday because most Americans   gather around family tables this day in the mythology of the first   perspective.  In such spirit began the annual celebration after Abraham   Lincoln in 1863 proclaimed a national day of "Thanksgiving and Praise to our   beneficent Father who dwelleth in Heaven".

Brownscombe 1914 painting of Plymouth   settlers feasting with natives has become a familiar visual to accounts.    Historians tell of 53 Plymouth settlers and 90 Indians holding a three-day   feast after the settlers survived their first year of harsh winter.    (Revisionists point out that narratives, at least, need to acknowledge how the   native residents were later turned into targets on T-day's turkey   shoots!)

FDR   nailed the date down to the fourth Thursday of November, to settle the   uncertainty of day on those years when there are five Thursdays in November.    Not all States complied.  It became a joke that when there were   five Thursday, observance on the fourth made it Democratic while on the fifth,   Republican.

The   celebration has commercially evolved into a season of shopping, marked by   Macy's Parade, merrily rolls down the store aisles until way past New Year,   with the apex reached with Santa's gifts under the Tannenbaum bought and   wrapped before Christmas eve.  The intrusion of the dollar into the   equation watered down the religious emphasis specifically made Christian in   the presidential proclamations of Presbyterian pastor's son Grover Cleveland   and staunch Methodist William McKinley.

Gerald   Ford made the day totally secular skewing previous references to providence in   his proclamation.  The media was not pleased.  Ford lost the next   election.  Ronald Reagan chuckled the "pardoning" of the proffered   turkey, and George H. W. Bush made the practice a permanent fixture in the   annual presidential ritual.  Bill Clinton emphasized gratitude to those   who serve to promote the American vision and implement its mission.    George W. Bush took the task of international peace into the war room on   terror after 9/11.  Obama was criticized for not thanking "God" in his   proclamation of 2011.  American sentiment shifted.  Obama got   reelected.  

Along   with many College and Professional Sports' events, Holiday movies get a   Thanksgiving premiere to test their weight in the box office.  The   pumpkin pie remains a dinner staple but the contest is in the field on the   biggest and heaviest variety raised.  Meanwhile, the wild turkey joins   the list of the endangered specie.  The t-bird that graces holiday tables   lost its thunder and smell, coming from coops where they are fattened for   weight.  The meat hardly emits the familiar fragrant fowl flavor and   aroma characteristic of the wild bird in the prairies now relegated to the   trademark of a Bourbon.

Thanksgiving Day in China has all the   trappings of western commercial symbols devoid of historical moorings.    In Saipan, we render obeisance to providential divinity in the cosmic   realm.  It is a matter of course but irrelevant.  In my campus   building, gratitude is echoed by the Anshallah of Muslims from Africa,   the Middle East, South-Southeast Asia who share my building's morning elevator   ride with their gracious salutations of Salaam Malaikom! Grace drapes   the diversity.

Save for   a lone Protestant evangelical, we do not see much of the transformative   messianic impulse, amazingly gracious, or otherwise.  The once   'puritanical' CPC battles corruption within its ranks, with President Hu   Jintao declaring at the recent Party Congress that if the practice is not   curtailed, it will be the death knell of the Party and the government in the   next decade.  The hyperbole on service reminiscent of Mao's vaunted   service is met by a skeptical smirk.  The current gap of income   distribution is deep and wide.  That's all that seem to matter in a newly   affluent and resurgent China.

The   Terminator remained with Ahnold in California.  The Transformer is still   a toy but got animated in the fight between the autobots and the decepticons.    As for my gobble gobble, I will stick with the turkey!

 j'aime la vie   

Yesterday, appreciate;   tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate.  In   all, Celebrate!

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