"In the year 1621, the Pilgrims held their first Thanksgiving feast. They invited the great Indian chief Massasoit, who brought ninety of his brave Indians and a great abundance of food. Governor William Bradford and Captain Miles Standish were honored guests. Elder William Brewster, who was a minister, said a prayer that went something like this: 'We thank God for our homes and our food and our safety in a new land. We thank God for the opportunity to create a new world for freedom and justice.'"
-- Linus van Pelt
So, with Thanksgiving upon us, we're taking a break until Monday. Enjoy your football! Enjoy your dinners! Enjoy the holiday spirit! Enjoy your family and friends in the non-eWorld!
But before you go, tell us... what are you thankful for?
To clarify, this came after he explained the Great Pumpkin.
ReplyDeleteI see we have a Charlie Brown officiando in the ranks?
ReplyDeleteI'm thankful for a bicameral legislature.
ReplyDeleteI'm thankful for my Ruger.
ReplyDeleteI saw Skyfall on Monday...I'm also thankful for Daniel Craig.
ReplyDeleteK, That's a good one, though I would be more thankful for a smarter voting public.
ReplyDeleteTam, I'm hearing that from a lot of women! LOL!
ReplyDeleteActually, I like him a lot as Bond. I haven't seen the film yet, but I hear good things so I'm excited about it.
My wife says she's more thankful for Chris Hemsworth than for Daniel Craig.
ReplyDeleteAndrew, one whole shelf in my room is filled with Charlie Brown books and memorabilia. That would be an "affirmative."
ReplyDeleteI'm thankful that there are things in my life which can keep me from thinking about politics for a while. Mostly other people.
thankful to be alive, favorable test results, and the ability to enjoy a meal with my wife, cousin, and brother-in-law tomorrow. Although it may sound corny, I am thankful for all of you cyber-friends. Cyber though you may be, I do know you actually exist as real people, and I continue to enjoy shooting the breeze online with you :)
ReplyDeleteI am thankful that my fighting spirit lives. and for pie. lots of pie.
ReplyDeleteJed, it's been fun shooting the breeze with you (and all of you) too! :-)
ReplyDeleteJed, I'm glad you got good new! :)
ReplyDeleteI see cyber-friends as real friends. In fact, I speak with most of you much more than I do with people I've known for years. And I definitely enjoy everyone's company! :)
Patti, I LOVE pie! :D
ReplyDeleteT-Rav, It's vital to have interests outside of politics and I guess Charlie Brown is a good one.
ReplyDelete//eyes T-Rav suspiciously
just kidding...
K, I'd name an actress I'm more thankful for, but none of them really excite me anymore. :( The world needs better actresses!
ReplyDeleteAndrew, a lot of women are thankful for their Rugers, or Daniel Craig?
ReplyDeleteK-it's a matter of degrees. I'm more thankful for Daniel Craig, but I'm also thankful for Chris Hemsworth.
Happy Thanksgiving, all.
Tam, I'm hearing both actually. I've heard several women recently decide to buy guns because they want to protect themselves. And I hear a lot of women positively drooling over Daniel Craig.
ReplyDeleteHappy Thanksgiving!
Andrew: How about being thankful actresses don't look like Nancy Pelosi. As Tam says, it's all a matter of degree!
ReplyDeleteYou are a wise man, K!
ReplyDeleteI'm thankful we are still the freeist country in the world, and for those brave souls in the past and present who have given their lives to protect our lives, liberty and property.
ReplyDeleteThere is no greater love than that, and we owe them a debt we can never repay. So they have my eternal gratitude.
That's what I think about when I feel like packin' it in.
I'm also thankful for youy guys. All of you are top notch cyber friends and I enjoy yakkin' with you and reading your comments. :^)
ReplyDeleteAnd of course I'm thankful for my lovely wife (most times) and our two daughters who are all grown up now, and our grandkids.
Here's hoping we can leave all of our kids a bright future withthe same opportunities and freedoms we have enjoyed.
Always thankful when new friends come along.
ReplyDeleteJust as thankful to see an old show I grew up with in a new light.
Thanks Andrew.
Hey everyone! I've been missing in action, but I am back. I am thankful for my family and friends. Good food, good wine, good football! And yes, our wonderful crowd at Commentarama. You are all the best!
ReplyDeleteA prayer for the family of LawHawk that they are able to find the joy in the holiday season. Holidays can be the hardest when you lose someone.
I'm thankful just for the moment to pause and reflect on the many things I have to be thankful for. (That's either deeply profound or a total cop-out. You decide which.)
ReplyDeleteMore specifically, I'm thankful for loving family, like-minded friends, the comforts of home, and just enough hardship to appreciate the wealth of blessings. And good beer!
I'm going to try to ignore all the stuff about Daniel Craig while I'm stuffing myself with turkey. I saw Skyfall last night and I'm more on track to look like Albert Finney.
Morning everyone! Happy Thanksgiving!
ReplyDeleteMax, you're welcome. I've gained a real appreciation of it too as I've prepared the articles. It really is an amazing show!
Bev, Welcome back to the land of the eliving! :)
ReplyDeletetryanmax, I believe you are the first major dissenter on Skyfall, though ScottDS says he didn't like it much either.
Andrew -
ReplyDeleteI... liked it but looking back now, all I can see are the faults, and they lie in the screenplay. After you see it, we can discuss it. The shame of it is everything else worked: the direction, the cinematography, the editing, the music, the effects (they still use models!), etc. But none of that can make up for some serious narrative flaws.
And I finally finished listening to all the DVD commentaries (for research) and am now ready to write my next two reviews: sort of a 4-for-2 deal. :-)
Andrew, don't get me wrong: I enjoyed Skyfall very much. As Scott says, cinematically, it's very tight. I haven't ruminated on it long enough to comment on the narrative as Scott has, though I was very pleased with the thematic resolution. To wit, a common criticism in many of the reviews I've seen is that, only three films in with Craig as Bond, the characters are already pondering whether they are too old and the job is antiquated. This might be troublesome if it weren't for the fact that the film's resolute conclusion is an emphatic, "NO!"
ReplyDeleteScott, I'm not surprised sadly. It's amazing how poor Hollywood is at fixing screenplays, even when the fixes are obvious. It's almost like they take the first script they can get that sounds good and they start shooting without ever reading it.
ReplyDeletetryanmax, Ah. I hate that. Hollywood does that all the time and it's truly annoying. They did that with Brosnan too and I thought it ruined otherwise good films. The Star Trek films also were damaged that way. Film characters should not run around wondering if they aren't too old and too tired to keep doing what they are written to do. You just can't make exciting films that way.
ReplyDeleteAndrew -
ReplyDeleteI agree that it doesn't belong in this Bond film (considering they went to all that trouble of "re-booting" the franchise just six years ago!)...
...but I have no problem with heroes wondering if they're too old. After all, it's just one more conflict to overcome and most movies prove that you're never too old. And in the case of Star Trek, after 25 years it just seemed like a natural progression.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone. God bless you all and may God find you in good spirits.
ReplyDeleteOn Skyfall, it sounds like some producers are listening to consultants like Republicans do. I say get a new set of consultants or do without.
I haven't seen Skyfall yet, either, but I would make this observation--it's a James Bond film. Should we really expect it to be tight in narrative in all that?
ReplyDeleteIf it's sloppy writing, I'm not excusing that. I'm merely saying that a franchise like Bond can get away with things other movies can't. Especially when the lead is Roger Moore.
Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving everybody! Be thankful for your family and friends and all the good things in your life, for having those things under a Democratic government is certainly better than being under a Republican government and having none of them.
ReplyDeleteScott, They dragged the same issue out over six films. It gets really, really tiring to keep hearing them whining that they are too old in film after film. F'n retire if you feel that way. It's not like they didn't choose their jobs. They could all have desk jobs if they just say the word.
ReplyDeleteOn Bond, I don't think it belongs in the series at all. This is meant to be a thrilling/tense action film. The character moments should come out of that, not be tacked on like "he had a bad childhood" or "he feels too old" or "his dog died and he feels depressed." That's BS filler meant to prop up a weak script.
Same to you, Joel! :)
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen it either, but it sounds to me like they are doing "script by numbers" rather than crafting a story.
T-Rav, Happy Thanksgiving to you too. And you are right, our government may suck, but our lives don't depend on our government and we should be thankful for the things that make our lives so great! :)
ReplyDeleteOn Bond, yeah, I don't expect a tight narrative, but I do wish that Hollywood would start fixing things that are obviously wrong with the scripts they produce. Seriously, mail each script to me. I'll turn it around in 24 hours and I'll fix all the big stupid stuff the studios seem incapable of spotting.
James Bond had a dog?
ReplyDeleteBen, Yes, and he was killed in Gold Collar. It was very poignant. :(
ReplyDeleteAndrew, lol!
ReplyDeleteMakes more sense than To Russian Wolfhound With Love
Or Golden Retriever Eye.
ReplyDeleteOr "Doctor Wet Nose" ;)
ReplyDeleteYou mean Sir Krapsalot died? Oh, how horrible!
ReplyDeleteYes, killed by an exploding squeaky toy. Very sad.
ReplyDeleteTryanmax, this is for you. I know it's not perfect, but hopefully it will make you smile--even for just a little bit.
ReplyDeleteLINK
Exploding squeeky toys are diabolical. They must've gotten the idea from Octodachsi (which will also be a made for scifi tv movie in the future).
ReplyDeleteYou haters can say whatever you want, but I thought The Doghouse Is Not Enough showed a lot of depth and emotion. And drool.
ReplyDeleteRight now I'm thankful for lumpias (Filipino egg rolls)! My fiancee's mother brought a lot for Thanksgiving dinner! She makes the best egg rolls in the world! Man, I ate like a pig. Good thing I starved myself for a week before Thanksgiving!
ReplyDeleteMost of all, I know it sounds corny -- I'm just thankful, I have loved ones to celebrate Thanksgiving with. It's the only thing that matters. Well... The food too!
Morning online relatives.....!
ReplyDeleteI'm thankful for a daughter who inherited her mother's cooking skills, a son who made through OIF with only a few issues, a son who has a very promising US Army career and a daughter who has a focus I can only dream about.
I've always loved Thanksgiving as my "favorite" holiday. Used to be Christmas, yet as I got older, I came to get sick of the hype and commercialization. The only gripe I have with T'Giving is the post holiday sales. But even then, I like them as they help boost our economy and keep many small businesses in business the rest of the year. Try managing a business where you lose money all year and depend on one day to boost profitability for the year!
I saw Skyfall also......While Bond has always had the "leave credulity behind" moments when it comes to violence, the Craig films have taken it to a new level. What...no f'ng shrapnel when a frikkin house blows up? And Bourne's handler as a Scottish game warden?
I never did see, "Collars are Forever". I heard it had a really great cat villain.
ReplyDeleteCheck this out folks...
ReplyDeleteLOL
Snape, That is exactly what matters. :)
ReplyDeleteTake a look at this. Pay particular attention to the first item on the list, and the corresponding item of what to do about it. It's something we are already wanting to do.
ReplyDeleteLINK
Oops, something didn't work, so I'll try it again (don't know what happened, it didn't show anything wrong until I hit 'publish').
ReplyDeleteTRY AGAIN
Sadness: Larry Hagman, aka J. R. Ewing, has died at the age of 81. Between him and "Mr. Food," not the happiest Thanksgiving ever.
ReplyDeleteWolverines!!!
ReplyDeleteVery sad about Larry Hagman.
ReplyDeleteOh, K, are you trying to tell us something? Are you being attacked by a vicious rodent? :-)
Or vicious Communists--which are basically the same thing, if you think about it.
ReplyDeleteNow, now, let's not be nasty about communists, we seem determined to emulate them after all.
ReplyDeleteIt's just a good thing the Red Dawn American partisans were not from the Santa Cruz California area because "Banana Slugs!!!" doesn't carry the same emotional impact, IMO.
ReplyDeleteI happened to note a link on Drudge this weekend to an oped in the Washington Examiner. The thrust is "If top 5% of earners pay 40% of taxes, what is their fair share?" That is actually a question worth exploring since it seems to me to me the notion that whatever it is is not enough hurt Romney and the Republicans in this election.
ReplyDeleteNaturally when I goggled the question "what percentage of total income is made by the top 5% of wage earner?" Not surprisingly, the top hit took me to a media matters analysis which exorciated Fox News for distorting the issue. Fine, but they did the exact same thing tying "percentage growth in income to Percentage of taxes paid" which adds it's own level of distortion.
It strikes me there is only one statistic to consider when trying to answer the question raised in the Examiner piece. That is: "If the top 5% of wage earners paid nearly 40% of income taxes, hat percentage of total income did they earn? It is a little hard to get at and make certain it is apples to apples, but from what I can tell, it is less than 40%. Thus, the answer is unequivocally, YES, they are paying their fair share of income tax. There are, of course, other factors including F.I.C.A., the new Obamacare taxes, and a bevy of other hidden taxes that impact an individual's total federal tax burden relative to pre-tax gross income.
oh, the link is:
ReplyDeletehttp://washingtonexaminer.com/examiner-editorial-if-top-5-paid-40-of-taxes-what-is-their-fair-share/article/2513985#.ULJCQKUTuat
Jed, The problem is that this issue isn't about being rational, it's about salesman ship. If you ask people what a fair rate of tax is, they respond somewhere between 15% and 20%. Yet, we really are paying closer to 35% right now on average, it's just hidden the way they count it. That way people think that they are overpaying, but no one else is. It promotes anger.
ReplyDeleteThe same thing is true with all the other numbers -- percent who don't pay taxes, what the rich pay, what companies pay, etc. It's all intentionally distorted and confused so that everyone thinks that they pay too much but no one else is.
We really need some sort of fairness in tax reporting law that stops breaking this stuff out into fees and charges and which pretends that FICA and SS is not a tax, etc.
Happy blelated thanksgiving everyone!
ReplyDelete