I love the holiday season because it's a good time to focus on the things we tend to forget about during the rest of the year. This is a great time to think about our friends, our families, and everyone we hold dear. It's time to think about this great country in which we live and all who help keep it that way. It's time to think of those who invent, who create, and those who provide. It's time to think of those who protect us, those who enrich our lives and those who enlighten us. It's time to be thankful just to be alive and to experience the beauty that is the universe in all its splendor, from the fantastic colors in the trees this time of year to the stars above. Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Thanks for being part of our community! :D
38 comments:
Happy Thanksgiving to you too, Andrew, and all the folks that stop by here.
Thanks Jed! Happy Thanksgiving! I wish you health, my friend! :D
Hope everyone here at the Commentarama Community for Change has a nice traditional Thanksgiving.
We should give thanks we were born into a land where we can still grouse about the system without fear (yet) of being tossed into a re-education camp or prison.
Here's to family, food, friends and fellowship.
Special thanks to the site leaders here, with Andrew at the head of the table. While we don't agree on everything here ("right wing hate radio"!), this is still a place I like to come to to offer my opinions in an open, honest discussion thread, with intelligent, fair minded thinkers.
Oh, and the film site is the absolute best!!
Happy Thanksgiving everyone......
I, for one, am thankful for our new Iranian overlords. Just kidding. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
Oh, and to all our Jewish friends, a very happy Thanksgivukkah.
I hope everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving!
Happy Thanksgiving, Patriot! It's been fun, even when we disagree. :)
tryanmax, Forget the Iranians, I'm holding out for the Swiss. I like their cheese and their chocolates. We should send Obama to negotiate with them! :D
I heard about this Thanksgivukkah. It's took bad it's not Ramadam, because then it could be Thanks-give-a-dam.
Happy Thanksgiving to you too TJ! :)
I just got an e-mail from Madame O wishing me a Happy Thanksgiving. What a bunch of partisan hackery. Rather than talking about all the things we have to be thankful for and wishing us well, she wants us to pimp Obamacare to our families. She also said this (her main message):
Barack and I have so much to be grateful for this Thanksgiving, and that includes people like you who've been by our side, working for change right from the beginning. Because of your hard work, passion, and dedication, we have accomplished so much over this past year. We've continued to create jobs and rebuild our economy. We've cut carbon pollution so we can preserve our environment. We've witnessed historic victories for equality across the country, all the way to the Supreme Court. And soon, millions of Americans will finally have access to quality, affordable health care -- many for the first time.
Note the 100% political tone. This isn't a "we are thankful" note, this is a "nice work on the campaign, but we have more to do" note. They haven't accomplished jack, not by any measure. Carbon is down because the economy stinks. Obama hasn't created a single job and his policies aren't creating enough jobs to keep up with population growth. There have been no "victories for equality," unless they mean all the loses they've been suffering... affirmative action is dead, the Voting Rights Act is dead, gays didn't get their victory, and that's about it.
And as for this, And soon, millions of Americans will finally have access to quality, affordable health care -- many for the first time, the problem is that hundreds of millions had access to that before. Obama is working hard to strip 130 million of them of that, in exchange for 26,000 people getting policies.
These people are dipshits. May their turkey give them gas.
HAPPY THANKGIVVUKAH, EVERYONE! Be safe and watch out for that tryptophan. Only operate heavy couches and Laz-y-boys when using. And if anyone has the instructions to the dreidel game, please forward...
Andrew, I feel hurt and neglected since I have not received my Thanksgiving eMail from The Obama.
Bev, I'll ask them to include you. :)
How did the cookies turn out?
And Happy Thankgivvukah! Thanks for all the great articles this year and your excellent sense of humor!
We're calling him The Obama now? Huh.
Andrew, if you think that email's partisan hackery, just consider this video: LINK
T-Rav, Yikes. That's both partisan hackery and it's tacky hackery. And I feel a Dr. Seuss moment coming on....
But as much tacky hackery as The Obama could assemble,
As much wacky hackery as The Obama could dissemble,
He could not escape the fact that his signature plan resembled,
A tacky, flackery hackery sh*tsackery.
Andrew.....A thought.
I will give thanks to Al Gore's internet. Because of this mass communication medium, million/billions of people around the globe are now getting a different perspective than they used to get from the gov't sanctioned organs. Not only here in America but across the globe.
Sure, a lot of gov't are trying to stifle access, but what does that tell you. It tells me that there are many people thirsting for a different perspective and not just be fed propaganda. This could be THE most revolutionary medium since Gutenberg's printing press and the printing of the Bible for the masses. Before that, the church controlled what the people read and understood of the Bible. After G'berg, the "little" people had the opportunity to have the unexpurgated Bible read to them. Look at what happened next...probably the most Western cultural game changing events ever....the Reformation. Whatever one thinks of Martin Luther, he was most definitely a brave man to take on the Church. And all because he started questioning orthodoxy.
That is what is going on around the world now with the net. Everyday "little people" are starting to question orthodoxy because they have the means to read something different...a different point of view on what is going on around them.
Maybe basic human nature will finally break through and free market thinking will win out over tyranny. He who controls the news controls the narrative (or something like that).
A modern day reformation world-wide.
So, tomorrow, I will add the marketplace of free opinion and ideas that the internet has brought to our world to my list of things I give thanks for.
Patriot, I'm opting for more traditional thankfulnesses like family, friends, donuts. :)
Andrew....True dat!! I'm adding this net thing as a "temporary" appreciation for just this year. Then...no more.
The family, friends, turkey and health are permanent members of my annual gathering.
Wow.
Mmmmmm... donuts...
If anyone is looking to buy a book-book (not Kindle) at Amazon, they are having a 30% off deal if you enter the word "BOOKDEAL". This is only good until December 1, so act fast.
^I already used it. :-)
I promised myself I wouldn't pay full price for this book: great images but haphazardly organized and could easily be three times as big.
And as I mentioned in the e-mail, Barnes & Noble is still doing their 50% off Criterion sale.
Scott, I bought a bunch of BluRays yesterday because they were all $4 or $5, but today they're all back to normal. None of it was announced. It seems a bit like they've made finding the sales into a game.
Uh-oh....I foresee a visit to Amazon.com in the near future. :-)
Hope everyone had as good a Thanksgiving (and as little Black Friday shopping) as I did!
T-Rav, It was nice! I hope you had a good time... got a nice break. :)
I hope everyone has had a lovely and thanks-filled Thansgiving. Can I stop cooking now??
Bev, Yes, but now the baking begins...
Bev, As tryanmax says, yes, but now you start baking!
How did the cookies turn out?
I did two Thanksgivings with the family: one with the crazy aunt, and the other with the non-crazy aunt. Turkey at the first one; ham at the second.
And I didn't have to work on Black Friday (thank God!) but the Container Store doesn't go crazy anyway. They opened at normal time, even though the mall to which it's attached opened at midnight.
And yes, Bev, you can stop cooking. :-)
And on a serious note, R.I.P. actor Paul Walker. (Fast and the Furious franchise)
More here.
Scott, If a riot broke out at the Container Store, I would expect the staff to contain it. :D
I watched Cloud Atlas and do not recommend it. What a turd.
[sigh, rolls eyes] :-)
I mentioned in my e-mail that it might make for an interesting discussion topic: what makes a movie pretentious?
I suppose, at the end of the day, it's a movie that sets its sights too high and fails miserably. Or a movie that tries to change the world. But one could say such a movie is only pretentious when it's bad...?
Just throwing things out there.
Scott, In this case, it's a movie that thinks it's doing something amazing when it's really doing something very unoriginal and only tries to hide that behind "daring editing" which isn't all that daring as it's been done before. It is a movie that lacks coherence and lacks a point, but thinks that brilliant people will pull some hidden message out of it's nonsense.
Basically, they filmed about 6 short films (using the same actors) that were highlights from nonsensical plots (cliche moments really), and then they chopped them up and mixed up the pieces. Wow... mind (not) blown.
Just saw Frozen. Its a Disney princess movie so no surprises, but its well told, well acted and very beautiful.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, Disney's non-Pixar movies like The Princess and the Frog, Wreck-it Ralph, Tangled and Frozen are better than everything Pixar has done post Toy Story 3.
Also, Frozen was proceeded by a wonderful Mickey Mouse animated short which Andrew would probably love because it very, very cartoonish (all sorts of impossible things happen). It does a masterful job of blending together traditional 2D animation and CG.
That's a review to look forward to. I enjoyed Cloud Atlas: multiple interesting stories, with overlapping themes. Happy holiday season!
John, I doubt I will be reviewing that one. We'll see. Right now, all I can say is that it felt like a huge gimmick to me. I'll try to watch again soon and see if my view changes.
I just watched this past summer's notorious box-office flop R.I.P.D.
First, the good...
The actors are clearly having a blast, most notably Jeff Bridges who's basically playing Rooster Cogburn again. And the basic idea (a police force for the afterlife) is interesting.
And the bad...
Everything else. It's clearly a carbon copy of Men in Black, but without Barry Sonnenfeld's wit or sense of style. The visual effects are okay but some of the animation is, uh, lacking. And at 90 minutes, it was a little rushed. Not enough world-building in Heaven and none of the supporting characters or villains are remotely memorable.
Not good enough for mainstream consumption, but too generic to be rediscovered as a cult thing in 10 years.
Scott, I wanted to see that, but then it vanished almost before it started. Having since read about it, it sounds like a waste.
As an aside, I finally saw "The Hobbit." Hmm. That kind of stunk.
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