Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

The willow is too close to the house.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

T R E 4 5 O N

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Let there be snark.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open Thread: Thanksgiving Leftovers

Open Thread: Thanksgiving Leftovers

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(Mike Luckovitch via GoComics.com – click link for full-sized image)
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Mr. Charles P. Pierce, at Esquire:

When you come right down to the bottom of the chafing dish, Thanksgiving is a holiday of great ambivalence. A day allegedly dedicated to thanking the great Whoever that enough white people survived the winter in Plymouth to kick off 300-odd years of continent-wide genocide. A day dedicated to celebrating the simple gifts that the great Whoever bestowed upon this land, yet one that we mark by going crazy over cheap, Chinese-slave-labor produced crap at 12:01 a.m. the very next morning. Also, too: the Detroit Lions. Sometimes, America is a very tough room…

Also, Slate raises the possibility that “The Pilgrims Should Have Been Thankful for a Spirochete“. (Not the one you’re thinking of, pervert!)

Reader Interactions

45Comments

  1. 1.

    Maude

    Most of the pilgrims didn’t survive.
    Mr. Pierce need to take an antidepressant.
    Next he’s be writing that Obama is going to cut Social Security. And take away our guns.

  2. 2.

    Schlemizel

    @Maude:

    So, you didn’t read the piece. Thats not a problem unless you feel the need to comment on what you didn’t read.

  5. 5.

    redshirt

    Thanksgiving is a great time as an American to leave America, I’ve found. I’ve traveled overseas a half dozen times over thanksgiving and it’s the best. Few other Americans where ever you go!

  6. 6.

    gogol's wife

    @Maude:

    Every time I’ve gone to that guy’s blog because it was recommended here I’ve been sorely disappointed. He’s longwinded and not as funny as he thinks he is. “Zombie-eyed granny starver” is good, though — I think that was his coinage.

  7. 7.

    J. Michael Neal

    Well whadda ya know. Ohio State comes to life and saves their post-season future by scoring four goals in the third to beat Princeton.

    This is one of those games where my WCHA fandom and my Ann Arbor upbringing collide in a sixteen car pileup.

  8. 8.

    Yutsano

    @Schlemizel: It’s also inaccurate. Smallpox had already decimated most Native tribes by the time the Mayflower passengers arrived. We are not without sin by stomping on all treaties and agreements with them, but the Pilgrims did not start the genocide.

  10. 10.

    suzanne

    Yesterday was awesome. Today has sucked.

    So the plumber came over to look at the water heater, which is barely warming the water enough to not freeze one’s delicate parts off in the shower. Both it and my kitchen faucet are fucked. $1200 to replace/install/repair everything. Then found maggots under my trash can, probably thanks to the baby throwing food on the floor, which I try very hard to clean, but obviously missed some bits. Sent out an Evite for my daughter’s birthday party, and the first person to reply says that she’ll be bringing my daughter’s friend….and her two sisters, as well.

    First world problems, first world problems…..

  12. 12.

    suzanne

    @Raven: Leaky, covered in scale, and the hose part doesn’t work. The house is 25 years old, so quite a few things are just worn. I want one with the removable neck hose thingy for filling pots, too.

  14. 14.

    slag

    @Schlemizel: I’m with Maude in that I think an excerpt should reflect, at least somewhat, the intended meaning of the post. Otherwise, it’s a distinctly slippery slope into “you didn’t build that” territory.

    That said, I’m also with Pierce:

    I know, it sounds sappy, but I really believe that, buried beneath all the nonsense and avarice and plain meanness with which we too often manifest our politics, there is a feeling of a political commonwealth that is worth getting back to and, having arrived there, worth preserving.

    Having just watched Lincoln, which (while needlessly melodramatic in several parts) was a reasonably accurate representation of complex historical events, I find myself somewhat in awe of how quickly—yet slowly—things can change. It’s a muddle worth fighting for.

  16. 16.

    MikeJ

    @suzanne:

    I want one with the removable neck hose thingy for filling pots, too.

    I have two sinks with those, but I didn’t pay enough attention on the second one. They both have a thingie on the neck to switch from stream to spray. The good one has a thing you can hold to pause the flow, which the second one (near the coffee pot) does not. Which means you have to drag the nozzle over to the coffee pot and *then* turn on the water. Sounds trivial but it annoys me every morning.

  17. 17.

    Maude

    @Yutsano:
    The Delaware tribe split and they think some of them came to NJ. There was this huge outcry at some point that they had been given blankets with smallpox. It was proven that it wasn’t true. There was enough bloodshed and murder without stuff being made up.
    I don’t usually get out of the boat. I have dial up.
    BTW, thanks for using the term worthless about someone in a post in another thread. Made me smile. I know people like that.

  19. 19.

    Anoniminous

    @MikeJ:

    Could always take the coffee pot to the water source.

    (Unless you’re one of the Heathen Unwashed and use something other than a French Press to make your morning cup o’ Java.)

  20. 20.

    Maude

    @Raven:
    I always bookmark and look at your pictures.
    The one of the Halloween moon with the power line is perfect. It’s the line that gives it the drama and beauty.
    You have talent.

  22. 22.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Raven:

    Wonderful photo!

    I really like “Spirit in the Sky” but I resent like hell that it was the go-to bumper music for every RWNJ radio talker in Atlanta throughout the ’80s and ’90s.

  26. 26.

    Raven

    @SiubhanDuinne: Pretty flat in our part of town. Hopefully we will get an accurate diagnoses of the Princess’s back problems with the MRI and Xray results. She’s been unable to make the trek for almost 2 months.

  27. 27.

    debit

    @efgoldman:

    In a blizzard, barefoot.

    Luxury. In my day, we didn’t even have feet. We walked on stumps and were grateful.

    ETA: Woodrowfan knows what I’m talking about.

  34. 34.

    oceanic dude

    I am sure you all read about the san antonio mayhem. Man cuts in line, argues with other patrons and eventually punches a man in the face. That man then pulls a gun, patrons go running, the puncher/line cutter hides behind a fridge before fleeing the store. TPM is reporting that the fridge was deeply discounted. Gunman not charged bc he had a concealed handgun license.
    My SNL skit: all the above occurs with the added bonus of multiple people pulling guns, and they circle each other guns drawn in a Mexican standoff. People are cowering on ground, cashier saves the day by throwing a half off chuck norris Texas Walker DVD. They drop guns and dive for dvd, in the melee people run to safety.

  35. 35.

    SectionH

    Mike Luckovitch is great. My NYResolution #1: seek out the cartoonists you liked before falling into the Net completely! — so let me say a belated Thank You to Anne Laurie for posting so many great cartoons I’d “uv” missed otherwise!

    Also too, and Otherwise, Mr S is stuck in LA because SAN is fogged out. Again. He can stay there. I’ve already driven up there and back again today*, and I’m notnotnot doing it tonight, and then again tomorrow morning AND evening.

    The trains just didn’t work for our timeframes. They were srsly the first choice.

    (This post brought to you by the family caregiver, who is rather happy to be +3 now, and SO happy to be staying home tonight.)

    *We do have tix to the Hobbit premier here, and got some for our Aussie friends who will be in town. That’s when we have a celebration.

  36. 36.

    Dennis G.

    I’ve been reading 1491 and 1493. Massive epidemics wiped out Native Americans throughout North and South America. New England was heavily populated until they were hit with them. That rats bought some of them is not that surprising. Some also think that it was a combination of multiple diseases brought from Europe. Small Pox spread rapidly throughout Native populations after 1492.

    Fascinating books if you haven’t read them.

    Cheers

  37. 37.

    cckids

    @debit: My BIL was 49 when his son was born.When the kid got to be 5 or so, he asked his dad if, when he was a kid, if the world was in color yet or still in black & white.

  38. 38.

    Maude

    @Dennis G.:
    There was a second round of the plague and it killed a lot of people in Egypt as well as other places.
    A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman (sp) is really interesting and easy to read.

  39. 39.

    Quaker in a Basement

    Slate raises the possibility that “The Pilgrims Should Have Been Thankful for a Spirochete“. (Not the one you’re thinking of, pervert!)

    My crazy old maiden aunt had a spirokeet. She taught it to sing like, a hundred verses of Barnacle Bill and let it fly around her living room crapping all over stuff.

  45. 45.

    Kathy in St. Louis

    @Yutsano: I sort of got the impression that Charlie was talking about a long drawn out 300 year decimation of Native Americans, not just whether we brought them diseases or not. We killed them and their culture slowly, but with the enthusiasm that has always made America “great”. Just ask our history books.

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