h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Today being Thanksgiving, that much-misunderstood US festival, I thought I'd give you all a link to an explanatory video.

This should make everything clear:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VbYZDohsHk

Pocahontas' history lesson should be taken to heart. Even if she wasn't a Chippewa, nor present at the original feast.

Eat, drink, be merry and thankful.

I am thankful for what I have, every day.

(Watching "Black Friday" scenes on my morning news channel, and wondering why...)

GB

Thank you, Dmitri, that was beautiful

I just quoted Jon Stewart saying: "I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighbourhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land."

Right you are, Pierce. That first dinner became iconic, but it was an opportunity missed down the road, alas. Where are the Wampanoag now? And what do they think about Thanksgiving?

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/11/27/wampanoag-dividedoverwhethertojoinplymouththanksgivingfestivitie.html

Now, I hear where Tall Oak is coming from. He's obviously an old radical from my student days. Only one thing disturbs me, and that is their eating of freshly-caught raccoon. Now, I've never eaten a raccoon, but it sounds like possum to me. My parents were divided on the subject of possum: my dad said you'd have to be starving to eat one, my mom said, 'Oh, I don't know, they're good if you cook 'em right...'

So let's remember everybody at the feast, including all the victims of greed, prejudice, and unintended consequences.

Oh, and GB , I'm sorry to hear y'all have Black Friday, too. Now THAT'S greed at work. When we were kids, the day after Thanksgiving was a good day for us schoolkids to get our little bit of Christmas shopping done. We'd spend the evening wrapping presents, then get on with the rest of the season - practicing for the choir, etc. I remember that by the time I was at uni, I had to give that up. It seemed everybody else had the same idea...now, it's definitely a no-shopping day.

I had to do some shopping for Mum, she was almost out of Tena Ladys and luckily Heron wasn't too bad as that's mostly frozen food but the buses were full as was St Peter's Avenue (the main shopping area in Cleethorpes) itself. I miss my little car

both

I shudder to think. Best to stay out of the way until next week.

Oh, and GB, you might like this:

Trip Tucker has finally made it into space. You remember Trip, the redneck from the Enterprise? Well, Cmdr Wilmore of Expedition 42 is from Tennessee, like me. And Chef has made sure he has grits for breakfast. (Don't ask, it's a Southern thing.)

http://www.space.com/27874-developing-thanksgiving-eve-nor-easter-seen-from-space-time-lapse-video.html

Last time I had possum, trapped by my Hungarian uncle, it had been gorging an undetermined time on eugenia (allspice) berries and was also rather gamy.

Not too bad in chili.

Traditionally the possum is trapped, caged and fed bland tablescraps for six weeks or so, to reduce the gaminess.

Ah. This might explain my mother's story. This was in northern Mississippi in the 1930s.

When she was a little girl, her dad trapped a possum. He gave it to her to carry in a gunny sack to her school principal, a family friend. He thanked her, and put it in a wastepaper basket for the day. I always wondered why my grandfather didn't just kill it. But that makes sense!