Thanksgiving Stuff.

Thanksgiving is an interesting  time of year. Stuff happens around this national holiday. Thanksgiving is a mixture of gratitude for what we have and hope that our lives will continue to get better. This holiday is the closest thing we have to a national holiday that celebrates the cultural of the European settlers/invaders of this continent. Sometimes the unexpected happens. For instance the dinner with friends to celebrate this holiday was continued to today and continued again because of injuries and the flu. At least we know the turkey will be thawed.

Former neighbors stop by to hang out and that's fun. Then another comes by and a discussion ensues about stuff. Then a newer neighbor stops by and there are more discussions about stuff. Meanwhile I just about got blown off the road by some clown who is absolutely convinced he can control his vehicle at a speed significantly in excess of the 25 mile limit in this residential neighborhood where there are large numbers of people standing around. I am thankful I moved further onto the shoulder. The discussions continue about stuff.

One of the things I remember about this informal and unplanned visitation was that one of the attendees had bumper stickers on his vehicle. One sticker read Uncle Sam wants you to learn ENGLISH. That was not part of the stuff that was discussed. It did make me remember however that the first European immigrants to these shores didn't bother to learn the language of the native people they found already here.

We also didn't discuss that modern day capitalism is essentially a wealth redistribution mechanism that mostly operates from pretty close to the bottom upward. The extremely wealthy among us continue to suck up the meager earnings of their poorer fellows and reject their basic human need for health care. There has been much talk recently about the giant retailer Wal-Mart and Sam's Club. The CEO of the company makes a salary so large that when broken down to an hourly figure is more than a thousand times the hourly salary of floor employees of his warehouse stores. The employees are mostly part time employees and as such aren't entitled to little goodies like health care. I bet the CEO has pretty good health care plan, perhaps it even qualifies as Cadillac plan.

I was criticizing a tweet yesterday I believe by someone who was touting Hillary Clinton as the Dem nominee for President in 2016. My criticism of that tweet is that the second Obama term hasn't even begun yet. There is plenty to time for us to select a nominee after we finish what is really important: governing. We need to finish the stuff we started to do in 09 and making big strides and hopefully completing more stuff and accomplishing more in our struggle promised by Jefferson and other enlightenment figures to further democratize the society.

I did have some really good pie too.