Thanksgiving

Had King James’s Privy Council contained a proto-Anthony Fauci in 1620, there might not have been a Thanksgiving holiday for the current-day Fauci and his peers to cancel four centuries later. The transatlantic voyage that brought the Pilgrims to Plymouth Rock would have been unthinkable under the ‘stay safe’ philosophy that now governs American life. Nearly half the 102 occupants of the Mayflower died in their first year of settlement at Plymouth, sometimes at a rate of three a day. Such a mortality rate was predictable. The earlier outpost at Jamestown, founded in 1607, lost 66 of its original 104 settlers in its first nine months.

Right now, freedom fighters around the world, from Hong Kong to Iran, are captivating the world and our media, as they desperately fight the oppression of the state for the democratic rights we already enjoy; specifically Black Friday. This is why our capitalistic democracy is already great. As Hong Kong faces lethal bullets from Chinese state police, we face elderly veterans at the entrance of Walmart, sacrificing their time and safety once again in often times frigid temperatures to face down a determined, ruthless enemy, just as they did at the Battle of Chosin Reservoir. This is why America is already great.

Congratulations! You’ve been invited to Thanksgiving with Dad. Since you’re new to the role of my boyfriend, please take a moment to review some of the special considerations that can make your time with this important American writer more rewarding for everyone. As soon as you receive this memo, begin following Dad on Twitter. Then complete and return the attached six-page release. It’s just a formality, giving him unlimited rights to use any and all of your stories, mannerisms, disabilities and family secrets in all media anywhere in the known universe. You also pledge to indemnify and hold him harmless in the event of a lawsuit, however frivolous, by anyone in connection with this material, including you.

Aristotle, in one of his more jocular moods, described man as the ‘animal who has reason.’ What makes this funny, of course, is that everyone knows that, if it is leading characteristics you are interested in, man is much better described as the the ungrateful animal than the rational animal. The Pilgrim founders of this country were not exactly a jolly lot, but they recognized this fact, which is why, having endured a strenuous first winter in 1620-1621, they sat down in what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts with their Wampanoag Indian pals in the late summer of 1621 and gorged themselves for three days running in an orgy of surprised thanksgiving at having made it that far in the New World.