Thursday 27th November 2003
Yes, it's that time of year again. When none of the damned restaurants are actually open.
A time to be thankful to live in a country so free that a moron can inhabit the White House, declare war on countries after being advised by deities, and fold atheists in with the terrorists. Yay.
Don't believe me? Good. Belief bugs me. I'll show you something you won't require faith for....
'God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East."
Of course, it gets better....
'I condemn in the strongest possible terms the terrorist attacks today in Istanbul, where Turkey's diverse religious communities of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian believers have flourished together for centuries. The focus of these attacks on Turkey's Jewish community, in Istanbul's synagogues where men, women, and children gathered to worship God, remind us that our enemy in the war against terror is without conscience or faith. Turkey has suffered terrible losses from terrorism for decades, and the United States stands resolutely with Turkey in the global war on terrorism. On behalf of the American people, I express our condolences to the families of the victims, to Turkey's Jewish community, and to all the people of the Turkish Republic.'
Which, of course, is fine with me. If President Junior wants to declare war against us, then great. I can deal with that.
Of course, we already knew that from Pat Robertson:
'We at the Christian Coalition are raising an army who cares. We are training people to be effective -- to be elected to school boards, to city councils, to state legislatures, and to key positions in political parties.... By the end of this decade, if we work and give and organize and train, THE CHRISTIAN COALITION WILL BE THE MOST POWERFUL POLITICAL ORGANIZATION IN AMERICA.'
Brave of twenty million baptists to strike against nine hundred million atheists, I think. And against thirteen hundred million muslims, nine hundred million catholics, and so on. They're building an army to fight against six billion unbaptists. We should probably get ready for the, erm...attack....
Of course, it probably won't happen today. Nothing's open today.
Y'know...I tried to care about Thanksgiving. I really did. I tried to care that a bunch of people who had escaped England to avoid christian theocracies and taxes had slaughtered millions upon millions of injuns while setting up a superpower capable of fighting against Germany for slaughtering twelve million antichristians. I tried to see it all from the perspective of the injuns, who asserted for centuries that people couldn't own land or animals--that land and animals were as free and unownable as air.
Until, one day, about ten years ago, the same injuns tried to claim to own a tyrannosaur, because they owned the land in which it was discovered.
Some of you may remember that. We found Sue--the tyrannosaur now owned by Chicago's Field Museum--and bought the rights to it from the landowner, who eventually decided that he'd been ripped off, and made a national case out of it. The injuns found out that this free animal was on their free land, and tried to claim ownership of the damned thing. So, now, the injuns are off my list. If you can own land and animals after all, then you can buy Manhattan from a bunch of morons for the contents of a Claw Machine.
Also, I refuse to call the injuns Native Americans. If there was a Native American involved in the conflict over Sue, it was the damned tyrannosaur. Presuming it hadn't migrated into the Dakotas from Alberta, just like the injuns had migrated in from Siberia. Nothing bugs me more than seeing a Datsun with a big COLORADO NATIVE bumpersticker and then not seeing a Stegosaurus stenops driving the damned thing.
Thanksgiving sucks. Whatever it was designed to achieve, it failed. Thanksgiving is just the thrilling opportunity to go eat something called cranberries with people you don't actually know in real life; and the most probable reason for not actually knowing them is that their videogames always suck.
Seriously. Why should I care about this goofy little holiday? I don't watch football. Which is to say that I don't watch a bunch of genetic atavisms prancing about in lexan bodyarmour trying to figure out a way to get a leather pineapple to travel unhindered from one end of a hectometre to the other. Which is not to be confused with soccer, which I also don't watch.
I don't eat birds. I'm not a vegetarian; I just don't eat oviparous animals. Birds, fish, lizards; if it lays eggs, I don't want to eat it. Although I will eat the eggs themselves. Eggs aren't oviparous animals; eggs are oviparous afterbirth. I also don't eat yams. Or cranberries. Be honest: there's a reason you only eat this shit once a year; and that reason is that it's actually pretty yucky.
I don't really have anyone to go eat this shit with. At least, not around here. And I'm not willing to travel very far to find anyone.
And I can't stand ceremonies. Which is something I learned from Dad. If I were going to go have dinner with a relative, I'd go for that one. But he's dead. Also, before he was dead, he, like I, figured that you didn't have to limit yourself to eating once a year. You can eat daily. More than daily, in fact. We have that technology.
So, I don't see the damned point.
Similarly, I don't see the point to Giftmas. Which is a direct sequel to Thanksgiving. Except that you rarely get all the same people together for Giftmas, since you're still not talking to each other after the shit everyone pulled a month ago. Giftmas, of course, is when you're supposed to be celebrating the former existence of Santa Claus, who slid down a chimney for your sins. Or something.
New Year's Eve and New Year's Day are another reasonably useless holliday. A lot of people misidentify New Year's as the same birthday they just went through a week ago. Possibly because a lot of people suck at math. But I looked it up. New Year's was the eighth day afterward, and is more officially known as the Feast of the Circumcision. Yup: another year over; happy Dickeating Day. Which isn't an issue to me; I've got all my original parts.
Groundhog's Day, President's Day; Saint Patrick's Day; I'm not Irish, I'm not a president, and I'm not a groundhog; I don't care.
The various parents' days are useless to me. Just like Thanksgiving. Happy Mother's Day; please notice how I've ignored you for the last twelve months, just to make today more special. Know your parents or don't; but pick one.
July the Fourth. Celebrate your freedom to be arrested and fined for setting off fireworks to celebrate your freedoms. Have fun with that.
Labour Day. Not my gig; I don't lift things for money.
Halllowe'en. When you dress up as something else to fool the evil spirits who get to wander about eating people from 12.01AM until 1.00AM on 1st November. I'll pass.
Armistice Day. Celebrating the ceasefire which went into effect at 11.11 ZuluTime, 11th November 1922. Also known as I Bagged Six More Hostiles at Eleven Ten Just before the Time Limit Day. And also as either Memorial Day or Veterans' Day; I'm never sure which, or what the exact difference might be.
And then, we're back to Thanksgiving Day. When you celebrate the extermination of a culture to set up a benighted country which storms other countries for attempting genocide.
I just don't get any hollidays, do I.
So. What am I thankful for? Easy. I'm thankful that I'm not quite dumb enough to give a damn about any of this bullshit. Now go eat your avian cadaver and remember why you hate your relatives.
More later....
--Gremlin