Thanksgiving isn't about eating until you burst like an old water pipe, watching sports and drinking heavily, it's not even about exploding a turkey in the deep fryer out back, or what your relatives refer to as your annual modern art exhibition, a turkey blot on the side of the garage wall.

Thanksgiving, the holiday, isn't even about the apocryphal and quaint coming together of pilgrim and Indian, an urban myth looming over the holiday, thanks in large part to the well-intentioned, but ultimately sugar-coated & sanitized history spoon fed us all in elementary schools across this great nation.

Instead, it is a child of two great wars, fought for the highest of ideals at an overwhelming cost to heart and home.

Thanksgiving actually commemorates the fallen and the fighting. A momentary pause, in times of great and essential conflict, to reflect on the nature and full measure exacted of sacrifice, honor, and selflessness in the cause of patriotism.

What better message can we find in these times than the one originally intended for this day?

Here now the actual birth of Thanksgiving, without Hallmark artifice, 777 words spanning our nation's history and sounding a clarion call in troubled times of both our rich heritage and vast promise as a people, the words resonate as loudly today as they did then...

IT being the indispensable duty of all Nations, not only to offer up their supplications to ALMIGHTY GOD, the giver of all good, for his gracious assistance in a time of distress, but also in a solemn and public manner to give him praise for his goodness in general, and especially for great and signal interpositions of his providence in their behalf: Therefore the United States in Congress assembled, taking into their consideration the many instances of divine goodness to these States, in the course of the important conflict in which they have been so long engaged; the present happy and promising state of public affairs; and the events of the war, in the course of the year now drawing to a close; particularly the harmony of the public Councils, which is so necessary to the success of the public cause; the perfect union and good understanding which has hitherto subsisted between them and their Allies, notwithstanding the artful and unwearied attempts of the common enemy to divide them; the success of the arms of the United States, and those of their Allies, and the acknowledgment of their independence by another European power, whose friendship and commerce must be of great and lasting advantage to these States:----- Do hereby recommend to the inhabitants of these States in general, to observe, and request the several States to interpose their authority in appointing and commanding the observation of THURSDAY the twenty-eight day of NOVEMBER next, as a day of solemn THANKSGIVING to GOD for all his mercies: and they do further recommend to all ranks, to testify to their gratitude to GOD for his goodness, by a cheerful obedience of his laws, and by promoting, each in his station, and by his influence, the practice of true and undefiled religion, which is the great foundation of public prosperity and national happiness.

Done in Congress, at Philadelphia, the eleventh day of October, AD 1782.

JOHN HANSON, President

Charles Thomson, Secretary


Proclamation of Thanksgiving
by the President of the United States of America

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful years and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the Source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the field of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than theretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.

In testimony wherof I have herunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

A. Lincoln

Please pass this along to your family and friends, so the true meaning of Thanksgiving might be restored to its rightful place as a gleaming jewel in our nation's crown of liberty.

I thought Al Davis had to die for Jerry Jones to be reincarnated as him.  Jones last days in the bunker include issuing orders for armies that don't exist, "absolutely" believing the Cowboys will make the playoffs, Der Jerry would welcome Adam "Pacman" Jones back if he's reinstated and isn't considering a coaching change.  Which means Wade's toast, "Pacman" has a better chance of dancing for Cirque Du Soleil and the Cowboys will be America's Team lucky to finish dead last in the NFC East.

NASCAR has reached the sanitary tipping point.  I'm sorry, but the corporate squeaky clean, only in it for the money, new look, NASCAR has all the appeal of a genetically engineered tomato. It looks good but tastes like crap.  36-races, the Chase for 2nd Place, and a Car of Tomorrow, that does to bump and run what pantyhose did to getting to 2nd base with Daphne Miller in eleventh grade, means NASCAR fans are stuck watching Wimbledon at 200-mph.

I caught the NHL on the Versus Network the other day.  What's next? You'll only be able to see the NHL on flat screen TV's in Wal-Mart's electronics department?  How much worse can it get?  Does an even crappier channel exist that wants the next NHL broadcasting contract?  Who's the commish of the NHL? Is it the same guy who tanked the XFL?

The Patriots can't lose enough this year.  There I've said it.  There isn't a man, woman or child who doesn't delight in each and every Patriots loss and that includes people who live in New England.  I hope Belichik chokes on his hoodie and is exposed for the bitter fraud he is, like the Yankees after MLB started testing for steroids in 2003, the Patriots are a very ordinary franchise when they can't cheat.

Stop calling Randy Johnson, Big Unit.  Three back surgeries, 15-wins and 13-losses combined over the last two seasons make Johnson at best, Small Package.  The saddest clown in the bunch? The desperate team that signs Johnson and thinks he's good for more than four wins left in his career.  I'd be surprised if Randy has the five wins left in his tank to reach 300...

Ball State BCS stories, not since Skee-Lo rapped "I wish I was little bit taller, I wish I was a baller, I wish I had a girl who looked good I would call her..." have we had this much fun with the word ball.  I don't know their strength of schedule or anything else about Ball State, except headlines like Ball Breakers or Ball Busters or even Tea Bagged would beat the schizzle out of The Rambling Wrecks of Texas Tech Beat the Mighty Moose of Michigan for BCS Title...

According to FoxSports ace scribbler, Ken Rosenthal, the Phillies might hire former KC Royals Asst. G.M. Muzzy Jackson.  While I'm usually all for hiring guys named Muzzy, I can't help wondering if hiring someone from the sad sack Royals isn't like hiring Isiah Thomas to coach a girls basketball team and being surprised when it ends badly.

Soccer sucks, you didn't think I'd miss an opportunity to cup check soccer did you?  Why is it sports that suck give out cups?  Like the World Cup? Or America's Cup?  Ooh-I can sail a $400-million dollar yacht really fast, yawn.  I will admit, I've become a fan of Bobby McMahon's soccer scribble.  That cat can turn a phrase, now if only the sport was interesting as his blog...

You know I called this years ago, this decade long disaster in the making, elevating Ruben Amaro, Jr., to the Phillies GM job. You don't groom somebody ten years to do a job! If anything that's proof positive he's unqualified or he'd be GM somewhere else by now.

Theo Epstein wasn't groomed to be GM of the BoSoxinators, one day he wasn't GM and mirabile dictu, the next day he was!  Epstein demonstrated his moxie and brains doing other baseball related tasks successfully without being spoon fed the GM job pre-chewed by better qualified candidates for a tenth of a century.

How about the latest from the pre-pre-Winter Meetings being held in a smoke-filled room at the Soft Rock Cafe & Casino off the Strip in Vegas? I swear to God, Selig and his Vegas-on-$4-a-Day discount coupon book is really starting to piss everybody off...

Pardon my spelling I'm having a Kobe-Bourbon Martini