12 thoughts on “Happy Thanksgiving!

  1. We’re having take-out from the Mediterranean Deli on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill, NC. No turkeys were harmed in the making of this meal.

  2. I’m thrilled that I’ve successfully managed to alienate myself from most of my right wing relatives, the few that remain. But I do have to put up with less-than-enlightened friends of friends, Gen Xers, who are still hypnotized by it all, owing to the fact that being born into the Age of Reagan, they don’t know any better.

    Read somewhere that Rush Dimbulb was interested in Catholicism but this Francis guy is starting to sound like a Marxist to him. Can’t wait till he starts taking on the Pope.

    Haven’t yet seen The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, but I am thrilled to report that young people are rejecting the film company’s perverse marketing tie-ins:

    “May the odds be ever in your favor.”

    It’s the phrase offered by the Capitol to those who must enter the Hunger Games—a cynical slogan meant to comfort the masses.

    It demonstrates how inequality and injustice are marketed in Panem: The poor must rely on the luck of lottery to avoid the grisly battle of the Hunger Games, while the wealthy offer supportive slogans, peppy spokespersons, and luxury accommodations for those unfortunate youths awaiting their deaths. It’s all about controlling the narrative.

    The slogan is also the focal point of a campaign by The Harry Potter Alliance around The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.

    The “Odds In Our Favor” movement targets the advertising campaign that Lionsgate, CoverGirl, and other companies are using to advertise around the film’s release.

    If economic inequality is at the core of The Hunger Games, the “release of the Catching Fire film represents a perfect opportunity to establish a dialogue about our own problems and set the wheels in motion for positive change,” the campaign explains on its website. “Instead, Catching Fire is being used as an opportunity to sell makeup and fast-food sandwiches.”

    For example, Capitol Couture, a highly creative and deeply cynical fashion and make-up campaign, promotes the high-fashion styles of the 1 percent, who literally force the poor to fight to the death for their entertainment.

    Lionsgate’s marketing strategy has woven the Capitol Couture fashion line and CoverGirl’s Capitol Collection seamlessly into its own advertising for the film, creating what looks like an unsavory alignment between the studio and the values one might find within the Capitol of Panem itself.

    Capitol Couture, according to Slack, is an example of how a powerful story with an important message is “being sold to viewers in a way that is tone-deaf at best and deeply cynical at worst, shining a damning spotlight on the greatest problem our country faces.”

    The intent of the Odds In Our Favor campaign, then, is to take back the narrative lost in a sea of marketing, to remind the world what Katniss Everdeen is really fighting for.

    Odds In Our Favor asks fans to take a picture of themselves making the three-fingered salute, Katniss Everdeen’s subversive symbol of solidarity in The Hunger Games, and post it in response whenever an ad with a tie-in for Hunger Games: Catching Fire appears online.

  3. Hope all my friends had a Happy Thanksgiving! In a variety of ways, many here are more family to me than my real family. (I exempt from that comment my wife and kids and grandkids – but my siblings from the nest are right-wing or politically apathetic – in a state of despair and deliberate ignorance). Y’all are much more my spiritual kin. Happy Holidays!

  4. We had a bittersweet gathering at an old friend’s home yesterday. I’ve known the family since I was 12. The brother of the man who hosted the event was my ” big brother” when I was a kid. He’s a great guy, and sadly, has Parkinson’s. It was nice to reconnect with everyone, but most of the family that was present is over 70, and health problems are quite evident. One woman in particular, who was always nice to me when I was a kid has early stage dementia, and a heart condition. Her 96 yr. Old mother lives with them, and she needs constant attention due to her dementia, and just being worn out physically.it is depressing to see my friends age, and notice the new set of fears they share over their declining mental and physical health. On the other hand, it was uplifting the see our host, who struggled with alcoholism for many years, to rise to the challenge of becoming the care giver to both his wife and mother in law. There were two people there who started talking politics, but that was short lived, thankfully. It’s easy to disarm people who want to drag the conservation in that direction on thanksgiving. Just ignore them. For me, these gatherings have become a time for reflection on where I came from and of things to come. When the prayer is being recited, I have my head up and eyes open, and I look at the others in the gathering. My eyes always meet my daughter’s eyes, and we smile. My daughter and her boyfriend have been attending the thanksgiving dinner with us for about 4 years now, and they both understand that we stay away from politics and religion, and we respect our hosts and their home.
    On the way home last night, I joked with my daughter and wife about one woman about our age who stated several times that she is a conservative, and said she’d have a difficult time living in Colorado because of all the liberals. The woman went around the room giving hugs to me and my family just before she left. I made the comment that she’d better take three showers when she got home to get the “liberal” off. It’s curious that she just assumed we held the same world view as she does. Her daughter ran away from home with her boyfriend at 17, my daughter graduated suma cum laude from ucf in 2 years at the age of 20.
    I’m thankful to be able to vent and share stories with our host Barbara and the com mentors at this site.

  5. YAY!!!
    Mom’s home!

    Oh, when I lived in Chapel Hill, I used to love the Med Deli, too!
    If you’re on the other side of Columbia Street on Franklin, try the pizza at Franklin Street Pizza/Pasta.
    The owner’s from Long Island, and his pizza was one of the closest to real NY pizza that I found in NC. He makes the sauce himself. Plus, he’s a friend of my best friends down in Chapel Hill.

  6. And it’s another day of Carolina blue skies! Thanks for everyone here, and our connections at a deep level — food! I’ll try the pizza one day. My son always wants a sandwich from the McDonald’s across the street from the Med, but I think I can sell him on pizza for the family one day. Next trip we can try that. We all share the sight of our familes growing older. My mom is 94, and has two other sisters in nursing homes, too. So I make plenty of those visits. Fortunately, I learned that Grace loves a cup of black coffee and some apple pie, and sister Jo with whom she shares a room likes strawberry milkshakes and sugar cookies, so I take them that as a picnic when I go and their day is made! Small things mean a lot. Hope Barbara’s cat Sadie is as happy as the 5 at my house (one is a foster for another 10 days or so till he leaves for NJ — one of the warmest, best cats I ever met) and that we can all have another year together. The Hunger Games will create some more awareness about the time Rush attacks it, so good times a’comin!

  7. Thanks, maha,

    Bill, when you go, make sure you get his garlic knots with the marinara sauce on the – they’re GREAT!!

  8. I don’t argue with my rightie relatives.. I just dummy up and nod understandingly to whatever nonsense is put forth. It’s like having electric shock treatment where the anticipation of the event is worse than the actual event.
    I’ve pretty much gotten used to it except I still have to fight the urge to freak out in a fit of rage when it comes to listening to bible prophecy as applied modern politics. Maybe Obama is the anti- Christ and by signing up for Obama is taking the mark of the beast.. But it doesn’t matter to me because I don’t believe any of it anyway.

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