Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a uniquely American holiday centered on giving thanks to God for the abundance of our lives. It is sometimes difficult to explain this holiday to our brothers and sisters in other countries -- Pilgrims, Indians, eating together from the bounty of the harvest, no matter how small, thankful in every way.

Over the years, I have missed three Thanksgiving celebrations with our family -- 1986, when I was in West Chester, PA as the shopping network QVC premiered; my family was in Pittsburgh while I supervised the first hours of the network's television operation. The loneliness of the holiday-away was somewhat offset as two of my staffers and one spouse gathered and gave thanks around a meal that she prepared.

The second missed Thanksgiving was in 1996 while I was in Dusseldorf, Germany, this time working as a consultant with QVC as we prepared for the launch of QVC Deutschland. There were a number of Americans working with me and I organized a Thanksgiving celebration at the Steigerwald Hotel where I was living. The Chef was most obliging and understood everything except the concept of "seconds."

The third missed Thanksgiving was the next year when I was working as a consultant in Sydney, Australia, once again preparing for the launch of a TV Shopping network for Australia.

As I had done in Germany, I organized a Thanksgiving celebration for the Americans there which was highlighted by a verbal argument over a business matter between the CEO and the Director of Marketing; very verbal and entertaining, at the time.

This year, we will have members of our family missing from the table -- some are in Thailand, teaching music at a university there; others with family in Connecticut. They will be remembered in a toast.

However large or small our celebration, we are reminded every day in ways large and small of the abundance of our living -- the roof over my head, the running water from my faucet, the food in my refrigerator.

How grateful; how thankful!

Truth

It is hard these days to find the truth. Statements are always garbed in shades of gray, leaning this way or that way. We live in a non-committal world, fearful of taking a stand or not wanting to have our head handed to us for taking a position.

Our legalistic tradition requires the witness on the stand to "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" as a way of eliminating all the possibilities of falsehood.

Political Correctness forbids us from speaking our minds for fear that we may either offend someone or that we will end up losing something ourselves in the shoutdown resulting from our true feelings.

Politicians and their staffs have become so skilled at shading the truth that we now have a new term -- "Spin" -- to describe what we all know; the truth is in there but it is either not the whole truth or maybe not nothing but the truth or perhaps both.

Somehow, "spin" has become acceptable -- not just for the political class, but also for the rest of us. And, we are doing that with our children: no child ever loses; everyone gets a medal or a trophy, every graduate excelled at something.

We even tried that with housing -- everyone should have a house, riiight? This is a great country and everyone deserves to own a house. Somehow, we failed to realize that not everyone in our society can afford all that goes with a house -- like a mortgage and taxes; we failed or did not want to accept ... the truth.

I did not set out to have this blog be full of political commentary, so please do not, dear Reader, take this as such, but aren't the politicians once again, failing to accept the truth about "the stimulus?" When all the stimulus money is spent, won't people get laid off again? We were paying for them to be employed, but now there are no more funds to supplement the payroll. The "shovel-ready" projects are all half-done, but the stimulus money runs out. It's over.

The truth.

If you stimulate my heart to keep it beating and then the battery causing the stimulus runs out of power, what happens? The heart stops. Truth.

We need to get back to a basic honesty with ourselves and our society. Legalism, Rationality, Enlightened Thinking, One Worldism, Spin -- all ignore the fact about human beings:

WE ARE FLAWED.

I want to be better, I want to do better, I strive to make the world today a better place than it was yesterday. But, calling our foibles something other than the truth of what they are, may make us feel better, but we are deluding ourselves and being deluded willfully and knowingly by others. Feeling better? Is that what all this illusion is about?

Spinning the truth to make it fit an agenda or to avoid full disclosure is deception, sleight of hand. Doing so may make the spinner feel better or feel clever, but in small ways or large ways, it harms those being deceived.

We should get back to the truth -- sooner, rather than later.

How many legs does a dog have if you call his tail a leg? Four; calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.

~ Abraham Lincoln

Innocent until Proven Guilty

Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat -- "The proof lies upon the one who affirms, not the one who denies."

The presumption of innocence is a backbone of our legal system. Some scholars have traced its origins earlier than England, past Rome, beyond Greece to the Book of Deuteronomy.

The seriousness of the concept is expressed in the number of countries and international organizations that have adopted this concept. Over the years, many learned scholars have expressed the same sentiment as the highly regarded jurist, William Blackstone, in the 18th Century:

"... it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer."
~ William Blackstone, Commentaries on The Laws of England, 1764

Over the years, even though I have never come close to needing the protection of innocent until proven guilty, I have always been comforted that, should I need that protection, it would be there.

Now, I am not sure.

The Attorney General and his boss, the President of the United States, are promising that Khalid Shaikh Mohamed, the admitted mastermind of the 9/11 attack, will be convicted in a US criminal court. Really?

What happened to his Miranda Rights? He was not "Mirandized." If you are going to try him in a US Criminal Court, isn't that cause for dismissal?

"Failure (to convict) is not an option," said Attorney General Holder. Really! So that presumes that the Defense Attorney in THIS trial is just going to roll-over and play along with the Prosecutor? Since when? Can anyone say OJ Simpson? The Defense Attorneys rolled over there, right?

Doesn't the Attorney General's remark prevent any impartial Jury from being seated? Why would a Jury deliberate in a meaningful way, when the outcome is already determined?

What happened to my promise from our Government of presumption of innocence by the practice of law in this country, if the Attorney General can predict the outcome? Isn't that a sham, a "rigged" trial? Is a Jury needed any more if the Attorney General can guarantee the outcome?

By sending this case to a criminal court in the US where Miranda Rights are guaranteed, where another country interrogated the suspect, and arrested the suspect but where our standards and protections will be extended to what was then a military operation -- all violations of our civil guarantees -- won't those violations of our Civil Courts and our rights, guarantee an acquittal for KSM?

But -- if a fair trial isn't guaranteed by the Attorney General's actions and a verdict of guilty is rendered as promised by Mr. Holder, haven't all of our rights in the Civil Courts been trampled upon -- by our own Government?

Bread

Each year, the family gathers at our house for Thanksgiving. For the past 15 years, part of the weekend activities has been a wine tasting on Friday and with the arrival of Grandchildren -- now seven -- we integrated a Juice tasting into that event as well, with the children giving their reviews and tasting notes on the various juices. This year they will taste and comment on Mango, Pineapple, Banana Nectar, Passion Fruit and V-8 Fusion Tropical Orange while the adults compare the qualities of five Pinot Gris from five countries.

With the Wine and Juice Tasting, we also feature three cheeses and three breads. This year, the cheeses will be Fromage d'Affinois, Morbier and a Chevre with raspberries while the breads will be a Russian Black Bread, an Italian Tomato and Basil, and a San Francisco Sourdough.

I do a little write-up of each of the wines, juices, cheeses and bread each year and this year, in my research, was stopped by a note about Sourdough Bread. Sourdough has been around since around 1500BC -- 3,500 years. It was the first agent for leavening bread and remained the only leavening agent for 3,000 years, until the Europeans began using the fermenting foam from beer -- called Barm -- as an additional leavening.

Today, many of us in the US take bread for granted; there are so many choices in the supermarkets -- soft, organic whole grain, rustic, rolls, buns, bagels, high fibre, seeded, unseeded. And yet, for centuries Bread has been a basic substance of living.

Bread is so woven into our existence that it is the subject of many quotes:

• He who has no bread has no authority -- Turkish Proverb


• Give us this day, our daily bread - The Bible


• Man shall not live by bread alone - The Bible


• Cast thy bread upon the waters - The Bible


• Acorns were good until bread was found -- Francis Bacon


• The greatest thing since sliced bread -- anonymous


• Anytime a person goes into a delicatessen and orders a pastrami on white bread, somewhere a Jew dies -- Milton Berle, comedian


• A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government. -- Thomas Jefferson

While bread has been a basic necessity of life, it has also become the source of slang -- bread to many means "money". "Dough" likewise means money. Or other euphemisms: "Breadwinner," "Putting bread on the table," "Breadbasket," "Bigger than a breadbox."

Bread has probably been a part of human living since Neolithic times. And for most of those 12,000 years, it was a central concern of every day. In our world of iPods and gigabytes, bread is no less important, but amongst all the technology, it has faded far into the background of our lives -- until you have a really good, fresh piece of it. And then your DNA does a little dance of joy.

You know that Pepperidge Farm Bread? It is fancy. That stuff is wrapped twice. You open it and it still ain't open. That's why I don't buy it; I don't need another step between me and toast.

~ Mitch Hedberg, comedian

The Jonestown Massacre, November 18, 1978

Thirty one years ago today, a grim scene was revealed in a remote area of the South American country of Guyana -- 912 bodies were found scattered among a settlement known as Jonestown. Each of them had apparently voluntarily drank cyanide-laced grape Kool-Aid. The leader of this group, "Reverend" Jim Jones, had shot himself in the head.



At first, this looked like a mass suicide, but then as this organization, officially titled "The People's Temple" was examined and determined to be a cult, the act was changed from suicide to "massacre."

The People's Temple had been founded in 1955 in Indianapolis by a self-styled minister who had no theological training, James Warren Jones. Jones' message and philosophy was a blend of socialism and religion whose theme of communalism appealed to a number of people. Jones moved his organization several times, ending up in San Francisco in 1971. There, his People's Temple grew to some 20,000 members.

Jones and his radical "Temple" became the subject of several investigations in San Francisco: voter fraud for having busloads of followers driven from polling place to polling place to vote multiple times; fraudulently using donations for his own personal use; and a manslaughter investigation for sending a box of candy with a bomb in it to a political candidate that was critical of Jones.

In 1977, Jones moved again, this time to an isolated area in Guyana, so that he and the 1,000 followers who went with him, could live in peace -- and so that he could avoid prosecution.

In 1978, a California Congressman, Leo Ryan, made a fact-finding visit to Jonestown. As he was leaving with several "rescued" followers, Ryan and four of his party were shot and killed by the Temple's security guards.

The next day, Jones orchestrated the largest mass suicide in recent history.

Of the victims, over 400 unclaimed bodies were buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland, California where each year at 11:00am on November 18, people gather for a memorial service.

Hope is both the earliest and the most indispensable virtue inherent in the state of being alive. If life is to be sustained hope must remain, even where confidence is wounded, trust impaired.

~ Erik H. Erikson, psychologist

The Tangled Woods

Earlier this Fall, the leaves, while still on the trees, produced a spectacular display of colors. This was particularly true along the Brandywine River nearby.

Gradually, with wind and temperature and driving rain, the leaves have fallen from the trees, revealing the structure of each tree and each limb.

In the woods behind our house stand several trees -- mainly oak and walnut -- with very large trunks; they stretch perhaps 100 feet into the air. The majority of the trees, however, are tall but with smallish trunks, affected by competing with the larger trees for sunlight. All of them are rooted in a thin layer of soil over the rocky substrata of the area. When a Nor'easter blows up the coast from the South, one or two of the trees will lose their footing in the thin dirt and begin leaning. Seldom do the trees topple over, though, because they end up leaning on their neighbor, producing a tangled look.



Families are like that.

It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men's hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanates from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.

~ Robert Louis Stevenson

Challenge Coins

Yesterday, the President and First Lady attended a very solemn memorial service for the thirteen men and women killed at Ft. Hood. Among the many traditions on display there -- the helmet, the gun, the dog tags and ... the boots -- President Obama placed a "Challenge Coin" on each of the markers of the fallen.

I did not know of this tradition.

There are many stories about the derivation of Challenge Coins, but the one told most often originated in World War I. Airplanes were a daring and somewhat romantic new technology then, with the first flight having been recorded only 14 years earlier. Many young men enrolled in the Army Air Corps to be a pilot. Among them, a wealthy student from an Eastern college who, in a generous burst of collegiality had bronze coins made for each of his fellow pilots in the squadron. Each coin contained "USA" on one side and the squadron's number on the other. The Pilots began carrying this coin with them as good luck pieces.

One of the US Pilots was shot down over France and captured by the French Army who could not determine if he was an ally or a German Pilot that could speak English. When they decided to treat him as a German, the Pilot remembered the Squadron coin and showed it to the French soldiers. It proved to the French that he was an American and he was dispatched back to the US Forces.

The tradition of the coins continued on into Viet Nam where it was used in drinking games -- if you couldn't produce your coin, you had to buy the soldier or group of men challenging a round of drinks. After Viet Nam ended, the tradition mostly disappeared until Desert Storm and has gained in popularity since. As a a side note, when the soldier would carry their coin in their billfolds, it often looked like they were carrying a condom, which produced some interesting "challenge" stories when the ring indentation was noted by the military spouse.

Each member of the Executive Branch has Challenge Coins, but the Presidential Coin is the most coveted. Here is the coin that President Obama placed on each of the thirteen memorials yesterday as a sign of respect from the Commander in Chief.

Allow the People to use the Internet to VOTE

The Frenetic antics of Congress has caused me to finally suggest out loud what I have quietly whispered for some time -- let the people vote on important legislative decisions using the Internet.

Give us your reform measure one decision at a time and let us vote on it, item-by-item. If the Health Care Bill is so important that it has to be voted on by the end-of-the-day, end-of-the-week, end-of-the-month, end-of-the-year -- hurry, Hurry, HURRY -- but won't be implemented until 2013, then with all this wackiness, the people need to get involved. Let us vote via the Internet!

If I can bank via the Internet, if I can purchase goods with my credit card via the Internet, if I can buy stock via the Internet, surely, I can vote securely via the Internet.

Representative Democracy was chosen as our form of government when the demands of growing your own food and clothing your family required the majority of one's time in a day. It was also the age of the horse as transportation, so traveling the 260 miles from, say, Boston to Philadelphia, at 20 miles per day on Nellie would have taken 23 days. That is obviously not the case today.

In my view, most of the Congressional Class has forgotten that they are "hired" by us to represent us. Instead, they have a view that they are there to take care of us in all ways, because they know better than we do.

Congress needs to listen to the will of the people of this country, not some poll where the fix is in due to the phrasing of the question and the make-up of the respondents.

The Internet is this tool, but it must be legislatively mandated to become an instrument of the governance; there is the rub. Legislators will not allow it to be used, so a Constitutional Amendment is required originated by the people. We can do that!!

There is reform needed of the Congressional Branch of our government.
... We need term limits on these Nabobs.
... We need to eliminate their earmarks.
... We need Congress to have the same Health Care System that they shackle us with.
... We need to be allowed to vote on important issues using the Internet.

What do you think? Will you join me in mounting a call for Internet use by the People, as a part of the governance of this Country?

"Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad with power. " ~ Charles A. Beard, Progressive Historian

Frost

The first hard frost of the season fell overnight. The only vegetable in the garden still producing yesterday were the peppers -- Hungarian and Bell; the frost will have stopped that. Many of the trees have already dropped their leaves -- the ash, the walnut and the poplar -- while the maples out my window still retain many of their red leaves. The cherry trees lining our driveway have left a pleasant number of leaves on the asphalt, making walking to the mailbox a pleasant chore.

The roses on the Southern side of our house seemed to have missed the frost which means that my out-of-control Morning Glories will be spared also. All will need to be pulled and trimmed and cut and raked and swept -- as do we.

Back to Chapter Two, instead.

Besides the autumn poets sing,

A few prosaic days

A little this side of the snow

And that side of the haze.

~Emily Dickinson