Vegetarian Thanksgiving

Days before we sit down to carve our Thanksgiving bird, two Internet videos threaten to dull the national appetite for turkey.

    — Losing Your Appetite for Turkey?

Needless to say, I didn’t view either of those videos. Don’t need to. I used to be OK with violence (movies like “Pulp Fiction” and “Reservoir Dogs,” even nature documentaries where a lion would chase down and kill a gazelle) but I can’t take that kind of stuff anymore. I guess I am getting soft in my old age.

At any rate, this will be my first Thanksgiving without turkey. As noted in one of the comments to the above cited blog’s post, who is going to starve with “11 veggie side dishes and 5 desserts?” I am going to miss the tradition of roasting a turkey (and last year I brined a bird for the first time and it came out great) and doing all the usual Thanksgiving morning tasks. But I’ll start a new tradition this year.

I feel bad that the cats won’t get any turkey this year. Not unless I go and beg some turkey off of a neighbor. I’ve gone veggie, but I can’t expect the cats to get into tofu, baked potatoes, and beans. Would they like Boca Burgers? I don’t think so.

Happy Thanksgiving, all.

Not to go all Scroogie, but …

I’ve heard Christmas music on the radio for the past week.

Geez, it’s not even Thanksgiving yet. For me, the Christmas season starts after Thanksgiving. I guess I’m old school. Just like in how I believe you should live within your means and not spend money you don’t have. (I suppose that makes me practically un-American ….) I love Christmas but have avoided the stations playing Christmas music. I think I’ll be able to listen to Christmas music on Thursday later in the day, or for sure on Friday.

In another sonic non sequitur, I heard this on the radio a couple of days ago:

(Click here to access this video directly from YouTube.)

It left me confused: For a few seconds I thought I had missed Thanksgiving. Just as “Jingle Bells” means Christmas, “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” means Thanksgiving.

Radio Paradise plays it every Thanksgiving. I missed it last year but hope to catch it this year. Thanksgiving without Arlo Guthrie is like Script Ohio without the Tuba Guy dotting the “i.”

Thank You, Cecil Stoughton

I thought that today was the anniversary of JFK’s assassination, but it was yesterday. For some reason I was thinking 23 November, when the 3 came with the year, 1963.

My bad.

I was 6-years-old when it happened, and don’t know if what I remember is from that day or from watching footage from later years. For years the anniversary was noted during newscasts and in the papers. Somewhere along the line it became washed from the collective American memory. 6 June and 7 December don’t mean anything to a lot of Americans. This makes me wonder if 9/11 will eventually be forgotten.

At any rate, I’m disappointed in myself for not remembering the date. A few weeks ago I clicked on a story in the Times; it was an obituary and the name “Cecil Stoughton” didn’t ring a bell with me, but I often read the obits. This is what I found:

Cecil Stoughton, the chief photographer for the Kennedy White House, who documented its glittering public moments and its intimate private ones, and who captured its sudden end in one of the signal images of the 20th century — Lyndon B. Johnson’s swearing-in as president aboard Air Force One on Nov. 22, 1963 — died on Monday. Mr. Stoughton, who died at his home on Merritt Island, Fla., was 88.

    — Cecil Stoughton Dies at 88; Documented White House

This guy brought history to life. I remember seeing a lot of his photographs in the paper (and probably Life and Look magazines, too) when I was a kid. I feel lucky that he’d been around to catch all those moments, even this one:

The last paragraph of the obituary made me smile:

To the end of his life, Mr. Stoughton remained ardently, though quietly, interested in politics. Before he died, his son Jamie said, he took advantage of Florida’s early-voting provision to cast a ballot for Barack Obama.

Even if he’d voted for McCain, I think it’s cool that he made sure his voice was heard.

Fill in the oval completely …

Use a No. 2 pencil, make no stray marks, if you have to make sure you erase completely, etc., etc., and so forth.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I’ve never missed an election since 1976 and also because I’ve taken scads of achievement tests, the SATs, the GREs, filled out various forms for employment, and God knows what else that mark sense forms aren’t foreign to me.

But what the heck was this voter thinking when he/she turned in this ballot?

Crikey.

If I recall correctly, in the Minnesota recount they are counting X’s and checkmarks placed in the oval as well as if a candidate’s name had been circled. As far as “voter intent” goes, I can buy it.

But — geez Louise, people! Learn how to follow directions!

But it seems like even people who followed the directions had their votes thrown out:

If the hand recount of ballots to determine a winner in the U.S. Senate race has Minnesotans edgy, pity poor Robert Marvin.

The Roseville man was too ill to risk a long wait in line on Election Day, so he dutifully filled out an absentee ballot, only to discover Thursday that his vote never got counted.

Now his wife, Ruby Marvin, is hopping mad.

“Oh for cripes’ sake,” she said when a Star Tribune reporter told her that election officials said her husband’s ballot had been rejected because he wasn’t properly registered.

“We’ve lived here for five years and voted in every election,” she said. “We’ve never had any problems before. This is crazy. Honest to Pete, there’s no wonder they’re having problems counting the ballots.”

    — How many ways can voting go wrong?

Oy.

Maybe every state’s election commission should hold Recount Drills, something like a fire drill, where all involved personnel get to practice running a recount. That way everyone will be if not ready, then at least practiced, at the procedure.

Whoever loses the Senate race in Minnesota is going to feel awfully cheated ….

Because freedom isn’t free.

Veterans Day.

That Other Olympics

As I write this, I have finished crying inside my cubicle after watching NBC’s documentary about the Paralympics in Beijing (Sunday at 2:30 p.m. Eastern).

It is a 90-minute, continuous “Oh my” journey with amputee sprinters and swimmers, wheelchair basketball players and racers, a paralyzed shot-putter, a sailor with Lou Gehrig’s disease, and Marin Morrison, a swimmer devastated by a brain tumor.

    — Long Overdue, Telecast Isn’t Short on Emotion

Been there, done that. I watched a lot of the Paralympics on Universal Sports back in September. ParalympicSport.tv also had coverage, but I could never get it to work on my computer.

Sunday at 2.30pm ET? OK, so I guess NBC wants to provide some relief for those who don’t want to watch NFL games, and God forbid that they run a Paralympics documentary during prime time.

Oh well. Beggars can’t be choosers, I guess. It’s better than nothing and who knows? Maybe NBC will give better coverage to the London Paralympics in 2012.

Donald Pleasence, Red corpuscles, and Raquel Welch — Oh My!

I’m a little overdue to give blood. Sitting here looking to schedule a donation, I thought of Fantastic Voyage.

Interesting stats:

• Someone needs blood every two seconds.
• Only 38 percent of the U.S. population is eligible to donate blood – less than 10 percent do annually.

           — 56 Facts about Blood

To everything there is a season …

Even during the darkest hours of his presidential campaign, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois held on to his improbable, unshakable conviction that America was ready to step across the color line.

On Tuesday, America leaped.

    — America Followed Obama Over the Racial Divide

Something is missing …

Watching NBC’s election night coverage, it feels like something isn’t quite right.

Then it struck me:

Tim Russert.

The broadcast isn’t the same without him.

Just Do It

Image © Frank H. Jump