Ralph Sevush, all around good guy, wrote the following short essay which he calls “The Cultural Divide.” I thought it was an interesting take on the current status of things and decided to close out political blog entries for a bit with it:
Regarding the cultural divide
This morning, I woke up thinking…
… that, as Spalding Gray observed, I live on an island off the coast
of America;
… that we should have just let the south secede when they wanted to;
… that perhaps we could consider a new form of secession, a Northern
secession;
… that if Canada could just give up a strip of land along the northern
border of North Dakota and Montana, we could build a “Freedom Trail”
with an “underground railroad” that connected the northwestern corner of
Minnesota to the northeastern corner of Washington state, thus creating
an independent, contiguous nation consisting of the Northeast, the Great
Lake region, the northern midwest, and the westcoast (plus Hawaii) with
full autonomy from the United States;
… that we could then forge a union with Canada, and become the
Federation of North American States (FONAS);
… that we would then be Fonasians, with access to Canada’s national
health care, with religious and ethnic diversity and tolerance,
relationships with the rest of the world, economic justice, individual
freedoms, and great hockey teams;
… that we would then have a nation composed of the cultural, financial
and industrial centers of the former US, and have Canada as our farmland
and ranch, and still have great vacation spots in the south pacific;
… that we could learn a lesson from Israel and build a massive wall
along our southern border that would separate us from the belligerent,
imperialistic, crypto-Fascist military theocracy that continues to grip
the US government, as it presides over a small-minded citizenry steeped
in religious zealotry who love only their god, themselves, their first
cousins and their sheep, and whose leading export to the world is death;
… that I should just roll over and go back to sleep. Perhaps I’ll
dream of Fonasia, in repose on my island off the coast of America.
But when I wake up, I’ll still be here.
Shìŧ.
Did you ever have one of those mornings?
– by Ralph Sevush, Esq.
(a card-carrying member of the ACLU and the MMMS)
• 
David Bjorlin: Thanksgiving? To whom or what do you suppose that the thanks is to be given? There is a definitive answer to this question, from the origin of the holiday. Abraham Lincoln, in establishing an annual Thanksgiving beginning in November 1863, declared, “I do, therefor, 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.” (quote courtesy of wikipedia)
Luigi Novi: So the holiday is religious simply because a religious idea was invoked in a speech when it was declared one? Me, I see it as merely one that commemorates a historical event, much like the Fourth of July.
Fred Chamberlain: Peter, I certainly don’t know you on a personal level, but if you are feeling very short-fused or even actively not enjoying the blog right now, just know that taking a day, a few, a week, etc and shutting it down for a break or stepping away to relax from it is not only ok…. but your perogative. Not saying that you should, just saying you could.
I enjoy this place. I enjoy much of the discussions and many of the posters here. I wouldn’t be thrilled to see it go away. I’d much rather it or you take a brief break than become so frustrated or upset that you say the hëll with it for good. Be healthy and don’t forget to hug the kids, kiss the wife and smile. 🙂
Jerome Maida: No! Really?! What a service, taling a beloved and best-selling writer that HE can actually shut down HIS blog if HE wants to. Of all the arrogant, smug, condescending posts. What a know-nothing kiss-ášš.
Luigi Novi: I don
> Luigi Novi:
>Its tone seems to be one of friendly reassurance
You are correct, sir. 🙂
Novafan says:
“You’re the worst kind of Conservative.”
Actually, the kind who show up at the funerals of a homosexual with signs saying “Fágš go to hëll” and stuff like that are a LITTLE worse.
“The kind that has no backbone. I’ve yet to see a post from you that makes people go out of their way to respond. At least several of my posts have sparked many debates. What have you done to act as a catalyst? “
Gee, didn’t know that was my purpose in life. I’ll get right on it, sir.
“Next time I make a post that ruffles your feathers, speak up and say something. Or, just shut your mouth until WAY after the fact as you just recently did and prove the no backbone comment.”
Nothing you said much interested me. My lumping you in with Dee (which, as I said, was unfair) was more a reflection on the sheer NUMBER of uninteresting posts.
“I’m finished with you.”
Well, we’ll always have Paris.
I will say one nice thing about you–I don’t see much evidence that you’ve changed many minds but you are still plugging away. You have persistance, I’ll give you that.
Luigi Novi: So the holiday is religious simply because a religious idea was invoked in a speech when it was declared one? Me, I see it as merely one that commemorates a historical event, much like the Fourth of July.
Or Easter. That commemorates an historical event. Admittedly it’s an historical event that only Christians think happened, but still. Or how about Hanukah (however spelled)? That commemorates an historical event. Nothing religious about either of them. Nope.
Seriously, the historical event it commemorates was a religious celebration. The “speech” creating the current holiday was expressly a religious celebration. The name of the dámņ thing is “thanks giving”– the thanks being given to a deity. While it is possible for a holiday to become so attenuated from its religious origin as to become a secular celebration– such as has nearly happened with Christmas, and such as has happened with the word “holiday” itself– for most of the denizens of the United States, Thanksgiving has overtly religious significance. It’s utterly nondenominational, but religious nonetheless.
The name of the dámņ thing is “thanks giving”– the thanks being given to a deity.
So it isn’t thanks from the Pilgrims to the Native Americans for keeping their Pilgrim áššëš from starving as I was taught growing up? 🙂
Bill said Nothing you said much interested me. My lumping you in with Dee (which, as I said, was unfair) was more a reflection on the sheer NUMBER of uninteresting posts.
So if a post or many posts from one poster are not interesting to you, that means the poster is a site pest. Come on man. That comment was uncalled for. Then I asked for you to say how you really felt, which I was being facetious BTW, and you continued to insult me again. I personally don’t care if you like me or not, but what you said was uncalled for. Plain and simple.
Instead of all the personal attacks, which the last part of this thread has been, why don’t you post things that interest you. This goes for everyone who’s come in here and made personal attacks instead of adding to the debate, whichever one it is, at the time.
Ok, ok, Novafan, I apologize. I didn’t mean to be as insulting as it came out. It’s normally not my nature to deliberately try to hurt any feelings.
It’s not a matter of liking you or not, obviously I don’t know you enough to like you or dislike you and it may well be true that the tone I’m getting off your posts is not what was in your mind when you typed it.
This thread’s gotten so ungainly I can’t keep track of who said what anymore.
“So it isn’t thanks from the Pilgrims to the Native Americans for keeping their Pilgrim áššëš from starving as I was taught growing up? :)”
No, it wasn’t. The locals didn’t keep the Pilgrims from starving – probably would have helped it happen, if they could…
As regards other things you probably learned growing up, Marconi didn’t really invent radio, Ford didn’t invent the automobile, and Franklin didn’t discover electricity. Had to unlearn two of those myself…
As regards other things you probably learned growing up,
Don’t recall reading anything about the invention of the radio, to be honest.
Although, in a few years, they can start teaching kids about how Gore invented the Internet. 😉
Luigi,
Sorry if I came off a bit temperamental in my last posts. The REASON I omitted the second paragraph (which WAS quite touching) in my response is because I felt the tone of the first paragraph was extremely condescending.
Look at it again, the poster is not even saying PAD SHOULD do something (presumably out of concern) but that he COULD, as if a best-selling writer didn’t realize that he could take a few days off from his blog.
To be fair, I will freely admit that may be hypersensitive to this way of talking/thinking/oversensitivity. I have a relative who the rest of my family insists on treating as a child just because she’s older.
Sorry for (possibly irrationally) blowing up.
Where is everyone? First time I’ve checked this thread in 3 weeks and the last post was dated Nov 27. :-0