Hi,
I just wanted to wish you and yours a very Happy Thanksgiving! May this holiday season bring all that you wish for!
All the best,
“BIG” Sean Madigan
And may you have many more, Sean! Peace, live long, and prosper!
You too Sean!
BTW How’s the diet going if you don’t mind me asking?
I used to be daga
Hi rouge,
The diet is going well my friend! Thanks for asking. I am on the way!
BIG Sean Madigan
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!
May all the Kung fu people,Grapplers & trolls with their family & friends gather together for a day of thanks around a big table of toast,jelly beans & pretzels!
Hope yawl have a happy,safe holiday!
Badger
What’s with you Americans and your late thanksgiving? The holiday was over a month a go, you’re living in the past!
We are all just thankful all the time to be American..
Happy Thanksgiving to you a month ago!
Badger
Grampa Simpson - “Every year at Thanksgiving we’d have Walking Bird with all the trimmings! Cranberry sauce, injun eyes, and yams stuffed with gunpowder…”
Happy thanksgiving, and for God’s sake, don’t overcook the yams!
I am the Grand Ultimate Silk Pyjama
What the?
Thanksgiving was a month ago? Does time stop on this forum? Where… am… I?
Cause we’re not thankful for crap that happened a month ago in your country, we’re thankful for crap that happened here 
Besides, it’s not until Thursday anyway.
Jaguar Wong
The 6th Deadly Venom!
[i]Jaguar’s Wife (To “Judo” Gene Lebell): “Excuse me, my friend (Tigerstyle) wants to know if we can take a picture of you choking him.”
Gene LeBell (in a gravely voice): “If he don’t mind, I don’t mind.”
- actual event from DragonFest 1999[/i]
Thanksgiving is just another foreign custom.
Fear not the man who has learned one thousand kicks, fear the man who has practiced one kick a thousand times.
http://mytwobeadsworth.com/Thanksgiving2.html
The National Day of Mourning
A different `Thanksgiving’ Perspective by Terri Jean
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"Brothers, we must be one as the English are, or we shall soon all be destroyed!" -- Miantinomo (Narraganset) 1642. He was executed by the colonists and their Indian government allies in 1643.
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It's that time of year. The holiday originated by poor Pilgrims and their neighborly Indian friends is about to be set again on Americas' kitchen table. With televised parades and football games, families gather together to give thanks for the previous year, and to inject heartfelt hope into the year to follow.
All the while a growing number of protesters gather yearly in Plymouth, Massachusetts to mourn the traditional feast. Well, not the feast itself or even the thankfulness it is meant to instill; they grieve the fictional foundation the national holiday sits upon, and with each passing year those protesters continue to feel the incessant societal slap dispensed to this continents first people.
Myth verses Fact
Like most American schoolchildren, my curriculum included learning the traditional Pilgrim/Indian tale. You know the story: Chastised Pilgrims seeking religious freedom settle Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620 and after a harsh, starving winter the neighboring Indians rally to their side and demonstrate how to cultivate food and live off the land. In celebration of harvest, the two groups rejoice in feast and fun in 1621. Since then, and officially in 1898, this country has reenacted that moment by sharing food and drink with neighbors and loved ones.
So how much of the Pilgrim/Indian tale is true? Most of what is known of this time is based on first-hand accounts of Governor William Bradford and another colony leader, Edward Winslow. Some information from the New England first people has been orally passed down from generation to generation, and the rest is a blend of English record-keeping and European patriotic fiction.
Who were the Pilgrims and the Indians?
The Pilgrims were not simple refugees from England fighting against oppression and religious discrimination. They were political revolutionaries and part of the Puritan movement considered objectionable and unorthodox by the King of the Church of England. Outcasts and fugitives in their own homeland, they plotted to take over the government. When unsuccessful, they had to relocate or face prosecution. After several attempts at finding a suitable new home, they elected to try their luck in the New World. Here they thought they could build their own promised land.
The Pilgrims also thought themselves as `chosen' Biblical people and saw America's first inhabitants as heathens; products of the devil. In a written text from a sermon in 1623, Mather the Elder praised God for the plagues racing through Native villages. He cheered the death of "chiefly young men and children, the very seeds of increase, thus clearing the forests to make way for a better growth." The "better growth" was, of course, the Pilgrims themselves.
It should also be noted that these same Pilgrims who today are admired for their religious convictions and devotion to religious freedom - would not allow the Native Americans to have that same privilage.They looked at the Natives as savages without a religion. The Reverend John Elliot said his intent was to "wynn [win] the natives of the country to the knowledge and obedience of the onlie [only] true God and Savior and mankinde."
Just as the Pilgrims were not the wholesome people portrayed today, the hospitable, helpful Indian characterization is also incorrect. In actuality, the New England Natives were untrusting of Europeans due to their hostile contact with outsiders since 1497. Still remembering the expedition of Captain Thomas Hunt in 1614, who captured 27 people (including Squanto) to sell into slavery, the aboriginal people had good reason to suspect the Pilgrims of ominous deceit.
The `first' Thanksgiving wasn't a Thanksgiving at all In December of 1620 a splinter group of England's Puritan movement set anchor on American soil, a land already inhabited by the Wampanoag Indians. Having been unprepared for the bitter cold weather,and arriving too late to grow an adequate food supply, nearly half of the 100 settlers did not survive the winter.
On March 16th, 1621, a Native Indian named Samoset met the Englishmen for the first time. Samoset spoke English, as did Squanto, another bilingual Patuxet who would later serve as interpreter between the colonist and the Wampanoag Indians, lead by Chief Massasoit. A peace treaty was agreed upon between Governor John Carver and Chief Massasoit, and 12,000 acres of land was granted to the colonists.
As for the infamous 1621 feast we Americans refer to as `The First Thanksgiving' - the reasons and events are speculative. Some say, as we've been taught, that the meal was a feast of appreciation between two different groups of people celebrating a successful harvest and friendship. Others say it was a meeting over land title and treaty matters - an `official conference' between two nations ... and nothing more. And yet there are authors who claim the dinner was a sympathetic gesture from the Natives who took pity on the Pilgrims.
When examining the reality of that time, the probable explanation was the land and peace treaty meeting. Personally, I doubt if there were actual profound kinships between the two. History had already set in place feelings of distrust. The English probably knew of the French who were killed on the eastern shore before them, and the Indians knew of English, Spanish and French who had come to their lands to kidnap their people. With that history it is doubtful that either community opened their arms to their neighbor, especially the Native people who originally held the land and may of looked to the Pilgrims as invadors. It is probable, though, that the two nations were hospitable and eagerly agreed upon peace between them. Neither, I would assume, would invite conflict into their communities; an amicable relationship would of been desired by all parties involved.
In 1622 propaganda started to circulate about what would LATER be referred to as the `First Thanksgiving'."Mourts Relation", a book written to publicize the so-called wonderfulness of Plymouth, told of the meeting as a friendly feast with the Natives. The Pilgrims glamorized the situation, possibly in an effort to encourage more Puritans to settle in their area. By stating that the Native community was warm and open-armed, the newcomers would be more likely to feel secure in their journey to New England.
An End to Peace
Though Massasoit agreed to peace with the English, other Native Indians did not. As their land was seized and occupied from Maine to Connecticut, various tribal communities fought back. When one group would raid a village, the other would retaliate. Often times the English, who eventually greatly outnumbered the aboriginal people, would massacre entire villages.
In 1637 700-800 Pequot Indian women, men and children gathered in their village for an annual celebration. Unbeknownst to them, they were surrounded by English who burned them alive while in their homes and buildings. Those who tried to escape were killed.
When Massasoit died in 1656 it would be the end to peace established between the colony and the Wampanoag. Massasoit's son, known as Alexander, inherited his father's duty but when Alexander died under mysterious circumstances following a meeting with the Pilgrims, conflicts would erupt. Massasoit's youngest son, Metacoment (called King Philip by the English) became chief at the young age of 24. Always leery of the settlers, and with the death of his brother, which he blamed on poison from the Pilgrims, his father's dedication to peace dissipated.
As the colonies grew in size, so did the need for more land. The Pilgrims, once few in number, swelled to well over 40,000. The Wampanoag strength weaken to a few thousand - mostly due to disease and warfare. The atmosphere between the two cultures was aggressive and in 1675 King Philip called for reinforcements from neighboring tribes.
When word reached the English that King Philip was gathering forces, they took militant action and soon a war broke out between the two. What would later be known as King Philips War began in 1675. That same year the Plymouth Pilgrims captured 112 Indians and sold them into slavery. King Philip fought with joining tribes but to no avail. They were outnumbered and in 1676 the war was over. On July 22, 1676 the English rounded up what was left of Philips people and sold every male over the age of 14 into slavery. All others would be servants to the Pilgrims. Philips wife and 9 year old son were also sold, and Philip - who was then thought to be a demon - was killed, quartered and his head would be displayed in Plymouth for nearly 30 years.
"The English disarmed my people. They tried them by their own laws, and assessed damages my people could not pay." King Philip, 1676
The REAL Thanksgiving
The 1621 feast between the Pilgrims and the Indians was not the official first Thanksgiving. That title goes to a 1637 celebration, proclaimed `Thanksgiving' by Governor Winthrop, an event honoring those who participated in the massacre of the 700-800 Pequot Indians in Connecticut.
On June 20, 1676 - following the victory over King Philip and his people - the council of Charlestown, Massachusetts unanimously voted to proclaim June 29 as a day of celebration and Thanksgiving. The following statement was read:
"The Holy God having by a long and Continual Series of his Afflictive dispensations in and by the present Warr with the Heathen Natives of this land, written and brought to pass bitter things against his own Covenant people in this wilderness, yet so that we evidently discern that in the midst of his judgments he hath remembered mercy, having remembered his Footstool in the day of his sore displeasure against us for our sins, with many singular Intimations of his Fatherly Compassion, and regard; reserving many of our Towns from Desolation Threatened, and attempted by the Enemy, and giving us especially of late with many of our Confederates many signal Advantages against them, without such Disadvantage to ourselves as formerly we have been sensible of, if it be the Lord's mercy that we are not consumed, It certainly bespeaks our positive Thankfulness, when our Enemies are in any measure disappointed or destroyed; and fearing the Lord should take notice under so many Intimations of his returning mercy, we should be found an Insensible people, as not standing before Him with Thanksgiving, as well as lading him with our Complaints in the time of pressing Afflictions.
The National Day of Mourning
The first National Day of Mourning was held on “Thanksgiving Day” in 1970. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts invited Wampanoag leader, Wamsutta, to the towns 350th anniversary of the pilgrims landing in hope he’d represent the indigenous component of the national holiday and deliver a speech to the townspeople. When the event organizers read a copy of Wamsutta’s speech, he was uninvited for the following reason: “…the theme of the anniversary celebration is brotherhood and anything inflammatory would have been out of place.” What was so frightening about Wamsuttas speech? It told the TRUTH about the pilgrims, their slave-trading, their discretion of the dead, theft of Wampanoag food and of their true relationship with the Native people. When the Massachusetts Commonwealth attempted to silence his position, he took his speech outside and spoke to hundreds of supporters and initiated what would later be a yearly tradition of protest and historical truth.
Since 1970, the National Day of Mourning protest has met with resistance and opposition from Plymouth residents, Pilgrim fans, and from the media. In 1997, mourners walking through Plymouth were met by more than 50 officers. After the crowd was "dispersed," 25 protesters were arrested (many of which went on to file charges against the police for brutality.) In 1998, a settlement was reached between Plymouth and the protesters, with town officials agreeing to pay $100,000 to the Metacom Education Fund, $15,000 for the erection of two historical plaques, and to provide support and public education for United American Indians of New England (UAINE) and the National Day of Mourning demonstration.
In 1999, on the 30th anniversary of Wamsutta's "uninvite," two plaques were dedicated to crimes against the American Indians. Over 800 people attended the National Day of Mourning Rally. Within house, Plymouth then paraded down the street in their annual "Pilgrim's Progress" - dressed as Pilgrims and carrying muskets and Bibles - to commemorate the survivor's of the Pilgrim's first winter.
- neque mibi quisquam Judaeorum fabulas objiciat.
Thanksgiving in Afghanistan With the Taliban (Hey, it rhymes!)
Wonder what the indigenous folks’ll be doing in good ol’ Afghanistan this Thanksgiving? Besides dying, I mean.
Oh, well, whatever happens let’s not forget our troops over there. I’m thankful for them for putting their lives on the line so we can sit down to a peaceful dinner Thursday.
K. Mark Hoover
Oh, just eat your damn turkey!
:rolleyes:
Ryu
“One who takes pride in shallow knowledge or understanding is like a monkey who delights in adorning itself with garbage.”
“Wonder what the indigenous folks’ll be doing in good ol’ Afghanistan this Thanksgiving? Besides dying, I mean.”
Tasteless. 
No, the turkey we’ll have tomorrow will be quite tasty. And I won’t be losing any sleep because a bunch of Taliban f*cks are being killed on Thursday, either. With any luck Osama Bin Laden’s brains will be splattered all over a cave, making it a perfect holiday. 
K. Mark Hoover
Oh, well, whatever happens let’s not forget our troops over there. I’m thankful for them for putting their lives on the line so we
can sit down to a peaceful dinner Thursday.
K. Mark Hoover
-Exactly,Budokan!
Badger
Well, I hope everybody has a happy, safe, healthy day tomorrow whether you celebrate Thanksgiving or not. I will also keep our troops in Afghanistan in my prayers. Peace. 
May everyone of you enjoy this thanksgiving with friends and family.
Denvers Gonna win!!!
“Wonder what the indigenous folks’ll be doing in good ol’ Afghanistan this Thanksgiving? Besides dying, I mean.”
‘Tasteless’
Actually I hear that the Taliban taste like chicken.
Throw another Osama on the barby.
[i]Signed,
Rogue, Soke and Senior Grandmaster of Southeast American Brazillian Bagua Combat Chi jitsu Kempo Karate Do and Choral Society.
The only tactical principle which is not subject to change; it is, “To use the means at hand to inflict the maximum amount of wounds, death, and destruction on the enemy in the minimum amount of time." [/i]