Here she is answering the question from Kaitlan Collins: "Do you still believe that Thanksgiving should be canceled?"
Collins: Do you still believe that Thanksgiving should be canceled?
Hong: I'm a chef, and one of the first meals that I made was for the community when I was 16 was a Thanksgiving meal. But Thanksgiving is also a time that's incredibly painful for many people in our communities.… pic.twitter.com/Kd5kBZMxZS
Like Trump — who has his own circuitous way of talking, his "weave" — Francesca Hong has her special way of making the conversation her own:
"I'm a chef, and one of the first meals that I made was for the community when I was 16 was a Thanksgiving meal. But Thanksgiving is also a time that's incredibly painful for many people in our communities. And so I think there" — when she said Thanksgiving should be canceled — "I wanted to make sure that people understood that there are multiple views, but views can evolve. And the position that I'm running for right now, and I think my background as a chef will actually help me become a better governor that's able to bring more people to the table."
Brilliant!
A chef... bringing people to the table. I know, you're afraid of her and of the people who are going to vote for her. But if you could stand back coolly and observe, I think you should admit that this — along with Trump's weave — is beautiful American political rhetoric.
"... we’re letting our closest relationships disintegrate through neglect, busyness and an unwillingness to move past the things that bother us. You may think it’s better for your mental health to slowly distance yourself from someone you have difficulties with, but, in the long run, it will likely have a devastating impact on your happiness and well-being.... Accepting what you can’t change doesn’t mean you’re endorsing their beliefs — it simply means doing everything you can, right now, to embrace the positives and look past the negatives. We’re fortunate that some of the biggest regrets of older people — not expressing love, not seeking forgiveness, not telling those who matter how they feel — are regrets that we can avoid.... The only time it’s too late to apologize or ask for forgiveness is when somebody is no longer here...."
The comments are stuff like "Life is too short to waste time on family members who bring nothing positive to your life," "Stop trying to make people feel guilty for choosing to take care of themselves," and, of course, "This might be good advice in normal times, but not in the age of trump. Bye bye trump supporting family members."
AND: That's obviously a Thanksgiving op-ed, so happy Thanksgiving. Are you celebrating in the old-timey style with a big group of family? If not, is it your choice, somebody else's choice, or no choice at all?
"... because their ideas and policies are so hopelessly bad that the great people of our Nation just gave a landslide victory to those who want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! Don’t worry, our Country will soon be respected, productive, fair, and strong, and you will be, more than ever before, proud to be an American!"
"You want fries with that? 'Awesome!'... [O]n our way to Houston, we passed a roadside church whose huge hoarding exhorted us to 'Give Up Lust — Take Up Jesus.' I thought that sign might be my most abiding memory, until I’d spent a few hours at the Space Center Houston. I never guessed I’d be so riveted by topics like the geology of the moon and how NASA astronauts train underwater.
But the cafeteria! It is astonishing, the best I’ve ever seen anywhere in a public building: brioche or sourdough sandwiches, homemade soups, hot roasts and grills, fresh tortillas, a salad bar to tempt the most die-hard carnivore, and no junk food in sight. It was a long way from the usual NASA fare of freeze-dried food in pouches and tubes...."
"... faithful servants of Jehovah. Thanksgiving, Witnesses explain, is rooted in a harvest festival to pagan gods, and those pagan gods corrupt even the contemporary celebration. The holiday revels in gluttony and excess....
When I was 20, I was excommunicated and completely cut off from my family.... The part of me that was broken when my family of origin rejected me gets a little closer to being whole each time I celebrate holidays with my chosen family.... The value of our polyam family isn’t in its stability, but rather that we choose each other even when we change, relationships change, feelings change. The power is in the choosing. There’s no obligation. I can only offer invitation and acceptance.... My husband’s girlfriend may prioritize another partner or her family... For me, the beauty is in making space for us to gather and also making space for each person to make their own choices.... We open ourselves, share love, swim in pleasure, sometimes get hurt.... Now, my community reminds me that the scarcity mind-set that tells us we can only have one love, that we must compete for our lover’s attention, is a lie."
"I’m here to tell you Thanksgiving is terrible, and if you at least spend the time trying to deprogram your niece, you won’t be bored or depressed (though you might be enraged that Fox News or Infowars has convinced her Trump can 'save America' from Joe Biden’s radical agenda of giving people hearing aids and free pre-K). Maybe it won’t work. Maybe you’ll leave Thanksgiving dinner as divided as you were when you sat down at the table five hours and 4,000 calories ago. Or maybe you’ll plant the seed, sow just a little doubt about whatever Tucker Carlson is saying now. Maybe you’ll even change a heart or a mind. Maybe you’ll bring the temperature down just a tiny bit. Or maybe you’ll need to report a relative to the FBI! Either way, it’s something to do besides just eat."
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone, by the way. I'm only putting this up because it represents a form of writing on the occasion of Thanksgiving that I've seen every year I've blogged — and I've blogged 18 Thanksgivings — but I've noticed there's way less of this theme this year. Maybe something about the lockdown and finally getting out of it convinced editors that hating one's family isn't really where it's at. Not this year anyway.
So good for Molly Jong-Fast, keeping the stupid old tradition alive. Somebody had to do it, just like somebody has to make turducken.
Speaking of family, not only is her mother Erica Jong, her grandfather is Howard Fast, the author of "Spartacus." Picture them at Thanksgiving, would you? What offensive things might they say? Not passing along bullshit from Fox News, but something else. I'd prefer if Ms. Jong-Fast would dish on her own family, not what's happening at the table of imagined deplorables.
It's as good as it is — no better or worse. You can choose to think about: 1. how much better it could be or 2. how much worse it could be or 3. what it actually is. Which is more Thanksgiving-y?
"... I love the state of Iowa. These two turkeys sought to win the support of Iowans across the state, by naming themselves Corn and Cob.... Look at that beautiful, beautiful bird. Oh, so lucky. That is a lucky bird. Corn, I hereby grant you a full pardon. Thank you, Corn. Iowa farm. I knew I liked you. Happy Thanksgiving to everybody. Thank you very much."
Said President Donald Trump, dealing with the turkey business for the last time and ignoring the shouted-out question: "Any pardons before you leave office? Will you be issuing a pardon for yourself?" (Transcript.)
I excerpted the humorous material, but there was also some serious talk about thanking God and the perseverance of the pilgrims. And something that completely surprised me: "This year our nation commemorates the 400th anniversary of the pilgrims landing on Plymouth Rock."
What?! That's a gigantic anniversary — a centennial mark — and I'd heard absolutely nothing about it.
[T]he Pilgrims have fallen out of fashion in elite circles. Just this week, The New York Times food section published an article that called the Pilgrim story, including the First Thanksgiving, a “myth” and a “caricature.” In place of these so-called “myths,” the liberal newspaper seeks to substitute its own, claiming the history of our nation is an unbroken tale of conflict, oppression and misery...
Said "Lyz Jaakola, 52, a member of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, recall[ing] the catharsis she felt as a young woman watching the movie 'Addams Family Values,' a dark comedy released in 1993":
In one scene, the Wednesday character, cast as Pocahontas in a children’s Thanksgiving play, goes off script to take violent revenge on the Pilgrims. “You have taken the land which is rightfully ours,” she calmly seethes. “Years from now, my people will be forced to live in mobile homes on reservations. Your people will wear cardigans and drink highballs.”
Is this year a particularly good time to revisit the negative side of the origins of Thanksgiving?
At first, I thought no. For millions of Americans, Thanksgiving is a tradition within their own family's story, and that tradition is sadly disrupted by the pandemic. Many of us have recently lost loved ones, and we all have suffered for almost a year from the enforced distance from family and friends and that separation feels especially awful with the approach of Thanksgiving — the holiday that has come to mean gathering indoors with a big group of people we love. It's about love, family, and food, not being upper middle class (which is what that "cardigans and highballs" business is supposed to mean).
But then I thought, sure, why not? Why not pile on and kick people while they're down? We're already feeling terrible. Give us something else to feel terrible about. We're deprived of loving warmth we'd come to expect at this time of year, so fling open the window and make it as cold as possible. Can't do Thanksgiving this year? Well, you should have never been doing Thanksgiving anyway, so let's just call this Year 1 of America Without Thanksgiving, and let's try to think of other sacrifices you need to make.
Stop asking what am I thankful for. Start asking what more can I give up.
AND: Let's consume the entire Addams Family scene:
Here's Wednesday's speech:
Wait, we can not break bread with you. You have taken the land which is rightfully ours. Years from now my people will be forced to live in mobile homes on reservations. Your people will wear cardigans, and drink highballs. We will sell our bracelets by the road sides, and you will play golf, and eat hot hors d'oeuvres. My people will have pain and degradation. Your people will have stick shifts. The gods of my tribe have spoken. They said do not trust the pilgrims, especially Sarah Miller. And for all of these reasons I have decided to scalp you and burn your village to the ground.
As long as we're being urged to consider the whole story, look with clear eyes at Wednesday's vision. It entailed terrorism and genocide.
NYT: "President Trump paid an unannounced Thanksgiving visit to American troops here on Thursday and said that he had restarted peace negotiations with the Taliban less than three months after he scuttled talks with the group. 'The Taliban wants to make a deal, and we’re meeting with them,' Mr. Trump said here during a meeting with Afghanistan’s president, Ashraf Ghani. 'We’re going to stay until such time as we have a deal, or we have total victory, and they want to make a deal very badly,' said Mr. Trump... Mr. Trump made his first visit to Afghanistan under a shroud of secrecy, arriving in a darkened airplane just after 8:30 p.m. local time on a trip that the White House had concealed from his public schedule for security reasons."
Interesting article but as others have stated it focuses more on the weight loss benefits and not on the many other aspects of fasting. Our bodies and metabolisms have evolved to deal with a continuous cycle of feast or famine ... if it is all one or the other we will have problems. Living in an age where near unlimited access to an abundant supplies of food (both good and bad) encourages overeating and unfortunately if you live in a neighbourhood with limited access to a good grocery store you will be forced to eat mostly processed foods. The quality of what you are eating while doing an intermittent fast is a crucial component. I am lucky to have access to healthy food and have for most of my life incorporated different approaches to fasting into my day and have come to realize that as we age our metabolism slows and we must adjust our diet accordingly. I am only eating one nice healthy meal a day and feel great; have lost weight, more energy and clarity of mind, skin is feeling and looking better, senses mental clarity have been heightened, less aches and pains ... that's good medicine. I am also physically active which is another important component in the overall feeling of well-being. A fasting couch potato in my opinion would probably not reap the same benefits. It's not rocket science ... whether intermittent fasting or not, listen to your body and adjust your eating habits accordingly. And please remember to "stop eating all the time" guys ;-)
I spent most of my life believing a gauzy, kindergarten version of Thanksgiving, thinking only of feasts and family, turkey and dressing.
I was blind, willfully ignorant, I suppose, to the bloodier side of the Thanksgiving story, to the more honest side of it.
But I’ve come to believe that is how America would have it if it had its druthers: We would be blissfully blind, living in a soft world bleached of hard truth. I can no longer abide that.
Well, hell, how can you feel that bad and have it just be step 1, before step 2, "fill your plate"? No plate for you! How can you be all "I can no longer abide" and proceed to the piles of turkey and high-carb side dishes? It reminds me of Lewis Carroll's walrus:
"I weep for you," the Walrus said:
"I deeply sympathize."
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Those of the largest size,
Holding his pocket-handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.
Whether we can expiate all of America's sins by fasting on the feasting day, I don't know. I doubt it.
"If seven maids with seven mops
Swept it for half a year.
Do you suppose," the Walrus said,
"That they could get it clear?"
"I doubt it," said the Carpenter,
And shed a bitter tear...
The Walrus was weeping over the great quantities of sand on the beach. He cared! He mused, and he went about his way, doing everything he wanted. But he still cried all the while. Wasn't that good of him?
How about fasting for Thanksgiving? Will you join me? If R. Mutt is right, we may get some "clarity of mind" and an "overall feeling of well-being." Ah, that sounds to good for us! Better to cry and simultaneously stuff your face. That's the new American tradition.
_____________________
* It's the famous signature that made a urinal art:
Mutt comes from Mott Works, the name of a large sanitary equipment manufacturer. But Mott was too close so I altered it to Mutt, after the daily cartoon strip "Mutt and Jeff" which appeared at the time, and with which everyone was familiar. Thus, from the start, there was an interplay of Mutt: a fat little funny man, and Jeff: a tall thin man... I wanted any old name. And I added Richard [French slang for money-bags]. That's not a bad name for a pissotière. Get it? The opposite of poverty. But not even that much, just R. MUTT.
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