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Behind The Curtain On T-Day
Ant writes "MSN Encarta has Columnist Martha Brockenbrough's article on the myths of this American holiday. From the article: 'A lot of what we know to be true about Thanksgiving really isn't. Determining exactly what did happen is difficult. For starters, we don't even know for certain if the Pilgrims served turkey, although it's a strong possibility.'" Additionally, maotx writes "Contrary to popular belief, turkey does not make you sleepy. While purified tryptophan is a mild sleep-inducing agent, there is not enough in turkey to have a sedative affect. And on top of that, turkey isn't even unusually high in tryptophan compared to other foods, such as beef or soybeans. So for those of us enjoying turkey today, bring on the turkey and have a Happy Thanksgiving!"
... that's why the beer goes with it.
The first myth about Thanksgiving is that it occurs in November. Everyone knows that the real Thanksgiving happens in October.
"Tomorrow's forecast: a few sprinkles of genius with a chance of doom!" - Stewie Griffin
I've gotten to the point where I can't stand turkey any more. You cook a huge bird and eat it for the next month, then do it all again for Christmas. This year I'm staging a revolt and eating steak.
If you don't want crime to pay, let the government run it.
What do the North American Indians celebrate?
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
At least for those of us in the UK
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
I notice she doesn't even bring up the point that there is a lot of evidence that the first Thanksgiving in the New World was held in Virginia (I believe at Berkley Plantation). There's evidence both ways, but the VA Thanksgiving has enough backing it that it can't be ignored.
But suggesting to most Americans that it wasn't the Pilgrims must be a little too much for some to consider.
http://img129.imageshack.us/img129/7961/thanks2th. jpg
google.slashdot
Turkey doesn't make you sleepy?! Now how am I going to get my girlfriend to fall asleep so I can play with the antique toys she won't let me touch?
Be better in bed. Wikiafterdark!
As a European from Southern Europe, I only know about thanksgiving from American movies and television. Same goes for Halloween (although we do have carnivals the last 3 Sundays before the 40-day fasting for Easter).
There is a trend, though, to "internationalize" these American celebrations, mainly for consuming purposes I guess (part of the globalization matters).
I'll let others talk about their experience.
I speak England very best
here's another part of it i found interesting:
-doviende
"The value of a man resides in what he gives,
and not in what he is capable of receiving."
--Albert Einstein
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
An extract from chapter 17 of the book Where White Men Fear to Tread, by Russell Means:
"When we met with the Wampanoag people, they told us that in researching the history of Thanksgiving, they had confirmed the oral history passed down through their generations. Most Americans know that Massasoit, chief of the Wampanoag had welcomed the so-called Pilgrim Fathers - and the seldom mentioned Pilgrim Mothers - to the shores where his people had lived for millennia. The Wampanoag taught the European colonists how to live in our hemisphere by showing them what wild foods they could gather, how, where, and what crops to plant, and how to harvest, dry, and preserve them.
The Wampanoag now wanted to remind white America of what had happened after Massasoit's death. He was succeeded by his son, Metacomet, whom the colonist called "King" Philip. In 1617-1676, to show "gratitude" for what Massasoit's people had done for their fathers and grandfathers, the Pilgrims manufactured an incident as a pretext to justify disarming the Wampanoags. The whites went after the Wampanoag with guns, swords, cannons, and torches. Most, including Metacomet, were butchered. His wife and son were sold into slavery in the West Indies. His body was hideously drawn and quartered. For twenty-five years afterward Matacomet's skull was displayed on a pike above the whites' village. The real legacy of the Pilgrim Fathers is treachery.
Americans today believe that Thanksgiving celebrates a bountiful harvest, but that is not so. By 1970, the Wampanoag had turned up a copy of a Thanksgiving proclamation made by the governor to the colony. The text revealed the ugly truth: After a colonial militia had returned from murdering the men, women, and children of an Indian village, the governor proclaimed a holiday and feast to give thanks for the massacre. He also encouraged other colonies to do likewise - in other words, every autumn after the crops are in, go kill Indians and celebrate your murders with a feast.
In November 1970, their decendants returned to Plymouth to publisize the true story of Thanksgiving and, along with about two hundred other Indians from around the country, to observe a national day of Indian mourning."
Or you can read the entire page here.
MLT - simple and robust open source multimedia framework for Linux
Ha, if the pilgrims had not been locked into a proprietary file format, we would know what really happened...
From what I remember on my research into serotonin..
Tryptophan is an amino acid that is used by the brain to manufacture serotonin. It's present in all protein, and usually you have plenty of it in your bloodstream. However, it can only get into the brain piggybacked on another molecule, and it has to compete with other amino acids for this ride. One way to soak up the other amino acids is to produce insulin with a carbohydrate-only meal. The insulin removes enough of those amino acids to allow more tryptophan into the brain, thereby providing more raw material for serotonin production.
I'm sticking with the Prozac though.
One of the other posters here is correct, the Virginia colony very likely had a harvest festival before the Plymouth colony did, if for no other reason than they started a dozen years earlier with exactly the same communal-property=starvation results.
t ml
However, if we are going to discuss the "why"s and "wherefore"s, it would be educational to remember that William Branford, the first governor of the Plymouth colony, wrote it all up.
Here are some articles with links to the original:
From http://www.mises.org/story/336
In his 'History of Plymouth Plantation,' the governor of the colony, William Bradford, reported that the colonists went hungry for years, because they refused to work in the fields. They preferred instead to steal food. He says the colony was riddled with "corruption," and with "confusion and discontent." The crops were small because "much was stolen both by night and day, before it became scarce eatable."
And from https://www.mises.org/story/1678
The Pilgrims' unhappiness was caused by their system of common property (not adopted, as often asserted, from their religious convictions, but required against their will by the colony's sponsors). The fruits of each person's efforts went to the community, and each received a share from the common wealth. This caused severe strains among the members, as Colony Governor William Bradford recorded:
" . . . the young men . . . did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without any recompense. The strong . . . had not more in division . . . than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and equalized in labors and victuals, clothes, etc . . . thought it some indignity and disrespect unto them. And the men's wives to be commanded to do service for other men, as dressing their meat, washing their clothes, etc., they deemed it a kind of slavery, neither could many husbands well brook it."
Or if you really just want the undigested original:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1650bradford.h
"The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato's and other ancients applauded by some of later times; and that the taking away of property and bringing in community into a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God. For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort."
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
The "post-prandial dip" occurs in people who are bedridden and IV-fed, and is actually accompanied by a decrease in body temp - which means it's not due to a rise in body temp or a result of eating.
There is on top of that a sleepiness after meals that comes from a dip in blood sugar once insulin kicks in following the ingeston of sugars. The feedback loop of blood sugar and insulin is usually a bit laggy.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
I'm not a troll, just a vegetarian.
Same thing, really.
Reality has a notoriously liberal bias -- Stephen Colbert
Which is really sad. Doesn't the other 94% have anything to be thankful for, or is it that they're just so bitter about life that they can't see the blessings that they have?
We're thankful every day we're not living in America with arrogant pricks like you.