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4A – Daily News – Thursday, November 25, 2010 Opinion D NEWSAILY RED BLUFF TEHAMACOUNTY T H E V O I C E O F T E H A M A C O U N T Y S I N C E 1 8 8 5 A most American holiday (MCT) Americans are the most religious people in the developed world, yet Thanks- giving has become our most widely celebrated holiday pre- cisely because it lacks any overt sectarian origins. Greg Stevens, Publisher gstevens@redbluffdailynews.com Chip Thompson, Editor editor@redbluffdailynews.com Editorial policy The Daily News opinion is expressed in the editorial. The opinions expressed in columns, letters and cartoons are those of the authors and artists. Letter policy The Daily News welcomes let- ters from its readers on timely topics of public interest. All let- ters must be signed and pro- vide the writer’s home street address and home phone num- ber. Anonymous letters, open letters to others, pen names and petition-style letters will not be allowed. Letters should be typed and cannot exceed two double-spaced pages or 500 words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section of those submit- ted will be considered for publi- cation. Letters will be edited. Letters are published at the discretion of the editor. Mission Statement We believe that a strong com- munity newspaper is essential to a strong community, creating citizens who are better informed and more involved. The Daily News will be the indispensible guide to life and living in Tehama County. We will be the premier provider of local news, information and advertising through our daily newspaper, online edition and other print and Internet vehi- cles. The Daily News will reflect and support the unique identities of Tehama County and its cities; record the history of its com- munities and their people and make a positive difference in the quality of life for the resi- dents and businesses of Tehama County. How to reach us Main office: 527-2151 Classified: 527-2151 Circulation: 527-2151 News tips: 527-2153 Sports: 527-2153 Obituaries: 527-2151 Photo: 527-2153 On the Web www.redbluffdailynews.com Fax Newsroom: 527-9251 Classified: 527-5774 Retail Adv.: 527-5774 Legal Adv.: 527-5774 Business Office: 527-3719 Address 545 Diamond Ave. Red Bluff, CA 96080, or P.O. Box 220 Red Bluff, CA 96080 Christmas, Hanukkah, Passover, Easter and Ramadan all incorporate elements of hos- pitality, but their animating spirit is sectarian. Even Hal- loween and Valentine's Day are rooted in ancient religious observances. Thanksgiving is different. The presence of the so- called Pilgrim Fathers at the harvest festival that was the first Thanksgiving in 1621 somehow has endowed the occasion with a kind of mythic spirituality. There was, in fact, some of that because the radical Puritans who called themselves Pilgrims had abandoned first England and then Holland because they despaired of ever overthrowing the existing gov- ernments and replacing them with something "godly." They, however, were only about half the 102 colonists dispatched to the Plymouth Plantation. The rest were along to secure the interests of the London Compa- ny, which underwrote the ven- ture. From the beginning, we were a people of lofty ideals and earthbound appetite. Even the dish at the center of most contemporary Thanksgiv- ing meals has a paradoxical dimension that is typically American. Turkey is the only poultry native to the Western Hemisphere, but until the 1940s, many Americans who celebrated a Thanksgiving meal built it around another entree — ham in many Southern homes, for example, ducks or geese in states along the Central Flyway. During World War II, service- men were given turkey for Thanksgiving, along with lec- tures on the day's significance. They took the culinary custom home with them. In much the same way that economic mobility erased many regional differences and televi- sion ground away at regional accents, Thanksgiving as we now celebrate it is a product of the great postwar homogeniza- tion of America. This year, America's poultry-industrial complex will produce 242 mil- lion turkeys, which will yield about 6 billion pounds of sal- able bird with an estimated retail value of $4.18 billion. The contemporary commer- cial turkey is, in most important respects, the embodiment of the great achievement and prob- lematic blessing that is Ameri- ca's industrialized agricultural sector. Because of factory farm- ing based on large-scale agri- cultural research, Americans have the opportunity to eat bet- ter and more cheaply than any other people in the world. According to figures developed by Irish economist Seamus Coffey, the average French household now spends 13.7 percent of its annual income on food consumed at home, a Spanish family 13.6 percent and an Italian house- hold 14.5 percent. (A Lithuanian family shells out a whopping 23.8 percent to put food on the table each year.) An American household today spends just 7 percent. All well and good, but, like so many of our agribusiness prod- ucts, turkey has been utterly attenuated from its origins. Wild turkeys are cagey, rangy fowls; their early domesticated cousins were for- midable foragers. Today's fac- tory-raised bird is the product of selective breeding that has grotesquely exaggerated its breast size, since most "con- sumers" prefer white meat, and that part of the creature also lends itself best to commercial processing. Today's commer- cial turkey can't even reproduce on its own, couldn't survive out- side a poultry shed and is virtu- ally immobile at maturity. It also lacks most of that charac- teristic usually deemed requi- site in a celebratory dish — fla- vor. So, for the sake of what passes for tradition in a country that makes it up as it goes along, millions of Americans Tim Rutten will buy billions of pounds of all-but-tasteless — though rich in low-fat protein — poultry and then spend untold amounts of time and effort on marinades, brines, rubs and other flavor-inducing tech- niques. At the end of the day, though, most people — pressed to it — probably would admit that the stuff- ing and gravy are their favorite part of the meal. Whatever its gas- tronomical center- piece, the Thanksgiv- ing table's abundance exerts an attraction on Americans of every creed, class and background because it some- how represents the paradoxical tension in which we hold the two halves of our national life. We are the people of an idea concerning the rights of man — not a nation, as others are, of blood or soil. Yet we believe that our mutually agreed-upon idea expresses itself, in some essential way, in the restless pursuit of happiness. It is, after all, the peculiar American quality — the spur, perhaps, of our particular genius — to be at once thank- ful, but unsatisfied. —— Timothy Rutten is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times. Readers may send him e-mail at timothy.rutten@latimes.com. Your officials STATE ASSEMBLYMAN — Jim Nielsen (R), State Capitol Bldg., Room 4164 P.O. Box 942849, Sacramento 94249; (916) 319-2002; Fax (916) 319- 2102 STATE SENATOR — Sam Aanestad (R), State Capitol Bldg., Room 2054, Sacramen- to, CA 95814. (916) 651-4004; Fax (916) 445-7750 GOVERNOR — Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), State Capitol Bldg., Sacramento, CA 95814; (916) 445-2841; Fax (916) 558-3160; E-mail: gover- nor@governor.ca.gov. U.S. REPRESENTATIVE — Wally Herger (R), 2635 Forest Ave. Ste. 100, Chico, CA 95928; 893-8363. U.S.SENATORS — Dianne Feinstein (D), One Post Street, Suite 2450, San Francisco, CA 94104; (415) 393-0707. Fax (415) 393-0710. Barbara Boxer (D), 1700 Montgomery St., Suite 240, San Francisco, CA 94111; (415) 403-0100. Fax (202) 224- 0454. Side dish of Lincoln’s Thanksgiving proclamation Commentary On Dec. 25, 1789, Congress, packed full of our Founding Fathers, was in-session. Noth- ing, especially when it comes to holidays, is ever "what it used to be." Let’s not get into a "true spir- it" conversation when it comes to Thanksgiving. All holidays evolve - Saturnalia turned into Christmas and fertility festivals turned into Easter. Regardless of their original intent the current holidays trump what was. We attach memories to them. They become personalized with tradi- tions. We’re a country of re- invention. Thanksgiving means to us now what it means to us now: It’s the only day of year which the perennial sandwich meat turkey suddenly has spe- cial narcotic properties. It’s the year’s biggest shopping day, busiest travel day, and the most drunken arguments over why we bother to make sweet potatoes when no one eats them day. Thanksgiving is a boon to the economy. Entire industries like pumpkin and turkey producers depend on this all-American eat- ing holiday. Americans cook up around 45 million birds for Thanksgiving dinner, along with mountains of traditional starchy comfort-food favorites. Plus, towers of pies and a tsunami of beer (a Puritan staple) saturate the landscape. Yes, it’s all about overdoing it. Americans take to the roads and the skies in record numbers to watch their loved ones over do it. And why do we do this? Why do we hang out with our families and friends the last Thursday of November every year? It’s the pilgrims, right? Sure, the pilgrims tried to do some- thing with indigenous North American items like giant wild birds and goofy looking gourds and had a feast. Yes, it’s a harvest festival — marking the end of the sum- mer’s work and noting the Earth’s bounty. But it’s more about President Lincoln, who in 1863 — halfway through the bloodiest and highest casualty war Ameri- ca has yet to face and with a country divided against itself — declared a national day of giving thanks on the last Thursday of November. Prior to that time, each year it was up to the presi- dent to decide which day was set aside. Yes, Thanksgiving didn’t start as a day of gorging and watching football with your usu- ally avoided relatives. For Lin- coln, it was a somber occasion to give — wait for it — thanks — even during our country’s darkest hour. "And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascrip- tions justly due to Him for such singular deliv- erances and blessings, they do also, with hum- ble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience," wrote the 16th Presi- dent in his Thanksgiv- ing Proclamation. "Commend to His ten- der care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoid- ably engaged and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be con- sistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union." Humble penitence? Widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers? A day of somber national contri- tion? We’d rather just hear how we’re number one even though currently we’re in two never- ending wars coming out of the Bush lost decade for the middle-class. Even though we’re losing our standing in the world, our feck- less new Congress is interested in nothing beyond their own noses. Tina Dupuy A short 10 years ago America was a leader in human rights, now former President George W. Bush boasts about waterboarding and indefinite detentions on his chatty book tour. Yes, a Thanksgiving of solemn national self-reflection seems as antiquated as a buckle on one’s hat. Okay, maybe we should get into a "true spirit" of Thanksgiv- ing conversation. ----- Tina Dupuy is an award- winning writer and the editor of FishbowlLA.com. Tina can be reached at tinadupuy@yahoo.com.