Happy Thanksgiving

[SIFU RON]

Have a nice one everyone -

Eat, drink, and be merry _ afterwards we diet _ lol

[GeneChing]

As I said last year, I'm not a big T-day person. Black Friday is another thing altogether. In hopes of a good Black Friday here, one that really puts us in the black, I'm releasing the subscribers discount code (subscribers always get a 10% discount code with each issue, good for two months). For an extra 10% off, use the discount coupon/promotional code "MIAODAO" when checking out. Offer good until Nov. 30, 2011.

[Dale Dugas]

I wanted to say I am thankful for my KFO family and wish everyone a most incredible day of thanks.

For those traveling I wish you safe journeys.

Be well!

[Lucas]

Just wanted to share for anyone who cares to read. This is not to hate on Thanksgiving day, but just to add a bit of perspective. My grandfather was full blood Choctaw so I've always had a very similar view.

Mostly, I am thankful that I CAN give. Its not always about being thankful for what we have or what we get in this life, but being thankful for what we can do for others and how we can make a beneficial impact in those around us. family and/or community is important, giving is important, and understanding that supporting your family and community is something not everyone has the capability to do.

"I celebrate the holiday of Thanksgiving. This may surprise those people who wonder what Native Americans think of this official U.S. celebration of the survival of early arrivals in a European invasion that culminated in the death of 10 to 30 million native people. Thanksgiving to me has never been about Pilgrims. When I was six, my mother, a woman of the Dineh nation, told my sister and me not to sing "Land of the Pilgrim's pride" in "America the Beautiful." Our people, she said, had been here much longer and taken much better care of the land. We were to sing "Land of the Indian's pride" instead. I was proud to sing the new lyrics in school, but I sang softly. It was enough for me to know the difference. At six, I felt I had learned something very important. As a child of a Native American family, you are part of a very select group of survivors, and I learned that my family possessed some "inside" knowledge of what really happened when those poor, tired masses came to our homes. When the Pilgrims came to Plymouth Rock, they were poor and hungry -- half of them died within a few months from disease and hunger. When Squanto, a Wampanoag man, found them, they were in a pitiful state. He spoke English, having traveled to Europe, and took pity on them. Their English crops had failed. The native people fed them through the winter and taught them how to grow their food. These were not merely "friendly Indians." They had already experienced European slave traders raiding their villages for a hundred years or so, and they were wary -- but it was their way to give freely to those who had nothing. Among many of our peoples, showing that you can give without holding back is the way to earn respect. Among the Dakota, my father's people, they say, when asked to give, "Are we not Dakota and alive?" It was believed that by giving there would be enough for all -- the exact opposite of the system we live in now, which is based on selling, not giving. To the Pilgrims, and most English and European peoples, the Wampanoags were heathens, and of the Devil. They saw Squanto not as an equal but as an instrument of their God to help his chosen people, themselves. Since that initial sharing, Native American food has spread around the world. Nearly 70 percent of all crops grown today were originally cultivated by Native American peoples. I sometimes wonder what they ate in Europe before they met us. Spaghetti without tomatoes? Meat and potatoes without potatoes? And at the "first Thanksgiving" the Wampanoags provided most of the food -- and signed a treaty granting Pilgrims the right to the land at Plymouth, the real reason for the first Thanksgiving. What did the Europeans give in return? Within 20 years European disease and treachery had decimated the Wampanoags. Most diseases then came from animals that Europeans had domesticated. Cowpox from cows led to smallpox, one of the great killers of our people, spread through gifts of blankets used by infected Europeans. Some estimate that diseases accounted for a death toll reaching 90 percent in some Native American communities. By 1623, Mather the elder, a Pilgrim leader, was giving thanks to his God for destroying the heathen savages to make way "for a better growth," meaning his people. In stories told by the Dakota people, an evil person always keeps his or her heart in a secret place separate from the body. The hero must find that secret place and destroy the heart in order to stop the evil. I see, in the "First Thanksgiving" story, a hidden Pilgrim heart. The story of that heart is the real tale than needs to be told. What did it hold? Bigotry, hatred, greed, self-righteousness? We have seen the evil that it caused in the 350 years since. Genocide, environmental devastation, poverty, world wars, racism. Where is the hero who will destroy that heart of evil? I believe it must be each of us. Indeed, when I give thanks this Thursday and I cook my native food, I will be thinking of this hidden heart and how my ancestors survived the evil it caused. Because if we can survive, with our ability to share and to give intact, then the evil and the good will that met that Thanksgiving day in the land of the Wampanoag will have come full circle. And the healing can begin." Jacqueline Keeler is a member of the Dineh Nation and the Yankton Dakota Sioux.

Enjoy the time with your loved ones, if you have the chance to do so, and be thankful that you are in a position to help those in need. For us in these times, more so than in recent history, people are in need of a helping hand.

Give it.

[sanjuro_ronin]

Lucus has grappled the true meaning of Thanksgiving and made it his *****.
Well said Bro.

I am very thankful for you *******s here, truly.
You keep me honest and motivate me, you buttwipes make me want to do and be better and while I can't stand you ****ers at all, I am very thankful for you ****suckers.

On a serious note:
Many traditions we have, if we look back far enough, are probably nothing to be proud of but that is truly irrelevant to WHY we should mark these days NOW.
What Thanksgiving should mean is exactly what it does mean: Giving thanks
So many times we feel entitled to what we have and fail to understand that ANYTHING we have is a blessing.
I have noticed that those that have so little are always far more thankful for what little they do have then those that have so much.
Everyday we have is a blessing and something to be thankful, to have on day out of 365 to stop and remember that isn't a bad thing.

[Lucas]

i am very thankful for you *******s here, truly.
You keep me honest and motivate me, you buttwipes make me want to do and be better and while i can't stand you ****ers at all, i am very thankful for you ****suckers.

lol!!!! :d

[Lucas]

I'm thankful for this

[sanjuro_ronin]

I'm thankful for this

Rookie.

[Lucas]

I bow to the master.

[sanjuro_ronin]

I bow to the master.

There is something so hot and so intimidating in that pic...I think I need to be alone for a bit...

[Lucas]

dude seriously. shes freaking hot!

[sanjuro_ronin]

dude seriously. shes freaking hot!

Yeah, too hot...probably created by Satan to tempt mortal man !!

[Lucas]

or an angel sent to teach us the error of our ways!

[sanjuro_ronin]

or an angel sent to teach us the error of our ways!

Such an optimist !

[GeneChing]

When I interviewed her two years ago, she came off as quite level-headed and even a little modest about her looks. That made her even hotter.

I can hardly wait for Haywire.

Have a great holiday, everyone!