Cheating on the Turkey

What is the point of Thanksgiving? Is it a stuck-in-there holiday to make November more bearable and give us all a long weekend? Is it to juice the travel industry? To remind us all to feel vaguely guilty about Native Americans (although not so much that it puts us off our food)?

Was it an early attempt by enviro-conscious, earnest, lefty, do-gooding, Farmer's Market types to get us all to eat seasonally and -- perhaps -- locally?

Is it a family dysfunction dress rehearsal, the main event of which is Christmas?

Is it about eating, or cooking AND eating, or cooking AND eating AND being with family?

I ask because the question arose at lunch today: Is it cheating to have Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant?

My instinct is that it is. The point of the holiday isn't to partake of cranberry sauce, which is possibly the best straight-out-of-the-can food there is, but to partake of cranberry sauce across the table from someone you might not ordinarily see or (heaven forbid) even like all that much. And somebody you know and possibly love -- not some line cook paid $5.50 an hour -- has to scrape that cranberry sauce out of the can and into a bowl. Otherwise, so help me, it just doesn't count.

My Thanksgivings, you will perhaps not be surprised to learn, have met these rabbinic requirements. There is traveling involved; there is stress; there is extended family for extended periods of time. Yes, there is turkey, though I haven't eaten it since I was 18, and seasonally-appropriate vegetables, and apple and pumpkin pies, but the point isn't the turkey. The point is the entire celebration, sun-up to sun-down, of America's favorite secular holiday, one for which, yes, we all have to sacrifice a little bit.

Am I wrong? Am I *wrong*? Or, like Walter, am I not wrong, but just an asshole?

THANKSGIVING IN RESTAURANTS: CHEATING OR NOT CHEATING? Make your voice heard.

Recap of recaps, Mad Men edition

You like Internet black holes, right? Who doesn't? And I take it for granted that you, educated, affluent, and intelligent reader, also like Mad Men, the best television show ever that is on basic cable right now.

Bearing all of that in mind, here is a round-up of every Mad Men recap I read, or have read, or is worth reading. You can thank me in the comments.

• Slate's TV Club, for a serious take
• Project Rungay -- for a stylish, thoughtful take
• Television Without Pity -- for a straightforward take
• Culture Vulture -- for an analytical take
• Pajiba -- for a cheerfully bitchy take
• The Awl -- for historical and cultural context
• Best Week Ever for shits, giggles, and Photoshopping.

You're welcome! Let me know if I missed a good one.

Kiss me, I voted!

Voting in the primaries is so exciting. You know your vote is going to count, since almost no one turns out. You know it matters, since local politicians, unlike state or national ones, often manage to get things done.

So, bright and early this morning, I popped into my polling place, got my fancy new optical scan ballot, and went to a booth to fill it out. Progressives down the line, check, check, check. That much was easy. Then I got to a long list of names I'd never heard of all running for Judicial Convention Delegate. The instructions said, "Pick any eleven."

My pen poised in the air, I decided to do what I always do when I'm faced with a choice of strangers: Start with ladies and Jews and then, when I run out of those, pick the best names. (This is how I landed with my first doctor in New York, the unforgettable Democleia Gottesman.)

However, this morning though I found myself gripped by a crisis of confidence. What if "Benjamin Abelman" couldn't live up to the name? What if "Mercedes Neira" rode more like a Kia? As much as I loved the idea of "John Longo" marrying "Karen Johnson" for the sake of their future hyphenated children, how could I base my vote on a giggle?

In the end I didn't vote for anyone. A step forward for representational democracy? Who knows.

this is what i get for reading polls

As some of you know, I'm a bit of a compulsive when it comes to numbers, as long as there is no arithmetic involved. Every day at 1:05, for example, I check my boyfriend Barack Obama's Gallup approval numbers. Not everyone loves him as much as I do (I know! Crazy!), and the fickle public must be monitored.

Then, when I'm done with Gallup, I head over to Pollster.com to get a sense of the bigger picture. Most of the time I scan the list of new polls, investigate three or four, then delve into the comments before recoiling like a dog who smacked into an electric fence.

This time I only got as far as this NBC/WSJ Poll before succumbing to whimpering & whiplash:

US: National Survey (NBC/WSJ 5/6-10)
Harry Enten | May 12, 2010

Topics: National

NBC News / Wall Street Journal
5/6-10/10; 1,000 adults, 3.1% margin of error
Mode: Live telephone interviews
(NBC: story, results; WSJ: story, results)

National

Approval / Disapproval
Obama: 50% Approve, 44% Disapprove (chart)
Obama Economy: 48 / 46 (chart)
Obama Terrorism: 48 / 42
Congress: 21 / 72 (chart)

Positive / Negative
Barack Obama: 49 / 38 (chart)
Democratic Party: 37 / 42
Republican Party: 30 / 42
Tea Party Movement: 31 / 30
British Petroleum: 11 / 45
Charlie Crist: 8 / 16
General Motors: 37 / 27
Citibank: 10 / 43
Toyota: 31 / 34
Goldman Sachs: 4 / 50

Preference for Congress after 2010 elections
Democratic Control: 44%, Republican Control: 44%

Let's break this down. Obama's at 50% approval (fine) with a 2 point advantage on the issue of the economy (!). Everyone hates Charlie "Opportunist" Christ, whose sham marriage, which failed to get him on John McCain's ticket, will also fail to help him stay afloat in Florida. BP, which ruined our water, polls almost as badly as Citibank, which ruined our entire economy. The Democratic Party is exactly as popular as failed, bankrupt automakers General Motors, while probably this asshole who hacked kindergarteners to death in China is still viewed more favorably than Goldman Sucks. All more or less to be expected.

Then we get to the fun stuff.

"The Arizona law makes it a state crime to be in the U.S. illegally. It requires local and state law enforcement officers to question people about their immigration status if they have reason to suspect a person is in the country illegally, making it a crime for them to lack registration documents."
64% Support, 34% Oppose

"How likely do you think it is that the decision in Arizona to promote strong enforcement of immigrants who are NOT in the U.S. legally will lead to discrimination of Hispanic or Latino immigrants who ARE in the U.S. legally?"
66% Likely, 31% Unlikely

More Off-Shore Drilling
60% Support, 34% Oppose

So, there's this law, right? It requires that you have your papers on you at all times if you have even a tinge of melanin in your skin or a faint whiff of chile on your breath. As an LA councilman puts it in an LA Times piece on the boycott of the Saguaro State:

"Los Angeles is the second-largest city in this country, an immigrant city, an international city. It needs to have its voice heard," said Councilman Ed Reyes, one of the resolution's sponsors. "As an American, I cannot go to Arizona today without a passport. If I come across an officer who's having a bad day and feels that the picture on my ID is not me, I can be deported, no questions asked. That is not American."

Knowing that, how do the American people feel about this law? 64% of them think it is A-OK!

Well, back up a minute. Maybe they don't realize it's racist. No one likes racists or racism, right? That shit polls worse than Toyota. Let's ask the American people whether they think this new law will be racist.

Well, cock-a-doodle-doo! They don't care. 66% percent of respondents think that HELL YES, despite Jan Brewer's insistence to the contrary, this law will be racist. It doesn't bother them! Heck of a job, whiteys.

Oh, and as an extra kick in the pants, the poll then kindly informs us that 60% of Americans support *more* off-shore drilling, because what has the Gulf of Mexico ever done for us? Damned lazy, welfare-check-cashing, bean-eating, sombrero-wearing, American-job-stealing Gulf of Mexico. When was the last time we saw *its* passport? We say, let the sucker drown.

BONUS: In Portugal recently, the pope overlooked poverty, illiteracy, AIDS, iodine deficiencies, sexism, racism, religious extremism, child-rape, terrorism, environmental catastrophes and sinkholes that eat houses to declare that "same sex marriage and abortion were among the 'most insidious and dangerous challenges that today confront the common good.'" Just, you know, FYI.