Reasons to be Cheerful
The Fortnightly Rant for Friday, November 18, 2011, from The New Hampshire Gazette, Volume 256, No. 4, posted online Monday, December 12, 2011. In less than a week most Americans — assuming they have roofs over their heads, paid-up utility bills, and the price of a Butterball® — will re-enact a legendary encounter between British colonists and the indigenous people whom they would later displace. And why not? That shared meal is certainly more pleasant to recall than a lot of their later encounters. Mayflower descendants whose enjoyment of the day may be tarnished by guilt can easily, if only partially, assuage it at the …