THE MORON’S ALMANAC © 1999, JustMorons.com

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Almost as reliable as the Farmer’s Almanac®, but without all that crap about farming.

*** Volume 4, Number 4 ***

*** Wednesday, November 24 through Tuesday, November 30 ***

--- MORONIC TRIVIA ---

(Answer below)

Note: there was an error in last week’s trivia question. Mr. Claxton was not Mr. Claxton, but Mr. Caxton. Mr. Claxton was someone else entirely. Thanks and a free one-year subscription to the readers who found and corrected this error.

On November 27, 1862, Elizabeth Bacon met her future husband for the first time at a Thanksgiving party. Who was he?

A. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

B. Mark Twain

C. George Armstrong Custer

D. Geronimo

E. Francis Bacon

--- THE MAGNITUDE OF MY INGRATITUDE ---

The week leading up to the fourth Thursday in November has become a national paroxysm of gratitude here in the United States, and the Moron’s Almanac wants no part of it. Rather than smearing myself with the unctuous oils of thankfulness and slithering into this hallowed national orgy of thanksgiving, I have chosen instead to take my cue from the Austrian statesman Felix Schwarzenburg, who once vowed that Austria would "astonish the world with the magnitude of her ingratitude."

Please do not misunderstand. The Moron’s Almanac, as regular readers hardly need be told, is a medium of celebration, exaltation, and appreciation. Week in and week out, this space regularly trumpets the accomplishments of our magnificent if sometimes addle-minded species, deviating only occasionally to wag an editorial finger at various Evil Bastards.

But all this mealy talk of gratitude gets my contrarian juices flowing.

I’m sick of it. And what’s worse, but not particularly surprising, I don’t even understand how it’s come to all this.

First of all, the whole idea of Thanksgiving has evolved to the point where it’s been completely disassociated from its roots. In the winter of 1620-1621, a bunch of religious zealots camping out around Cape Cod experienced a devastating winter. A lot of them died. It was horrible. But spring came, then summer, and by the time of the autumn harvest things were looking pretty rosy again. So Governor Bradford issued a proclamation of thanksgiving—something along the lines of, "Thank God we survived last winter, and thank God that this harvest gives us a fighting chance to survive this coming one." Nothing too complicated.

The holiday was celebrated on and off for years, with an enthusiasm that depended in large part on the previous winter’s weather, until November 26, 1789, when President Washington issued a proclamation calling for a nationwide day of thanksgiving for the establishment of the Constitution.

This wasn’t very complicated either: "Thank God we’ve got our own damn country now, and don’t have to put up with a bunch of lousy meddling European bastards." His proclamation was unambiguously secular, declaring that persons of all faiths and denominations ought to give thanks to their God.

President Lincoln later proclaimed the last Thursday of November Thanksgiving Day in 1863, and President Roosevelt moved it back to the fourth Thursday of the month in 1939, in order to extend the time for holiday shopping.

But I still don’t understand the maniacal gratitudinous fervor that seems to grip our nation at this time each year.

I’ve given it some very serious thought. I tried to trace the gratitudinal instinct back to the dawn of man. I envisioned the first prehistoric man ever to have kindled a fire on the plains of the savanna. I imagined him on the brink of igniting the spark that would in turn ignite the brightly burning flame of human civilization--then suddenly stopping to give thanks for having his health, and this wonderful opportunity that wouldn’t have been possible without the support of etc, etc. And along comes a saber-toothed tiger, whose appetite is not likely to be deferred by any such expressions of gratitude.

Of course that’s a ridiculous scenario. The secret of Thanksgiving is no doubt the evolutionary advantage it gives our nation. This is the Darwinian perspective: any holiday that survives more than three-and-a-half centuries must be giving us some kind of edge, or we’d have done away with it ages ago. What could that advantage be? Well, thanks to FDR it gives us more time for holiday shopping, but it had already been around for over 300 years by the time of his innovation. The only other advantage I can see is that it acclimatizes us to all kinds of horrors. Are we at war? In the throes of a Depression? In the grip of plague? Well, let us be grateful: it could be worse.

Maybe that’s all wrong. The first people to celebrate Thanksgiving on this continent were after all deeply religious people. Maybe Thanksgiving serves an important theological function.

I’ve scoured the literature of our Judeo-Christian heritage for an answer, and find myself disappointed. Adam and Eve spent hours and hours of each and every day thanking God for His bounty, and what good did it do them? One fruit, one bite, bada-bing. See ya.

Anyone with any real interest in Yahweh’s respect for human gratitude just needs to sit themselves down with the book of Job.

If memory serves, Jesus himself wasn’t exactly eloquent on the subject of gratitude while he strolled alone around Gethsemane on the last night of his life.

The Judaic tradition is one of such terrible affliction that they’ve got an annual holiday just to celebrate the fact that they’re not slaves anymore, and that they don’t have to eat any more of that lousy unleavened bread.

Anyway, according to Biblical scholars it was exactly 4347 years ago this Thanksgiving (i.e., November 25, 2348) that God wiped out almost the entire human race, sparing only one crotchety old bastard and his family. With gods like that, who needs nuclear weapons?

So I don’t think the answer is going to come from religion. And as for philosophy... well, it seems to me that philosophy itself is the science of asking if there’s any point at all to this whole big mess, so it’s probably not the proper avenue to pursue this inquiry.

I’m at a loss. With no compelling historical, scientific, theological, or philosophical impetus behind it, Thanksgiving has endured all these many years. What is everyone so goddam grateful about? What am I missing that I’m not as wildly grateful as everyone else?

The few thanksgiving prayers I hear and read don’t give me much to go on. They always start with health. Everyone’s always grateful for their health, even during those fifty-one weeks of the year when gratitude is optional. Whenever disaster strikes, you can rely upon flocks of well-meaning friends rushing to reassure you that "at least you’ve got your health." It’s what they told Job, just before his entire body broke out in open sores.

But never mind what people say or pray: why do I have to be grateful, dammit?

First, I don’t get anywhere near the money I want. I was supposed to have my first million by thirty, and now I’d settle for being down to ten grand of debt at fifteen percent interest by thirty-five. I have friends who make more money than me—friends who are stupider than me, friends who don’t work as hard, friends who are such lousy bastards it’s a wonder they haven’t been taken out and shot. (I am of course referring only to those friends who do not read the Almanac.) As if that weren’t bad enough, I can turn on the television or pick up a paper or browse the web and read about any one of a thousand thousand Idiots and Evil Bastards who could wipe themselves with my net worth (assuming my net worth came in a double-ply, cottony-soft paper). All these undeserving millionaires—billionaires, some of them—and I’m supposed to be grateful?

Will you excuse me while I vomit?

And when did I start growing hair on my toes? And in my ears?

And why am I still chewing Nicorette six months after it was supposed to have helped me quit smoking?

And why did the television have to die last week?

And why did my brand new king-size bed--the biggest single investment I’ve made in household furnishings in my life--why is it all bumpy on one side?

And why did the first bill on my one-year, no-interest payment plan reflect a 21% annualized interest rate?

How come I don’t care who wants to be a millionaire?

Why did Calvin and Hobbes have to stop?

Why do people I like have to die?

Why can’t dogs live longer?

I’ll be damned if I give any thanks to god or nature until there’s a little more in it for me.

I’ll tell you what I am grateful for: this week marks the birthday of two men whose lives were long, exuberant, and laughing howls of ingratitude: Mark Twain and Jonathan Swift, the patron saints of ingratitude, were both born on November 30. (Twain in 1835, Swift in 1667.)

Winston Churchill was also born on November 30, but in 1874. He was good too, and we can all be grateful that he didn’t join Chamberlain in thanking Hitler for being such a peace-loving gentleman.

So I’m grateful for Swift, Twain, and Churchill—and Anna Nicole Smith, for God’s sake—I’m only made of flesh and blood, and I’ve got that damn Y-chromosome, so yes, dammit, Swift, Twain, Churchill, and Anna Nicole Smith.

As for the rest of this big awful mess... The opening of the Ukrainian national anthem is "We are not dead yet." That’s a sentiment I can support. But Gratitude?

Gratitude, my ass.

(But at least I’ve still got my health.)

---THIS WEEK’S VITAL MORONIC INFO---

Anniversary of New Regime, Zaire

Thanksgiving Day, U.S.

Independence Day, Surinam

Republic Day, Chad

Flag Day, Colombia

Flag Day, Paraguay

Independence Day, Mauritania

Independence Day, Panama

Liberation Day, Albania

William Tubman's Birthday, Liberia

Unity Day, Vanuatu

Republic Day, Yugoslavia

Independence Day, Barbados

Name Change Day, Benin

Flag Day, Bolivia

National Heroes' Day, Philippines

St. Andrew's Day, Scotland

Flag Day, Vietnam

Independence Day, Yemen

--- NUMEROLOGICAL UPDATE ---

It has been brought to my attention by the Almanac’s numerological correspondent that Friday, November 19, 1999 (11/19/1999), was the last all odd-numbered day that any of us will see in our lifetimes, barring a change in the calendar system or radical improvements in health care. The next all-odd date will be January 3, 3111. February 2, 2000 (2/2/2000), will be the first all-even date since August 28, 888 (8/28/888).

Persons wishing to drag zeroes into this may do so elsewhere.

--- THE MORONIC OBSERVER ---

The results of last week’s poll on whether or not the Moron Party ought to abandon polling will appear next week.

--- BIRTHDAYS THIS WEEK ---

William F. Buckley, Jr. (1925)

Dale Carnegie (1888)

Scott Joplin (1868)

Henri Toulouse-Lautrec (1864)

Bat Masterson (1853)

Zachary Taylor (1784)

Christina Applegate (1971)

John F. Kennedy, Jr. (1960)

John Larroquette (1947)

Ricardo Montalban (1920)

Joe DiMaggio (1914)

Carry Nation (1846)

Carl Benz (1844)

Andrew Carnegie (1835)

Tina Turner (1938)

Robert Goulet (1933)

Charles Schulz (1922)

Eric Severeid (1912)

Norbert Weiner (1894)

Jaleel White (1976)

Robin Givens (1964)

Caroline Kennedy (1957)

Jimi Hendrix (1942)

Eddie Rabbit (1941)

Bruce Lee (1940)

"Buffalo" Bob Smith (1917)

James Agee (1909)

Anders Celsius (1701)

Anna Nicole Smith (1967)

Judd Nelson (1959)

Ed Harris (1950)

Alexander Godunov (1949)

Paul Shaffer (1949)

Randy Newman (1943)

Berry Gordy, Jr. (1929)

Claude Levi-Strauss (1908)

Brooks Atkinson (1894)

William Blake (1757)

John Bunyan (1628)

Howie Mandel (1955)

Garry Shandling (1949)

Chuck Mangione (1940)

Diane Ladd (1932)

Vin Scully (1927)

Madeline L'Engle (1918)

Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. (1908)

C.S. Lewis (1898)

Busby Berkeley (1895)

Louisa May Alcott (1832)

Christian Doppler (1803)

Ben Stiller (1965)

Bo Jackson (1962)

Billy Idol (1955)

Shuggie Otis (1953)

David Mamet (1947)

Robert Guillaume (1937)

Abbie Hoffman (1936)

G. Gordon Liddy (1930)

Dick Clark (1929)

Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. (1923)

Winston Churchill (1874)

Mark Twain (1835)

Jonathan Swift (1667)

--- ASTROLOGICAL FORECAST ---

(See the online version of the almanac for custom weekly forecasts every Wednesday or Thursday night. This week’s guest astrologist: Mark Twain.)

Family figures prominently in this cycle. Conditions favor gluttony and sloth, but it’s a perilous time for flightless fowl. Relatives may quarrel. Restrain from acting on homicidal instincts. Avoid smug bastards who keep shouting out the answers to television game shows, and be sure to slap anyone who says, "If that was me, I’d be a frickin’ millionaire."

Trivia solution: Ms. Bacon made the acquaintance of (c) George Armstrong Custer, whom she would later marry. Give yourself twenty points for a correct answer, fifteen points for having been pretty sure it wasn’t Francis Bacon, and ten points for trying to remember how old Mark Twain would have been in 1862. Deduct five points for every second you spent wondering when Longfellow was alive at the time. Deduct fifty points and disqualify yourself from next week’s trivia challenge if you felt Mark Twain should have been listed as Samuel Langhorne Clemens.

--- THIS WEEK’S FARMING TIP ---

The Moron’s Almanac would like to give thanks to all the farmers of the world, without whom we’d have to be out there growing our own hops, barley, malt, pizza, etc. But we still don’t have any farming tips. Farming tips can be found in the Farmer’s Almanac®. This is not the Farmer’s Almanac®. This is the Moron’s Almanac. Please try not to get us mixed up again: it confuses us and embarrasses the farmers. Thanks.

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