Random Thanksgiving Thoughts

As I prepare to have my first Thanksgiving Turducken at a friend's house, I read a post from one of my elementary school friends that made me pause. Due to his rank in the military, today he has the unfortunate job of accompanying the chaplain and informing a family that their husband/father/son won't be coming home. Today of all days. This day's memory will stay with those people for the rest of their Thanksgivings.

Part of me is pleased that someone who takes the job seriously in given such a task. I remember my friend as a stand up guy and his service record confirms it. I am also happy that the notification isn't the other way around and someone is notifying my friend's family. As far as the other family goes, maybe the way to look at it is that hopefully there will be many family members at the widow's house (due to the holiday) and this group of family and friends will help them get through this difficult time - together.

On a different note, I was curious all week as to how effective the "opt-out" protest against the TSA's new scanning machines (link here) would be. Slate actually posted a decent article on their website about the lack of logic behind it. See, there are two facts that the organizers of this "protest" (I use the word loosely) forgot.

First, as Americans , we have the attention span of goldfish. If someone isn't reminding us every 30 seconds of something, we mentally move on to out lattes, social networking and electronic gadgets. We have a hard time committing to anything. Especially things that may inconvenience us. Which brings me to the second point...

As Americans we really dislike anything that causes us delay or inconvenience. If you've traveled overseas to smaller countries, you know that our need for instant service or satisfaction is frowned upon. In Caribbean countries they even tell you about "Caribbean time" to prepare you to wait a bit and relax. We don't do well considering our fast paced lives. So to think that travelers who are on a weekend off and on their way to visit family for the holiday would chance their flight being delayed or be the cause of a longer line because of this protest seemed silly to me. People just want to board the plane and safely land at their destination. Their thoughts are with the people they are going to visit and the meal they are going to enjoy. Protests are left for another day.

I hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving!