Post-election thanks giving.

First, let’s all be grateful. Full stop.

Second, thank you turkeys for being at the centre of an important social event, the American Thanksgiving Holiday. 

Third, let’s all try to more gently reflect on where we are at, as a people, a culture. There’s a lot of sturm und drang going on.

When last I looked, the difference in the popular vote was about 2 million votes. Given that 171 million people voted (Hey, good going Americans!), that's a little over a 1% margin. Enough to declare a winner even without the Electoral College thing but very close. 

So nobody should be gloating. And nobody should be feeling bad, or angry. Both Republicans and Democrats made a good showing. Nobody made any glaring mistakes. Nobody blew anybody out of the water. 

This is where we are at. There’s a tension. It’s a kind of dialectic and it’s hard to keep two different ideas in your head at the same time. But it’s not impossible, and is arguably even healthy, necessary.

I have said before that even though I consider myself a lefty since I was old enough to stencil my hand on the cave wall, back in the Pleistocene, I feel relieved at the American election result. It feels like the tyranny of political correctness was broken, or at least spanked. (Are we even allowed to say “spanked” these days? We are now!)

How something as innocuous as personal pronouns ever got so out of whack (weaponized?) is beyond me. Let alone the whole trans thing. OMG. Who even knows a trans person? 

Well, it turns out me is who. And I say however she wants to pronoun herself is fine with me. She's a long time friend and colleague and a fantastic person. Tall, athletic and beautiful. And smart. Goddam. 

At ease boys, she prefers to have sex with lesbians. So there you go. 

A young lady of my acquaintance one day said to me, completely out of the blue, that she felt like a gay man trapped in a woman's body. 

I can relate to that. I might be a lesbian trapped in a man’s body. I don't hate men, but I do love women. Just wired that way.

A famous person, Eleanor Roosevelt maybe, once said, “Women love men, and men love men.” And personally I think that’s as true today as it ever was. (She also said, “Behind every great man, stands a great woman.” A friend of mine once quipped in response, “Ya, and behind every great woman, stands a man knee deep in dishes.”)

Maybe we should blame the pronoun fiasco on Jordan Peterson, the University of Toronto professor who stood up against their enforced use, for making it a cause celebre. If he had simply complied, maybe it would have all blown over by now like a fad, the way peace symbols, beads and tie dye did.

Then again, if Peterson had not taken a stand, maybe the pronoun Nazis would by now be sexing the whole of the English language, requiring all "its", like cities, mountains and turtles - and turkeys - be identified as "he, she, or they.”

So confusing. Also interesting. Anyways…

Happy Thanksgiving ‘merica!

If you are of “a certain age” you will be unable to forget the turkey drop episode of the sit-com WKRP in Cincinatti and announcer Les Nessman’s explanation, “I swear to God I thought turkeys could fly.”