Thanks for Giving

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If you're reading this blog, you've made it through another American Thanksgiving. Since many of my readers are outside of the U.S., however, I thought I'd explain what yesterday was all about.

We call the holiday "Thanksgiving" because it is based on a myth about early European settlers in America wherein the punch line is that they "give thanks." The story goes that a boatload of religious freaks who were run out of their homeland for pestering people with their intense self-loathing and superstitious nonsense, landed on this continent and built some cabins or whatever. The local inhabitants were all like, "Whatever, it's cool, there's plenty of space and resources for everyone. Just don't be douches about it."

When winter came, they all nearly froze and starved and the local natives felt sorry for them and helped them out. Then, when spring came, they decided to celebrate their survival with a modest meal with their kind benefactors, but it took them all the way until the next autumn to get around to doing it for some reason.

But then later the religious freaks did, in fact, become douches, as religious freaks almost always most certainly will, and they killed off almost all of the natives on the continent so they could steal their land and get rich and celebrate their "good fortune" each and every year for centuries to come. And what better way to celebrate such a humble story of survival and compassion than with a gut-gorging, bacchanalian orgy of fat- and cholesterol-injecting, artery-clogging, cardiac-inducing, gluttony? Millions of innocent birds are genetically modified, incarcerated, and brutally butchered to celebrate a handful of oatmeal salesman's good fortune 400 years ago. Sure. Of course.

For my foreign readers, the typical American Thanksgiving Day goes something like this:
Kids awaken and watch a parade on TV with gigantic balloon characters (representing products you can buy) floating above an alarmingly overweight crowd of Americans. Females are in the kitchen preparing far more food than their family and guests can possibly eat safely, males are watching football on TV. Food is served, large table full of already overweight people eat enough food to embarrass Henry VIII, family members argue, men nap, women clean and wrap leftovers, America increases its lead as fattest nation in the world.

You would think this would be scheduled for a Friday, to give people two days to heave, medicate, and sober up before having to go back to work, but instead, it is on a Thursday, forcing many uncomfortably flatulent and hungover Americans to suffer through another day of work before the weekend. Historians believe this is a remnant of the "self-loathing" part of the original oatmeal salesmen who started all of this.

Those who do not have to work on Friday, go to stores to make the gluttony and conspicuous consumption of Thanksgiving look like child's play compared to the supernatural uber-consumerism that will take place for the next solid month in honor of the birth of a Jewish magician two millennia ago.

I hope you found this brief historical account both entertaining and enlightening. Please direct your complaints to the comments section below. Happy holidays. : )

Holiday Travel Tips

Bizarro is brought to you today by Holiday Travel.

I stopped traveling during the holidays many years ago and it has improved my life immensely. If you're driving and you don't have far to go, you may have a little traffic to contend with and that's not such a big deal. But if you've got to fly, you may as well be playing Russian roulette.

Any time a person flies these days, they're taking a big risk of being annoyed to death, but statistics show that during the three main U.S. holidays – Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the Festival of Saint Pancreas – the risk increases 287%.

Last year alone, 23,507 passengers were annoyed to death in the United States during the holidays, compared with 18,761 in the previous year. This year, only one day into the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, officials report that over 2900 fatalities by annoyance have already occurred. With weather delays common this time of year and Sarah Palin's face in regular rotation on news channels typically shown in airports, thousands more are expected.

Mental health officials are recommending this year that if you don't have to travel for the holidays (i.e. sick relatives, on the lam, being written out of a substantial will) stay home and celebrate with local friends. And if you must travel by air, stay inebriated.

No Contest Today

Happy Thanksgiving!

We here at YACB wish you a Happy Thanksgiving!

(Cover to Funny Stuff #29 by Otto Feuer courtesy of the GCD.)

Pumped up Pigeon

Bizarro is brought to your attention here today by Major League Baseball.

I am not proud of this, but in my late teens and early adulthood, I found the idea of becoming a bodybuilder appealing. It was part and parcel of the inherent masculine insecurity of my youth and I suppose I figured if I was built like Arnold Schwarzenheimer, people would know I was tough.

Now when I look at those big bumpy people, I am both repulsed by the malformation of their bodies and impressed by how much time they've spent lifting heavy things instead of doing something intellectually or creatively stimulating. Some get so big I begin to wonder if they can still wipe their own butts or reach a computer keyboard with both hands.

Of course, there is a difference between people who build their bodies for competition and people who go crazy and turn into balloon animals. I think guys (and gals) like that have a similar body image distortion problem as anorexics and plastic surgery addicts.

I enjoy exercise and sports, always have, so I've spent a fair amount of time in gyms over the years, but the thought of doing so 6 or 8 hours a day for years sounds like a prison sentence. In fact, that's pretty much a lot of prisoners actually do all day, but at least they're getting free room and board.

I don't mean to be overly judgmental, body building isn't for me but that doesn't make it wrong or worthless. I have a couple of friends who are vegan bodybuilders and they're both great guys. They enjoy bodybuilding and they're animal rights types, so they use their sport to show that one does not need animal protein or steroids to become strong and bumpy. Cheers to them.

They also still look human, which is a big plus in my book.

Bigger Better Beastly

Bizarro is brought to you today by The Magic of Sculpture.

Again, for some reason that is probably no more exciting than coincidence, here is a cartoon about fighting.

But it's not really about fighting. I got this idea from watching a basketball game on TV. As baggy pants became a fashion trend among ghetto thugs and then suburban mall rats, the NBA went to increasingly bigger shorts, and other levels of basketball followed. The small shorts of the 70s look ridiculous to us now, but they were that size because they didn't restrict the player's movement. I doubt the same can be said for the shorts of today, it looks like guys playing basketball in dresses. Once they start sweating, they're playing in wet dresses. Charming.

I would think that if one player suddenly decided to wear a uniform that fit, he'd be able to outmaneuver the other guys in their 1920s ladies swimsuits, win games, and the trend would reverse. If it were all about function, as most sports clothing is, their uniforms would resemble that of a cyclist. But would the egos of the NBA be caught dead in bike shorts? I wonder.

So here is a cartoon featuring boxers with huge, over-sized equipment and shorts, and don't they look cool? Can't wait to see them wield those gloves.

ANSWERS TO YOUR COMMENTS!

THIS IS A SPECIAL POSTING ABOUT ELVIS AND MIXED MARTIAL ARTS. A FEW MINUTES AFTER I POST THIS, I'LL DO MY REGULAR CARTOON POSTING:

I got a number of comments about these two subjects which I wanted to address, so rather than hide them in the comments section where the people they are aimed at may never see them, I'm putting them in this EDICION ESPECIAL posting.

Yes, I learned about Elvis's fascination with Holy Grail from the recent Python documentary. Great show, by the way, catch it if you can.

Some say dogs and dolphins fight for fun. I actually don't know anything about that behavior in dolphins and I'm too lazy to look it up, but when dogs rough-house, it isn't really fighting. When I say "fighting" I'm talking about inflicting pain, injury and occasional death for fun. Dogs don't do that, as far as I'm aware.

Someone mentioned that chimps do this and I don't doubt it. Chimps are among our closest relatives (I think only gorillas are closer DNA-wise?) and exhibit some of the same abhorrent behavior as we do. Someday there may be two species of dangerous, mutant apes on the planet. If we don't kill them all first. (which, of course, we would)

I didn't mean to criticize the existence of Mixed Martial Arts or demean the abilities of the participants. I have no doubt that it takes an incredible amount of training and discipline to reach the highest levels. I can appreciate it and could even potentially become a fan, but while violence within a sport is something I can stomach, I'm a little too squeamish when violence is the point of the sport. Just a personal preference thing, not a judgmental thing.

Regarding the existence of these sports, I think they perform an invaluable service to society. Given that humans are by nature violent, mutant apes, if we didn't employ vicarious ways to express our violent urges I suspect it would lead to even more war and violent crime. Perhaps this is one reason that sports have existed as long as human societies have. When given the choice of leaving home to shoot real people or sitting in your beanbag chair with a sixpack of Bud watching people fight in a cage, most people will choose the beanbag. Without that choice, men will go out and break things.

Which reminds me, most of this problem with human violence resides in males, not females. Although some women are in touch with their violent side. (Sarah Palin)

Someone questioned my comment that humans have no natural weapons like fangs, claws, etc., by saying "what about our minds?" I understand your point but it I don't think it is really the same thing. Until we developed our current brain powers, humans weren't particularly good at "out-thinking" stronger, faster animals. That happened after we developed language and thus, the ability to plan and cooperate, which occurred relatively recently in our history. Just my opinion based on something I probably heard on Jeopardy, I'm not an anthropologist.