Selah

Selah.  In the original Hebrew Bible, back before they sold the rights to the Christians to be remade into the Old Testament, the word selah signifies a moment of reflection.  It is a time to consider what has just passed and what the previous section means before letting that part sink in and allowing a new part to begin.  And isn’t that truly the point of Thanksgiving?  A break in the Fall to reflect and spend time with family, before camping out at Wal-Mart on the following Friday and stampeding pregnant women to save up to 40% off of LCD flat screen TVs.  Forty percent!

Regardless of whether you eagerly awaited the moments spent with your family, you watched the clock wondering how early is too early to drink, or you curse your hybrid’s lack of exhaust fumes to fill up your empty garage and put you into one final sleep, Thanksgiving is over.  Now that we have all tucked in and given thanks to L. Ron for protecting us from the space monsters that want their souls back, or whatever the fuck, and the tryptophan begins to slowly drain our bloated bodies of sweet, sweet consciousness, it is good to take a moment to reflect on the year that has sped past us.

There are things we can all be thankful for.  As Thanksgiving comes, it usually acts as an unofficial end to Fall and the beginning of Winter.  And while winter may not be the best of seasons for most of us (goodbye Minnesota, see you in the Spring), the winter has its purpose.  It is a time when things can be wiped away and one facet can end without destroying the whole.  If a crop has a bad year, the winter acts as a reset button and allows the hope of a better Spring and a new harvest.  The same is true for us as the winter is a good time to re-examine the last year and allow the things that have consumed us to finally die the death they deserve so we can move on to the next stage.  It is a time to forget and move on, or accept and begin anew- either way now is the time.  Maybe you called or texted the girl you like one time too many.  Maybe your fiscal year at work has not gone well, and you need to start fresh.  Or maybe the policies of your administration over the last eight years have had a disastrous effect on the country and the world in general and you currently have the lowest approval rating of any President in American history, including even a President that was caught committing felonies and forced to resign in disgrace.  Yes, finally- and mercifully- this is the last Thanksgiving we will have to suffer under the administration of George W. Bush.  Selah.

Seeing Bush shuffle through the last days of his sad, doomed Presidency, it is almost easy to pity the man that will undoubtedly go down in history as one of, if not THE, worst President in the history of the United States and by extension the world.  Almost.  Jesus may have said that it is good to forgive, but if Jesus were alive today and preaching a new religion to hundreds of poor disenfranchised followers in the Middle East, talking about how a person’s true reward awaits them after death, and that the policies of money should not be the primary focuses of life, Jesus would almost certainly have spent the last few years enjoying several rounds of water boarding while having his genitals electrocuted courtesy of the fine men and women at Guantanamo Bay.  Take that American Dream, and don’t you forget who your Daddy is!  Who needs all those ideals and morals anyway.  Thankfully, George Bush and the ultra conservative hawks that have shat upon America for close to a decade do not have a sense of irony.  If they did, Sarah Palin and her folksy wisdom would never have left the confines of Alaska, don’t cha know.

It is almost redundant to say that it has been an interesting year.  Phillies won the World Series, the economy took a prison style shanking between the third and fourth vertebrae, and a black guy with a Muslim name was elected President of the United States of America.  Sure didn’t see that one coming eight years ago.  It is a good moment for selah.  Did we really just a elect a black guy President?  Right on!  Guess that means America is no longer racist at all.  High five America!  But now the work begins.  It is easy to step into the ring, but the hard part is to pick yourself up and go back at it after having the shit knocked out of you and having your ear bitten off.  So to speak.

We are in the epilogue of 2008, and now is the time to catch up with our favorite players of the past year.  Sure that Obama guy stole the show in ‘08, but his story is just beginning and there is a fairly good chance that you will hear about the guy again, so now is the last chance we might get to discuss the most important political figure of the year, Sarah Palin.  It has been quoted, misquoted, and attributed to many various sources that “people get the government that they deserve”.  It would be nice to believe that after having elected Obama president, but it is a bit hard to accept when you search Yahoo’s front page for information about the Mujahideen’s attack in Mumbai, India, and instead the top featured stories are about a lion that hugs people and Paris Hilton’s horrific outfit that she, like, oh my god, wore to a party- for reals!  So maybe Sarah Palin is a better indicator of the government we deserve despite her vice-loss.

Far from being content to be out of the public eye, she just keeps the hits coming.  While recently being interviewed after preforming a traditional ceremony of pardoning a turkey, she gave an interview to national reporters.  She discussed how the media can take the simplest things and blow them out of proportion, and how they can focus on minor things that they could use to make her look foolish.  In a moment reminiscent of Bush’s crap-tacular “Mission Accomplished” photo op, Governor Palin said all this at the turkey pardoning ceremony while a farmer behind her continued to run dead turkeys through a processor that shred the carcasses to bits.  Even Fox News had to laugh at her for that one.  But don’t count Palin out yet.  She wants power, likes to shoot stuff, appeals to the most staunchly conservative and religious bases, and she is an idiot.  In short, she is George Bush with a vagina.  See you in 2012 Sarah.

Well another Thanksgiving is gone and the next season has begun, the shopping season.  Despite the weakened economy and dire predictions, it is still the time of year to greet your fellow Americans in a spirit of unity and understanding.  Unless of course they steal your parking spot at the mall, or take the last Blu-Ray player from the shelves of Best Buy, and in that case feel free to stab them in the fucking eye!  Selah.