Good morning.
Thanksgiving in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of forty. Sunrise is 6:59 AM and sunset 4:24 PM, for 9h 25m 05s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 20.5% of its visible disk illuminated.
On 11.24.1963, nightclub owner Jack Ruby shoots and kills Lee Harvey Oswald. On this day in 1971, a man popularly described as D.B. Cooper extorts a $200,000 ransom by hijacking a Boeing 727 and afterward parachuting from the plane to an undetermined fate.
Worth reading in full —
Joseph Diedrich, following Leonard Read’s I, Pencil essay, writes in I, Thanksgiving Dinner that it takes a market to make a modern Thanksgiving meal: “Thanksgiving dinner is made of several components: turkey, potatoes, stuffing, cranberries, corn, squash, pumpkin, milk, butter, and so on. Grandma buys each of these raw ingredients from the grocery store. Think about what it takes to run such a store. Contemplate all the unsung heroes — all the hands that contribute to a successful market. The butcher cleans, defeathers, and prepares the turkey. The baker bakes numerous loaves of bread to be cubed for dressing. Shelf stockers display produce. Clerks transact Grandma’s purchase. A bagger bags her items. Thanksgiving dinner depends on the successful interaction of every one of them, each with unique skills. Of course, none of the ingredients starts at the grocery store. Each one comes from a different farm: potatoes from Idaho, cranberries from Wisconsin, corn from Nebraska, and milk from California. In addition, Grandma uses 12 — 12! — spices to flavor her dishes, none of which originated in the United States. Grandma is talented. But do you really think she knows how to extract nutmeg from the Myristica fragrans tree in the Banda Islands?”
Anthony Comenga, correctly refuting revisionists and neo-Confederates, asks Why Did the Southern States Secede? and gives the only correct answer: “It shouldn’t need to be said, but the Confederacy didn’t stand for opposing federal overreach or eliminating handouts to big business—it stood for slavery.”
Steve Chapman knows that Trump’s building plan is bridge to nowhere (a waste Whitewater’s residents know about from their own experience): “Boosting federal investment in infrastructure has never had so many enthusiasts. During the presidential campaign, it was the rare chorus that Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders could all join in singing. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi says she’s eager to work with Trump on it. Her GOP counterpart, Kevin McCarthy, expects Republicans to cooperate with their president. Both the AFL-CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are in favor. And why not? Not only will we get more modern facilities, we are told, but the gusher of money will invigorate the economy and create lots of blue-collar jobs. But such investments don’t always work out the way they’re supposed to. Pouring funds into highways, bridges, airports, dams and other projects is easy. Spending money wisely is hard. What beckons on the horizon, as Obama discovered after getting his $840 billion stimulus in 2009, often turns out to be a mirage.”
Tom Haudricourt is watching while [Ryan] Braun waits to see if he’ll remain with Brewers: “Braun knows he came close to being traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Aug. 31 because the club kept him apprised of talks that broke off before the midnight deadline for post-season eligibility. Those talks led to the common perception that the teams are destined to re-engage on Braun, but it hasn’t happened yet. Braun revealed that he made one change on his no-trade list after the season but wouldn’t reveal the team he substituted. The previous list allowed trades without his permission to the Dodgers, Angels, Giants, Diamondbacks, Padres and Marlins. Braun, who lives in Malibu, Calif., played college ball at Miami but might have changed that team because it is so far from his growing family.”
There are many things for which to be thankful, among them not being stuck on the 405 Freeway in West L.A. on Tuesday –