This. On the web. Next to: How To Bake a Turkey.

This. From the same folks in every form of publishing who tell me day in and day out, that as I am a writer, I know very little, I’m not very good as a writer anyway, and that they know best.

Reruns of “Editors Know Best” are being livestreamed on Thanksgiving so we might appreciate the media at a deeper level.

I’m not sure I would have placed the photo of the turkey beside the piece on what the experts have to say which is forget the turkey.

Or rather Just Stay Home.

We’re having canned tuna this year. Who can afford a turkey.

Next will be photos of Santa wearing a mask. Unless photographers rebel. And I thought cliché was relegated to pre-pandemic history.

People wonder why I am this heberphrenic madman who spends as much time pulling out his holiday hair as he does writing.

Fortunately, comments only get broadsided by the piece in question. The real issue is what is the role of ritual in American culture.

When I was a teacher, I used to get called into (bad teacher, bad) the principal’s office where I would get my knucklles slapped because my bulletin boards had no cut-outs of pilgrims. I never kid.

I still refuse to make cut-outs of pilgrims or feature them as family decoration. It doesn’t seem to matter what the ritual is. Americans will crave it. Why.

Because we’re shallow. Because we’re superficial. Because we’re selfish.

Because we now live so far from family.

Why are we here. No one really knows.