It's said that Thanksgiving is the Holiday of the F's: Food, Football, Family, Fights...Here's some comedy to ease the Unexpected:

Jon Stewart: "I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land."

Jim Gaffigan: "Thanksgiving. It's like we didn't even try to come up with a tradition. The tradition is, we overeat. 'Hey, how about at Thanksgiving we just eat a lot?' 'But we do that every day!' 'Oh. What if we eat a lot with people that annoy the [edited by TB.Net] out of us?'"

Stephen Colbert: "Thanksgiving is a magical time of year when families across the country join together to raise America's obesity statistics. Personally, I love Thanksgiving traditions: watching football, making pumpkin pie, and saying the magic phrase that sends your aunt storming out of the dining room to sit in her car."

Johnny Carson: "Thanksgiving is an emotional holiday. People travel thousands of miles to be with people they only see once a year. And then discover once a year is way too often."

Andre Kelley: "This was a really, really big year for me. I got to go home for Thanksgiving and sit at the adults' table. That's 'cause, you know, somebody had to die for me to move up a plate."

George Carlin: "We're having something a little different this year for Thanksgiving. Instead of a turkey, we're having a swan. You get more stuffing."

Roseanne Barr: "Here I am 5 o'clock in the morning stuffing bread crumbs up a dead bird's butt..."

Larry Omaha (Native American):"My mother won't celebrate Thanksgiving. She says it represents the white man stealing our land. But she's not angry, she figures, 'What the [edited by TB.Net], we're taking it back one casino at a time.'"

Dave Barry: "Proper turkey preparation is critical. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, more Americans die every year from eating improperly cooked turkey than were killed in the entire Peloponnesian War. This is because turkey can contain salmonella, which are tiny bacteria that, if they get in your bloodstream, develop into full-grown salmon, which could come leaping out of your mouth during an important business presentation."

Jay Leno: "You can tell you ate too much for Thanksgiving when you have to let your bathrobe out."

Jack Handey: "If you're at a Thanksgiving dinner, but you don't like the stuffing or the cranberry sauce or anything else, just pretend like you're eating it, but instead, put it all in your lap and form it into a big mushy ball. Then, later, when you're out back having cigars with the boys, let out a big fake cough and throw the ball to the ground. Then say, 'Boy, these are good cigars!'"

An afterthought, a suggestion: Would the editor of this board consider asking readers if they would mind if the people's posts go unedited? That's a neutral question.

Not, "Do the readers of this board object to certain language?" or "to objectionable words and phrases, because "certain language" and "objectionable words" are in the mind of the beholder.

Sure would save the editor all that time agonizing over what is permitted ("stuffing a bird's butt"), and what is not "with people that annoy [edited by TBnet] out of us."

Lord! Above are all quotations from famous comedians. Why does the editor of this site feel he must edit out Jim Gaffigan's words?
How prudish can we get, folks? :-)

That said, let's all get down to stuffing ourselves senseless, in the company of all those we love and, as Gaffigan says, with "people that annoy the [edited by TB.Net] out of us.

Hey, wait, why doesn't Roseanne Barr get edited for saying she rises early, "stuffing crumbs up a dead bird's butt..."

Grow up, folks. Nothing gets said on this board that we all haven't heard before.

Oh no! I just noticed that Larry Omaha, Native American, gets edited [presumably the dreaded F word is edited out], but Jon Stewart doesn't, even though he jokes about taking land and killing people. So are we censoring a particular WORD, which is tossed around like salt, and doesn't offend any but the most priggish (and remember, it's JUST A WORD!), but the IDEA of killing and taking land is ok, because the word "killing" doesn't offend anyone? And oh well, Stewart is joking. But so is Larry Omaha, Native American, joking.

What does the editor of this board think of George Carlin's brilliant riff on the seven forbidden words? It makes the point: words are just words.

Doesn't all this random editing illustrate the point, that this form of editing amounts to censorship?

I hope the editor of this board will not censor this post, because i have not used any offensive language, and despite my joking tone, I am trying to make a serious point, which may (or may not) open up a serious dialog.

Apologies Z, we've gone off the road here but....ownership has it"s priviledge. Afterall, this is a privately owned enterprise and is subject to the decision making of the owners regardless of anyone else's opinion.

Just Words...just for the record, the same two words that were edited out were definitely not the F-word (give us some recognition for righteous restraint). The word(s) is what our good mothers, while around young children, used to refer to as "h-e-double stick"...The editing does make that seem a little naughty, nuh?
Don't get too exercised over "peanuts"; the posting was meant to amuse not to hot up the joint!

I feel words are just words unless they accuse a particular person of something that is not a known fact. If we wish to take this farther, then what about those of us who speak of God or Jesus when there are some who read this forum who are not Christian and have different religious beliefs. Are we not offending the non Christians? Maybe we are but I do not see Jews or Hindus or Muslims complaining here. I say if a word can be on TV then it can be here.

I am against any form of censorship (except where children are concerned).
However, I have to respect the rights of any private citizen that wants to censor anything that he/she owns, such as this website.
ONE LOVE !!
Mike

And, really, random censorship results in boring reading, in the gutting of the language, in the killing of the fun or reading.

I see no reason to censor words such as the ones Z said were edited. They are in common use and are not offensive except if someone looks you in the eye and tells you to go to _ _ _ _. I respect the webmaster's right to edit and realize this is a private site, but it is not being read by small children. I am not advocating pornogrography or anything awful, merely an ability to express opinions. I think editing that word was going a bit too far.

Oh, just figured out what Z means by "h-e-double stick."

This makes my head hurt, the very thought that H*&^ could be considered offensive to anyone. Oy!

While we're talking, here, about silly cuss words, the word in question (h-e-two stick) got me to thinking about the expression "going to h-e-2 stick in a hand basket".

Wiki Answers has some conjectures on the phrase:

Clues to the origin of "going to h-e-2stick in a handbasket," meaning "deteriorating rapidly or utterly," are, unfortunately, scarce as hens' teeth.

The eminent slang historian Eric Partridge, in his "Dictionary of Catchphrases," dates the term to the early 1920's. Christine Ammer, in her "Have A Nice Day -- No Problem," a dictionary of cliches, agrees that the phrase probably dates to the early 20th century, and notes that the alliteration of "h-e-2stick and "handbasket" probably contributed to the popularity of the saying.
Ms. Ammer goes a bit further and ventures that, since handbaskets are "light and easily conveyed," the term "means going to h-e-2stick easily and rapidly." ...does sound more dire and hopeless than simply "going to h-e-2stick?

The expression to h-e-2stick meaning 'to ruin or destruction; to an unfortunate state of affairs' is found since the early nineteenth century. The early examples are quite natural sounding today: "There's a thousand dollars gone to h-e-2stick," wrote someone in 1827. ("Go to h-e-2stick" used as an exclamation is older, and is not often found in fancier forms.)

... the expression "go to h-e-2stick" developed a number of variants describing the conveyance for reaching Pluto's Realm, and these conveyances don't necessarily make sense.

Carl Sandburg, writing about the 1890s, comments that "The first time I heard about a man 'going to h-e-2stick in a hanging basket' I did a lot of wondering what a hanging basket is like." Whatever a "hanging basket" is, it gives us the alliteration, like such other common examples as "going to h-e-2stick in a hack [i.e. a taxicab]," "handcart," and our "handbasket." Non-alliterating versions include "in a wheelbarrow," "on a poker," "in a bucket" ("But at least I'm enjoying the ride," as the Grateful Dead say), and "in a basket."

My opinion...when you say that, if a word can be used on TV, it's OK here in the forum, you mean broad-cast TV, nuh, and not the comedy nightclubs of Cable TV.

It's an issue that gained significance back in the early 1970's with George Carlin's monologue "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" (or "Filthy Words")...reduced from the original nine words used by the comedian Lenny Bruce for which he was arrested in a 1966 performance.

According to Wiki: At the time, the words were considered highly inappropriate and unsuitable for broadcast on the public airwaves in the United States, whether radio or television.
As such, they were avoided in scripted material, and bleep censored in the rare cases in which they were used; broadcast standards differ in different parts of the world, then and now, although most of the words on Carlin's original list remain taboo on American broadcast television as of 2011. The list was not an official enumeration of forbidden words, but rather was compiled by Carlin.
Nonetheless, a radio broadcast featuring these words led to a Supreme Court decision that helped establish the extent to which the federal government could regulate speech on broadcast television and radio in the United States.

The FCC obscenity guidelines have never been applied to non-broadcast media such as cable television or satellite radio. It is widely held that the FCC's authorizing legislation (particularly the Communications Act of 1934 and the Telecommunications Act of 1996) does not enable the FCC to regulate content on subscription-based services, which include cable television, satellite television, and pay-per-view television.
Whether the FCC or the Department of Justice could be empowered by the Congress to restrict indecent content on cable television without such legislation violating the Constitution has never been settled by a court of law.
Since cable television must be subscribed to in order to receive it legally, it has long been thought that the ability of subscribers who object to the content being delivered to cancel their subscription creates an incentive for the cable operators to self-regulate (unlike broadcast television, cable television is not legally considered to be "pervasive", nor does it depend on a scarce, government-allocated electromagnetic spectrum; as such, neither of the arguments buttressing the case for broadcast regulation particularly apply to cable television).

Self-regulation by many basic cable networks is undertaken by Standards & Practices (S&P) departments that self-censor their programming because of the pressure put on them by advertisers — also meaning that any basic cable network willing to ignore such pressure could use any of the Seven Dirty Words.

Whoops! Meant to say, "in the fun OF reading."

Hear Hear, My Opinion!

All right, all right! I have been sufficiently scolded! First, blame me, Eric had nothing to do with it. Second, yes I edited that word out because I am always thinking of the old and the young reading this site. The old would be offended as this was and still is to many an offensive word. And to the young, my younger neice who does read this site and is under 15 does not need to read certain things.

And yes, I did find the quote from John Stewart offensive and unneccessary and thought about editing that out as well but I thought I was being a prude if I did.

If you want to know the whole truth - I didn't find any of those statements posted funny, but maybe I was just feeling sad that I was not able to spend Thanksgiving with my family this year and was missing them - fights and all.

I love living in Treasure Beach and consider this my home. However, as many of you Treasure Beach folks living abroad can relate to, no matter how much you love being where you are you still miss your family living abroad especially around the holidays.

Glad to know so many are not fighting the crowds in the stores and have had time to participate in this argument.

Happy holidays everyone!

When I go to church heaven and hell are always mentioned. Miss Rebecca, even though you would like to shield your niece's ears from foul language and I would imagine she is being raised in a responsible environment, I doubt the young lady resides in a bubble and wears ear plugs day and night. Whether or not she says H E _ _ outside of a religious context, I believe you are giving her far too little credit. She knows the difference between wrong and right. My daughter is 12 and she certainly understands what is acceptable language. The other readers of this forum do too.

OK...I've got to agree with Rebecca that many of the sentiments in the Thanksgiving humour spread were rather repulsive to the idea of family sweetness and togetherness. It's only reflective of the fact that many families have used the Thanksgiving gathering to bring together widely scattered relatives and friends, and hope to the almighty that everyone gets along...that sibling sleights or bullying or hints of parental favouritisms or crazy uncles don't rise to the surface after grace has been said.

In the spirit of tickling Rebecca's funny bone, in the company of her young niece, we'll try again...even though these may make many groan:

• Why can't you take a turkey to church?
Because they use such FOWL language.

• What happened when the turkey got into a fight?
He got the stuffing knocked out of him.

• What did the mother turkey say to her disobedient children?
If your father could see you now, he'd turn over in his gravy!

• "I was going to serve sweet potatoes with Thanksgiving dinner, but I sat on them.
"So what are you serving now?"
"Squash."

Prayerfully:
Best of all is it to preserve everything in a pure, still heart, and let there be for every pulse a thanksgiving, and for every breath a song. - Konrad von Gesner

Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough. - Oprah Winfrey

I haven't read TB Runnins' for about 8 months. I hope I don't need to read comments from wannabe editors every time I want to see what is happenin' in TB. Everyone is in favor of censorship, it is only a matter of where to draw the line. Rebecca has the power, and the common courtesy, to censor appropriately.

I hate to see what would happen if I was to volunteer to pay higher taxes to get Jamaica out of their fiscal mess!

Thanks to Rebecca for her hard work.

Roger: Not everyone is in favor of censorship. Where did you get that idea?

It's not a matter of those of us who think censorship ought to be applied in only very rare cases wanting to be editors. And no one is questioning Rebecca's contribution to the community.

It's a matter of using the power of censorship extremely judiciously, and rarely. Otherwise, there's no end to it.

Oddly, as society has become less uptight (for want of a better word), it also seems, in some ways, to have become more priggish. I was following an interesting thread about the movie, BLAZING SADDLES, director Mel Brook's hilarious and outlandish spoof on westerns. Several posters in the thread made the good point that if that movie were made today, it would have a hard time getting before the public. That observation prompted me to add it to my netflix queue, so that I could see just what the posters meant.

And what about the wildly-popular HBO series, CURB YOUR ENTHUSIAM, written (and starred in) by Larry David who, along with Jerry Seinfeld, wrote the SEINFELD series that ran on (as i recall) NBC.

In CURB, there are no holds barred when it comes to using language much the way many use it: Larry and others let the Dreaded "F" word fly, in all its appropriate permutations. David has a great ear for the language, and for how real people talk. There is nothing wrong with ANY word; it is all in how the word is used. Sticks and stones and all that...

Roger
Happy Thanksgiving !!
From Mike and Mary Beth.
Hope things are still going good for you.
We hope to get back to TB in the near future.
ONE LOVE !!
Mike

I don't want to see the word that rhymes with duck here. I do not want to see the names of genitals even if they are accepted slang. There is little else I or anyone else I know would find offensive. For the record, I find hunting offensive and I almost feel sick when people defend the right of the birders. Why is discussion of killing of God's sweet creeatures for nothing more than the entertainment of grown men found acceptable?

A "Closing" Contemplation On Censorship:

We were wondering how many parents, children and families together, in this community, have read any of Judy Blume's many books, which have guided many maturing young ladies (& inquisitive young men) on a wide range of personal, controversial, even frightening issues. (Are You There God? and a plethora of others).

She is a winner of over 90 literary awards, a New York Times best-selling author with adult books (Wifey, Smart Women...), as well as many literary awards including the US Library of Congress' Living Legends Award for "significant contributions to America's cultural heritage."

Blume's big battle, however, has been fought against censorship, ostensibly because of her honesty in discussing teenage sexuality.

Conservatives have targeted her books and their right to be on the shelves of public libraries. Regardless, the American Library Association has bestowed on her its prestigious award for "contributions to young adult literature".

Her novel Forever, written in 1975, self-described as "a moving story of the end of innocence" remains one of the most banned books of all for (in the mind of the be-holder) "sexually explicit content..."
Blume's young adult novels have sold over 80 million world-wide, so it seems there's a lot of mental contagion being spread about.

She works tirelessly with the Coalition Against Censorship to support banned authors like herself for speaking the truth in the authentic voice of her young & older subjects.

In an op-ed piece she wrote, in defense of the Harry Potter series, she said: "At the rate we're going, I can imagine next year's headline: Goodnight Moon Banned For Encouraging Children to Communicate with Furniture."

Other Judy Blume Quotes:
“Let children read whatever they want and then talk about it with them. If parents and kids can talk together, we won't have as much censorship because we won't have as much fear.”

from Forever: "Thats not a bad word, hate and war are bad words, "f" isnt.” (a letter of the alphabet allusion previously spoken by Just Words in a Nov 24th posting in this thread)