No turkeys today

Today everybody in America is probably gobbling turkey from Walmart and sloshing back cheap box wine (also from Walmart). They're taking cock-eyed photos with cheap cameras and cellphones also purchased from Walmart. After all that, they're going to head off to the Walmart photo center to get prints or CDs made of their film/digital images.

Stop! Think of the poor workers at Walmart. Forced to work at any hour of the day or night, sometimes with back-to-back shifts that mean they leave their house for a night shift and return after having completed 16 hours non-stop on the job. There are those also that are given such miserably short shifts that it's not really worth their while to come to work. By the time the minimum wage employees have been called in to do two hours work (this happens more often than you would imagine) and spent 30 minutes driving to and from work and probably about $7 on fuel for the privilege, their take will be 2 hours at $7.25 an hour or in reality they're working for $3 per hour. In my local Walmart there is a cashier whose dental benefits (if indeed Walmart offers benefits) don't seem to cover much. That cashier has not a single tooth nor any dentures. It is an appalling situation that the cashier cannot afford dentures with which to eat properly. It is a damning indictment of Walmart's low-wage culture.

I need to go shopping for groceries. I refuse to do it on Thanksgiving because of the way corporations like Walmart treat their workers. Whenever possible I get my fruit and veggies from a farmer's market. Aside from being bigger and fresher, they're cheaper.

I am not a devout vegetarian. I do not worship solely the vegetable though I really do enjoy a good beanburger. To celebrate the American Thanksgiving, I raise a glass. I am but an adopted US citizen having been a US citizen for just over a year.

Let all our tomorrows be brighter than our yesterdays. I know my todays are brighter than my yesterdays. I passed through strife and sorrow, hurt and anger, grief and pain to get where I am now. For that, I am thankful. I am thankful that I never threw in the towel and always remained the person I always was.