Turkey Day If I hear somebody wish me a Happy Turkey Day again I think I'm going to flip!! I thought it was kind of amusing last year and previously, but it's so prevalent that it's beginning to do to "Thanksgiving" what "Happy Holidays" did to "Merry Christmas" a few years ago. And giving thanks isn't even religiously specific. Only NOT giving thanks is religiously specific; to atheism (which is as much a belief system as Judaism or Mormonism, just less centralized). So it's not offending anyone to take a moment to be grateful. Even humanists can be grateful: to firefighters and passengers on the flight that crashed in Pennsylvania for sacrificing themselves for the nation's good, and for the many positive things in life like paychecks, sunny days, and tuna fish sandwiches. Thus, political correctness is not the driving force behind ignoring gratefullness; the driving force is basically giddy selfishness. It's not said in a mean spirit, but a spirit focused on ME, ME, ME, and all that I'm going to eat. Perhaps Thanksgiving would be a more effective holiday if we had a tradition of fasting the day before. Try it - you don't know what you have until you miss it. Materialism forgets the source and focuses on gratifying the self. So not only does leaving the "Thanks" off hurt the spirit of the holiday, replacing it with a reference to turkey substitutes the exact opposite spirit. Now, take that with a grain of salt. I enjoy jokes and lightheartedness at religious occassions. It's just when the joke becomes the norm and materialism takes over all of our culture... it has Christmas, Halloween, and is making a serious bid for Easter. Sorry to dampen your holiday spirit, but there really were reasons behind these... "holy days"... way back when.