It seems that the popular stance today is to reject Thanksgiving as a holiday that celebrates the raping of the indigenous American culture. Apparently in the new, revised, and popular history, the Pilgrims were celebrating the subjugation of the Indians who lived around them. In reality, there have been several incarnations of Thanksgiving in America over the last 400 years, and the first was ordained before the pilgrims even arrived. That’s right, On December 4, 1619, there was Thanksgiving:

“Wee ordaine that the day of our ships arrival at the place assigned for plantacon in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually keept holy as a day of thanksgiving to Almighty god.”

The next Thanksgiving was a harvest festival in 1621. (BTW, Squanto was a British slave. Leaving questions of slavery aside, he apparently had options and chose to stay with and assist the Pilgrims.) The settlers fed the Wampanoag people for three days.

As for this holiday that has always been, that’s not right either:

The first official Thanksgiving Proclamation made in America was issued by the Continental Congress in 1777. Six national Proclamations of Thanksgiving were issued in the first thirty years after the founding of the United States of America as an independent federation of States. President George Washington issued two, President John Adams issued two, President Thomas Jefferson made none and President James Madison issued two. After 1815 there were no more Thanksgiving Proclamations until the Presidency of Lincoln, who made two during the Civil War.

President Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a Federal holiday as a “prayerful day of Thanksgiving” on the last Thursday in November. Since then every U.S. President has always made an official Thanksgiving Proclamation on behalf of the nation. President Franklin D. Roosevelt set the date for Thanksgiving to the fourth Thursday of November in 1939 (approved by Congress in 1941).

There ya go, the shortest possible history of Thanksgiving. And even if you do disagree with the way white people eventually treated the Native Americans, which I am in no way defending, so don’t go there, you really can’t blame the pilgrims for what later generations did. Enjoy your food, enjoy your family. Heck, go out on a limb and feed and enjoy your new friends as the pilgrims of Plymouth did. Find some other reason to adopt racial guilt; there are undoubtedly many of them, but this isn’t one of them.

Technorati Tags: Thanksgiving

Can we be serious just a little while? It won’t take long, and then I’ll post about more Vegas fun this afternoon, but I really need to tell you about a site called MyFootprints.com. It’s a new site, and the purpose behind it is to help you leave you legacy in a safe, available location, so that people can find it when you are gone. You make your profile, which can include your final wishes, emails to send after your demise, a last video, and then you give someone the key so that those portions that are locked until your death can be opened. I’m still working on my profile, but I’m willing to invite you to look at it. Yes, you do have to register. Sorry, there’s nothing I can do about that, but it is free to join. Here’s a video to explain it a little better:

One thing I especially like about the site is that you can use it to keep up with friends and family NOW. It’s not just useful to others after you are gone. In addition to having a journal feature, and the ability to generate a family tree, you can have it keep up with obituaries from places you have lived before. The one think I’d like to see them add is tracking of birth announcements, because those are important, too.

I totally planned to do Vegas in order, but, well, I can’t. I have to get just a little bit ahead of myself. I am going to jump ahead to 4:00 Saturday afternoon and introduce you to Sparkie. Cause I love me some Sparkie. Colleen wants to take it behind the middle school and get it pregnant, but I am even more committed. I think I could have Sparkie’s babies, and you know, that’s saying a lot, because I’ve already been there and done that. Eight times.

So, Cass, what/who is Sparkie? That’s what I call the little troll guy who represents SocialSpark. And what is SocialSpark? It’s a new thing, and I’m pretty sure it’s going to be the next BIG thing. SocialSpark is a meet and greet for Word of Mouth advertising, and a stats package, and a networking site and, and, and. There is so much in SocialSpark that I cannot possibly explain it all, but it is going to be THE place to find other bloggers, advertisers, social media outlets and more. And, yeah, it’s brought to you by Izea.

Says Ted Murphy, “We have taken our highly successful PayPerPost model and flipped it inside out, creating a completely new model for social media advertising that extends beyond sponsored posts and opens up a wealth of new opportunities. In many ways we are disrupting our own disruptor.” And according to Peter Wright, VP of Software Development at IZEA. “Our goal is to provide advertisers and bloggers with the most relevant data possible in order to make informed decisions.”

I’m going to be one of the early adopters of SocialSpark because of my attendance at PostieCon07, and Pete says our keys will be coming out shortly. We’re going to do our best to break it before it’s released to the public in January. This is a great move on the part of the Izea team, especially considering the fallout after the last major release. So, do you you think those babies will have stand up orange hair or dark curly hair???

Technorati Tags: Sparkie, Ted Murphy, Peter Wright, SocialSpark, PostieCon07, Izea

Now that we have discussed my head (and I just added more pics to the post below this one, ya’ll), let’s discuss my feet. Well, not so much my feet as my shoes. Since I went on that shoe spree in the spring, I have a bit of an issue, as it were. In fact, I find myself considering the purchase of a shoe organizer. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, let me *cough* demonstrate the extent of the problem.

This is my closet. Yes, those shoes you see are mostly mine, and that is not the half of it.

These are also my shoes, but they are not all of the rest of my shoes. There are at least two three pair not represented in these pictures.

I think it is safe to say at this point, that I am well shod. I may have (had) hair issues, I may have a southern accent so thick you could spread butter on it and call it a roll, but my feet, they are loved, oh yes they are.

But doesn’t this look so much better?

I mean, look. It’s tidy, it’s organized. The owner of these shoes can get out the one pair they want without the others falling willy-nilly all over the place. Heck, the owner can FIND the shoes they want, and that right there is just a big ol’ plus, ya’ll.

And you know what else? I bet he/she never has to dust their shoes like I had to dust the ones I wore last Sunday night that had been under the bed since I wore them the first Sunday in January. *cough* Yeah. Well shod. Need a shoe organizer. *cough*

I just posted about all I need to get done, and I certainly do have a list of things to accomplish. So, partly toward that end and partly for fun, I played around and gave myself a virtual makeover. I haven’t mentioned it, but I do have an appointment on Saturday to “get my hair did” (provided I can squeeze it in between the games that I thought would be over but have instead been re-scheduled. Sigh.)

Anyway, I played with my hair, mostly. This is a cool auburn with highlights that I can’t remember what they are.

What do you think? I am so seriously considering doing it that it’s not even funny. I mean, totallythisclose. And yes, I did notice the eyes in this picture. I wonder how many coats of mascara that is, cause…..wow! I want to look like that all the time! I had a lot of fun at the site trying the different hair styles and makeup looks, and it was simple to register, too. I just uploaded a shot that I gook the day I got my glasses. Oh, yeah. Ya’ll I got new glasses.

You can do each makeup choice separately, and it tells you the products and colors you are using. You can also get one click celeb looks, and I have to tell you that I look pretty darn ridiculous as Gwen Stefani. The basic makeover is free, but if you buy an All-Access Membership, you get even more options. You can save your makeover in the gallery, too!

Sigh. I just called dh and Diva over. They were less than enthusiastic about the new look. Too bad, cause I think it’s hot. Maybe I’ll blow them off and do it anyway. HA!

Having used this space frequently enough to express my opinions on PayperPost, I think it only fair that I tell you the exciting stuff here as well. That’s why I am using this blog to announce some pretty big news. I found out today that tomorrow, PPP is launching a new website, IZEA. According to CEO Ted Murphy, IZEA will be the new umbrella under which all the PPP holdings operate including rssbrief, blog in space, urlbrief, zookoda, and a plethora of other sites.

Murphy is bringing a harem of 80,000 bloggers and 11,000 advertisers to his new name. This makes PPP the largest consumer generated ad network in the world. Later in the month, PPP IZEA will be unveiling a new platform, Argus, which Murphy believes “can leverage this growth to expand even further, and allow us to address our broader mission: to empower everyone to value and exchange content, creativity and influence.” I happen to think he’s right, provided the company learns to protect it’s Achilles heel: communication.

My involvement with PPP has dropped off a bit in recent months, as I struggled to come to terms with new requirements and the communication failures that went with them. I’m looking forward to new platform. I think it is going to bring us very close to what Ted and those of us who have been here since the beginning have dreamed that PPP could be: a Camelot for both bloggers and advertisers. Excuse me. I meant to say IZEA.

I noticed a resurgence in the links coming in from people who are adopting the do-follow philosophy. Unfortunately, I have also noted an upswing in junk comments, that is comments left by folks who just want the linkback and do not really contribute to the discussion. Man, I hate that! I hate it so much that I have adopted Lucia’s Linky Love plug-in to deal with it. I love to give, but I won’t be taken. Have fun ya’ll.

Oh yes, before I forget: I do still moderate my comments.

I hope you guys had time to read all the junk I have to do this week, else this post may not make much sense. Or maybe it will make sense just because most of ya’ll happen to be females, too/ Who knows. But I do feel compelled ot not that I am only 10 hours into this endurance test of a week and I already need a nap. Just sayin’