Names are markers. They not only identify who we are but also whose we are. I met a young man named Lupe once; the first thing that popped into my head was, “that’s a woman’s name.” It’s short for Guadalupe. Lupe explained to me that one naming tradition of Latinx people is to name a child born on the day of the Virgin of Guadalupe after that icon; also, a part of that tradition is to name a firstborn son after the father’s father. And there you have it: Lupe was named for his paternal grandfather, who had been born on the day of the Virgin de Guadalupe. 

African Americans within the United States, for the most part, have names that were passed down through a slave-holding society which was primarily English. No surprise there. Beginning en masse in the 1960s and continuing to today, many African Americans have made a conscious decision to change their names—sometimes legally, sometimes not—to names from the African continent in an effort to reconnect with a history and lineage that was brutally repressed. The names can be cultural, religious, or reflect a combination: Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee member Stokely Carmichael became Kwame Ture; Lew Alcindor became a Muslim and changed his name to Kareem Abdul Jabbar; Yvette Stevens joined the Black Panther Party and became Chaka Khan. In choosing a name for a child, the idea is to give a name that will bring honor to the family but also direction to the child for the future. For an adult choosing an African name, the name should tell who the person is, but also, who the person should become; a name that identifies an individual as valiant or a clear communicator, for example, is also an admonishment to the person to continue to strive for those traits. 

Which brings me to president-(s)elect Donald Trump’s pick for United States Attorney General: Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, III. Jeff, as he’s fondly known, was named after his father and had no choice in the matter. Likewise, Jefferson Beauregard, Jr. was named for his father. And, like his subsequent progeny, the Sr. and first Jefferson Beauregard also did not have a say in his name, but that’s not important. What is important is the Sr. and first Jeff Sessions was born on April 13, 1861, the day after Confederate General Pierre Gustave Toutant-Beauregard opened fire on Fort Sumter in South Carolina. The attack was the opening salvo of the war of secession from the United States of several slave-holding southern states; South Carolina had left the union that preceding December. Those states that seceded declared themselves the Confederate States of America, and their president was Jefferson Davis. It’s a safe bet that the Sr. and first Jeff Sessions’ father, Jonathan, was as aware as any fellow Alabaman of the mood in the southern region prior to those shots being fired off the coast of South Carolina. It’s also a pretty safe bet to guesstimate where Jonathan stood when he gave his son the names of two Confederate officials.

It might seem unfair to some to judge someone like contemporary Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions through an ancient African-centered lens that looks at a person’s name as both an identifier and an indicator. Okay then. Let’s not do that. Let’s just look at his actions. That should tell us everything we need to know.

And then some.

Forty-five years ago on Thursday, a group of Thanksgiving travelers climbed on board a Boeing 747-100 and headed to Seattle from Portland one day before the great American feast.

Northwest Orient flight 305 should have been an uneventful cruise of two hours and 45 minutes for the 36 passengers. But D.B. Cooper had other plans.

Once the Boeing 727-100 had taken off, he passed a note to flight attendant Florence Schaffner. It said he had a bomb in his briefcase that he would use if necessary. He told her to sit next to him.

Cooper wanted $200,000 in unmarked bills and parachutes. If those weren't provided when the plane touched down at Sea-Tac, Cooper said he'd detonate his bomb. The FBI says he opened his black briefcase, showing her wires, a battery and red sticks.

And so began one of the great American crime mysteries.

When the plane reached Seattle, Cooper exchanged the passengers for the money and three parachutes then demanded to be flown to Mexico. On the way, he launched his famous escape.

When the plane was about 20 miles north of Portland, as the plane was going 196 miles per hour and the weather was stormy with a wind chill of 70 below zero, the crew felt a change in cabin air pressure.

Cooper had opened a rear door and jumped from the back stairs. He's never been seen again.

Decades passed with the FBI working the case, searching a wide swath of countryside, running down leads and considering every possibility, to no avail. The story spawned a small cottage industry of books, a movie in 1981, and at least two songs until finally, this year, the FBI closed the case.

"We have arrived at our conclusion today that it was just time to close the case because there isn't anything new out there," said Special Agent in Charge Frank Montoya, Jr. "There's a lot that goes into that decision but really it was just time."

By now you may be in a food coma, but if not, it’s time for the Pittsburgh Steelers versus the Indianapolis Colts. So talk about the game, talk about how full you are, talk about whatever you’d like because this is an open thread.

Each year when Thanksgiving rolls around I think back to a year when I had no roof over my head, and no table for food. That was a long time ago, and yet it often seems like only yesterday. I give thanks not only for food during this season, but for those who gave me shelter during those hard times.

I woke up with the simple words and melody of Natalie Merchant’s song, “Kind & Generous” in my head. It isn’t always easy to remember to have gratitude when things look bleak, when going through loss and grief or fear about the future.

It is also easy to forget to say—a simple thank you. 

Do you watch television on Thanksgiving? I’m not talking Macy’s parades or football games, but if that’s your thing, go for it. I’m referring to the Thanksgiving episodes of TV series gone by that have become classics.

Many TV shows do Thanksgiving episodes. Perhaps it’s because November is a Nielsen sweeps month, and series go for ratings. Fans of Gilmore Girls probably remember an episode where Lorelai and Rory Gilmore had four Thanksgiving dinners, from deep-fried turkey to Korean. Netflix is even offering a month’s worth of Thanksgiving TV specials throughout the month.

The West Wing has two classic Thanksgiving episodes. I’d rather remember these or even think of the Obama girls rolling their eyes at their father’s corny jokes than ponder what the Orange Menace will do on turkey-pardoning day. He might send the turkey to Trump Hotel to be served to guests. If he even bothers to show up.

But back to the clips from West Wing.

Thanksgiving 2016 is here, and I think most of us are having a hard time finding things in which we can find enough peace, joy, humor, or light to be thankful for. But it's Thanksgiving, and that's what it should be for. So here goes, in completely random order.

Terry Tempest William's words (and if you live in the West or love the West and aren't reading High Country News, well fix that):

From the corner of my eye, a flash of wings: A burrowing owl has just landed on a barbed wire fence post. We stop. Its yellow eyes could burn grasses with its stare; we blink before it does. These small diurnal predators with their long spindly legs are ground-dwelling tricksters. Once inside their mounds, their calls register as rattlesnakes, mimicking the dry shaking of their tails: A warning, “Do not enter.” A second owl, hidden in the sage, flies out and meets the first on top of their mound. To me, these are the signature species of the Great Basin.

I am home.

The totally unexpected and joyful.

Fighting Democrats like Rep. Ruben Gallego, from Arizona:

I have a duty to tell the truth about Donald Trump. We cannot treat him like any other politician, or even like any other Republican, because he is not. He represents something much more dangerous. And while none of us want this to be the case, we have a duty to treat him like the threat he is – a threat to our values, a threat to our people, and a threat to our national identity.

Crazy ideas for making the world better:

How do you get people to discuss diarrhea? Ask them to write poetry about it.

That's the idea behind Poo Haiku, a competition created by Defeat DD, a campaign dedicated to the eradication of diarrheal disease. […]

Silence is a problem because diarrheal disease is a problem. It's the second-leading cause of death for children under the age of five. And it disproportionately affects kids in the developing world, where it's tougher to access safe water and medical care.

The ACLU:

It's the random things that are bringing solace these days, along with the regular, everyday things: family, friends and loved ones. This Thanksgiving, these are the things to hold particularly near. This Thanksgiving, these are the things to expand. Family is going to have become a much larger concept if we're all going to make it through the Trump years together—whether in a sisterhood of woman kind of way, or more directly by opening your home to someone needing your protection.

We will make it through these years. We lived through Bush/Cheney and should think of that as our training ground for Trump/Pence—we will hone our survival skills and we will save ourselves and our country. Because we will have to. What I'm probably most thankful for this year is that this community exists, that I am part of it, and that we will lead the resistance. Take this time reflect and to recharge and come back ready to fight.

Drop politics for the day. Forget selecting the best balloon. Stop pondering which dog is really the best (the Newfie; it’s always the Newfie). Here’s your real Thanksgiving point of contention:

Pie.

Pie fights are something of a tradition at Daily Kos, so is posting recipes in the comments, and while “pie fight” is a term that doesn’t always have the best meaning, and recipes are often used as a response to trolling, both terms here are a wee bit more literal.

Consider this your opportunity to opine on your favorite bit of sweetness bound together by flaky goodness. Just know that in the pie world, the ratings start like this …

1) Sweet Potato

2) Pecan

and go down to

917) Mud

918) Pumpkin

As for recipes, come inside. I’ll get you started on those, as well.

How is everyone’s holiday going so far? Stuffed or still waiting for that stuffing? The second game of the day pits that team from Washington DC against the Dallas Cowboys. Discuss the game, trash the violent aspects of football, or talk about whatever the heck you’d like because this is an open thread.

Republished from 2015.

There are jobs that have to be done on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and every other day of the year. We need doctors and nurses and firefighters and police. Then there are jobs that don’t have to be done … but workers are forced to do them anyway, because profit. Because the workers aren’t given a choice, other than the choice between working on Thanksgiving or losing their jobs.

So if you're lucky enough to be sitting down to a big Thanksgiving meal with your loved ones today (or for that matter if you’re Netflix binging or spending the day in silent meditation), spare a thought for those who are forced to skip the holiday to work. Spare a thought also for people who can't afford the big meal with turkey and all the trimmings—and remember that many of the very same people working at Walmart and Target fall into that category, or barely escape it.

If you're thinking about heading out for a little shopping after dinner, remember that workers had to be there hours earlier. Remember that many of them don't want to be there, even if they don’t feel able to speak out publicly or put their names to petitions saying so. And remember that common reasons to be glad to work the holiday include not getting paid holidays off of work, and being so underpaid that extra pay for working a holiday could mean the difference between paying the bills and not paying the bills.

Whatever Thanksgiving means to you, it shouldn't be a symbol of the race to the bottom.

Holiday dinners has never been without their conflicts. Old wounds open up, rivalries flare up and individuals try to navigate the bumpy terrain by biting their tongues as best they can. But this year will be harder than usual, according to the New York Times, as fallout from the presidential election continues to enflame the nation to the point where some families just aren’t up to breaking bread with those who voted for the opposite party. 

Matthew Horn, a software engineer from Boulder, Colo., canceled Christmas plans with his family in Texas. Nancy Sundin, a social worker in Spokane, Wash., has called off Thanksgiving with her mother and brother. Ruth Dorancy, a software designer in Chicago, decided to move her wedding so that her fiancé’s grandmother and aunt, strong Trump supporters from Florida, could not attend.

The election is over, but the repercussions in people’s lives may be just beginning as families across the United States contemplate uncomfortable holidays — or decide to bypass them — and relationships among friends, relatives and spouses are tested across the political divide.

This political agita wasn’t present in generations past, when the nation’s citizens shared more common backgrounds, according to a professor from Harvard.

“If you went to Thanksgiving dinner 50 years ago, you’d be very likely to have dinner with people from a different walk of life,” said Robert D. Putnam, a professor of public policy at Harvard and the author of “Our Kids,” an investigation of class divisions in America. “Today, there are far fewer people who are different from us around that table.”

For upper-middle-class families like his own, “every single person will have a college degree or currently be in college,” he said. “That class homogeneity was not true of my family a generation ago.”

If avoiding people doesn’t work, or trying to play nice at the table fails, you can always watch football on Thanksgiving. No one ever disagrees about that.

Is it over yet?

Thanksgiving: pretty much over. The slow-rolling nightmare that is American politics right now? Not at all.

If you do Thanksgiving with a politically mixed crowd, this had to be a hard one. There’s not just rage to vent—there’s serious grief, as well.

This holiday, politics isn’t the only possible social and emotional challenge, of course. After all, many of us go and spend this day of gratitude with people who we wouldn't necessarily choose to spend time with, and certainly not under the stressful circumstances of "this is a holiday and you will enjoy it, dammit" and "let's get five times as many people as usual into this house and then cook a meal much bigger than any of us cook on a regular basis." They might be your family (whom you love), but for real? When you're dodging each other, fighting for the last burner, and nearly getting stabbed when someone turns from the counter to the sink too quickly … tempers will flare a little.

Or was your Thanksgiving cut short or cancelled by someone you wanted to celebrate with having to work early on Black Friday, or even on Thanksgiving itself? (That’s assuming if you yourself are working those hours, you're not reading this post.)

So what are your frustrations tonight? What, despite your immense gratitude for all the good things in your life, just drove you up a wall today? Was it your conservative relatives? Your liberal ones? The lumpy gravy? The football on the television while you were trying to have quality family time? The fact that the football game on the television didn't come out the way you wanted? The fact that you couldn’t be with the people you wanted to be with? Having to scrimp and do without even on a holiday?

None of these things have to mean that you aren't thankful for all the good things in your life, but having things to be thankful for doesn't obliterate the pressure-cooker irritations of the holidays. Surely there's something. So—as we do every year in this space—let it fly.

While you wait for the turkey to finish cooking, it’s time for some football. First up today is the Minnesota Vikings versus the Detroit Lions. So discuss the game, explain why you hate football, tell everyone what’s on your menu today, or talk about whatever else you’d like because this is an open thread!