Happy Thanksgiving to all in the JK community from the Bell/Bradley household!

Senator Kerry,

Thank you, and a Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family.

I am grateful and proud to stand solidly with the extended Kerry family in support of all your efforts.  You make us proud every day.

And of course, it doesn’t matter to us what any pundit or insider may say.  We will always have your back.

Thank you Senator Kerry, and Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family, as well.
If there is one thing to be grateful for in these hard times, it is the fact that you won’t give up the good fight and inspire us to do the same.

Happy Thanksgivings are what you make of them.

These people know:

FROM PROJECTS TO PENTHOUSE, IT’S ONE FAMILY
NY Times, 11/23—http://tinyurl.com/ym4vnn

The weather was as unlike today’s as can be imagined: summer, sweaty, a humid evening on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Teenagers played pickup baseball on the steamy blacktop in Tompkins Square Park, sharing the water fountain with homeless men washing themselves.

A couple and their two sons watched through the fence. They were white and lived in five-level penthouse in an upscale building on Avenue B that overlooked the park and the projects. The players, black and Latino boys, were from those projects.

The couple were Michael Rosen and Leslie Gruss, with their sons, Ripton and Morgan. Ripton wanted to join the game; the boys on the blacktop let him play right field.

When the game was over, everyone laughing and drenched in sweat, Ripton invited his new friends over to play video games. His parents were surprised by the invitation, but the players quickly accepted, and soon this crew of raucous boys filed past a wary doorman and into an elevator in the ritziest building in the neighborhood.

[snip]

That was 1998. The group of five black and Latino boys — Carlos, Philippe, William, Kindu and Juan-Carlos — would return to that penthouse thousands of times over the next eight years. They would undergo an unlikely assimilation into the Rosen family, beginning a pairing that would traverse the gaping divides of race, class, culture and wealth that exist in a single neighborhood.

And today, as families of all types across the city and the country sit down for Thanksgiving dinner, the Rosen Family Extended will give thanks to that serendipitous meeting on a blacktop ball field.

[snip]

Today should be a typically chaotic day at the penthouse. With staggered visits from friends, relatives and the sons that joined their team after a pickup baseball game one summer, there is no single sit-down time for dinner. Instead, turkey is served throughout the day: typical protocol for the Rosen Family Extended.

“We’re not very conventional about it,” Ms. Gruss said.

On this annual day of thanks, we can all be grateful and we can all count ourselves lucky that there are special people like the Rosen extended family in this world.

And that there are people like all the families who’ve been touched by these special folks’ open-hearted generosity and all-inclusive spirit.

And that there special people like you who are reading this post, too. Like the Rosen family, the online community that gathers around Senator Kerry and his own extended family touches many more people than we realize… and it does so every day.

So… thank you. Thank them. Thank us all.

and may the day be full of peace for everyone everywhere,
Otter

Watching Richard Dreyfuss riff on Bill Maher about civics, civility, and the need for dissent, I immediately thought of what John Kerry brings to leadership, and how unprepared many are to appreciate what that could mean.

Dreyfuss talked about the discussion being apart from the melodrama of TV. I’d add with a better sense of responsibility for their mesmorizing power.

Please continue your strong, prescient and effective presentation of ideas, bringing truth to power.

Happy Thanksgiving to you, Senator, the amazing Teresa, and family.

With thanks to the entire John Kerry community. Some of us together for a mere three plus years, but with the closeness of a lifetime. We connect over talk of justice, fairness, and pushing away the dark. Bringing us to action.

Thank you for the home.

Happy Thanksgiving to you as well, Senator…and all the members of the Kerry community.

A Happy Thanksgiving to you Senator and your family, and to the entire Kerry extended family.  I am ever so thankful that come January, I will FINALLY have real representation on the federal level here in Virginia.  I really think that wouldn’t have happened without your work, Senator Kerry, as well as everyone in Virginia and here all pitching in.  Thanks again for all that and more.

Thank you Sen. Kerry for your good work on behalf of us. There is much to be thankful for on this special day. We as Americans live in a great country with a great Constitution that protects our rights. We live in a country where Americans are free to speak their mind on issues of concern to them. We are not censored on our views. We are free to voice our opinions even if others disagree with them.

We live in great democracy and we saw evidence of this on November 7, 2006. We live in a great country where dissent is allowed, and is considered patriotic. Dissent must never be censored. We are allowed to question our leaders when they stand by a ‘stay the course’ policy that is wrong. We live in a great country because we can vote and send a message to our leaders in government that we are not happy with the direction in which our leaders are taking us.

We should pray and give thanks that as Americans we voted to end one party rule and we restored checks and balances to our Congress. We should pray that our democratic leaders continue to work for and will find a peaceful resolution to end the war in Iraq. We should pray for those Americans who are not with us today to celebrate Thanksgiving. We should pray that their loved ones have better days ahead and find peace in their lives.

Happy Thanksgiving from the Emerald City, home of the Wild Ginger and Teresa’s favorite crab dish.

Come back soon - stay awhile!

Thank you for your special message Senator Kerry.  I hope you and your family a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving also to my extended Kerrycrat family both here and in the DU JK group.  You guys are the best!

Sen. Kerry:  My husband and I admire you so much and are looking forward to supporting you when you run for president in ‘o8.  We are ready to go to work to help in whatever way we can.  Have a great Thanksgiving holiday!

Thank you Senator for going to Danvers, Mass yesterday and telling the people there who had lost their homes and businesses that you would do all you could to help them in this disaster.  I saw you at the news conference on tv, in the dark, on Thanksgiving Eve, talking with the cops and the firefighters and making sure that people had what they needed and that they could call on you for help in the future.

I have family and friends in that town. It’s going to take a while to rebuild there. But they will. Still, it’s so nice to know that people care, and that the folks who lost everything know that there are people there to help in this crisis.

So thanks for doing that. It meant a lot. I hope you and your family have a great Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to the Kerry family. Nice to see you here, Kerry4prez. Hoping you’re having a great Thanksgiving day. Take care my friend.

Thank you Senator Kerry, through this extended family many have found their voices and with your inspiration and your leadership those voices will never be silenced again.

My daughter who is home from college sat down at the table and started off grace with ” we are so thankful for the sweet victory on Nov. 7th, and I’m so glad I voted”. Her first political involvement was in ‘04, and her source of info was from the JohnKerry.com community and that alone is plenty to be thankful for.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

And quoting Meister Eckhart:

“If the only prayer you ever say in your life is ‘thank you’, that will be enough.”

blessed be, y’all,
Otter