<p>During my 1980s peace activist days, my mom made the mistake of letting me say grace before one Thanksgiving meal. I’ve never been one to just mindlessly repeat some prayer drummed into my head in Sunday school class - that’s way too uncreative. So I thought hard and came up with something like this: "God, thank you for letting us live in a country where we have the freedom to sit around a dead bird trying to think of things we’re thankful for, as many people around us lose their jobs and homes and can’t carry out this dead-bird tradition."</p>