What We Fight About, When We Fight at Thanksgiving

?It's pretty much guaranteed that if you're going to spend a prolonged or shorter amount of time with any immediate or distant family members over the upcoming holiday, you're going to have to channel all that togetherness and enforced thankfulness into something a little more dysfunctional at some point. But instead of feeling bad about yourself for ruining the dinner when you announce...

a) You're never getting married because why would you ever want to continue the loveless and hypocrisy-filled cycle that is your parents' existence?

b) You're pregnant...and, no, there is no "boyfriend"

c) That vegan turkey is, just, fetid

d) Thanks...for all the BULLSHIT!

e) Grampa/the baby/that weird neighbor who keeps touching you really smells

...you should feel no small sense of honor to be carrying on a tradition that's been handed down by as many generations as will have controlled their gag reflexes by sheer force of will when vegan turkey has its 100th birthday sometime down the pike of the future. Even the New York Post says it's true: According to lady-site iVillage.com, 68 percent of women predict fights for Thanksgiving.

iVillage's readers say the fights will likely be about "money; not liking the food; the hostess complaining she's doing all the work; people who drink too much; and being bored." (Other reasons might include any of the above, plus running out of booze, and your relatives asking if you've put on a few.)

Instead of the namby-pamby advice to "not let things bother you" and "prepare yourself mentally" generally suggested, however, we'd suggest a full-out Thanksgiving rage fest, complete with plate-throwing and bottle-breaking, and then a hasty exit with screeching tires. Just don't cut yourself or any immediate family members. Seriously, you'll feel so much better, and the rest of those assholes will be thankful you left. Also: Punches mean love.

P.S.: Don't drink and drive. Nothing takes the fun out of a nice, healthy, insult-filled Thanksgiving more than someone dying.

[JDoll][@thisisjendoll]

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The 10 Best Lines From Another New York Times Article About Distracted Kids

?The New York Times will not stop writing about young people and their collective relationship with technology. This week, "Growing Up Digital, Wired for Distraction," argues that kids are simply different these days because of services like YouTube and Facebook, and "we're raising a generation of kids in front of screens whose brains are going to be wired differently." The article about internet distractions, which you can read online in its entirety, is 4,079 words long. Here are the best 258.

Because this is the same article you've read time and time again, it is probably more enjoyable as a set of ten context-free pull-quotes in chronological order as they appear in the newspaper. You'll get the idea:

1. On YouTube, "you can get a whole story in six minutes," he explains. "A book takes so long. I prefer the immediate gratification."

2. Students have always faced distractions and time-wasters.

3. Here, as elsewhere, it is not uncommon for students to send hundreds of text messages a day or spend hours playing video games, and virtually everyone is on Facebook.

4. He pushed first period back an hour, to 9 a.m., because students were showing up bleary-eyed, at least in part because they were up late on their computers.

5. Last semester, his grade point average was 2.3 after a D-plus in English and an F in Algebra II.

6. Allison Miller, 14, sends and receives 27,000 texts in a month, her fingers clicking at a blistering pace as she carries on as many as seven text conversations at a time.

7. Ramon Ochoa-Lopez, 14, an introvert, plays six hours of video games on weekdays and more on weekends, leaving homework to be done in the bathroom before school.

8. Sean, a senior, concedes that video games take a physical toll: "I haven't done exercise since my sophomore year. But that doesn't seem like a big deal. I still look the same."

9. "Facebook is amazing because it feels like you're doing something and you're not doing anything. It's the absence of doing something, but you feel gratified anyway."

10."When rock 'n' roll came about, we didn't start using it in classrooms like we're doing with technology," he says.

If you have the time and patience, here is the entire piece. But if you want to read something actually insightful about growing up as a part of this generation, try "Sad as Hell" from n+1:

I have the sensation, as do my friends, that to function as a proficient human, you must both "keep up" with the internet and pursue more serious, analog interests. I blog about real life; I talk about the internet. It's so exhausting to exist on both registers, especially while holding down a job. It feels like tedious work to be merely conversationally competent. I make myself schedules, breaking down my commute to its most elemental parts and assigning each leg of my journey something different to absorb: podcast, Instapaper article, real novel of real worth, real magazine of dubious worth. I'm pretty tired by the time I get to work at 9 AM.

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23 Inevitable Headlines about Rep. John Boehner: A Gift to the American Political Media

?Congratulations Rep. John Boehner of the Fightin' Ohio 8th! You're looking to be the next Speaker of the House. As such, we've decided to equip the American Political Media with 23 evergreen headlines in the inevitable event your already-emotional tenure in the U.S. House of Representatives gets any more interesting.

• 
  
• After Being Pressed to Hold Fire, Boehner Hurts
• 
  
• Tempers Flare as Leaky Boehner Spills to All
• 
  
• Emotional Boehner Leaves Nobody Dry-Eyed
• 
  
• Boehner Curiously Loved by Pages
• 
  
• Obama, Dems to 'Suck it Up' and Embrace Boehner
• 
  
• Obama, Dems Forced to Take Boehner's Package
• 
  
• Boehner Promises to Plug Gaps "Wherever He Can Find Them"
• 
  
• Boehner Stands Firm on DADT
• 
  
• Difficulty Hitting Various Targets Attributed to Boehner
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• Boehner, Taking it Slow, Aims to Please
• 
  
• Boehner Under Fire by Partisan Jerks from Left and Right
• 
  
• Boehner Feared When Approaching Targets From Behind
• 
  
• Boehner Needs Bailout After Attempted Stimulus Goes Terribly Wrong, Locks Up
• 
  
• Boehner Pounds Legislative Agenda to Climax
• 
  
• Politics of Boehner Are Not Pretty, Stiff, But Get Job Done
• 
  
• Boehner Caught in Sticky Situation amid Pres, House, Senate Three-Way
• 
  
• Boehner to Impose Stiff Penalties on Debtors to be Found In Arrears
• 
  
• Boehner Caught With Pants Down Receiving "Dirty" Contribution
• 
  
• Comfortable Working Together, Boehner and Reid Pound Out 11th Hour Deal
• 
  
• Boehner: "Special Interests Have Sucked Me Dry"
• 
  
• Boehner Nails Pork for Ohio
• 
  
• Boehner Sore After Failing to Please Everyone
• 
  
• Boehner Chafes After Being Rubbed Wrong Way by Press
• 
  

[fkamer@villagevoice.com. Special thanks to Aaron L. for assistance.]

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