Saints and Strangers

At the approach of the Thanksgiving holiday each year, I like to pick up and browse one of the most definitive and thorough books on the subject of the Pilgrims ever written - "Saints and Strangers," by George F. Willison. Did you know, for instance, that the Mayflower Compact was crafted by the Pilgrim leaders to control the threat of mutiny on board the ship by their indentured servants? Makes the Compact look like a rather slippery cornerstone of American democracy (which it clearly was not), although it was an important document for establishing the right to self rule. Today's resistance award goes to Senator John Kerry for his call to resist the Bush administration's notion that "we the people" have given this group of thugs any sort of mandate.