Who’s giving thanks for what?

My twice a month schedule for this columnist gig being what it is, I’m arriving late to the topic of Thanksgiving, that weekend when a fair number of Canadians fake family joy and desperately count down the minutes to departure time, while others genuinely savour moments in the company of their brood, and wish the evening would never end, with not a soul in either camp taking pity on those poor old turkeys whose gobbling days were brought to a bloody end in order to satiate the appetite of all.

But, hey, even as I was inhaling my monstrous share of our Tom Turkey last Sunday, and pigging out on hot turkey sandwiches and chips the next day, I was — while scraping away an abundance of gravy and dressing embedded like concrete in my beard — still trying to keep my sleepy neurons active enough to attend to the issues and people of the times.

I was wondering, as you might guess, what a number of souls on my radar of interest were giving thanks for.

There was, of course, the beleaguered Prime Minister Justin Trudeau who would never be welcome on one of my rabbit hunting trips this fall, given his penchant for shooting himself in the foot, but who must be grateful this Thanksgiving that nature provided him with the gall and the face of a robber’s horse to plow through even the most shameful of incidents.

Just a week or so after heading to British Columbia for some rest and recreation on the very date he and his government had designated as the first Truth and Reconciliation Day, a vacation decision that displayed either his absolute lack of political acumen or a mental make-up devoid of empathy, or both, Trudeau had the incredible audacity to say he was shocked by the “insensitivity” of the military to keep high ranking discredited officers on the payroll.

The armed forces types, many of them still embracing the conservative, macho image that allows for the perpetuation of sexual harassment, certainly had nothing to be proud of last week.

But Trudeau’s charges of insensitivity rang hollow.

It was the classic case of the proverbial pot calling the kettle black.

But, hey, be thankful, Justin, b’y, for those brazen brat genes.

Then there’s our own man, “Bones” Furey, who must have cracked his wish bone with a certain amount of gratefulness on Thanksgiving Day, and given thanks that his main opponents in the fight for the hearts and minds of Newfoundlanders have not proven to be all that formidable, both of them restrained by political shackles: Tory Leader David Brazil carrying the debilitating label of “interim,” and NDP leader Alison Coffin without a House of Assembly seat, a non-participant, an observer, for all intents and purposes, of any sort of legislative lawmaking.

But even as he gives thanks that the “doctor is in” with no alternative on the horizon, Furey should be reminded that this province and its residents are still smarting, big time, from the last time a premier of Newfoundland was able to operate with little political opposition and an adoring, fawning public. (Think Danny and Muskrat).

It’s a scenario fraught with all kinds of repercussions, but, as I’ve implied on more than a few occasions in this space, it’s not as if a majority of the electorate have the smarts to learn from the past.

Meanwhile, on the municipal scene, Danny Breen and Sheilagh O’leary had to have been seeped in gratitude on Thanksgiving; after all, they were elected by acclamation, had to wave nary a sword in campaign battle. But it was a foot-shuffling rubber stamp, a sad state of affairs for city hall democracy, and a remarkable reduction in the fun that accrued from council chambers for many years. (Give me Wells and Wyatt and Murphy and Duff, Et al., any day of the week, the knock down dragem out crowd who made council meetings must-see television on the local cable network; the political cannibalism was as addictive as a Netflix series; “The Walking Dead” obviously comes to mind).

But there was at least one spark of genuine satisfaction emerging from the St. John’s election, one that deserved the loudest applause: the successful race run by Ophelia Ravencroft, the first transgender member of City Council.

Good on Ravencroft, I say. Politics can be an extremely nasty racket, but Ravencroft had to endure much more than the normal give and take of an election, including death threats and general harassment. There’s a shattered glass ceiling down there at city hall whose splinters should form her name, right next to that of Dot Wyatt.

You can bet the now departed members of the old boy’s club who dominated city affairs for years — Jim Fagan, Brian Higgins, Bob Lewis and company — must be rolling over in their graves, helped along, of course, by their colleague and mortician Geoff Carnell Sr.

As for me, I’m thankful it’s the fall, a time for the woods, and football and hockey, and a good book in front of the wood stove.

A belated Thanksgiving greeting to all.