Thursday’s Headlines: Giving Thanks(ish) Edition

Many of us call Thanksgiving the best day of the year: a celebration of cherished food and family members (in that order), without all that cultural baggage.

Of course, that’s not true; there’s always baggage. Every society that thrives today does so with a debt to a history filled with pain, exploitation and self-serving decision-making. It’s painful to point it out, but if we can’t point it out on Thanksgiving — when we literally give thanks for the bounty that we enjoy as Americans — then when can we?

So let’s give thanks, yes, for all our fortune, but let us never forget that there are others who don’t share it. (Hell Gate offers a primer on what to do if the Thanksgiving meal turns ugly, and, of course, The Post had a completely different take on the meaning of the holiday.)

We’ll be back tomorrow with more news (and less editorializing about global inequality), but until then, here’s a few things we saw while we were still working on Wednesday:

• Speaking of the holidays, imagine if we had high-speed rail? The holidays could actually be fun! (Gothamist)
• There’s crime and grime in the subway, but the MTA is on it. (The City)
• Council Member Julie Menin claimed she has the votes to win the Speaker race, but that vote won’t be until after the new year begins, so there’s plenty of time to scrutinize her record — which we have found over the years to be bad, but sometimes good. (Politico, NY Post)
• Marathon man: Meet a guy who jogged every subway line. (Gothamist)
• The DOT got some bad feedback for its design on Canal Street (Documented), but positive words from Streetsblog over its capital reconstruction of 34th Avenue in Queens.
• And finally, here’s your moment of Lincoln Restler: