On-line Opinion Magazine…OK, it's a blog

“Boldly going

where no man has gone before.”

The Wright Brothers make the first powered flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

This is Saint Lucia’s Day for Scandinavians.

It features special treats that are handed out by a girl wearing a crown of candles, Lucia coming from the Latin for light, LUX.

Saint Lucia was an early Christian martyr from Syracuse on Sicily, but her official feast day, December 13, fit perfectly with the local pagan celebration of the Lussi on December 13, which was the Winter Solstice at the time. Yep, more cover to continue the fun mid-winter celebrations by pretending they are associated with Christianity to get the Church off everyone’s case.

Happy Hanukkah to my Jewish friends. I miss the latkes and jelly doughnuts my roommates received for the holiday at college. [Their grandmothers were afraid they wouldn’t celebrate or couldn’t get “real” food at that terrible Baptist university.] It was a great break.

One of the nice things about Hanukkah is that there are established “gifts”, so you don’t have to rack your brains about what to get: a card and gelt covers just about everyone.

General background at Wikipedia’s entry for Hanukkah and even more at Chabad’s Chanukah page.

[Note: on the Jewish calendar the day changes at sundown, not midnight.]

The eighty-second anniversary of “a date which will live in infamy…”

The official US Navy site on the Pearl Harbor attack.

The memorial service aboard NAS Pensacola will have few, if any, survivors of the attack due to the age of the survivors.

Yes, it is the day that kindly old Saint Nicholas fills the footware of good little girls and boys with treats [or his assistants beat the evil out of bad children, depending on the local customs – they didn’t just leave the sticks – in some places they use them.] Don’t forget the carrot if he rides a horse in your area.

He is the patron saint of Russian merchants and pawnbrokers (three gold balls are one of the symbols associated with him).

… and how can Santa Claus visit every house, go down chimneys, leave toys, all over the world in one night?

One of the answers is found on European Christmas trees.

Read about Finland’s version of the Julbock, Joulupukki.

Note: Don’t try this at home unless you have the kidneys of a reindeer. It also explains why gnomes are so cheerful.

Happy NODWISH Greetings

As a service to my readers I have compiled a list of useful terms for our modern global village.

It is time to wish family and friends: [select one]

Happy NODWISH
Merry Solstice
Happy Holidays
Happy Hanukkah
Happy Kwanzaa
Happy Hogwatch
Merry Christmas
С Рождеством Христовым
성탄 축하
Vrolijk Kerstfeest
Nadolig Llawen
Fröhliche Weihnachten
Joyeux Noël
Buon Natale
Feliz Navidad
God Jul
Rauhallista Joulua
Happy Christmas

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Today is the First Sunday of Advent which means you should have made your Christmas Pudding and Why Now? is pleased to present the Fifty-seventh version of the Gävlebocken, The biggest Christmas Goat in the world.

From Steve Bates of Yellow Doggerel Something in the comments from 2006:

Why build a giant goat of straw,
Which most of us would scarcely note?
Some, though, defy the very law,
To vandalize the Gävle Goat.

In some years, they used wayward cars;
In others, flaming arrows smote.
This year’s survives, although with scars…
A fact that gets some people’s goat.

A webcam and some watchful eyes,
A flame-retardant second coat,
Should save it… unless Dubya spies
The thing, and claims it’s his pet goat!

– SB the YSS

Instead of creating my own post and missing something like the Pacific storm Otis hitting Acapulco as a Category 5 hurricane after spinning up from a Tropical Storm in one one day, I’ll hand you to the people your taxes pay: 2023 Hurricane Season wrap-up by NOAA.

Yes, it’s the time of year when the Sun dies and must be re-born through an elaborate ceremony that involves some form or type of sacrifice, such as finding gifts for people you can’t stand and smiling brightly as you receive yet another gift based on an urban legend that you actually like truly stomach-wrenching color combinations.

Of course there was a time when the Solstice sacrifices were more visceral and the evergreen was covered in things that pleased only ravens and such, but we have put all that behind us by opting for the possibility of electrocuting one another and causing chaos on the power grid.

What a brilliant idea: moving a large supply of pre-kindling soaked with highly flammable resins into your house, loading it down with petrochemical-based ornaments, lacing it with heat-producing electrical devices, and surrounding the base with cardboard boxes and tissue paper. You just can’t have a traditional celebration without a proto-bonfire in your living room.

I do think that followers of Mithras might want to curtail their typical birthday service in light of Mad-Cow Disease, but global warming will certainly make the services in the oak wood in traditional druidic robes more comfortable.

When you put up your stocking on the mantel and put out the turnips for Gouger, Rooter, Tusker, and Snouter as well as the pork pie and sherry for the Hogfather, you can rest assured the Sun will come up, because it just slipped around back to return the lager it rented.

Enjoy! You have nothing to fear, except that sniveling little creep with the camera/phone at the office party or the eggnog that was put out rather early causing you to suspect that the bits on top aren’t nutmeg. [The pictures probably won’t appear on the ‘Net and the brandy will surely take care of the salmonella.]

A Calendar of Coming Events

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If your celebration involved the death of a turkey, thank you.

People have more freedom to gather in person this year than under the misrule of the TFG so emergency rooms will see injuries involving serving forks and carving knives again. The price of fuel has been dropping and even in my outpost of minimum civilization the only noticeable shortages are breakfast cookies in one grocery store and sports drinks in another.

As is traditional the WKRP Turkey Drop and/or the original recording of Alice’s Restaurant.

It was afternoon and I was on my way to a chemistry class. I had stopped for a drink of water when the news came over the speakers in the classrooms.

For those who weren’t alive at the time: remember what you felt on September 11, 2001 for a taste of November 22, 1963. It was a massive change for the worldview of my generation and it marked the beginning of a period of disruption and decline in the civility of American society. Arthur had died and Camelot fell.

At his inauguration John Kennedy made the point: “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.”

The colors of my world will never be as bright as they were on November 21, 1963. Now we have COVID-19 and the Trump MAGAts…

Since “commerce” demands it, “one symbol to celebrate them all” to be posted on or after the Summer Solstice.

((Thank you Karen of Peripetia))

I started doing this 19 years ago after the American electorate committed an act of supreme self destruction and gave the Shrubbery a second 4 years to screw things up. It would appear that people are becoming aware that Republicans just can’t help themselves and attempt to destroy the nation every time they are given a chance to sit in the Oval Office.

Clinton left the Shrubbery with budget surpluses and the Shrubbery left Obama with the Global Financial Crisis. Obama left Trump with a growing economy and Trump left Biden with a crippled economy and over a quarter million dead Americans.

As long as I can I will respond to the important things: the World Cup, the Iditarod & Yukon Quest, Tour de France, and tropical storms.

Politics are the static on life’s radio, so you have to deal with them. You try to ignore them until you can no longer hear the music.