I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday! Thank you all for being a part of my blog this year! I’ll remember you when I achieve that independently wealthy writer status!
Here’s to a better 2013!
Monthly Archives: December 2012
Impeach Them All!
Our elected officials have led the American people to the cliff’s edge – and have pushed. We’re headed into the abyss of recession, and the pathetic bastards don’t care. Their salaries and health care are assured. The rest of us get reamed. Now, don’t get me wrong! I like being screwed like most anyone else – if I’m enjoying it. But, I’m not enjoying this! Neither is most every other American.
This has been going on since…oh, I’d say January 20, 2009, when President Obama took office. The Republican Party made it a point from the moment that half-blooded Negro won the 2008 election that they’d do everything in their power to undermine his presidency. Not help to hemorrhage the country’s increasing unemployment; not stop the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; not start rebuilding the nation’s aging infrastructure; not find out who all was responsible for the banking and housing crises that led to the economic downturn in the first place. No, their goal was simple: destroy Obama. For their part, the Democrats replied in their usual conciliatory tone; bowing to the GOP over expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts. They and Obama relented, lest unemployment insurance lapse in 2011. Obama collectively – and rightfully – deemed the rest of us a “hostage.” I dubbed him a wimp for caving to John Boehner and Mitch McConnell.
Now, angry that Obama won last month, the GOP is even more determined to destroy him – and take the rest of the country down, too. If we look at this entire imbroglio in the same context as a business, Congress would be in bankruptcy. Wherever I’ve worked anyone who didn’t cooperate with their constituents and strive to achieve the common goals set forth by management ended up contacting the unemployment office. In other words, they got fired! They were told to pack up and head out. I’ve never known a place that allowed people to squabble and not accomplish anything.
Until now.
Congress is the exception. They’ve always made themselves the exception. Its members, of course, don’t have to worry about their respective financial futures. They haven’t had to exhaust their 401K’s and empty their savings like I have in the two years since I got laid off from an engineering firm. Their health care is secured. They don’t have to worry about a proverbial “donut hole” like my parents and scrounge through their medications. They have their own bank where they’re allowed to overdraw their checking accounts and not pay any fees. Congress lives in its own glass bubble; separate from the rest of us – the people who elected them – and devoid of reality.
But, therein lies the key – we elected them. We are their employers. And, since they refuse to do as we instructed, I therefore propose we terminate them. Every single one of them. Just fire the whole lot of them and hire some new employees. From President Obama whose backbone never seemed to have much lead all the way down to every “Tea Party” candidate who give trailer park residents a bad name. Get rid of them! They’re not doing the job we told them to do. They have failed on every level. I’ve voted Democrat most of my life – including twice for Obama – but, I’m not prejudiced. Everyone there in Washington needs to go. If Enron and Bear Stearns could lay off thousands of employees because the companies screwed up, we can certainly terminate every member of Congress for flat out refusing to do their jobs. I mean, who the hell wants to keep employees like that anyway? No business can succeed with that kind of staff!
So, as we fly off that “cliff” and head into the New Year, who’s with me on this mass impeachment? We can work together on this!
Image courtesy I-Clipart.
Filed under Essays
Ghost Dancing – The Wounded Knee Massacre
On December 29, 1890, the nation endured a horrific event: the massacre of some 150 people at Wounded Knee in South Dakota. It was one of the last great battles between Native and White Americans; a significant turning point in one of the bloodiest and longest-lasting holocausts in human history.
Like many Indigenous American communities, the Lakota Sioux had seen their way of life come under siege by White Christian encroachers; people who viewed them as a menace, no different from the vermin that occupied the same land. The Lakota Sioux had fought as hard as they could, but by 1890, they’d been relegated to reservations where they were forced into dependency upon the American state. Like his fellow warrior, Chief Sitting Bull, Sioux Chief Big Foot had led a cavalry of resistance. But, government forces had managed to corner and kill Sitting Bull at the Standing Rock Reservation on December 15. They then set their sights on Big Foot.
When he heard of Sitting Bull’s death, Big Foot led his people southwards towards the Pine Ridge Reservation. The U.S. Army intercepted them on December 28 and brought them to the edge of the Wounded Knee to camp. The next morning the chief, already sickened with pneumonia, sat among his warriors and consulted with army officers. Then, the Army, under the command of Colonel James Forsyth and numbering 500 strong, descended upon the camp, guns blazing. As several young Sioux men retrieved their own firearms, others ran for safety. Some scampered into a ravine next to the camp only to be assaulted with bullets. Many of them were children.
Several Sioux were willing to surrender, but others – notably a medicine man named Yellow Bird – would accept nothing less than total resistance. Yellow Bird and others believed that mystical “Ghost Shirts” would protect the group from harm. But, nothing could protect them from the unabashed hate of the U.S. government. In less than an hour, the U.S. Army had killed at least 150 Sioux and wounded another 50. The Army suffered 25 fatalities and 39 injuries. In a fake attempt at humanity, the government charged Forsyth with war crimes for killing innocent, unarmed Sioux, but later exonerated him.
The 1890 Wounded Knee massacre became a symbol of the U.S. government’s intrinsic disrespect for Native Americans. It subsequently instilled a lack of trust in the government among Native Americans who ultimately became dependent on that same entity for survival as they entered the 20th century. Even now, Native American reservations are among the most impoverished in this country. The tensions over the 1890 Wounded Knee calamity would surface again in February 1973, when the Lakota nation made another stand against the U.S. government with the help of the American Indian Movement. That fiasco wasn’t nearly as deadly, but it was longer – 71 days – and it further cemented that distrust and animosity.
The tension is still present and unrelenting – not just in South Dakota, but among all Native American communities. In remembrance, this is for the souls lost on December 29, 1890.
Filed under History
Happy Boxing Day!
This is for our Canadian friends! Contrary to its moniker, “Boxing Day” isn’t about fighting, but rather, about helping the less fortunate.
Filed under News
The Legend of Saint Nicholas
With all the revelry and commercialization surrounding the Christmas holiday, some people forget – or don’t realize – that one of the central figures, Santa Claus, is based on an actual person, St. Nicholas. Nicholas was born during the third century A.D. in the village of Patara in what is now Turkey. At the time, though, the area was still part of Greece. His parents were affluent, but raised him to be a devout Christian, when the ideology was still very much in its infancy and starting to replace the paganism inherent in the Roman Empire. Nicholas’ parents died when he was very young, however, and he used his inheritance to help those in need. He dedicated his life to serving God and eventually became the Bishop of Myrna.
But, the Roman Empire still had a firm grip on most of southern Europe, and despite his attention to the poor, Bishop Nicholas fell under the glare of Emperor Diocletian. Like most of his contemporaries, Diocletian made it a point to persecute Christians. He tossed Bishop Nicholas into prison, along with many other Christian leaders. Nicholas was released in A.D. 325 and – under the threat of further persecution and imprisonment – continued his work helping the poor. He died on December 6, A.D. 343. He was buried in his church where a unique relic called manna formed in his grave. Manna was the food that supposedly fell from the sky and onto the Israelites during their 40-year journey the desert. It became a life-saving sustenance. It is generally thought to be a cake or bread-like substance that has to be consumed rapidly. The formation of manna in the grave of Bishop Nicholas fostered a growth of devotion to him. The anniversary of his death, December 6 (or December 19 in the Julian calendar) became St. Nicholas Day, a day of celebration.
As with many highly-regarded figures of the early Christian era, a number of stories and legends evolved out of the life of Nicholas. One involves a poor man with three daughters. At the time, a young woman’s father had to offer prospective husbands something of value – a dowry. The larger the dowry, the better chance the young woman would have of finding a good husband. Without a dowry, though, a woman was unlikely to marry. This particular poor man’s daughters had no dowries to offer and were destined to be sold into slavery. But then, on three different occasions, bags of gold appeared in the home of this man and his daughters, thus providing the much-needed dowries. The bags of gold supposedly were tossed through an open window and landed in stockings or shoes left before a fire to dry. This led to the custom of children hanging stockings or putting out shoes, eagerly awaiting gifts from Saint Nicholas. Sometimes the story is told with gold balls instead of bags of gold. That is why three gold balls, sometimes represented as oranges, are one of the symbols for St. Nicholas.
Another story involves the townspeople of Myra who were celebrating Nicholas on the eve of his feast day when a band of Arab pirates from nearby Crete arrived. They purloined treasures from the Church of Saint Nicholas and, as they were leaving, also snatched a young boy, Basilios, to turn into a slave. The emir, or ruler, selected Basilios to be his personal cupbearer. For the next year Basilios waited on the king, bringing his wine in a beautiful golden cup. Basilios’ parents were devastated by the loss of their only child. As the next St. Nicholas’ feast day approached, Basilios’ mother decided not to join in the festivities, as it was now a day of tragedy. However, she was persuaded to have a simple observance at home – with quiet prayers for Basilios’ safekeeping. Meanwhile, as Basilios was fulfilling his tasks serving the emir, he was suddenly taken away by a mysterious figure who turned out to be St. Nicholas. Nicholas blessed the terrified boy and set him down at his home back in Myra. Thus was born the legend of St. Nicholas as a protectorate of children.
Sailors eventually adopted Nicholas as their patron saint because of a story that he appeared during a storm to rescue a ship that was sinking. Mariners began praying to Nicholas for guidance at the outset of their voyages. In the 6th century A.D., Emperor Justinian I built a church honoring Nicholas in Constantinople.
By the 12th century A.D., Saint Nicholas’ popularity began to spread throughout Europe, just as Christianity began to rise in prominence. Churches across the region adopted his name. He became especially well-regarded in Russia. Viking explorers dedicated their church on Greenland to him. When Christopher Columbus arrived in what is now Haiti on December 6, 1492, he named a port for Nicholas. Later, in Florida, early Spanish settlers named a settlement for St. Nicholas; it’s now Jacksonville.
That’s why Santa Claus is often called “St. Nick.” But, how did the Santa Claus character develop? One theory is that the transformation first occurred in the Netherlands where the story of a saint who rescued three poor girls from a life of prostitution by just giving them bags of gold proved appealing. This somehow became a man, Sinterklaas, who gave gifts without reservation, while attired in a green coat. But, the growing enigma of Sinterklaas also coincided with the Nordic god Odin who traversed the skies on a horse. Dutch immigrants took the Sinterklaas character with them to the Americas. In 1773, some New Yorkers formed the Sons of St. Nicholas, primarily as a non-British symbol to counter the English St. George societies, rather than to honor St. Nicholas.
After the American Revolution, New Yorkers began honoring their colony’s Dutch roots. John Pintard, the influential patriot who founded the New York Historical Society in 1804, promoted St. Nicholas as patron saint of both society and city. In January 1809, Washington Irving joined the society and on St. Nicholas Day that same year, he published the satirical fiction, Knickerbocker’s History of New York, with numerous references to St. Nicholas whom he portrayed as a chubby Dutchman with a clay pipe.
The New York Historical Society held its first St. Nicholas anniversary dinner on December 6, 1810. Pintard commissioned artist Alexander Anderson to create the first American image of Nicholas for the occasion. Anderson depicted Nicholas as a man bearing gifts with children’s treats in stockings hanging above a fireplace. The accompanying poem ends, “Saint Nicholas, my dear good friend! To serve you ever was my end, If you will, now, me something give, I’ll serve you ever while I live.”
More changes occurred. Sinterklaas’ green coat became red, and in 1821, the first lithographed book in the U.S., Children’s Friend, featured “Sante Claus” arriving from the north in a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer. The poem and illustrations (whose author is unknown) re-shaped the Santa Claus image from a saint into a happy old man who rewarded children for their good behavior.
Ironically, while Nicholas was considered a saint long before the Roman Catholic Church began formal canonizations beginning around A.D. 1100, the Church never officially canonized Nicholas. But, in 1969, when the Roman Catholic Church removed several saints from its roster, it left Nicholas alone. The Feast of St. Nicholas, December 6, became optional, not obligatory, under Roman Catholic law.
Whether or not you adhere to Christian ideology, one critical message can be learned from Nicholas: good behavior is always rewarded and bad behavior is punished. More importantly, though, it’s essential to care for those in need, which is why the Christmas season in the Western World is often viewed as a time of good will and hopes for peace. That may not happen in our convoluted and busy world, with war on every continent and holiday
shopping deals in every city. But, it’s still a pleasant and worthwhile practice and must be given more consideration and respect.
Filed under History
Yes, It Snows in Texas!
December 25, 2012
My attack schnauzer was on the hunt for something!
Filed under News
Pray for the Troops
Wherever they are, wherever they’re from, consider our military personnel who will spend this holiday away from home.
Filed under News
Chief Writing Wolf 