I read this article a little while ago, and a discussion that spawned from it, with arguments about who owes what for whatever was done here in the past by the dread English, Spanish, etc., leading up to weird and unwieldy U.S. statutes all the way through the 1960s.
Taking a look at my eight great-grandparents, one of them is connected to a line wherein someone (like, my great-grandmother's great grandfather or great granduncle) is somewhat likely have been cruel to a Native-American in some form or fashion. Three others were related to people who got here well after most of the damage had been done. Two never entered this country at all, the other two got here only about a hundred years ago, and raised my grandma and her sisters in way-upper Manhattan and Queens.
Two of my kids are biracial, and their paternal grandmother has Native-American blood as well as an obvious connection to both slaves and someone who owned them.
How much do I owe for the possibly alleged deeds of great-great-great grandpappy or granduncle Pike*, and can I just give it to one of my daughters? Am I allowed to subtract something for the Scottish line that was probably oppressed by the English, and the Sicilian line that got swallowed up by the rest of Italy? Do I add some back in because some of my English ancestors might have persecuted some of my Scottish ones? But then there is an unsubstantiated trail of info which indicates some of my English ancestors may have actually come from Wales, putting them on the oppressee side instead of oppressor...
...well, and then the Dutch ones, are they on the plus damages side for possibly being related to merchant explorers who helped develop the slave trade, or on the minus damages side because they may have aided English pilgrims searching for religious freedom? But what if they were related to the Dutch who took Manhattan from the Indians? That ended up being fruitful for my Calabrezi relatives who got here in 1907. A mark in both columns.
*Actually, my great-grandmother's photos might lead one to believe that some Pike or other back in the day of the day might have dipped more than just a toe in Injun waters, and I look just a little like her, so maybe I owe myself instead
At any rate, no one I'm related to has ever owned more than a small family-farm-sized piece of land in the U.S., and none of us owns much of any now, so at least no one is likely to come by to "regain" it for "their" people.
Merry Christmas from my dog.
People will say Axial Tilt [Saturn/Mithras/Jesus/Santa] is the Reason for the Season.
One thing is certain, and eternal; in the northern hemisphere, these are dark days with little sunlight. Celebrating the waning of the year by lighting strings of lights and candles, decorating with shiny objects, spending time with people close to you, and eating special rich foods is something to cherish, a way to foster good will and create lovely memories. It's a way to launch ourselves into the cold days of winter with the satisfying sense that our lives follow the cyclical pattern of the sun, moon, and rotation of our earth.
Adding personal components of religion and mythology can be satisfying for many people. I admit that when some of those people insist that those components are the one true way to do things, I am put off and put out. The most we may owe them is a perpetuation of some of the pagan decorating traditions that might have otherwise been forgotten if not for their co-opting by the Catholic Church. But the seasons are important to me personally. It's impossible to imagine living my life without taking joy in the astronomical phenomena that produce the seasons of varying warmth and light in their turn. I take comfort in the pattern, and would still do so if I lived somewhere that never got cold in winter, or if I lived in the southern hemisphere and watched the pattern played out in reverse.
This is not the time to discuss biblical stories of creation, how the bible was put together by a fickle emperor and then later massaged into different forms by different religious leaders who used it for political agenda, or how those stories are parallels to stories told thousands of years earlier by fearful people who needed ways to explain astronomical, meteorological and geological conditions they did not yet understand, to explain the wonders and terrors of life and death, and to band together against groups with more powerful leaders than theirs.
This is not the time for that because a lasting truth is that people like to believe in stuff bigger than they are, they like it to be mysteriously powerful, and they like to put a familiar human face on it. They like the notion of strength from vulnerability, and the little guy championing over the big guy. They like an eternal father figure, in some cases an eternal mother figure, and the symbolism of those figures is far more important to most people than concrete explanations for how the world actually works. Unexplainably wondrous and mysterious works by someone who's looking out for us are way more palatable to a lot of people than the still being uncovered scientific wonders of neutrons and amino acids.
And people like to have parties. Coming up with an excuse for a party is harder for some people than others. For many of us, the opportunity to look forward to something shiny and fun is enough. Throw in the luxury of giving people gifts wrapped in pretty paper, and it's a big winner. No wonder Christmas is a continuing hit. For most people, the only slightly off-kilter aspect of it is the name, invented by people who could not appreciate a celebration unless it was attended (or better yet, replaced) by the solemnity of religious ritual.
I enjoy thinking (heretically to many,) that we really are all celebrating the exact same thing, just with different faces on the various rituals we perform each year.
If you believe a God with human characteristics set the Earth on its axial tilt, and later caused a young girl to give birth to his corporeal son as a reminder that no matter how much anyone's life sucks, he's still out there in ultimate control, and that all this is the true or only "reason for the season," I hope you have a really great one this year, and this song's for you.
If you just really dig having end of year fun, or like to groove on seasonal changes as I do, this song's for you.
What’s your favorite movie quote of all time?
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Seriously? Who has just one?
Story of my life. I always get the fuzzy end of the lollipop.
What one film do you think everyone should see?
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What's your guilty television pleasure?
If you could hang out with any movie character for a day, whom would you choose as your sidekick?
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From the very first beat of this song, I am hooked. Every damned time. Doesn't matter where I am, what was happening the moment before, or what kind of mood I'm in. I pause for perfection. I'm drawn in right now just thinking about it.
If you want to see some Christmas photos and songs I posted the past couple of years at Vox, they're here on three pages, but the posts attached to them are no longer there. It's this whole thing.
