Halloween History

I thought I'd share this, though it's likely not new info for most people.

Americans love Halloween. We as a country spend over $5 billion a year celebrating it. But where did the holiday come from? And how did traditions like asking strangers for food and dressing up as ghosts develop?

Halloween has its roots in Samhain (pronounced sow-in), an ancient harvest festival held at the end of the Celtic year. The festival marked the end of summer and the beginning of the dark wintertime. It was believed the spirits of the dead returned on this eve to damage crops and play tricks on the living. It was also believed that the Celtic priests, or Druids, were able to make predictions about the future, which they did during large bonfire celebrations where they wore animal skins and sacrificed crops and animals to the spirits.

In early A.D., Romans came to the Celtic territories of modern day England, Scotland and Northern France, and were the first people to influence the celebration of Samhain. They brought their own holidays: Feralia, the Roman day to honor the dead in late October, as well as another holiday to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. It is possible that this Roman influence is the reason apples are given out and bobbed for on Halloween.

By 800 A.D., Christianity spread to the Celtic Territories and brought with it another holiday, "All Saints Day." Pope Boniface IV, the designator of All Saints Day, was likely trying to replace Samhain with a similar but holier holiday meant to honor saints and martyrs. Later on, All Saints Day was renamed "All Hallows" and thus the day of Samhain (Oct. 31st) began to be called "All Hallows Eve," and eventually shortened to "Hallowe'en."

All of the holidays that were melded together to create our modern version of Halloween involved dressing up in one way or another. The celebrators of Samhain wore animal skins at their bonfire celebrations and those that observed "All Saints Day" often dressed as saints or angels. Later on men in Scotland would impersonate the dead on the day, explaining the ghoulish tradition we still observe.

During the mid 1800's, Irish and English immigrants flooded the United States and brought Halloween with them. From these immigrants we received the Halloween traditions we recognize today, however skewed they are now. For instance, the first trick-or-treaters were far from today's smiling children with commercialized costumes. They lived in Medieval England, and practiced "souling," in which poor people would beg for sweet breads, in return for praying for the families' souls. Later, the immigrants who brought Halloween to America would develop their own version of trick-or-treating, but it didn't become popular here until the 1930s.

~Katla McGlynn

My grandmother went into labor on Halloween but my dad wasn't born until after midnight. His mother said though he waited to be born on All Saint's Day, he was more spook than angel.

Happy Halloween! I'm blogging about scarey stuff!!!

You've been warned..

Soo... Levi Johnston has agreed to pose for Playgirl. Sarah Palin got a $1.5 million advance on her book "Going Rogue". Their back and forth is childish and horrifying but it all comes down to "My pimp is better than your pimp." I'd quit now young Levi, she's got the best street corner.

I haven't mentioned Jon Stewart in a while but it's not because I don't love him anymore. I'm not that fickle! As always, I warn you that while it is censored, it's evident he's speaking freely:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
For Fox Sake!
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

The moral of today's blog: Consider the source.

Matthew Shepard's parents see bill passed into law, 11 years later.

I recently watched a Lifetime movie on LMN about Matthew Shepard who was beaten nearly to death then hung on a fence to die because he was gay. If you haven't heard of this, I encourage you to read more about it. Also the story of James Byrd Jr. the black man chained to a truck and dragged behind it until he died. The 2 cases have been cited as examples of hate crime and the bill that Bill Clinton tried to get passed, George W. Bush promised to veto should it hit his desk and Ted Kennedy fought hard for passed through Congress on the 22nd and signed into law by President Obama today. He had promised the Shepards it would be a high priority and kept that promise. The bill is called Matthew Shepard & James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act


Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/28/hate-crimes-bill-to-be-si_n_336883.html

Handel's Messiah and me.

For a few years I sang in the Messiah with our local orchestra. I'm not musically inclined but I loved it. Part of that experience was the choir director, Adrianne Tawa, we have until it's time to hand us over to the director of the orchestra. She's so fun and has a very comprehensive way of getting us to do things exactly as she wants us to do them. The Orchestra Conductor, Xun Sun, has a way of commanding perfection and when we perform his happiness with us is well expressed on his face for only us to see. It's always been a beautiful thing that I love doing. For a short time there was a different choir director and I lost my enthusiasm. I haven't performed for a few years now and I have lost much of what I had learned. I'm going to have to search for my Messiah alto for dummies cd. I've often said that if my house was on fire, after getting the family out and if I'm lucky all of the photos, I'd run back in for my Messiah score. It's like an old friend and my daughter laughed as she learned why, tonight. My notations over the years are invaluable and consist of odd things to create the mood of the music I am singing but I will often write a note like "Pay attention because you are going to mess up when you turn the page." And I still mess up where I said I would.
Aside from the beauty of the music and being a part of something so profound, I find myself unable to sing certain parts because of the spiritual nature of the words taken from Isaiah. Handel so beautifully managed to express the life of Christ and to sing the words "Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace" is difficult because I am always moved to tears. Tears of gratitude.

40.

Yesterday was my birthday and it was a really great day. I'm not one to stress about the numbers (I freaked at 29 for some reason but not since). With age I find that I am not fond of my birthday or mother's day. I love family holidays where everyone is happy. My youngest gave me a copy of Memoirs of a Geisha and my oldest gave be a bag of Heath bars and this cool mascara I mentioned that I wanted to try. Hubby gave me money for a shopping spree! It was nice to be thought of by my family and friends. It's nice to feel loved :)I guess deep down I do like the reminder that I matter to people, even though they don't see me as much, anymore. What will my 40's bring? One never knows.

Seaworld at my house.

So I haven't talked about my nanos much, that I remember. I have 2 12 gallon nano reef tanks. One is 4 years old, but suffered a monumental crash a while back. The other is just over a year and is ruled by this tiny, cute little ocellaris clown named Napoleon (I just thought of that name.. I tell you, my naming abilities is a gift). I can't get him an anemone because he's so small that it would swallow him in a heartbeat. In the older nano the tank is completely at the mercy of an enormous bubble tip anemone and the maroon clown (which is nameless at this time but he's AWESOME) I had a beautiful feather duster in there for months, but I looked in the other day and LITERALLY like the cat that ate the canary, pulled the crown of the featherduster worm from the mouth of the anemone. Sans the worm part, sadly, but in every casualty there's a lesson. In this case, an anemone WILL eat a featherduster worm should it be foolish enough to leave it's tube and venture near the enormous black hole of the anemone's mouth and I'm pretty sure the maroon clown was an accessory...

Not good, but nature is cruel. That tank has 3 fish and each knows it's place and it's relatively peaceful. Napolean's tank is different because he's small but pugnacious. I don't want to lose him to another fish. I grabbed him the coolest tank mate last week. He's a diamond watchman goby named Cheeto

and he's landscaping and relandscaping the tank. My two chili corals have fallen into his collapsed tunnels twice. He is ALWAYS busy. His cave's are so amazing and he'll come out with a rock as big as his head to line the entrance. He's a groovy fish and he rules the sandbed of the tank and coexists peacefully with Napoleon. I hope all stays peaceful because I'd be a very sad panda if either of them died. AND due to the lack of an anemone the featherduster in there is gorgeous!

Perspective.

Sooo, I have a lot of good friends that I've made online. Some have been onboard the Briar Express for close to ten years. Oddly enough, I answer to the name Briar as quickly as I do Monica once I finally meet my e-friends face to face. It's strange and misunderstood by many people but Briar's friends know me just as well, if not better, than Monica's friends. This is not to say that my lifetime friends aren't treasured, they are. I have been blessed with the most amazing friends in the world. And I believe that most of them would do anything for me as I would them.

The internet is an interesting place. It's a veritable goldmine of information and it's not hard to find people that share interests and don't rot your brain with inane conversation. My interests vary and I love to learn, I always have. It may be a curse or a godsend for a person whose life has been turned upside down by The Headache. I thought I had more courage, but I don't. I don't recognize the person I've become but the people I've met online do. There are no expectations and the longtime friendships I've made (all over the world) are precious in that I have nothing to offer them other than words on the other side of an internet connection. Yet there's something to a friendship that is based solely on communication.

It's an odd thought that the people who know you best may never even meet you face to face. Yet they will never forget your words on the screen.

In all my almost 40 years..

I've never heard a talk like this and I certainly never expected it from Jeffrey R. Holland. He rocked the house, no doubt about it!!!

JRH conference talk 10/09:
Part 1
Part 2

My take on the Nobel Peace Prize

So I've been asked repeatedly my opinion on why President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize so early in his Presidency without having realized all of the goals that he has set or when he has achieved more for what he's done. I can't honestly say why he won. He didn't ask for it and is genuinely humbled and honored to be the winner. My shock comes from the fact that ANY American was even mentioned in the same sentence as peace. Quite frankly, for the 8 years before President Obama took office we've been a tad bit warmongering.

I'm not going to do a huge history lesson on the Nobel prizes , but there are 5 categories and the candidates are chosen by criteria set up by Alfred Nobel in his will in 1895 along with a sizable amount of prize money. (For more details look it up. It isn't becoming to people who are going to criticize if they have no clue what it's all about). The committee that chooses the most qualified candidates is in and of itself a group of intelligent people that make their choices with care. Oslo Norway is the place that was chosen by Alfred Nobel for the award to be bestowed.

The requirements set by Alfred Nobel for the Peace prize is the following:

...one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity among nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.

The official list of nominees will not be released for 20 years but some of the known nominees are:
Colombia Senator Piedad Cordoba, Sima Samar, Chinese dissident Hu Jia, and Prime Minister of Zimbabwe Morgan Tsvangirai (which is, brace yourselves, BLACK).
Rumored nominees are: French President Nicholas Sarkozy (remember when we were boycotting all things French because their country wasn't convinced that we were fighting the right enemy? Freedom fries and the taint of Tar-jay??), Ingrid Betancourt, the Cluster Munitions Coalition, Zivko Popovski-Cvetin, SOS-Kinderedorf International, Greg Mortenson, Thich Quang Do and Pete Seeger.

Sooooo, MY opinion as to whether it was too soon or jumping the gun? No. President Obama was put into office by grassroot groups of people. Little people, little voices like my own who cried out for the America President Obama envisioned. He inspired enough hope in America to win the election. He's inspired the world to believe peace isn't an impossible dream. His country may not be willing to stand behind him but he represents hope for the rest of the world. No it wasn't too soon or undeserved. The dissidents in our country who want his failure so badly, don't deserve the freedoms they enjoy. Who wishes for the failure of a President at the expense of their own country. It's just unfathomable.

Odd day...

I tend to be wrapped up in The Headache which makes me self absorbed. I have a name for The Headache but I've been told that to speak the names of demons from hell aloud isn't good mojo.
I was at church today and I was watching a close friend of mine. I can see that she hurts but she internalizes it. In all of the time that I've known her she's never really told me what SHE is feeling. We used to be assigned to visit a few ladies in our ward. We were partners for a few years and I have to say that sometimes I was the cool head of reason in one particularly difficult lady's house. That, right there, is a frightening thought but it's true. I was assigned because I am not easily offended and I play well with others. Anyway, sometimes my friend would be silent and I'd give up early on trying to talk. I tiptoed through our visits and carried the conversations. When she'd drop me off at home or vice versa, I'd say "If you want to talk about it, I'm always here." She never called. One day I was told that I was going to be released from the calling to visit because of the number of other church callings that I had and the number of people doing it. I felt I should be the one to tell her. She was upset and for the first time I realized she considered me a friend. So I went to the leaders and ask that they keep us together for a while longer. About a year ago I WAS finally released. For months she wrote these cards to me and sent them to me in the mail. I realized then that I was her best friend. I treasured each card because I struggle, too, with life's ups and downs and B... The Headache. I make it a point to seek her out at church and talk to her for a bit and occasionally we have family get togethers. Today she was seated a few rows in front of me and I wrote her a note in our first meeting. It said what I always do, "I'm always here for you. I'm a phone call away and I love you." She finally left the meeting early and never glanced my way. I could literally feel her pain. Her daughter is in my Sunday School class and I gave her the note because I never saw my friend again. She won't call. I wonder what it's like to keep your pain and troubles bottled up... I guess I'll never know because I'm just the opposite. But for today, I actually thought I was fortunate to have The Headache. I'm not sure I could deal with whatever it is that is hurting her.

And the winner is...

Nobel Peace Prize winner President Barack Obama says he was surprised and deeply humbled by the honor. This is a good sign of the world's view of our new president. Oslo Norway's Nobel committee look favorably on the approach President Obama has taken to improve global relationships with a call for peaceful cooperation. He has also been applauded for his work to reduce nuclear weapons around the globe.

There are a few groups that are outraged by the committee's choice:
Mainly war mongering people in the Middle East and here and there around the world,
the Hamas,
terrorists
the Taliban,
and the GOP. Yes, stupid people our OWN country wanted some other country to win the prestigious award. Next they'll be cheering if we aren't chosen to host the Olympics. Oh wait. That was last week.
Meanwhile in my tiny hometown they are still having tea parties. Yeah, like, that is soooo beginning of summer. Move on people. Where's your patriotism?

Okay, okay, I'm sorry!

I has no idea so many people care about my crazy rants and opinions so because of overwhelming response (my daughter started to cry) , I'm back. Sometimes I can sit and type whatever is in my head and just post it. I often don't even notice or care that there are typos and that I am only making sense to me. I feel a bit of pressure if I don't blog often enough and that kind of freaks me out.

I have written several blog entries about my and my daughter's Obsessive/Compulsive Disorder, but haven't published any of them. I'm not sure why I can't seem to express this subject in a way that I want to publish it. Hopefully I eventually will.

I also don't spend a lot of time discussing the Black Dahlia case that I've studied for years now, but that may change. In fact the frustration I'm feeling right now is part of the reason I took my blog down. That and so many things that I can't change.

It's frustrating to try to explain why I think or feel the way I do, just that I think and feel STRONGLY. Some people find me too opinionated, some agree. Some find me obnoxious, others call it passion. I can only say read it at your own risk.

Hmmm. Scary or not.?

My mom is always freaking out that Glenn Beck is going to hire a hit man and have me killed for my blog. I haven't been concerned. I have, however, irritated a nut job that seriously makes me nervous. And no it's not TimFinnegan :P Just teasing you there, Matthew!
So I've felt pretty safe on the Black Dahlia boards because quite frankly, it's never going to be solved and if it was, the murder is dead by now. The Zodiac on the other hand... So I irritated the egomanical owner of a website I don't even belong to because of a stupid theory that threw our crimes together. I'm debating whether or not to lead him here so I can find out more info... He DID serve time for stalking. Freaky, freaky..

To blog or not to blog..

Life is not on an upswing lately, personally speaking. I need to blog on the complete disappointment and shock that came from a book I've been long awaiting, but I can't even make myself read it. Pointing out what a complete tool, Glenn Beck has become like shooting fish in a barrel. So I'm going to let Jason Linkins update us on the latest in the Glenn "I INVENTED the language of idiots" Beck.

Internet Finally Discovers Glenn Beck Photoshoot Video, Freaks Out
By Jason Linkins

Your interwebs are blowing up today at a YouTube clip that documents a Glenn Beck photo shoot, where the Fox News host has a substance, presumably Vicks VapoRub, applied to his face so that he can manufacture some tears for the photographer.

Depending on your point of view, this is either the object demonstration of a time-tested photographer's trick, or the SMOKING GUN THAT WILL BRING DOWN GLENN BECK'S EMPIRE OF FAKE TEARS! As you might surmise, I am opting to err on the side of calmness and serenity, because Gawker posted this video about two weeks ago, and the Republic survived.
WATCH:



Nevertheless, here's a point well worth underscoring again: let's note that the photographer you see in the video is the controversial Jill Greenberg, who got in trouble after she shot John McCain for The Atlantic, after which she talked a lot of smack about purposely making McCain look bad and posting Photoshopped versions of those images on her personal website, which further lampooned the senator. Beck said this, of Greenberg, way back when:

The Atlantic is sending a letter of apology to McCain. They will not be paying [Greenberg], and they're considering a lawsuit. Good, they should. Greenberg said that, since some of her artwork was anti-Bush, quote, "Maybe it was somewhat irresponsible for them to hire me." Wait a minute. Let me see if I have this right. She does a horrible job and then she blames her employer? That's right, I forgot. She's a liberal.


By the way, this isn't the first time this photographer has been in the middle of controversy. In 2004, to describe her political helplessness, she took a series of supposedly artsy photos of toddlers crying. How did she get this shot? Well, she gave the kids candy, and then she snatched it away from them. They'd cry uncontrollably, and she'd just click away. Isn't it just fantastic art? Nothing more beautiful than a child being terrorized.

You'd have thought that the candy-snatch technique would have been sufficient to bring tears to Beck's eyes as well.

Link to Jason Linkin's blog entry from HuffPo

It's not news to me and, if you've frequented my blog, it's not news to you, either. The White House has grown tired of his antics even the GOP is disowning him. Lindsay Graham who is running for the position of McCain's new wife actually said something that rings genuine to ME:

"Only in America can you make that much money crying," Graham said of Beck. "Glenn Beck is not aligned with any party. He is aligned with cynicism and there has always been a market for cynics. But we became a great nation not because we are a nation of cynics. We became a great nation because we are a nation of believers."

More on that and a video clip of Graham Lindsay here: Link

There's a time and a place for sarcastic criticism and political humor. Even acting or whatever it is that Glenn Beck does on Fox News, as inappropriate as that is. But there should be a disclaimer that says that he is disingenuous. That he doesn't even believe what he's saying because it's not true. In the current climate, his antics are dangerous.