I'm With Her And We're Stronger Together!

(This essay was first posted in March 2012. Reposting with slight edits to reflect more recent historic events. :) )

On Shakesville, Melissa McEwan now and then posts a photo of my idol, Hillary Rodham Clinton.  She made a joke about how often she posts these photos and several commenters echoed what I was thinking - she could post them every day and I might actually visit her blog even more often, not less often! Hillary is that much of a draw to me.

I was one of those housewives Hillary did not choose to be like back in the 1990's (though my kids can tell you I was stronger on "exploring" and crafts than I was on baking cookies),  and yet I could not understand the uproar over her remarks back then.  That was my first glimpse into the hatred that conservative women have for progressive women and it was probably my first inkling of just how deep and complicated the schisms in American society have become. This will be one of many posts on this topic.

What Hillary was pointing to was the truth...

What Hillary was pointing to was the truth: in spite of the lie that we can "have it all", women can't be everything they would like to be - at least not at the same time - not really.  We can be full-time homemakers, but then we will not be respected as persons who have something to say outside of domestic issues.  We can be full-time employed workers (and obviously full-time moms still), but then we are vilified by the stay-at-home contingent as 'bad mothers'. Many of us can and must be something in between- struggling to be both full-time moms and part-time workers - and discovering the awful truth that we are not allowed to feel good about either of them. Hillary wanted to make a difference in this country, but she knew that in order to do that she would not be able to stay at home full-time, even if she had wanted to do so.

Many of us can and must be something in between- struggling to be both full-time moms and part-time workers - and discovering the awful truth that we are not allowed to feel good about either of them. 

I found Hillary refreshingly honest, admirably capable and formidably intelligent.  I knew what she was saying - women just don't get to do both of those things in our culture, not really, and she was speaking to that - I found her impressive and likable.  I heard in her remarks the painful conundrum that is a woman's experience in public life - no matter what she did, she was going to be wrong and ridiculed for even trying. And yet, she did keep working. She did continue to work and she did continue to put herself out there in public life. She has never stopped trying to make a difference for women in the world, and she has succeeded.

Women the world over are inspired by Hillary Rodham Clinton.  I am inspired by her.

Women the world over are inspired by Hillary Clinton. I am inspired by her. Men the world over are inspired by her, too, and this is a fact which has become even more evident in recent months as both women and men have lined up to endorse and support her nomination as the Democratic candidate for the Presidency of the United States of America.

Here is a short clip from the Women in the World summit held in March 2012 at the Lincoln Center. Hillary urges women to be "fearless"in fighting for equality, justice and civil rights for women.  Coming from someone who has had to be fearless in the face of unremitting attacks in the public sphere,  her words have particular power.

We are entering what is likely to be one of the ugliest and most exhausting presidential campaigns in American history.  I will have Hillary Clinton's back. More importantly, millions of men and women all across this country will have her back, too. They get it - we are stronger together.

Let's do this, America!

Clinton/Kaine - Let's Do This!

Loving Vincent - Bringing Painting to Life in Exciting Biographical Film

Starry Night Over the Rhone - Vincent van Gogh 1888-89

If this film project is even half as good as it looks like it will be, it will be worth clearing your schedule to go see it. The concept reminds me a little of the very cool and thought-provoking film Waking Life. Except in reverse.

Café Terrace at Night - 1888

Waking Life used animation software to convert actual film footage of live actors into drawn-looking, animated film.

Loving Vincent uses animation techniques to bring actual paintings in the style of Vincent van Gogh to life. The story of van Gogh's life is told with the visual component completely composed of modern artists' renditions of his famous paintings and then animating them.

This has got to be one of the most exciting forays into animated film that I have ever seen. The trailer is thrilling - the artist's style has been lovingly recreated and faithfully matched with the timeline of van Gogh's life.

I'm at a loss for words to describe how interesting this project sounds. Visually gorgeous, a compelling and fascinating story and a unique and groundbreaking approach to filmmaking.  It cannot arrive in theaters near me quickly enough!

Check out the trailer!

Accio, Fantastic Beasts!

Re-enter the wizarding world of Harry Potter? Yes, please, NOW!

Wait. What??!!  I have to wait until November 2016??!!??  NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!

The New Year has not even begun yet and now there is a reason to kind of hope 2016 flies by!  J.K. Rowling and company really ought to be ashamed of themselves - this is aiding and abetting very unhealthy thinking!

And wait, wait! It gets better! Eddie Redmayne in the lead as Newt Scamander!

Ok, so this trailer is laughably lame. Absurd, pathetic, unsatisfying and oh for the love of all that is magical, can't they release this film in the spring instead?!?




This newly released movie poster, on the other hand, rocks! How will wizarding world fans ever survive the wait?

ACCIO, Fantastic Beasts!

Won't Somebody Think Of The Elves?

Only 10 days left until Christmas -- ARE YOU READY?!

Tree trimming, cookie baking, carol singing and memory making - there is a lot of fun and stress and activity and stress and JOY (and stress) in all the preparations this month for those who celebrate winter holidays.

So, just to take you mind off the unfinished TO DO list -- imagine for a moment how an ELF must feel just 9 days before it's load up the sleigh day! (Talk about stress!)

Bend your ear toward the screen and click on the little box below.  Listen to the Elf's Lament by The Barenaked Ladies (with Michael Bublé).

Elf:  I make toys, but I've got aspirations.

Elf's Lament

I'm a man of reason, and they say "'Tis the season to be jolly"
But it's folly when you volley for position

Never in existence has there been such a resistance
To ideas meant to free us
If you could see us, then you'd listen

Toiling through the ages, making toys on garnished wages
There's no union
We're only through when we outdo the competition

I make toys, but I've got aspirations
Make some noise
Use your imagination
Girls and boys, before you wish for what you wish for
There's a list for who's been
Naughty or nice, but consider the price to an elf

A full indentured servitude can reflect on one's attitude
But that silly red hat just makes the fat man look outrageous

Absurd though it may seem, you know, I've heard there's even been illegal doping
And though we're coping, I just hope it's not contagious

You try to start a movement, and you think you see improvement
But when thrown into the moment, we just don't seem so courageous

I make toys, but I've got aspirations
Make some noise
Use your imagination
Girls and boys, before you wish for what you wish for
There's a list for who's been
Naughty or nice, but consider the price to an elf

You look at yourself
You're an elf
And the shelf is just filled with disappointing memories
Trends come and go, and your friends wanna know why you aren't just happy making crappy little gizmos
Every kid knows they'll just throw this stuff away

We're used to repetition, so we drew up a petition
We, the undersigned, feel undermined
Let's redefine "employment"

We know that we've got leverage, so we'll hand the fat man a beverage
And sit back while we attack the utter lack of our enjoyment

It may be tough to swallow, but our threats are far from hollow
He may thunder, but if he blunders, he may wonder where the toys went

I make toys, but I've got aspirations
Make some noise
Use your imagination
Girls and boys, before you wish for what you wish for
There's a list for who's been
Naughty or nice, but consider the price
Naughty or nice, but consider the price
Naughty or nice, but consider the price to an elf

Snow!

"Hurry Home", pastel painting, Karen Margulis

As I left town in the wee hours this morning for a brief trip, a quick-moving weather system blanketed Chicago in gorgeous cottony whiteness. Let's celebrate with a beautiful poem AND a video from Nifty's catalogue of favorite old movie songs!

London Snow

When men were all asleep the snow came flying, 

In large white flakes falling on the city brown,

Stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying,

Hushing the latest traffic of the drowsy town;

Deadening, muffling, stifling its murmurs failing;

Lazily and incessantly floating down and down:

Silently sifting and veiling road, roof and railing;

Hiding difference, making unevenness even,

Into angles and crevices softly drifting and sailing.

All night it fell, and when full inches seven

It lay in the depth of its uncompacted lightness,

The clouds blew off from a high and frosty heaven;

And all woke earlier for the unaccustomed brightness

Of the winter dawning, the strange unheavenly glare:

The eye marvelled-marvelled at the dazzling whiteness;

The ear hearkened to the stillness of the solemn air;

No sound of wheel rumbling nor of foot falling,       

And the busy morning cries came thin and spare.

Then boys I heard, as they went to school, calling,

They gathered up the crystal manna to freeze

Their tongues with tasting, their hands with snowballing;

Or rioted in a drift, plunging up to the knees;

Or peering up from under the white-mossed wonder,

'O look at the trees!' they cried, 'O look at the trees!'

With lessened load a few carts creak and blunder,

Following along the white deserted way,

A country company long dispersed asunder:

When now already the sun, in pale display

Standing by Paul's high dome, spread forth below

His sparkling beams, and awoke the stir of the day.

For now doors open, and war is waged with the snow;

And trains of sombre men, past tale of number,

Tread long brown paths, as toward their toil they go:

But even for them awhile no cares encumber

Their minds diverted; the daily word is unspoken,

The daily thoughts of labour and sorrow slumber

At the sight of the beauty that greets them, for the charm they have broken. 

--Robert Seymour Bridges

It's Beginning To Look A Bit Like The Holidays!

Chicago received its first measurable snowfall of the 2015-16 winter season overnight!  It's beginning to look a bit like the holidays and that's Nifty's cue to start plastering holiday-themed music and poetry and videos all over NiftyIdeas.

Like this one:  Snowmen, a pretty song and a cute story -- what's not to love?

Enjoy!

Storms Never Last

For your Friday music fix, something a little bit different: the country crossover duet of Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter (Miriam Eddy):

Storms Never Last


Storms never last do they, baby
Bad times all pass with the winds
Your hand in mine steals the thunder
You make the sun want to shine

Oh, I followed you down so many roads, baby
I picked wild flowers and sung you soft sad songs
And every road we took, God knows, our search was for the truth
And the storm brewin' now won't be the last

Storms never last do they, baby
Bad times all pass with the winds
Your hand in mine steals the thunder
You make the sun want to shine

Storms never last do they, baby
Bad times all pass with the winds
Your hand in mine steals the thunder
You make the sun want to shine

Storms never last do they, baby.

 - Miriam Eddy (Jessi Colter)

November 11: Remembrance Day/Veteran's Day

November 11 is Veteran's Day in the USA, Remembrance Day in Canada and Armistice Day in the UK. In many other parts of the world, this date commemorates those who lost their lives in wars, particularly the first and second world wars (1914-18; 1939-45).  There is a slight difference between countries in what the focus is on this date: for Americans, whose solemn day for remembering war dead is Memorial Day in May, November 11 is a day to celebrate and thank veterans, past and present, for their service to their country.

Canadians and other British Commonwealth countries, as well as many other European nations, today's date is one of somber remembrance of the war dead. November 11, 1918 was when the Armistice that ended WWI was signed and in many of these countries, a moment of silence is observed at 11:11AM on November 11 (11/11) each year.

In Flanders Fields 

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow 

Between the crosses row on row, 

That mark our place; and in the sky 

The larks, still bravely singing, fly 

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago 

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, 

Loved and were loved, and now we lie 

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe: 

To you from failing hands we throw 

The torch; be yours to hold it high. 

If ye break faith with us who die 

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow 

In Flanders fields.

By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

This famous poem, a recital standard of many a middle school assembly, has an interesting backstory:

John McCrae was a poet and physician from Guelph, Ontario. He developed an interest in poetry at a young age and wrote throughout his life. His earliest works were published in the mid 1890s in Canadian magazines and newspapers. McCrae's poetry often focused on death and the peace that followed.

At the age of 41, McCrae enrolled with the Canadian Expeditionary Force following the outbreak of the First World War. He had the option of joining the medical corps due to his training and age, but volunteered instead to join a fighting unit as a gunner and medical officer. It was his second tour of duty in the Canadian military. He previously fought with a volunteer force in the Second Boer War. He considered himself a soldier first; his father was a military leader in Guelph and McCrae grew up believing in the duty of fighting for his country and empire.

McCrae fought in the second battle of Ypres in the Flanders region of Belgium where the German army launched one of the first chemical attacks in the history of war. They attacked the Canadian position with chlorine gas on April 22, 1915, but were unable to break through the Canadian line which held for over two weeks. In a letter written to his mother, McCrae described the battle as a "nightmare": "For seventeen days and seventeen nights none of us have had our clothes off, nor our boots even, except occasionally. In all that time while I was awake, gunfire and rifle fire never ceased for sixty seconds ..... And behind it all was the constant background of the sights of the dead, the wounded, the maimed, and a terrible anxiety lest the line should give way." Alexis Helmer, a close friend, was killed during the battle on May 2. McCrae performed the burial service himself, at which time he noted how poppies quickly grew around the graves of those who died at Ypres. The next day, he composed the poem while sitting in the back of an ambulance...

McCrae was moved to the medical corps and stationed in Boulogne, France, in June 1915 where he was named lieutenant-colonel in charge of medicine at the Number 3 Canadian General Hospital. He was promoted to the acting rank of Colonel on January 13, 1918, and named Consulting Physician to the British Armies in France. The years of war had worn McCrae down, however. He contracted pneumonia that same day, and later came down with cerebral meningitis. On January 28, he died at the military hospital in Wimereux and was buried there with full military honours. (wikipedia)

Please remember to thank a veteran for their service!

Isn't That Just Ducky!

Hello there!

Can I have a treat?

No?

OK, I really wanted a snuggle.

Yes!

Isn't that just Ducky!



A Puppy Poem

You can't buy loyalty, they say
I bought it though, the other day;

You can't buy friendship, tried and true,
But just the same, I bought that too.

I made my bid, and on the spot
Bought love and faith and a whole job lot

Of happiness, so all in all
The purchase price was pretty small

I bought a single trusting heart,
That gave devotion from the start

If you think these things are not for sale,
Buy a brown-eyed puppy with a wagging tail.


Author Unknown

SISTERS Saturday!

Happy Saturday, NiftyReaders!

For a little Saturday Inspiration, I give you Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen singing and dancing this classic number from Irving Berlin's White Christmas.

I'm excited to be seeing a stage adaptation of that musical this weekend at Drury Lane in Chicago. CAN. NOT. WAIT! The reviews have been fantastic and I was delighted to see that one of my favorite stage performers, Sean Allan Krill will be playing the role of Bob Wallace (the Bing Crosby role in the 1954 film version), so I am pretty sure that I am going to love this production, just because of that fact alone!  (Anyone who was lucky enough to catch Sean Krill in Chicago Shakespeare Theater's spring production of Sense and Sensibility will understand what I am talking about -- oh and looky here! I happen to have a link to a glorious montage from that wonderful musical!).

This particular number has been one of my favorite film songs for a long time and since my own sister will be arriving tonight for a long anticipated visit, it is the perfect musical Saturday inspiration. The movie White Christmas has long been "our" holiday movie and this song in particular always brings smiles and laughter.  By happy coincidence, the Drury Lane production of the musical coincided nicely with our visit and so we will be able to attend together. Yes!

Enjoy your Saturday!

Thank Gods It's FreyaDay!

The Inscrutable Cat

She crouches, a silent golden sphinx,

And thinks and drowses and yawns and thinks . . .

Of cosmic riddles old as Osiris?

Behold her there like a fur-swatched heiress,

A jewel-eyed hedonist whose mind

Is filled with the thoughts of her occult kind:

Herself and her own desires. In short,

Will I let her stay on the davenport

Or put her out? And dare she try

To capture a goldfish by-and-by?

Veiled and inscrutable, she hunches

And ponders profoundly how soon lunch is.

-- (Georgie Starbuck Gailbraith)

Greetings, humans.

It has come to my attention that you have been deprived of my presence for some time. This outrageous situation must be rectified at once, and I have instructed NiftyWriter to correct it immediately, on pain of my everlasting disdain.

The pathetic humans believed I would be mollified by their offering of wine and ridiculous kitchen linen. It is foolishness like that which causes me to despair for humanity.

Nothing can assuage the pain of such disrespect! However, I will condescend to accept tokens of atonement and abject groveling.

This is a step in the right direction, human. 

Going forward, all laps become my personal thrones. The photo on the right depicts a reasonably good start.

Although, I notice there are no delicious treats being proffered here.

See to it that I am left undisturbed for several hours.  Your legs are numb and you need to get up? I don't want to hear it.

Have you forgotten that I have been ignored for well over a year on NiftyIdeas? Yes, I will never let that egregious fact be forgotten.


The world has been deprived of me for too long and it is necessary for me to take matters into my own paws.

The world has also been deprived of updates on the terrible twosome, aka Apollo and Artemis. This is perhaps for the best. They continue to display behavior unbecoming to cats and both of them bring shame upon my kingdom our household daily.

I shall commence redoubling my effort to restore order and serenity in the Kingdom of Freya.

Thank gods it's FreyaDay!

Look at those two. Just look at them! 

Happy Hallowe'en!

Happy Hallowe'en, NiftyReaders!

For your viewing and listening pleasure, a classic for the holiday!

Thorsday Tonic - Listen, Smith Of The Heavens!

Hallowe'en approaches -- one of my favorite holidays and probably the most eagerly anticipated event in the year for most American and Canadian children.

I'm just getting warmed up again after a prolonged hiatus (life happens, NiftyReaders!), and what better way to do so than with an amazing piece of music based on an ancient song to a Norse god?  It's the ideal warm up for Hallowe'en, too!

Enjoy!

Lyrics:

Heyr, himna smiður, hvers skáldið biður. Komi mjúk til mín miskunnin þín. Því heit eg á þig, þú hefur skaptan mig. Eg er þrællinn þinn, þú ert drottinn minn. Guð, heit eg á þig, að þú græðir mig. Minnst þú, mildingur, mín, mest þurfum þín. Ryð þú, röðla gramur, ríklyndur og framur, hölds hverri sorg úr hjartaborg. Gæt þú, mildingur, mín, mest þurfum þín, helzt hverja stund á hölda grund. Send þú, meyjar mögur, málsefnin fögur, öll er hjálp af þér, í hjarta mér.

Listen, smith of the heavens, what the poet asks. May softly come unto me thy mercy. So I call on thee, for thou hast created me. I am thy slave, thou art my Lord. God, I call on thee to heal me. Remember me, mild one, (or mild king. This is a pun on the word mildingur). Most we need thee. Drive out, O king of suns, generous and great, human every sorrow from the city of the heart. Watch over me, mild one, Most we need thee, truly every moment in the world of men. send us, son of the virgin, good causes, all aid is from thee, in my heart.

Snowy Evening...Frost

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

- Robert Frost

Rest In Peace, Maya Angelou

The world woke up to the sad news that Dr. Maya Angelou died this morning.  There is little that a blogger can say about this amazing woman, that her own magnificent writing and the example of her courageous life cannot say better.

Rest in peace, Maya Angelou. Humanity is a little poorer today for your passing, yet you have enriched us all with your wisdom, grace and incandescent humanism.

And Still I Rise

Still I Rise
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines

Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Maya Angelou

Crucifixion Friday - Easter "Joy"!

A torture/execution device is the universally revered symbol for the religion of "love"?

Even when I was a practicing Catholic, I never quite wanted to "celebrate" the Christian remake of Easter. I was happy to celebrate spring, rebirth, flowers blooming, days getting longer, the Easter bunny and coloring eggs to symbolize fertility and new life - in short, all the aspects of the ancient festival of Eastre that most people enjoy celebrating at this time of the year. But the human sacrifice myth that Christianity grafted on to Easter has always repulsed me.

I think one of the most puzzling and disturbing things about theism is that belief seems to alter the human mind so that otherwise rational, good and decent people are able to accept a doctrine of "salvation through human sacrifice" without apparent discomfort.  In fact, Christians not only embrace this doctrine as the truth, but they consider it to be a beautiful proof of the love of the Biblical god.  Without any apparent irony, most Christians regard the story of the torture and execution of the son-god, Jesus, as the very zenith of joyful good news.

Oh happy day -?!

In any other context, human beings who think bloody human sacrifice is acceptable, let alone good, would be considered sociopathic. An entire culture of them would be considered monstrous. Yet, human sacrifice to gods - bloodshed for religion - is accepted as a normal part of human culture even to this day in some parts of the world. Only in a religious context is such depravity considered not only acceptable but laudatory.

The concept of redemptive blood sacrifice disturbs me on many levels.  It disturbs me that people are told that humanity is in need of redemption - that we are sinful, "filthy rags" condemned by our very nature to an eternity of torture in hell unless we seek "salvation" from a deity - when it is the deity which they also believe created our human nature in the first place. More important is the chilling reality that people accept this vile, self-loathing doctrine. I wonder at the twisted psychology of a faith that teaches little children that they are sinful, hell-bound creatures, and then goes on to tell them that their only path to salvation must be through a bloody human sacrifice that allegedly occurred 2000 years ago.

It disturbs me that the deity that millions of people worship is believed to require a blood sacrifice to expiate the sinfulness of its own creation in the first place. It seems incredible that an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving god - whose alleged desire is to welcome humanity into its presence - would deliberately create humankind with a curious, independent and impulsively immature nature and then subject the first humans to a life or death test which requires incuriousness, unquestioning obedience and experienced maturity.

It disturbs me that millions of people worship a god that would condemn all humanity for all eternity because of the inevitable failure of the two prototype humans to pass that impossible test because of the limitations of the very human nature with which that god endowed them.  It could make sense - albeit "sense" of the most malevolent kind - if people acknowledged that the god is a viciously manipulative tyrant which only fear compels them to keep praising and worshiping, but instead Christians insist that the mythical monster is a "loving" god.

It disturbs me that the cruel, capricious, psychopathic behavior which is the nature of the Biblical god - it is evident throughout holy scripture that God is all that and worse - must be called just, holy and glorious by its worshipers. Believers never seem to wonder why their omniscient and omnipotent god would require total, abject obedience in the first place nor why it could not - or would not - think of a more humane way for its followers to avoid eternal hellfire for the "sin" of being what they were created to be. It never seems to occur to believers that the deity they truly believe in is actually an awful, even evil character.

Christians refer to the Passion and Resurrection stories as the most "joyful" part of scripture.  I understand that they think it is the most important part - indeed it is the very foundation of the Christian faith - but I do not understand how people can remain so uncritical of this "salvation".  I find myself wondering how people can suspend normal human horror at such violent cruelty in this one celebrated instance, calling it necessary and good. Their insistence that a god that can do anything somehow needed someone to die a violent, painful death to satisfy its thirst for vengeance and that this capriciously cruel demand is the greatest love humankind will ever know strikes me as very sad.

Human beings fear death more than anything else. Al Stefanelli writes that through most of history, the horror of dying spawned many versions of the Savior story.  Probably human beings then, as now, felt an awful impotence in the face of their inevitable demise and that sense of impotence may explain the continued acceptance of a doctrine of human failure leading to misplaced faith in irrational belief.

But, while fear and a sense of impotence may explain the willingness of believers to accept a savior myth, I feel that it is early religious indoctrination and psychological manipulation which leads people to sublimate their normal, healthy human aversion to wanton cruelty and to accept the meanest of human impulses - in the guise of Godly judgement - with hardly a murmur of protest. Cruelty is called kindness, evil is called good and contempt is called love. Such is the bizarrely twisted Christian moral compass.

I suspect that the early Christian conquerers co-opted the pagan Eastre celebrations of springtime fertility not simply to 'win over' pagans to Christianity (they generally achieved this through intimidation and persecution anyway), but to make Christianity more palatable to the masses by entwining a terrifying and immoral doctrine with the more hopeful, joyful celebrations that most psychologically healthy human beings naturally prefer. By fusing the repugnant with the refreshing, Christianity keeps its adherents off-balance and confused about what ought to be the clear difference between goodness and evil.

I do not believe that the Biblical gods - or any gods - exist, but I do think that the idea of such a god - and the repulsive religious doctrines built around it - ought to be resisted by all morally healthy people with every ounce of vigor that they can muster.

Could it be that Christians are more uncomfortable than they admit with the blood sacrifice "salvation" doctrine?
Maybe that explains the popularity of pagan Easter symbolism!

Thorsday Tonic - Changes

A little Thorsday Tonic for you!

Changes 

Still don't know what I was waitin' for
And my time was runnin' wild
A million dead end streets and
Every time I thought I'd got it made
It seemed the taste was not so sweet
So I turned myself to face me
But I've never caught a glimpse of
How the others must see the faker
I'm much too fast to take that test

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes
Don't want to be a richer man
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes
Just gonna have to be a different man
Time may change me
But I can't trace time
Mmm, yeah

I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence
So the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're goin' through

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes
Don't tell them to grow up and out of it
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes
Where's your shame?
You've left us up to our necks in it
Time may change me
But you can't trace time

Strange fascination, fascinatin'
Ah, changes are takin'
The pace I'm goin' through

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes
Oh, look out you rock 'n' rollers
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes
Pretty soon now you're gonna get older
Time may change me
But I can't trace time
I said that time may change me
But I can't trace time

- David Bowie

Tuesday Tonic - The War on Easter!

Reposting this po(e)st since last year's version has been showing up in the niftiest posts list!

Mark your calendars, NiftyReaders. Today, I agree wholeheartedly with a fundamentalist Christian argument. According to online sources for Christian correctness, Christians have a big problem with Easter. The problem is that Easter is not Christian enough. In fact, Easter is not Christian or Biblically endorsed at all.

Hot cross buns?
Abominations!

Now let’s go to the other scriptures authorizing Easter. This presents a problem. There are NONE! There are absolutely no verses, anywhere in the Bible, that authorize or endorse the keeping of Easter celebration! The Bible says nothing about Lent, eggs and egg hunts, baskets of candy, etc., although it does mention hot cross buns and sunrise services as abominations, which God condemns. (The True Origin of Easter, the Reformed Church of God.org)

The name “Easter” has its roots in ancient polytheistic religions (paganism). On this, all scholars agree. This name is never used in the original Scriptures, nor is it ever associated biblically with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. For these reasons, we prefer to use the term “Resurrection Sunday” rather than “Easter” when referring to the annual Christian remembrance of Christ's resurrection. (What is the origin of Easter? ChristianAnswers.org)

Oh, those pagans with their "Happy Easter/Happy Holidays"! Unbelievers have been distracting Christians from the true meaning of Christianity's most important holidays for too long! Easter is all about springtime, flowers budding, bunnies, chicks and sex. So unChristian!  Resurrection Sunday is about the story of a dead man who disappeared from his tomb and is believed to have risen from the dead after a horrific execution. That's more like it! Ask any Christian, he will tell you: holidays don't get much more joyful than that!

Coloring eggs? 
That's a no-no, Christians!

I would prefer that Christians use the term "Resurrection Sunday" rather than Easter, too. It makes perfect sense for Christians - who happily profess to be washed in the blood of Jesus, after all - to name their own holiday something more appropriate to what it really is about. I enthusiastically support their right to begin calling their holy day by this name forthwith. Keep the Resurrection in Resurrection Sunday!

And while we are on the subject, why do devout Christians allow the secularists to win on Good Friday, too? Why accept the politically correct - and frankly much too bland - "Good Friday"?  Christians, call it what it is!  It is Crucifixion Friday! It is high time that Christians admit to the rest of the world - loud and proud - that their holiday is about blood, torture and a terrible death, not the Easter Bunny, jellybeans and a chocolate coma!

And about those Easter Eggs. No, no, no, Christians. Do you have any idea of the depraved history of these pagan symbols? Easter eggs are pagan symbols of a fertility goddess! ChristianAnswers can fill you in:

Most children and families who color or hide Easter eggs as part of their Resurrection Sunday tradition have no knowledge of the origin of these traditions. Easter egg activities have become a part of Western culture. Many would be surprised and even dismayed to learn where the traditions originated.
“The egg was a sacred symbol among the Babylonians. They believed an old fable about an egg of wondrous size which was supposed to have fallen from heaven into the Euphrates River. From this marvelous egg - according to the ancient story - the Goddess Astarte (Easter) [Semiramis], was hatched. And so the egg came to symbolize the Goddess Easter.”

Sneaky... but they're still eggs.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.

The idea of a mystic egg spread from Babylon to many parts of the world. In Rome, the mystic egg preceded processions in honor of the Mother Goddess Roman. The egg was part of the sacred ceremonies of the Mysteries of Bacchus. The Druids used the egg as their sacred emblem. In Northern Europe, China and Japan the eggs were colored for their sacred festivals.
The egg was also a symbol of fertility; Semiramis (Easter) was the goddess of Fertility. The Easter egg is a symbol of the pagan Mother Goddess, and it even bears one of her names.

Do you hear that? Fables! Fertility! A Mother Goddess! The horror! Now, do you see why no true Christian should ever be caught dead dyeing eggs or participating in Easter egg hunts? Instead of an almighty (yet curiously silent and invisible) creator god, the humble egg has been universally celebrated as a symbol of fertility and new life for thousands of years only because those people chose not to know any better. Dozens of cultures who observed the natural world around them, recognized the natural cycle of birth, life and death and celebrated the life-giving sunlight, moon cycle (reproductive cycle) and motherhood in the form of goddess worship were clearly unChristian, evil and wrong, wrong, wrong.

Easter eggs, chocolate bunnies, jellybeans and marshmallow chicks are all very seductive. They seem like delicious innocent fun, but they are not. They are dangerous temptations down the road to unbelief. They suggest natural sources of life and, with those eggs and chicks and hens and such, they are also suggestive of all of the necessary and naturally-occurring components of reproduction. They suggest that the plants and animals on the earth - including human beings - are actually born, live and die without the aid or interference of any deity. Of course, throbbing, pulsing, thriving, living reality cannot compete with the power of fervent, mystical religious belief (right? amirite?), but why should righteous Christians risk it?

And just in case you didn't catch the recurring motif of feminine power in those evil, pagan myths, just look what else this flim-flam Easter/Eastre "holiday" is all about (according to ChristianAnswers):

Nice try, Christians, but no.

... this adulterous and idolatrous woman gave birth to an illegitimate son, she claimed that this son, Tammuz by name, was Nimrod reborn.” Semiramis “claimed that her son was supernaturally conceived [no human father] and that he was the promised seed, the 'savior'” - promised by God in Genesis 3:15. “However, not only was the child worshipped, but the woman, the MOTHER, was also worshipped as much (or more) than the son!” Nimrod deified as the god of the sun and father of creation. Semiramis became the goddess of the moon, fertility, etc.

The woman, the MOTHER (!!1eleventy1!) was worshipped! If ever there was proof that Easter is an unChristian festival, this creation of a female god is it. Any mythology that pays respect to women - let alone that elevates one to goddess status - autonomous, powerful and life-giving - is a mythology that is antithetical to everything that patriarchal Christianity stands for.

And come on, look at that silly fable! It cannot hold a candle to the 100% true, God-breathed, divine message in the Bible describing the singular Truth of Christianity: An innocent and immaculate young virgin miraculously gave birth to a son. The Bible claims that this son, Jesus by name, was the son of God, conceived of the Holy Spirit (no human father) and that he was the promised Messiah - the "savior" promised by God in Genesis 3:15. Not only is the child, Jesus, worshipped as he should be, but his mother, Mary is also paid deference as only the Mother of God deserves to be.

Now, that is a story that has the ring of ultimate Truth™!

In the old fables of the Mystery cults, their 'savior' Tammuz, was worshipped with various rites at the Spring season. According to the legends, after he was slain [killed by a wild boar], he went into the underworld. But through the weeping of his mother… he mystically revived in the springing forth of the vegetation - in Spring! Each year a spring festival dramatically represented this supposed 'resurrection'...

Nope.

In the old holy scriptures of the One True Faith, the Christian savior, Jesus Christ, is worshipped with various rites at the spring season. According to the inerrant word of the Bible, after he was slain (killed by Roman occupiers), he died and descended into hell. But according to the will of his father, he mystically revived - bringing "new life" to the world - in Spring! Each spring, during holy days, worshippers dramatically re-enact the utterly unverifiable story totally true Biblical account of this real resurrection.

Thus, a terrible false religion developed with its sun and moon worship, priests, astrology, demonic worship, worship of stars associated with their gods, idolatry, mysterious rites, human sacrifice, and more. Frankly, the practices which went on were so horrible that it is not fitting for me to speak of them here.

Exactly.  We will speak no more about it. The Christian religion with its Son worship, priests, mysticism, belief in angels and demons, worship of holy shrines associated with visions of their gods, angels and saints, mysterious rites and liturgical human sacrifice ritual is so much more than this terrible false religion from which Easter has sprung. For one thing, Christians add ritual cannibalism after the ritual human sacrifice! Frankly, these practices are so obviously correct, righteous and good, that it is not fitting for any Christian to participate in anything else. The source of that whole springtime/ new life/ bunnies and eggs/ ickily feminine, fertility cultish, Eastery thing is a terrible, false religion. What kind of a legitimate spring/rebirth festival elevates a MOTHER over a son? Definitely not a Christian festival!

Easter is clearly an evil pagan festival which Christians ought to decry.

Absolutely not!

Christians ought to take a stand against this tawdry commercialization of Christianity's most glorious holiday and simply refuse to partake in it. Perhaps they could demand that retailers post Happy Resurrection Sunday signs in their stores. Insist that schools and businesses should be closed out of respect for Crucifixion Friday. Fight for the power to teach schoolchildren the Good News™- whether they are Christian or not - through faith-building activities. Why shouldn't they be able to put on an annual Passion Play in public schools? What little boy wouldn't love to portray the crucified Jesus? What little girl hasn't dreamed of being cast as the Blessed Virgin grieving over the broken body of her murdered son? Even the littlest Christians can partake in the spirit-filled fun by baking Resurrection Cookies with Mom. As Mom reads the appropriate scriptures, the little ones can beat nuts into pieces with a wooden spoon and imagine they are breaking the bones of their long-suffering savior†. Godly, wholesome, fearsome fun. Now, that is the way to celebrate Easter Joy Resurrection Sunday!

One might wonder if there is a better way for Christians to celebrate Jesus Christ's resurrection, the most important of all Christian holy days. In retrospect, it seems obvious that it would have been a better witness to the world if Christians had not attempted to “Christianize” pagan celebrations* - adopting the name “Easter” (Ishtar/Semiramis) in remembrance of Christ. Jesus has been obscured by painted eggs and bunnies. Attention has been shifted away from spiritual truth and toward materialism (clothing, products and candies with the wrong symbolism). Stores merchandise the name of Easter (not “Resurrection Sunday”) and sell goods that have nothing to do with Christ's death and resurrection.

I couldn't agree more. Leave that pagan Easter business to the heathens, Christians! Resurrection Sunday belongs to you and Easter belongs to the rest of us. You glorify divine capital punishment, substitutionary atonement and human sacrifice - we prefer bunnies, eggs and chocolate. You keep the Crucifixion in Crucifixion Friday and the Resurrection in Resurrection Sunday and we will keep the Easter in Easter. Sounds fair to me.


† Read the Resurrection Cookie link. Seriously, you can't make this stuff up.
* Can I get an "Amen" to this, brothers and sisters?

That's right, Easter Bunny, just keep on hopping right out of the Christian calendar. 
And you can take your abominable eggs with you!

Thorsday Tonic - Here Comes Spring!

                                                                                                                                                     photo by another peri

It is 16:57 GMT (12:57PM EDT), our planet has aligned with the sun just so and - in the northern hemisphere where the NiftyFamily resides - spring has officially begun!

The March Equinox occurs each year on either March 19, 20 or 21. It is the moment when the sun crosses the imaginary line we call the equator and on that day, living things on earth experience roughly even hours of daylight and darkness. Equinox comes from the latin for "equal night".

Now, we in the north can look forward to lengthening days and shorter nights until June, while our southern hemisphere neighbors will experience shortening days and longer nights. Best of all, in my garden the earth is beginning to awaken. Yes it is! Even if you have a late winter snow, the earth feels that sunlight!.

Spring has sprung!


Lines Written in Early Spring
BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And ’tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure:—
But the least motion which they made
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature’s holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?


For your musical inspiration today in the first moments of spring: a lushly beautiful rendition of Vivaldi's Spring (from the Four Seasons) performed by violinist Julia Fischer accompanied by the Academy of St Martin in the Fields at the National Botanical Gardens of Wales. Enjoy the glorious music punctuated by birdsong, presented in a gorgeous garden conservatory. This is about as good as it gets!

For your Thorsday Tonic, listen to this and give yourself a little gift for spring.

Thank Gods It's Pi Day!

It's Friday! And Pi Day!

Thorsday Tonic - The Lottery Assumption

"Your Plan B is someone else's Plan A."

-Nifty

Last week, I reposted Thoughts on the Fork in the Road. Here is the follow-up post to that post, originally posted in January 2013.

There's something interesting about the way we think about our dreams and aspirations. While we believe our "dream goals" are impossibly difficult to achieve, it seems as though other people doing other things are always an "overnight success". We have a tendency to think that there are other - easier - pathways to success than the daunting uphill trek we imagine our own dreams would require. I think of it as a kind of "lottery" assumption. We figure that people who have achieved success in a creative field were mostly lucky and we conclude that even if we work hard and have talent, our odds of making it in our "dream" field are about as good as our odds of winning the lottery. We also (wrongly) conclude that success will be much easier in some other - usually more conventional - field.

Provided we have reasonable opportunities,
Gary Player's words are simply true.

This lottery assumption is frequently applied to artistic aspirations in particular. The truth is that the people who are "overnight successes" in creative fields - like people who achieve success in any field - rarely arrive at their success overnight. Of course, this is not news to anyone who has ever read the biography of a famous writer, actor or painter. Successful creative people nearly always work hard at their craft for years before their work is widely recognized and/or they achieve great financial success in their artistic endeavors. Yet the conviction persists that there is more than an element of chance to artistic success - not to mention overwhelming odds against you or me winning that particular lottery - undermining the will to work hard and the faith in ourselves that successful realization of our dreams demands.

It's true that opportunity is not equitably distributed throughout the population - and that is a topic for another post - but the lottery assumption goes beyond opportunity. Many people who actually have numerous opportunities to pursue their dreams still fail to recognize opportunity when it knocks. We continue to believe that other people - people who do recognize and answer that knock - are somehow just "luckier" than we are. Most of us turn a blind eye to our chances to do the things we say we would love to do, while telling ourselves that the opportunities we actually ignored just never came along at all. More determined people (who really intend to build a life doing the things that they love) keep an eye out for opportunities and then grab them when they present themselves.

There are lots of reasons why we fail to acknowledge opportunities to pursue our dreams: perhaps we have conflicting dreams and the opportunity means an impossible tradeoff of one cherished dream for another. It's rare that a conflict is so utterly irreconcilable, but it happens. More often, though, our reluctance to commit to a dream may tell us something about ourselves. Although if we pretend the opportunity never existed, we may never figure out what that is while we mourn a dream that we may never have really pursued anyway.

But, I think the biggest reason why we miss opportunities to do work we actually love is because we are socialized to regard enjoyable activities as strictly for leisure, while work is serious business. There is a sense that if we decide to make something we love to do our life's work, that we are somehow...well...goofing off. There is plenty of subtle and not-so subtle societal disapproval to underscore the point, too, so we dream of being able to perform or cook or paint for a living, but we feel a little bit ashamed of ourselves for wanting what essentially sounds like a lifetime of play, when we really ought to be doing more "grown-up" things. We postpone those dreams for some day, never quite formulating a Plan A to make them happen. We give up on our passions at the dreaming stage - decide they are unrealistic and probably we don't have the talent to make it anyway - and move directly on to Plan B. Our culture is more than ready to reinforce that, too.

Meryl Streep's Plan A - Acting

For example, people often say things like "What - do you imagine you'll be the next Meryl Streep?" to young people who express the dream of pursuing a career in acting (or, picking up on the general attitude that performance arts are not serious career options, young people say it to themselves). The unspoken message is loud and clear: performance art is fine for childhood and adolescence, but when it comes to a life plan, get serious! A career in acting is nothing but a pipe dream - a fantasy!

Consequently, the dream never even makes it out of the realm of fantasy to become a Plan A. Feeling naive and foolish for believing that such a childish dream could be made a reality, artistic people all too often default straight to a more acceptable Plan B.

Yet, we rarely hear anyone say things like that to kids who pursue paths that lead to what are perceived as safer, more conventionally solid, high-status careers like law, engineering, medicine or business. Let's take business, for example. No one ever says "What - do you think you're going to be the next Warren Buffet?" to the teenager who announces he is going to pursue a business degree or who hopes to open a small business someday. Unlike the liberal or performing arts, business is regarded as a very sensible course to take. Nobody insists that the only alternative to Buffet-like success is failure or that it is foolish to even consider trying. Why is that?

Out of the millions of people who work in the thousands of business-related occupations, there are very few who achieve the kind of stratospheric success of a Warren Buffet or Bill Gates, and perhaps a few hundred who "live the dream" of merely "great" corporate career success. There are many successful actors, writers and musicians among the thousands of people who work in creative occupations: actually, a person's relative odds of extraordinary success are probably greater in the arts than in business!

Warren Buffet's Plan A - Business

But even more to the point: where does the assumption come from that making it in business (or law, medicine or what have you) is easy - even a given? Have business diploma, will succeed!  Consider the huge numbers of students who flock to business schools. They can't all be passionate about business! And guess what? They're not. Many of these students love other things much more than business, but they've bought into the idea that to be successful (or, rather, to make money which we sometimes mistakenly equate with "success"), they should go into business school. They've shelved Plan A with hardly a whimper and gone to Plan B in the mistaken belief that Plan B will be easier.

They forget that their Plan B is someone else's Plan A.

The biggest pitfall of going with a Plan B is assuming that everyone else who has traveled the same path defaulted to that plan, too. This mistaken assumption is the root of the equally mistaken belief that Plan B will be easier. We see people in solid business careers and we assume: that's the ticket to success! No need to agonize over talent or possible humiliation - it's business!

But virtually every really successful person is working not on a Plan B but on their Plan A. People with no interest or passion for business do not simply walk out of college, diploma in hand and immediately start climbing the corporate ladder.  The people who seem to have effortlessly navigated a dream career have done so only after decades of working their way up through hard work, determination and a little luck. About the only thing that can sustain a person through years of striving at a demanding career is to love what you do. When you love what to do, the work energizes and invigorates you. When you don't, it can drain and depress you.

When you choose something because it seems expedient, rather than because you really want to do it, you actually choose to devote the majority of your one and only life to something you don't care about and don't particularly enjoy. Why would you choose to do that?

Advancing in a field that doesn't excite you is not easy. Aiming higher in a career you really don't love is not easy. Showing up each day at a job you neither care about nor enjoy is not easy at all. It is very hard. Without the passion and excitement we feel when we are working at something we love, it is very hard to find the energy and drive necessary to succeed. Even with a business, medical or law degree success is never easy and certainly not guaranteed.

What should this guy's Plan A have been?

For plenty of young people, these careers are a genuine dream come true, and they are fortunate to be able to convert the sincere desire to do that work into a solid Plan A. They work hard at careers they love, and whether or not they achieve the highest honors in their field, they command respect in society and live satisfying lives, too. Yet, there are doctors and lawyers and business majors who fail because their ambivalence about their work has translated into lackluster job performance. There are Plan B people languishing in dead-end jobs or who are always looking for another job - constantly searching for the right one and rarely succeeding.

It is worthwhile to give some thought to the things we really enjoy doing and try to figure out a way to incorporate those things into a career plan. A career Plan A.  Many of us avoid doing this because we fear the possibility of failure at something we really care about. Yet, by defaulting to a Plan B which ignores our dreams and passions is to guarantee that we will fail to do anything with them.  There are meaningful careers to match any interest known to humankind - if we make the effort to find them.

It is a fact of life that we won't all become CEOs, movie stars or celebrities in our respective fields. Whether or not we end up rivaling Meryl Streep or Warren Buffet, most of us will feel pretty successful if we can enjoy friendships, family, a little fun and the security of a decent job. If that job should also happen to be in a field we really enjoy - if we made a Plan A, stuck to it, worked hard and grabbed our opportunities when they presented themselves - then we will have the satisfaction of spending the best part of our lives doing stuff we love.

And that must feel a little like winning a lottery.

Steve Jobs  1955-2011