The Google homepage now has a link for tsunami relief. It lists both places to send aid and places for news and information. There is also a link to a CNN site: http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/27/quake.aidsites/
with a longer list of places to give money.
I gave Doctors Without Borders a contribution. I hope to give more in the coming days. These places will need money to help in the week, months, years, ahead. Give what you can now, and maybe more next week, and next month.
My coven brother Steven has written a couple of songs which shows his feelings about the holiday and the songs, especially one on the disliked list. The second song tells you a little more about Berhta - Steve did his research.
Mother Berhta's Coming To Town
Oh, you'd better watch out, when winter comes nigh
don't you dare doubt, I'm telling you why
Mother Berhta's coming to town.
She carries a sack made out of a skin
She dumps the toys out and stuffs the kids in
Mother Berhta's coming to town
She rides on Nasher Skege, a goat whose back is strong.
Her beard is grey and scraggly and her tail is ten feet long.
With six or eight horns, a mustache or two
make no mistake, she's coming for you!
Mother Berhta's coming to town.
She knows with whom you're sleeping
She knows with whom you wake
She knows each thought you're thinking
So don't think, for Goddess' sake!
So when the winds howl way up in the sky
Listen as she and Skege pass by
Mother Berhta's coming to town!
Mother Berhta
to the traditional Russian tune “Sviaty Mikula”
Who is that, a-rattling at your window?
Who is that, a-shrieking down your flue?
Don’t you know her, her name is Mother Berhta;
She may bring a thing or two for you!
Don’t you know her, her name is Mother Berhta;
She may bring a thing or two for you!
She is called babushka and Befana,
Holle, Hulda, Gryla and the Grue;
But if you will call her Mother Berhta,
She may leave a thing or two for you!
Yes, if you will call her Mother Berhta,
She may leave a thing or two for you!
From her belt a severed head is dangling;
Whose it was is easy to infer.
Santa Claus had a date with Mother Berhta:
He sure learned a thing or two from her!
Santa once had a date with Mother Berhta;
He sure learned a thing or two from her!
In she flies on scruffy old Gnasher Skeggi;
He’s her goat, her son and boyfriend too. (Oy!)
Mother Berhta is really Old Witch Wonter,
She may bring a thing or two for you!
I am sure is you’ll call on Mother Berhta,
Mother B. may pay a call on you!
Lisa S.,
I would say your comments on Pagan scholarship are minimal and mild. That's the least anyone should do, but unfortunately, a lot of the current crop of both authors and practitioners are lazy.
And don't get me going about Barbara Walker. People who tell me about her tend to get lectures on footnotes and why they are important.
But then, I'm not a fluffy bunny Pagan at all. For me, Witchcraft is a religion, not a fashion statement, dammit.
Just out of curiousity, what would be a good way to self publish? There are times when you would like to publish a book, but it isn't commericially appealing. My mother is turning 80, and I'd like her to see a copy of her poems in a bound volume somehow. Maybe make a dozen copies to give to family members. It's the only thing I can think of to do as a gift for her. What would you suggest?
Weather report update from Minneapolis, at 9:30 pm CST. 21 degrees, wind is northwest at 25 mph, gusting to 35, making it feel like 5 above. I hope Mike is okay, some of those top floors sway in this much wind..
There is a store here called Ingebretson's that sells all things Norwegian, including straw goats - Julboks - in several sizes, up to 3 feet tall or larger. And elves, or rather, statues of elves and trolls and other such creatures. Very popular.
I think I will put out an offering for the trolls - something is riding that wind. I can hear it.
About bifocals. If you work on a monitor a lot, and can afford it, get two pairs of glasses, one bifocals, and one with just the close prescription, to use when on the computer. I find that works much better. And I am considering a pair that is just the distance prescription for driving and movies (the two times I need them most.)
But my eyes aren't that bad. I can get around the house or office without any glasses. With bifocals, I find I have to throw my head back to see through just the bottom; I have the old fashioned line bifocals. YMMV.
Aquila,
Re:http://www.world-cnn.com/
How is this a information literacy test? It seems to be a lovely spoof page. All I had to do was check the real CNN site, and unfortunately, the headline was not true.
My personal opinion of Where Corporations Went Wrong is when they could own other corporations. It's fine that Bill Gates can go into business without worrying he will lose everything, and his parents house too if his idea doesn't sell. But if Bill Gates is successful, he shouldn't be able to buy up his competition, for example, or his suppliers. Drive the competition out of business, maybe, if his product is that good. It's the multi-national mega-corporations that are doing most of the harm.
Giving corporations more rights than individuals is a big mistake as well. This was the result of some obscure railroad case, but I can't remember the exact date or case.
Another recommendation:
"The House with a Clock in its Walls" by John Bellairs, with illutrations by Edward Gorey, and in general, anything by Bellairs. And, of course, anything by Gorey.
I've had that unknown languages in my head, speaking to me and almost but not quite understanding. But that was on 500 mcg.
My flying dreams, what few I've had, always turn into falling dreams, and I wake up very disoriented.
Thank you for the reminder and a lot of good ideas. Here in Minneapolis, the disaster I have to be most prepared for is blizzards. I've lived through several. The first one, I was lucky - the water stayed on, the electricity was only off briefly, and I had just gotten groceries the day before. Now I always keep supplies on hand. I don't have a bug-out kit, but I think I will assemble one.
I have to replace the car kit, because we are driving to Oshkosh for Thanksgiving, through some fairly isolated areas. Blankets, check the flashlight that lives in the car, put in the candles, etc. etc.
Any ideas where to get a canteen that won't freeze? I used to have one but I can't find it. The new plastic ones, even in a insulated case, can't stay in a car up here - they freeze and leak.
Ah, Newberry Fruits are the English equivalent of fruitcakes!
Pharasees is good, and more Biblically accurate.
Leviticans is okay, but since I grew up around Orthodox Jews, it's a little insulting to the people who actually try to follow ALL the rules instead of cherry-picking. The chapter of Leviticus that says a man should not lie with another man as he would with a woman has a LONG list of other sexual prohobitions, including banishment for lying with a woman during her period.
Interestingly enough, the next chapter has this verse: "Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbor, neither rob him: the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning", as well the injunction not to glean your fields, but leave the rest for the poor.
Shall we start carping on people who defraud and rob their neighbors? It's in the Bible. I'm thinking Enron here.
About yarn.
Come to Minicon in March, and stay for the yarn. You have Lion and similiar c/h/e/a/p inexpensive at Target. You have Depth of Field on the West Bank, Cliticky Sticks near Lake Nokomis, the Yarnery in St Paul, and a half dozen others. I don't think I've ever seen yarn as expensive as your describe except imported wools.
I get a lot of mine at yard sales anyway. People get yarn for porjects and either have leftovers, or never finish the project and sell it for cheap. Or do you have yard or garage sales in NYC? Maybe not.
I have an odd hobby. Working in libraries, I like to read old magazine. Really old magazines. I was flipping through the 1951 Readers Digests, and found an article on vote rigging, and fixing elections, and corruptions. If anyone is interested, I can try to find it again. The more things change...
The problem is, as people have noted, the current crop of Republicans are behaving as if they know they will be able to stay in office no matter what. Hopefully, they are fooling themselves, but I am worried.
My personal worry scenario is that when all the dust has cleared, the Republicans will not let go their grip on the White House, and that shortly after he is sworn in for a 2nd term, Bush will die, and Cheney will officially be Prez. After all, there is still the 20 year curse, and it's not certain if Reagan broke it, or merely ducked it by surviving his assassimation attempt.
I believe the orginal joke, which was from the Soviet days, was that there was a rally at which (Stalin) (Krushchev) (whomever) appeared and answered questions. Boris stands up and says, "I have two questions, when will we defeat capitalism, and when will there no longer be lines for meat?". The leader says, "I will find out, and answer your questions tomorrow". The next day, the leader is answering questions again. Ivan stands up and says, "I have three questions, when will we defeat capitalism, when will there no longer be lines for meat, and where is Boris?"
And there is always, if you were trapped in a room with a rattlesnake, a cobra and George Bush, and you had a gun with only two bullets, what would you do?
Shoot Bush twice.
(The first time I heard that, it was a lawyer joke.)
What I am afraid of is that the powers-that-be are "redefining retirement". When I was recently unemployed, and going to a bunch of Workforce Center workshops, I heard some startling "news". Retirement isn't was it used to be. Plan on working during your retirement; retirement is switching from a high stress job (read higher paid) to a lower stress job (read lower paid, without benefits.) As someone who has always had a "low stress", i.e. low paid job, this means working until I drop. I'm lucky, not only am I not in debt, but I do have savings, and some possibility of inheritance, if my mother's nursing home doesn't get it all. But there are millions of my contemporaries who are in middle age with debt instead of savings. I already have to wait until 66 to get full Social Security. I probably will be able to retire sometime. Many won't be able to.
I have no offspring to help me in my old age. Never wanted kids, neither did my brothers. I hope to have enough younger friends that I will at least have people to talk to when I'm 80.
We probably need to redefine retirement, and coping with aging. But I don't want the govenment to do it for me. I don't want to EVER live in a nursing home. My mom's is pretty good, as such places go. But it's a lousy model of care, except for the short term. I want to live out my life surrounded by my own books, and cooking my own meals, or at least helping to. I don't want to live with a bunch of strangers that I am forced to socialize with. I'm not worried about living on the street as an old person as being put in a home and left to rot.
For Jill Smith, on a comment a ways back:
I grew up in the Maryland suburbs of DC, and there were wolf spiders, alas, since I am a arachnephobe, and those are BIG spiders. I once almost touched one that had decided the living rooms curtains would be a good place to rest. I was about to pull the curtains aside to look out. Ooops!
I remembering hearing that they were coming into peoples' houses more as their usual habitat, the woods, were cut down to build, you guessed it, the suburban houses like the one I lived in. I suspect that they are less common now, but Maryland is certainly in their range, to the best of my knowledge.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2005 | 1 |
| 2004 | 18 |
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