I love taking quizzes

And I love it even more when I get 100%!



This sucker was a bit tough since there were a couple of questions which had a couple of really good possibilities (La Bûche de Noël).

Knowledge of languages helps in this quiz!

What Jesus wants you to do This Christmas!

Stop Persecuting Jews (and Muslims too! Since they respect Jesus as a prophet)



Just remember that Jesus was a Jew.

And he celebrated Hanukkah, not Christmas.

Sale Juif=Dirty Jew
L'Antisemitism: Et si c'etait l'affair de tous=Antisemitism: as if it's everybody's business?

Rude Christmas Carols!

While shepherds washed their cocks by night
While watching ITV
the angel of the Lord came down
and switched to BBC.


To the tune of The Twelve Days of Christmas. Obscene actions go with each verse.

On the first day of Christmas,
My true love gave to me,
A hand job that wasn't worth fuck.

On the second day of Christmas,
My true love gave to me,
Two shit house doors,
And a hand job that wasn't worth a fuck.

Three French whores...
Four calling girls...
Five golden showers...
Six sixty-niners...
Seven sleazy sisters...
Eight aching assholes...
Nine knawed-off nipples..
Ten tons of titties...
Eleven leaping lesbians
Twelve twats a-twitching...

More Nutcracker/Slutcracker

I'm not sure if this is a joke, but it was on the comments to the post about the Slutcracker that turned me on to the production.

One cannot desecrate what is already filthy. The Nutcracker story has nothing to do with Our Lord Christ’s birthday at all—it’s filled with unnatural pairings of humans and dolls, as well as gratuitous violence. The original author of The Nutcracker, E. T. A. Hoffmann, was a Prussian who wrote novels with pagan, perverted, and non-Christian themes, and was influential to generations of decadent writers. Tchaikovsky, composer of the ballet version of The Nutcracker, was a Russian incestuous pedophile who lusted after his own 13-year-old nephew. Tchaikovsky eventually committed suicide to avoid having his sins publicly revealed, and is now burning in hell. Ballet itself has always been a cesspool of whores (only a loose woman would ever show her legs in public) and faggots (no real man would be caught dead dancing onstage in tights). I hope none of the readers here have their daughter in ballet classes, otherwise they may as well hand them a stripper pole and a whip. Say what you will about Islamic dictatorships, at least they don’t allow their women and homosexuals to flaunt themselves like this in public—they stone them to death.

Perhaps we should be grateful to the maggots of Slutcracker for reminding us how rotten the meat of the Nutcracker truly is.

Somehow, this sounds like a joke, but a pretty good one. The blog's author is too ignorant to realise she's being HAD (in more than one way as well). The Comment is not too far off as well about the Nutcracker and Tchaikovsky for that matter. Although, the commentor has overdone it A LOT!

IMHO The blog's author looks like she's Hanoi Jane in black and carrying an AK-47. Her name even sounds a bit like she's a gook as well. Someone should photoshop her pic to add a Vietnamese army pith helmet and a viet cong flag backdrop! Whatever is her story, she looks more terrorist than patriot in her pic. I'd love to have her in the sights of my L115A3.

Too bad her skull would implode like a light bulb given it is a vacuum (or don't those exist in nature?).

Patriotism isn't the last refuge of a scoundrel, it's the first.

This schmendricke klafte needs to bone up on the Constitution before she starts trying to defend it. I suggest Articles 1(8),III, VI, and The First Amendment as a beginning.

More Jesus celebrated Hanukkah!

As I like to say, Shouldn't you be Jewish if you're going to be a good Christian?

Christmas traditions

It seems that Boston's the Slutcracker is being called the "Latest Assault on Christmas: Sexualized Version of “Nutcracker”, including transsexuality and sado-masochism". Nevermind E.T.A. Hoffmann's "Nutcracker and Mouseking" (the Source of the Nutcracker's story) addresses Clara's sexual awakening. US performances shy away from this since they usually have real children and try to make the performance cute, which is why I hate seeing US performances of the Ballet (Well, except The Mark Morris Dance Group's Hard Nut, but I saw that a the Theatre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels: does that count???). The actual story is fairly scary since Drosselmeyer is portrayed as a sinister figure which is something that European versions of the ballet tend to show.

For those who don't know the Story, Princess Perlipat is a beautiful little girl. Unfortunately, the family runs afoul of the mouse queen who turns Pirlipat into an ugly creature. The only way to cure Pirlipat was to feed her the nut Crackatook. Drosselmeyer is sent to find a person who can perform the task and travels the world, only to find that the person in question is Drosselmeyer's nephew. Unfortunately, no sooner is Pirlipat cured than the Nephew is cursed by the mousequeen and becomes the nutcracker and the ungrateful princess refuses to marry him. Marie/Clara then swears that she would love the nephew no matter how he looks and breaks the curse.

Of course, that condensation doesn't get deeply into Marie/Clara's sexual awakening, but I don't feel like rewriting the story: especially since you can read it here.

It seems that the Slutcracker is a X rated version of the Nutcracker with burlesque and can-can dancers, drag kings, hoopers, ballerinas, acrobats, bellydancers, actors and actresses and where our young dreamer Clara finds a sex toy waiting for her under the Christmas tree. It leads her to a kinky-freaky-sexy land where she discovers…. Needless to say, this has the keep Christ in Christmas crowd freaking out. Although, it is amusing that this production is happening in Boston, where Christmas was banned for being a holiday that featured the lord of misrule and men dressing as women (and vice versa). Maybe they have finally discovered the true meaning of Christmas in Boston after shaking off the Puritan bullshit.

What would these people say about Philadelphia's Mummers?

Better yet, what would these people think about Matthew Bourne's Nutcracker?

Bourne's version takes place in a workhouse:

Bourne does away with the sanitized Victorian scenario of Christmas. Bourne, often at his most brilliant at re-working traditional ballet librettos (e.g. “Swan Lake,” “Cinderella,” and “The Car Man” -- all seen in Los Angeles within recent years), delivers no less with “Nutcracker!” Instead of the cozy Victorian home, Bourne gives us a veritable Dickensian Third Reich where the ballet’s only family embodies not holiday charity but avarice and exploitation. Instead of the bourgeois domesticity of the Stahlbaums, Clara is an inmate of Dr. Dross’ Orphanage for Waifs and Strays, a kind of Dotheboys Hall run by Dr. Dross (Scott Ambler as an SS commandant Wackford Squeers) and the Matron, His Wife, (Annabelle Dalling as a nightmarish combination of Mommie Dearest Joan Crawford and Bette Davis’ Baby Jane). These symbolic inversions are only a starting point for Bourne.

The Matthew Bourne Nutcracker is super! I am not sure what I think about the Slutcracker. From the little teaser clip, it looks amusing, but I wouldn't go out of my way to see it. I Also have to admit that most US Nutcrackers usually are pretty boring community productions. The ballet is super when performed by talented dancers as opposed to the patrons' Children.

The video below also has the Christ in Christmas crowd upset that the "family" holiday is being desecrated. I suggest that these people look into the pagan rituals that have been around longer than Christianity.



Maybe they will rethink their position and just ban Christmas again since things like the Slutcracker are far more traditional Christmas/Solstice traditions. Banning Christmas is the only way to end that sort of thing, but it has never worked in the past.

So, why would they think they can change a holiday that is more pagan than Christian.

A History of Christianity

BBC iPlayer is the thing! I just started watching Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch's A History of Christianity. It isn't your usual history of Christianity since he digs into things such as the Egyptian and Ethiopian Coptic, Syriac, and other Oriental Orthodox Churches. The most interesting of these Churches was the Orthodox Church of the East which was headquartered in Baghdad!

Professor MacCulloch posits that the true origins of Christianity lie further east than Constantinople, and that at one point Christianity was poised to triumph in Asia, maybe even in China. He has this theory that the headquarters of Christianity may well have been Baghdad not Rome, and if that had happened then western Christianity would have been very different.

The next episodes deal with the rise of Rome, The Eastern Orthodox Church, the Reformation, and the concept of scepticism in Christianity with one more episode to be announced. This has real potential to get you thinking!

The interesting thing is that Professor MacCulloch points out that Christianity is hardly monolithic in its nature, which most people neglect. This is especially true for those who wish to establish "Chritianity" as a state religion. Which "Christianity" are you proposing to be the State religion: Catholic? Pentacostal? Some of the varied forms of Orthodox Churches? Protestantism is hardly monolithic as well going from High Church Anglican (Episcopal) to Fundamentalist Bible Churches. The website has a neat little accompanying piece in league with the Open University called Defining Christianity.

I mean some people can't agree about Christmas! Is it Pagan or religious?

Anyway, this is an interesting series that looks at the History of the Church from a totally different point of view. I am taking the the "What type of Christian are you" Survey as a lark. It actually isn't easy.


My written responses were that "being a Christian means that you see salvation as coming from Jesus Christ" and I have "difficulty in believing that Christ is the road to Salvation". I would be a Christian if the religion was that discussed by Jesus of Montreal, one of my favourite all time films.

So, go out there and get another take on Christianity!

Put the Mithra back in Christmas

Mithraism is frequently cited as a precursor to Christianity, a title which most Mystery Religions could also claim. The big difference between the mystery religions and Christianity was that some mystery relgions excluded women entirely, such as Mithraism, causing well-heeled Roman matrons with a pious frame of mind to explore first Judaism, and then Christianity. Also, unlike Christianity, they made no special overtures towards the uneducated, downtrodden and marginal elements of society. They were religions chosen by the emperors, not slaves. Much of the symbolism and many of the stories in the Bible may be traced to earlier myths of the Persians, Egyptians, and other people from the near east.

While some will say that the nativity scene isn't a pagan symbol, Mithra's birth was witnessed by shepherd and Magi, who brought gifts to his sacred birth-cave of the Rock.

Anyway, here are a couple of videos that will clue you in to the real "reason for the season".

More US Christmas

Did you know that Christmas wasn't a federal holiday in the US until 1870? Yes, Congress was in session on December 25, 1789, the first Christmas under America's new constitution!

Strange as this may sound, Protestant Christians such as the Pilgrims, Puritans, Congregationalists, Quakers, Baptists, and Presbyterians did not celebrate Christmas. Some Christian sects still do not recognise Christmas as being Christian, such as Seventh-day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses. Protestant Christians in New England during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries knew that the festivities, traditions, and trappings of Christmas were simply pagan celebrations covered with a Christian veneer. In addition, they were all too familiar with the Saturnalian misrule, disorder, and revelry associated with the mid-winter festivities and wanted to suppress it.

The problem is that Christians have been trying to co-opt the holiday since the Christmas was established early in the fourth century. This was done to Christianise pagan mid-winter celebrations associated with the Saturnalia and birthday of Sol Invictus – the Sun god. But it didn’t end there! As Christianity spread into northern Europe, elements of the twelve day Scandinavian Yule festival to the god Thor and various other practices of the Germanic pagans were also incorporated into Christmas-time celebrations by the Roman Church.

"All of the incorporation of pagan traditions was done contrary to God’s clear instructions in Deuteronomy 12: 28-32, Jeremiah 10: 1-3, and Matthew 15: 3, 8-9."

Some people forget that the First Amendment states that: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"

So, it seems a bit silly that Christmas was made a holiday, but I have said before that Christmas has 12 days and Hanukkah has 8 days--Why not combine the holidays and take the entire month of December off?

That's the American way!

The 12 Days of Christmas (not the Song)

Ever wonder what the Twelve Days of Christmas was about? Did you just think it was a very bizarre Christmas Carol?

Nope, it's a very real event and it takes place from Christmas Day to Epiphany (the 6th of January). The feast of Epiphany is also known as Twelfth Night. Twelfth Night also signified the end of the feasting season that began on Halloween in Tudor times. Twelfth Night was the time when the world was turned crazy. On this day the King and all those who were high would become the peasants and vice versa. This feast was governed by the Lord of Misrule. Epiphany is seeing a comeback in the US because of Latino culture where it is known as el Dia de los Reyes Magos or Three Kings Day.

There is a question as to whether the twelve days of Christmas has fallen victim to the secularisation of society or to the Puritans. Either way, it is a custom that is pretty much forgotten in the US. British culture celebrates Boxing Day (26 December or St. Stephen's Day) which is a national holiday in many Commonwealth nations. The Anglican Church and liturgical Calendar still has the verious feasts such as Childermas (the Feast of the Innocents) and Epiphany.

On the other hand, the traditions of the Twelve Days were adapted from the older pagan customs, in particular Saturnalia. The holiday falls firmly on the Winter Solstice in the Northern hemisphere. Many cultures in the Northern Hemisphere have performed solstice ceremonies since pre-historic times. At their root: an ancient fear that the failing light would never return unless humans intervened with anxious vigil or antic celebration. The Twelfth Night traditions of the Solstice also have an influence on modern day pantomime where traditional authority is mocked and the principal male lead is played by a woman, while the leading older female character, or 'Dame', is played by a man. It is this pagan influence and revelling that offended the puritans and led to them banning Christmas.

The Song "Carol of the Bells" is the Ukrainian carol called "Shchedryk". The word "Shchedryk" means the "Generous One". It refers to the god of generosity, the Dazh Boh - the Giver God, which is the sun. Dazh Boh's feast was on the winter solstice; after all, that is when he started his return. With the coming of Christianity to Ukraine in 988, the people did not forget their ancient customs; they incorporated them into their new beliefs. To this day Ukrainians sing the "Shchedryk" during Christmas season.

But the 12 Days of Christmas can be either sacred or profane depending on your outlook and personality. Does one choose the holiday of the Romans or that of the High Church Anglican? Either way, it is a holiday which is firmly engrained in the Northern Cultures. It is a holiday that does not stop the day after Christmas, but continues until the Sun is revived.

A couple of Days late

I've been trying to find the Cartoon from Private Eye of Charles Darwin circa 1985 (For stupid Septics--That's a British Satirical Magazine and has zip to do with the "true Crime" genre).

The Cartoon shows a man at the gates of heaven being greeted by a bearded figure and the Caption is something like "I have bad news for you, I'm Charles Darwin".

The Cartoon is somewhere is my archive and I will post it once I've found it.

Instead, we will welcome the Season with this Cartoon.

Party Hearty, It's CHRRRISSTMAS.

Who is this Christ person and what does he have to do with the holiday anyway? It's about reviving the Sun!


Dies natalis sol invictus

You Putzes! Jesus Celebrated Hanukkah!

I won't bang on the Roundheaded Motherfuckers who did a wonderful job of screwing up the US and Britain. They did a better job of fucking up the US more than Britain. So if you wonder where things like the war on drugs, prohibition, the War for American Independence, banning Christmas, and a whole lot of other pestilences originated, you may want to look there.

I would be a whole lot more thankful if the Native Americans slaughtered the Roundheaded Motherfuckers instead of the other way around. Especially since they wouldn't have been around to support Cromwell and generally bugger things up.

Anyway, Jesus was a Jew and he Celebrated Jewish holidays. That means he would have celebrated Hanukkah.

So, why put Christ in Christmas when he celebrated Hanukkah!?!?!?!?!

Now, isn't that a title for a Country and Western Song!

A Purtian Christmas

Sure, I posted this at the bottom of the How the Puritans Stole Christmas poem and it's where the Writing a paragraph post had its "Genesis" (I Couldn't resist that).

But it deserves its very own post.

A Puritan Christmas

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Writing a paragraph

I learnt today about the Puritans and their beliefs. They believed that people had to suffer and be miserable because god didn't want them to be happy and have fun since that was a sin. The Puritans banned many things we take for granted, such as Christmas. I think this was because they were miserable people and they wanted others to suffer as well. I think that the puritans were very serious because anyone who was happy was tortured until they were miserable as well. Not everyone agreed with the Purtians because there were some people who were clandestinely happy.

How the Puritans Stole Christmas

http://proecclesia.blogspot.com/2009/01/poem-for-twelfth-night-how-puritans.html
(I found this whilst doing research on "Keeping the Christ in Christmas") It was written by Jay Anderson. I have to admit that this is very humourous, but makes the point that Puitans hated Christmas. These people who wanted purity of the Christian religion banned Christmas.

A Poem for Twelfth Night - "How the Puritans Stole Christmas" ...
... with apologies to Dr. Seuss:

Every High-Church Anglican and Catholic
Living in Jolly Olde England
Liked Christmas a lot...

But the Puritans,
Who were infected with Calvinism,
Did NOT!

The Puritans hated Christmas!
The whole Christmas season!
Now, please don't ask why. No one quite knows the reason.
It could be that their round heads weren't screwed on just right.
It could be, perhaps, their predestinarian arses were too tight.
But I think that the most likely reason of all
Was a distaste for mince pies - shaped like a manger-bed in a stall.

But,
Whatever the reason,
Mince pies or their arses,
The Puritans saw the yuletide celebrations as farces,
Staring down on the festivities with sour, dour frowns
At the merriment and good will of those in the towns.
For they knew all the revelers were engaged in such vices
As eating tarts made of suet and spices.

"And they're eating plum pudding!" they snarled with a sneer.
"Tomorrow is Christmas! It's practically here!"
Then they growled, with their greedy fingers nervously drumming,
"We MUST find a way to keep Christmas from coming!"
For, tomorrow, they knew...

...That the Christmas events
Would involve the consumption of pies made of mince!
And then! Oh, the noise! Oh, the noise! Noise! Noise! Noise!
That's one thing they hated! The NOISE! NOISE! NOISE! NOISE!

Then the revelers, young and old, would sit down to a feast.
And they'd feast! And they'd feast!
And they'd FEAST! FEAST! FEAST! FEAST!
They would start on plum pudding, and rare roast-beef
Foods again giving Puritans nothing but grief!

And THEN
They'd do something Puritans liked least of all!
Every merry-maker in town, the tall and the small,
Would stand close together, with Christmas bells ringing.
They'd stand hand-in-hand. And they all would start singing!

They'd sing! And they'd sing!
AND they'd SING! SING! SING! SING!
And the more the Puritans thought of the whole Christmas-Sing
The more the Puritans thought, "We must stop this whole thing!
"Why for over sixteen hundred years we've put up with it now!
We MUST stop Christmas from coming!
...But HOW?"

Then they got an idea!
An awful idea!
THE PURITANS
GOT A WONDERFUL, AWFUL IDEA!

"We know just what to do!" The Puritans began plot-ting.
And they made civil war against England's King.
And they built up an army, and the Puritans said,
"When we've won this war, we'll remove the King's head!"

"All we need is a ploy..."
To get the job done.
But since kings are kings,
It was difficult to come up with one.
Did that stop the Puritans...?
No! The Puritans said,
"Charges of treason and Romish sympathies will cost him his head!"
So they called a rump court; charges the King refused to refute.
And the court issued the sentence to execute.

THEN
They loaded poor Charles
Dressed in clothes resembling sacks
On a ramshakle scaffold
And severed his head with an ax.


Then the Puritans said, "Huzzah!"
For they had brought the King down
And they began to march
On all the churches in town.

All their stain-glassed windows were dark. Quiet filled the air.
All the vestrymen were all dreaming sweet dreams without care
When the Puritans came to the first church in the square.
"This is stop number one," The Puritans hissed
And each Puritan approached shaking his fist.

Then they broke all the stain-glass.
And smashed statues galore.
Their horses dishonored the graves in the floor.
Then they burned all the vestments,
And prayer books, too.
Then they said "Let's move on, we have much to do!"

Then they slithered and slunk, with dour looks most unpleasant,
Around the whole town, to despoil places where Christ was once present!
Stained glass! Statuary! Painted images! Candles!
All manner of popish influences that for years had caused scandals!
And they smashed them to pieces and threw them on piles
And set them ablaze, smiling devilish smiles!

Then they turned to the larders. They banned the Yule feast,
The plum pudding, the boar's head, and all toasts to that beast!
They forbade all the foods that had given offense.
And they succeeded in banning the pies made of mince!

Then the last thing they took
Was the yule log for the fire.
On the walls they left nothing but hooks, and some wire.

And the one little speck
Left in the church house
Was a crumb that was even too small for a mouse.

Then
They did the same thing
To the other church houses

Leaving crumbs
Much too small
For the other church mouses!

And what happened then...?
Well...in England they say
That the Lord Protector's round head
Grew three sizes that day!
And the minute that "defender of liberty" felt safe from the strife,
He became the Commonwealth's dictator for life!
And he enforced the outlawing of Christmas! And all the foods for that feast!
And he...

...HE HIMSELF...!
The Lord Protector ruled the realm like a tyrannical beast!

A Puritan Christmas

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NB: Christmas was not only outlawed in the British Isles but in parts of colonial America, as well. In 1659, a law was passed by the General Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony requiring a five-shilling fine from anyone caught "observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way."

Don't look behind you--It's Panto Season!

Oh, no it isn't!
Oh, Yes it is!


In the United Kingdom, the word "Pantomime" means a form of entertainment, generally performed during the Christmas season. Most cities and towns throughout the UK have a form of Pantomime at this time of year. The origins of British Pantomime or "Panto" as it is known date back to the middle ages, taking on board the traditions of the Italian "Commedia dell’ Arte, the Italian night scenes and British Music hall to produce an intrinsic art form that constantly adapted to survive up to the present day.

It has nothing to do with mimes. Pantomime incorporates song, dance, buffoonery, slapstick, cross-dressing, in-jokes, audience participation, and mild sexual innuendo. There are a number of traditional story-lines, and there is also a fairly well-defined set of performance conventions (e.g. gender role reversal: 'principal boy' is played by a young woman). There is a 'guest celebrity' tradition, which emerged in the late 19th century. The gender role reversal resembles the old festival of Twelfth Night, a combination of Epiphany and midwinter feast, when it was customary for the natural order of things to be reversed. This tradition can be traced back to pre-Christian European festivals such as Samhain and Saturnalia.

Pantomime has been attempted abroad, usually with a small amount of success. Not surprisingly it has proved popular in countries such as Canada, Australia and South Africa- recently a production of "Babes in the wood" ran at the Rainbow Seven Arts Theatre in Harare, Zimbabwe! In America this very British art form has fared less favourably, although a production of "Humpty Dumpty" in 1868 ran for over 1,200 performances at the Olympic Theatre, New York, making it the most successful Pantomime in American history.

Well, we have tickets to Snow White this year.

John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness in Doctor Who and Torchwood) has been doing Panto for a while. This year he will play the role of Robin Hood at the New Theatre in Cardiff. He's also played Prince Charming in Cinderella (2005), Jack in Jack and the Beanstalk (2006), and Aladdin in (2007). I'd love to see him doing Panto, but imagine getting tickets is nigh impossible (well, not really as there are some seats available as of 24 Nov 09). Not to mention, he usually plays in places that are out of the way for us.


The Beeb has a gallery of Panto Stars.

My guess is that it is a bit too outrageous for puritanical US tastes with the cross dressing, innuendo, and so on. Although, I've heard that the US is rediscovering this tradition.

There's still hope yet!

Thanksgiving

It's going to be Thanksgiving in Canada and US Thanksgiving is coming up as well. I have never liked US Thanksgiving for a load of reasons.

First off, it comes on Thursday and requires anyone who wants another day off to take a holiday on the Friday. My mom used to work on the Friday. Actually, she likes it a whole lot more when she goes to Canada or the UK where US Thanksgiving is just another day.

Secondly, it celebrates something about the Puritans surviving. Personally, I would have been thankful if the Native Americans had killed them all. My family that was on this side of the pond were Virginia cavaliers and glad to have a Dutch buffer between themselves and the round headed bastards.

I mean these puritan MoFos don't like Christmas since its a pagan holiday, which is exactly while I like it. They banned it in England and New England. Not to mention the Puritans hated the theatre and pretty much everything else that was fun. They weren't going to be happy, so why let anyone else have fun?

Add in they were a kind of precursor to the Religious right.

So, why I should be thankful about them surviving?

Besides, if the Indians with their bows, arrows and tomahawks had slaughtered the puritans the way they slaughtered the Virginia Colonists it would be one gun myth down. Funny but the gun crowd seems to forget the Powhatan Uprising of 1622 and other Indian massacres during colonial times.

Also, one thing that led to the Rebellion in the mid-18th Century English colonies was the fact that they didn't have anyone to fear and a need for British Army protection. So, if the Native Americans had more and better weaponry, The US might not be in the mess it is right now.

I'd be thankful for that!