Each year the TV station WTVF News Channel 5 a CBS affilliate would play an animated promo that touched me.  It has a sweet catchy jingly tune seemingly meant for the holidays and a comforting beauty that captured the holiday spirit perfectly, snow, toys in shop windows and all.  This year I happened to see the promo again and it flooded my heart with such memories and good thoughts of Christmas gone by that I wanted to know more about it.

    This commercial was hand drawn cell by painstaking cell by a former NEWSCHANNEL 5 employee named Charles DePriest in 1974.  The music used was from a music box and is titled “Gott ist die Liebe” (“God Is Love”) written by German composer August Rische (1819-1906) and can be found in many German hymnbooks.  Charles DePriest is now retired and lives in Smyrna,TN.

All this may not mean much to most that read this, but those that have lived here in Tennessee their entire lives you will appreciate this extra info like I did.

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    It is also striking in my mind as I read the comments attached to this article how one person opened my eyes to another fun “fact”.  See if you can find this post amongst the comments.

“Can we draw the Christian God next? The second Commandment pretty clearly says that it’s a no-no to draw God or Jesus or the Devil. But I don’t think that it will get as much press since Christians have no problem ignoring their own Commandments.”

  I did some further research only to find the commenter is quite right.  Here is the second “commandment” just for the record :

You shall not make for yourself any graven image, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them [i.e., the graven images]; for I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing loving kindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.” (Exodus 20:4-6, adapted from the NASV)

Just so there is no confusion, in Deuteronomy, the character Moses makes clear that god’s commandment was intended to forbid folks from making graven images of the xstian god himself:

So watch yourselves carefully, since you did not see any form on the day Yahweh spoke to you at Horeb [i.e., Mt. Sinai] from the midst of the fire; lest you act corruptly and make a graven image for yourselves in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the sky, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water below the earth. (Deut. 4: 15-18, adapted from NASV)

    So there, you get a bible “lesson” today from an Atheist.  Cheers!

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     I must admit that I fell into the trap of believing the hype and had it embedded in my mind that the end of the first decade of the new millennium is about to end.  Many people call this decade The Oughts or The ’00s. Clearly, then, the decade includes years that have zero as the third digit. Next year, that third digit turns to a 1, so the end of the decade obviously is at hand right?  Consider also the popular terms affixed to decades.  Since I am a child of the ’80s that would mean that can only years that include some derivative of 80 should be included.  In no way can 1979 be considered part of the ’80s. Using that logic, 2010 must mark the beginning of the next decade.   Webster’s New World College Dictionary defines a decade as “in common usage, a ten-year period beginning with a year 0, as 1920-1929.”  All of these factors prove that this decade will end on Dec. 31, 2009, Right?

     Another school of thought says that as we age, we are not said to be 1 until after living 12 months, and we do not celebrate a 10th birthday until after living 10 years. Logical conclusion: The next decade won’t begin until after 2010 concludes. If you think about millennia the first one thousand years started with the number 1 and thus ended with 1000.  This means those years 1001 through 2001 would equal the second millennium.  Following this logic the first decade of this millennium began with the year 2001, and the last year of the first decade of this millennium will be next year, 2010. This is a very compelling argument.

     Does that mean Webster’s dictionary is wrong? No, the definition mentioned earlier, pertained to the “common usage” of the word. The same dictionary also defines a decade as “officially, a ten-year period beginning with the year 1, as 1921-1930.” Webster apparently wants to make everyone happy.

   It seems like the debate itself will be lost in the sea of media outlets and emotional minds ready for this decade to be over.  I for one am happy, since it gives me two years to consider and be respectful of all the wonderful, wondrous and sad things that have occurred in the last ten years.

Happy new year all!

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 No, it is not Southern slang for dodging things a chimp might throw at you.  Its a truly fascinating dish that seems to have it’s origins in the deep south of Louisiana.  The name Turducken is a portmanteau of turkey, duck, and chicken.  It is a dish consisting of a partially de-boned turkey stuffed with a de-boned duck, which itself is stuffed with a small de-boned chicken. The chicken and the rest of the gaps are stuffed, sometimes with a highly seasoned breadcrumb mixture or sausage meat, although some versions have a different stuffing for each bird. 

     A November 2005 National Geographic article by Calvin Trillin traced the American origins of the dish to “Hebert’s Specialty Meats” in Maurice, Louisiana. They have been commercially producing turduckens since 1985, when an unknown local farmer brought in his own birds and asked Hebert’s to prepare them in the now-familiar style. The company prepares around 5,000 turduckens per week around Thanksgiving time.

     In all honesty the thing doesn’t look all that appetizing.  Still, I have always wanted to try one of these things but have never had the patience or skill to prepare one.  Its something that always grabs my attention when I see a newspaper article or a TV spot about it.  How bout you..are you ..GAME..?
   …sorry I had to, it was begging to be said.

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    I am no champion of Feline rights, but you may be interested to know that there are quite a few violent indignities that have been practiced on black cats at this time of year.

     In ancient religions, black cats were considered to be reincarnated beings with the ability to divine the future. During the middle Ages it was believed that witches could turn themselves into black cats. Thus when such a cat was seen, it was considered to be a witch in disguise or a familiar, resulting in many black cats being thrown into fire. The throwing of cats into a bonfire used to be a folk custom in France, Switzerland and Belgium and was done on St. John’s Eve in June. The custom was abolished by King Louis XIV in 1648, though it continued in the provinces until as late as 1796.

    Black cats have taken a bad rap throughout history. Greek mythology taught that a woman named Galenthias was turned into a cat and became a priestess at the temple of Hecate, the “Dark Mother,” and sometimes known as the Mother of Witchcraft.  During the 12th and 13th century, witches in Europe were often found with their “familiars,” usually black cats, and were said to turn themselves into cats at times. During the witch-burning era of the 17th century, witches’ cats were put into baskets and burned alongside the witches.

   Even in the 21st century, old superstitions have survived.  In many European countries and in the U.S., black cats signify bad luck, while in England, your luck is said to turn good if a black cat crosses your path.

    It is true that statistics on black cat torture during October are lacking – most of the stories we hear are here say, and some, no doubt, have been drummed up simply for the shock value.  Ritual sacrifice still exists.  Talk to almost any police officer in a rural area about it and you may hear a story or two about cattle found, completely drained of blood, often with vital organs missing. These stories crop up in newspapers once in awhile, and while some may be dismissed as “urban legends,” the possibility exists that some are true.

Happy Halloween!

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