Aug 13 2012
Aug 13 2012
Aug 02 2012
August is here and tonight we a graced with the first of two full moons and the first harvest festival of the Wiccan year, Lughnasadh.
August 31 will be the last Blue Moon, the second full moon in a single month, until July 2015. A “blue moon’ occurs approximately every 2.7 years. On rare occasions, as in 1999, it happens twice. Joe Rao at Space.com explains the term “blue moon” its origins and some interesting astronomical lunar trivia:
The phrase “once in a blue moon” was first noted in 1824 and refers to occurrences that are uncommon, though not truly rare. Yet, to have two full moons in the same month is not as uncommon as one might think. In fact, it occurs, on average, about every 2.66 years. And in the year 1999, it occurred twice in a span of just three months.
For the longest time no one seemed to have a clue as to where the “blue moon rule” originated.
It was not until that “double blue moon year” of 1999 that the origin of the calendrical term “blue moon” was at long last discovered. It was during the time frame from 1932 through 1957 that the Maine Farmers’ Almanac suggested that if one of the four seasons (winter, spring, summer or fall) contained four full moons instead of the usual three, that the third full moon should be called a blue moon.
But thanks to a couple of misinterpretations of this cryptic definition, first by a writer in a 1946 issue of Sky & Telescope magazine, and much later, in 1980 in a syndicated radio program, it now appears that the second full moon in a month is the one that’s now popularly accepted as the definition of a blue moon.
Blue Moon/New Moon
While we’ve assigned the name blue moon to the second full moon of the month, it seems that we have no such name for the second new moon of the month. Nonetheless, these opposing phases seem to be connected with each other. For if two new moons occur within a specific month, then in most cases, four years later, two full moons will also occur in that very same month.
Tonight the moon becomes full at 11:27 PM EDT and st 9:58 AM on August 31. The moons also have names that originated from our Native American brothers and sisters:
Aug. 1, Full Sturgeon Moon, when this large fish of the Great Lakes and other major bodies of water, such as Lake Champlain, is most readily caught. A few tribes knew this moon as the Full Red Moon because when the moon rises, it appears reddish through sultry haze (in 2012, The Old Farmer’s Almanac gives this moniker to the full moon of Aug. 31). Other variations include the Green Corn Moon or Grain Moon.
Aug. 31, Full Corn Moon. Sometimes also called the Fruit Moon; such monikers were used for a full moon that occurs during the first week of September, so as to keep the Harvest Moon from coming too early in the calendar.
The first two days of August are also the Wiccan holiday of Lughnasadh,or Lammas, the first of three harvest festivals celebrating the bounties of Mother Earth. The name is derived from the Irish god, Lugh, who dedicated the festival to his foster mother who died clearing a forest for planting. It marks the beginning of the harvest when apples are ripe, wheat and corn are ready to harvest. Herbs and flowers are ready to be picked and dried and fruit are prepared for preserving, seeds are gathered for Spring planting. To celebrate, a fire is lit and the table is spread with the bounties of the harvest and decorated with seasonal flowers. The first wines and beers are placed in pitchers and dinner is grilled meat and vegetables from the garden seasoned with fresh herbs.
It’s raining here tonight, so our celebration will be postponed until tomorrow night. We are hoping for a glimpse of the moon as the storms move out of the area tonight.
Jul 11 2012
“See better, Lear; and let me still remain / The true blank of thine eye”
Earl Of Kent, King Lear, ~William Shakespeare~
How to Think
by Chris Hedges
Cultures that endure carve out a protected space for those who question and challenge national myths. Artists, writers, poets, activists, journalists, philosophers, dancers, musicians, actors, directors and renegades must be tolerated if a culture is to be pulled back from disaster. Members of this intellectual and artistic class, who are usually not welcome in the stultifying halls of academia where mediocrity is triumphant, serve as prophets. They are dismissed, or labeled by the power elites as subversive, because they do not embrace collective self-worship. They force us to confront unexamined assumptions, ones that, if not challenged, lead to destruction. They expose the ruling elites as hollow and corrupt. They articulate the senselessness of a system built on the ideology of endless growth, ceaseless exploitation and constant expansion. They warn us about the poison of careerism and the futility of the search for happiness in the accumulation of wealth. They make us face ourselves, from the bitter reality of slavery and Jim Crow to the genocidal slaughter of Native Americans to the repression of working-class movements to the atrocities carried out in imperial wars to the assault on the ecosystem. They make us unsure of our virtue. They challenge the easy clichés we use to describe the nation-the land of the free, the greatest country on earth, the beacon of liberty-to expose our darkness, crimes and ignorance. They offer the possibility of a life of meaning and the capacity for transformation. [..]
We march collectively toward self-annihilation. Corporate capitalism, if left unchecked, will kill us. Yet we refuse, because we cannot think and no longer listen to those who do think, to see what is about to happen to us. We have created entertaining mechanisms to obscure and silence the harsh truths, from climate change to the collapse of globalization to our enslavement to corporate power, that will mean our self-destruction. If we can do nothing else we must, even as individuals, nurture the private dialogue and the solitude that make thought possible. It is better to be an outcast, a stranger in one’s own country, than an outcast from one’s self. It is better to see what is about to befall us and to resist than to retreat into the fantasies embraced by a nation of the blind.
If the only real achievement of Barack Obama’s presidency is to have opened the eyes of Americans to the depth of the corruption and control of the elites, then he will have achieved more than I expected.
Jul 04 2012
Reprinted from The Stars Hollow Gazette
I’ve always identified myself as a writer, even when it was poetry for machines and deadline dreck for newsletters, pamphlets, and flyers.
I like words and written communication better than verbal or theatrical presentations because of the random access you have to the information as a reader. With a speech, or Radio, or a Play, TV, or Movie the information is under control of the deliverer, not the audience. It’s inherently a serial exposition, a sales pitch, designed by arrangement and order to lead you from reasonable premises to a predetermined conclusion without allowing you to revisit the path of the argument unless you repeat the experience from scratch.
You may call reading the last chapter to find out ‘who done it’ cheating, I suggest instead that it’s a challenge every Author should be willing to face. If you can’t make your middle memorable it’s probably better suited for a Short Story than a Novel.
So that’s what’s in it for me. It’s a form of self expression in a broadly accessible format that’s not really very expensive except in terms of the time it takes to produce the content.
What’s in it for you?
There are 2 parts to this answer.
As a Reader only, you get to bask in my brilliance and wallow in my words and if passive entertainment suits your style I’m grateful for your eyeballs. By that I mean you’ll get a lot more of me if you can stand it and love or hate it I don’t really give a rat’s ass what you think about me as long as you pay attention.
But the beauty part of a blog is that you can have your voice heard too. It’s called a Vent Hole for a reason and it accepts both positive and negative feedback. If your ambition exceeds a Tweet or two you can contribute longer pieces that I will be more than happy to evaluate and feature. There is nothing that gives me more pleasure than promoting the work of others.
I hope that The Stars Hollow Gazette will develop into a Group Blog where regular participants as well as muse driven Authors will provide a stream of fresh content that will make us a several time a day destination.
Activism
I think that blogs are both more and less powerful platforms than conventionally recognized. Many people have a nostalgic affection for storming the Bastille and I don’t despise those who are willing to wear no pants.
My legs are not what they once were, though that doesn’t mean I won’t ‘kilt up’ if the occasion calls for it.
I don’t think a failure to summon musket armed militia is an indication of weakness. The information battlefield has numerous hedgerows, stone walls, and trees to snipe from behind of. If you think it doesn’t hurt you’re not listening to the howls of outrage from the ego struck elite you ungrateful cur.
My activist brother thinks the most important function of blogs is as a source of information and a historical record, an alternative to the monopolistic media with its competitive barriers. I think it’s equally as important to amuse and distract. Your eyeballs are money. Your passive consent, complicity.
I call you to a life of resistance in the small and easily done things. Move your money. Use cash when you can. Turn off your lights when you leave the room and properly inflate your tires.
If just two people do it, in harmony, they’ll think they’re both faggots and won’t take either of them.
I’ve been called worse things than a stick. Whom would fardels bear to grunt and sweat under a weary life, but that the dread of something after death, the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns, puzzles the will and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all and the native hue of resolution is sicklied over with the pale cast of thought, and enterprise of great pitch and moment with this regard their currents turn awry and lose the name of action.
In thy orisons be all my sins remembered.
Civility
No one has any obligation to treat you any particular way on the internet.
Indeed, one of the things I most despise about our inbred Versailles Village political/media culture is their false politeness and evasion of the truth.
Calling people liars and cowards and idiots is not ‘hate speech’.
Saying that Jew controlled financial, media, and political elites are stealing victory from our brave troopers and using the blood of Christian babies to make Matzoh IS.
If you can’t tell the difference between those things it’s simply useless to talk about subtleties and I won’t bother to do so.
In general however you may attribute to me personally any vice- I claim them all, particularly sloth. If you have something new and inventive you’d care to share I’m always interested in novelty. On the other hand you can hardly complain when I return the favor and if I happen to do it bigger and grander than you and you leave impressed…
That’s envy, my dear. There’s a little bit of envy in the best of us.
Evolution
If you’d bother to learn anything about me at all you’d know I’m not a great believer in it. It seems to me contrary to the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell’s equations – then so much the worse for Maxwell’s equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation – well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation. – Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington
But change is only to be expected, and while most of it is merely increasing entropy, intermittently self organizing systems emerge and flourish for a time.
And if you’re lucky you can be a part of it.
Jul 04 2012
Today concludes our second year of operation and every indication is that you enjoy our content as much as we do providing it.
It’s easy to get the impression that this site is dominated by just a few voices, but I think if you follow over time you’ll see that there are a lot of regular and semi-regular contributions. I want to thank those people because that kind support is far more important than money. Even casual Authors will notice that there is no piece that is not evaluated for featured status.
It relies on you. I like to think The Stars Hollow Gazette has developed into a site of character and interest, a place you visit several times a day to read the latest and are proud to participate in. If you feel the same I urge you to send us your eyeballs and read, link, quote, comment, and recommend.
Thank you for your kind indulgence.
Opening Day- July 4, 2010
First Anniversary on The Stars Hollow Gazette– July 4, 2011
First Anniversary on DocuDharma– July 4, 2011
Hmm… not much Anniversary specific. How about the next day?
First Anniversary on DocuDharma– July 5, 2011
Also, TheMomCat made note of our first week of programming in Today on The Stars Hollow Gazette.
And we filled in your content with these reprints-
It’s a joy and a pleasure to provide you with a place your contributions can be highlighted and I hope you will take advantage of the opportunity to express yourself.
Jul 04 2012
Yes, I still have “Stuff” and as you can see from our two years at The Stars Hollow Gazette, I’ve stored quite a lot of it right here. Among ek hornbeck, myself and our good friends, we have written 5962 diaries in the last 24 months. That’s an average of 8 diaries per day. That’s a lot of “stuff” and we are no where near done.
And my bookmarks, they still have “stuff” I should relegate to the trash bin but if I could just remember why I saved it in the first place. Like this one: The Original Fairy Name Generator
This is my “fairy’ name Columbine Icedancer
She protects the vulnerable and brings justice to the wronged.
She lives in mushroom fields and quiet meadows.
She is only seen when the bees swarm and the crickets chirrup.
She wears lilac and purple like columbine flowers and has icy blue butterfly wings.
I want to thank all those who have written diaries, especially, our good friends Translator, davidseth, BruceMcF and the writers of Anti-Capitalist Meetup who have become our “regulars”. Thank you for putting your “stuff” here.
And most of all thank you to everyone for reading all of this “stuff.”
Feel free to store your “stuff” here.
Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt
Jul 04 2012
(a reprint from our initial offerings)
It’s an interesting coincidence that exactly 50 years after The Declaration, Jefferson and Adams died within hours of each other. Ironically Adam’s last words were- “Jefferson still survives.” In fact Jefferson preceeded Adams which could have caused some embarrassment provided you believe in an afterlife and that Jefferson and Adams could have ended up in the same place.
Me? Not so much. People forget that our founders were revolutionaries and the establishment of The United States of America led to a string of more or less successful rebellions in Haiti, South America, and France.
It’s certainly not a historical leap of faith to call The Council of Europe and the Age of Metternich a reaction to a little fight we picked on the road between Lexington and Concord.
History is real, and not so very long ago.
These were people just like us. Every bit as smart, twice as tough, and doing the best they could with the tools they had available.
Recently they’d been through 30 years of Civil War based on religious sectarianism and class warfare. Fighting the French and Indians was kind of intermittent by comparison.
They were not rubes by any means though it’s a classic American gambit going back to Franklin at least to put a dead beaver on your head and pretend to be an idiot. It makes the women want you.
My favorite Ben who is not a traitor was considered the head of the committee that composed The Declaration, but the principal Author was Thomas Jefferson whom we find recently to have made a last minute substitution of ‘citizen’ for ‘subject’ that I found reflective of his principles as a Founder.
Revolution is not all skittles and beer.
America had its Cincinattus and a Republic if we could keep it, but political feuding between the Democratic-Republicans and the Federalists was little short of open warfare in the election of 1800. People were literally shot down like dogs.
Adams had to suffer Jefferson as a Vice-President (Mr. Heartbeat) and successor. Two Term Jefferson left his office to James “Mr. Constitution” Madison and the rest, as they say, is history until Andrew “Kingfish” Jackson (but that’s a story for another day).
The democratic impulse and enlightenment values embodied in the work of our Founders, little things like the Constitution and Bill of Rights, the institutions of the Congress, Presidency, and Court have always been under attack by powerful elites who seek to influence outcomes in their favor.
The very least honor we owe these brave and principled patriots is to resist those efforts and defend justice and the rule of law to the best of our ability.
Jul 01 2012
We’re up.
As it turns out our servers are connected to the Amazon cloud in Virgina that went down last night.
Le Tour will post shortly before the last re-broadcast at 8 pm.
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