Today is the day we celebrate love. Love is one of those things that comes with some expectations. Honesty, openness, sharing and so on. Well, that’s what it says in the press release. And, for the most part, it’s all true. Valentine’s day is widely attributed to a celebration of the selfless death of St. Valentine. The problem arises when you try to figure out which one. Here’s what the Catholic church, the people who authorize saints, has to say; “At least three different Saint Valentines, all of them martyrs, are mentioned in the early martyrologies under date of 14 February. One is described as a priest at Rome, another as bishop of Interamna (modern Terni), and these two seem both to have suffered in the second half of the third century and to have been buried on the Flaminian Way, but at different distances from the city. In William of Malmesbury’s time what was known to the ancients as the Flaminian Gate of Rome and is now the Porta del Popolo, was called the Gate of St. Valentine. The name seems to have been taken from a small church dedicated to the saint which was in the immediate neighborhood. Of both these St. Valentines some sort of Acta are preserved but they are of relatively late date and of no historical value. Of the third Saint Valentine, who suffered in Africa with a number of companions, nothing further is known.”
But whether it was the fate of the 3rd century inmate who allegedly cured the jailer’s daughter’s blindness just before he was executed or one of the other guys, we do know that by the late 1400’s Chaucer was writing about the holiday in his Parliament of Foules.
For this was sent on Seynt Valentyne’s day Whan every foul cometh ther to choose his mate.
What’s missing from the story thus far?
Some might say that I am missing the connection to the Lupercalia. They would be right. I have not discussed how Valentine’s day got connected to a pagan holiday. Nor did I mention how early Lupercalia lotteries were truly a prize worth winning. If you were an unmarried man and you won, you won a virgin. That beats the living hell out of a TV.
Yeah, the church had problems with that and the whole thing got watered down.
Okay, what else is missing?
If you said “Vikings” you’re one of the people who have been blowing up my email this week.
Let’s trace this back to its source. Tru-TV, like the History channel it’s not all that accurately named, put up a blog called “Valentine’s Day Conspiracy Theories.” Most of it is harmless fluff but then they tossed up this nugget.
The Vikings
Valentine’s Day might have absolutely nothing to do with any of the three saints or the Romans at all. Instead, it could have started with the Norse — yes, the Vikings. After centuries of burning and pillaging and helmets with horns, many Vikings settled in northern France and became Normans. There they venerated a saint called Galantin which they pronounced “Vah-lantin” and which translates to “lover of women.”
How wrong is this? Let me count the ways.
First, St. Galantin is not a saint. That’s easy to prove. Catholics love their saints and they have a web site dedicated to all some kazillion of them. They even have St.s Sergius and Bacchus, the two gay saints, so it isn’t like they’re trying to hide anything. They downplay it, but they don’t hide it.”
Second, the word “galantine,” widely cited on the internet as being a French word for “a gallant lover” actually refers to a French dish of stuffed meats. It’s a very good meal if you get the chance to try it. The word has no meaning in French other than that.
Quick side note, there was not a Normanic person on the planet in those days who would have pronounced the letter “G” as a “V.”
Third of all, the Vikings didn’t lay siege, and later move, to France until 896. Well after the death of all three saints noted above and long after the Church’s early attempts to blend the holiday with the Lupercalia.
Lastly, the Vikings didn’t have any saints in the first place. They had gods by the basket full but no saints. If you click on the list of saints above you will note that the only saints even remotely associated with the Normans or the Vikings are the ones attributed to people who were killed, excuse me – I mean martyred, trying to convert them.
Simply put, the story is horse manure.
So, there you have it. Valentine’s Day has its share of odd traditions, especially in Japan, but it has absolutely nothing to do with Vikings. Never has, never should.
I can’t say “Never will” since I refuse to underestimate the stupidity of some people.
Whelp, I’m 0 for 3 so far, but I got some great stories to tell.
Contestant #1 sent me five pics. They were professionally shot and gorgeous to look at. She was cosplaying as a succubus. To maximize the realism, she was topless. She also looked quite a lot like a lady from my church. So that took a minute to get past. That said, she asked me to wait until her “Boo” came back from the Middle East. Two weeks later, he returned, and we talked. He was a genuinely nice guy. We agreed his wife was beautiful. We agreed the photographer had done an excellent job. However, as a recently promoted officer in our nation’s military, he didn’t want hundreds of enlisted service members fapping to pictures of his wife. She had not thought about that, and we agreed that I would delete the pics. Although I noted I hoped she’d keep them to show her grandkids how cool she was back in the day.
Contestant #2 sent me three pics of her as a Llamia. If you haven’t read The Brittle Riders, that’s a mutant centaur with armadillo armor on its flanks. I selected one I wanted to use and sent it to her to get permission. Her husband saw that email and reached out to me. Also a nice guy, clearly concerned about the scandal his wife’s nipples would cause in the Hamptons. They decided their niece would print out one pic and add the Brittle Riders’ logo so he could frame it and hang it in their bedroom.
Contestant #3 sent me several cell phone pics of her cosplaying a succubus. They were crude but fun. I picked two and sent them to her to get formal permission. Her wife saw them and accused me of being the cause of everything from childhood obesity to pre-Super Bowl Kendrick Lamar. She claimed I’d used my “electric penis” to seduce her wife. Short story shorter, I deleted the pics.
While the characters are scantily clad in the beginning of the books, and there are good reasons for that, it does not mean you need to be nude to cosplay them. They sell bras and bikini tops and other nipple-concealing items at Walmart and Target as well as at many local clothing stores. It would be nice if the ladies mentioned above would reshoot their attempts, but I don’t have my hopes up.
In simple terms, if your friends and family would be shocked, cover-up. I am not a marriage counselor and don’t want to be.
To you few brave souls who asked for more info on how to cosplay characters from The Brittle Riders and/or Goptri of the Mists, I am here to help. To learn how to create bat wings so you can be a super cool succubus, just CLICK HERE for a great tutorial. If you want to go all in, get some sheer plastic slippers and attach a talon to each heel. If your heart’s desire is to be a mutant centaur, like the Llamia in the book, just CICK HERE for a fun tutorial on how to make that happen. You will need to be a little crafty to pull it together. Also, remember to add armadillo armor to the flanks to complete the ensemble. If you wish to be a wolfen or a badgebeth, use THIS COSTUME as your base, and you should be fine. Should you truly wish to throw caution into the flames, then dressing like a Pearl (a/k/a squid woman) from Goptri of the Mists is for you. Just CLICK HERE to get a cute Disney costume you can alter until you are the stuff of legends.
Here are the basic rules for anyone wishing to participate.
(1) Yes, you can be under 18 and send me pics of you cosplaying. Just cover up your pretty bits so Mr. Bill doesn’t go to jail.
(2) If you’re over 18, you don’t have to wear pasties if you don’t want to. We have custom digital ones we can use as needed. However, I may ask for proof of age, so be prepared.
(3) If you’re already hairy, R’yune and Sland are both excellent and easy choices for you. I have others that I don’t have drawings of so ask if you’re interested.
(4) Except for the Pearls from Goptri of the Mists, who are clones of an Indian female serial killer coupled with the body of a Cephalopod, it is impossible to “race swap” any character. All my chimeras are built on a wide variety of human DNA. As long as you’re human, you’re halfway there.
(5) You can send all the pics you want. I will not use any without your permission. Just submitting them doesn’t grant me any rights. Years of experience have taught me that what seemed like a good idea at the time might not work so well in retrospect.
If you scroll down, you’ll see the lovely, and talented, Phystee Nicole Brown cosplaying as a succubus. She was the body model for Oshun in Legends Parallel comic book series and has been a McSciFi supporter for a long time. If you need a model in the Memphis area, she and her crew are top notch.
Just send whatever you’ve got to info@mcscifibooks.com so they don’t get lost in my personal email.
I think that’s enough excitement for one day. I thank you all for following along and look forward to chatting again.
One of the parting gifts I got from our recent jaunt to Mexico was COVID. While I’ve had it before, not a fan, this time, it seems to have embedded itself into every organ and is going to be here a while. Of the many fun things I have encountered in my life, this is not one of them.
One thing that was fun, and entertaining and informative, was my interview on the Perfect Soulmates podcast. For lots of good reasons, I was the last fiction author they were going to interview. As such, they decided to send fiction writers off with a bang. It was, by far, one of the best interviews I’ve ever done. It’s short, around ten minutes, covers a lot of new ground, and let me off my leash so I could get a little political as well as talk about the joys and dangers of sex without consequences. I promise, it’s ten minutes you won’t regret. For a podcast named Perfect Soulmates, you get some of what you might expect, but you also get me. Give it a listen and a like. You’ll feel better when you do.
To those of you who keep badgering me for updates on the movie, please stop. We’re making a multi-million-dollar science fiction flick, not a local cat food commercial. Anything I could legally say, I said in my January 7th blog. Now, all the work is happening behind the scenes. When we can announce cast, crew, and so on, we will. But, for now, there are a fuckton, using the traditional Greek unit of measurement, of details that must be addressed first. For example, Azoth Khem is lurching through flaming hoops to devise ways to increase our audience, a/k/a readers. While being a cult phenom is cool, I mean, I married my biggest groupie, having more people aboard this dystopian train will only benefit all of us down the road.
To you few brave souls who asked for more info on how to cosplay characters from The Brittle Riders and/or Goptri of the Mists, I am here to help. To learn how to create bat wings so you can be a super cool succubus, just CLICK HERE for a great tutorial. If you want to go all in, get some sheer plastic slippers and attach a talon to each heel. If your heart’s desire is to be a mutant centaur, like the Llamia in the book, just CICK HERE for a fun tutorial on how to make that happen. You will need to be a little crafty to pull it together. Also, remember to add armadillo armor to the flanks to complete the ensemble. If you wish to be a wolfen or a badgebeth, use THIS COSTUME as your base, and you should be fine. Should you truly wish to throw caution into the flames, then dressing like a Pearl (a/k/a squid woman) from Goptri of the Mists is for you. Just CLICK HERE to get a cute Disney costume you can alter until you are the stuff of legends.
Here are the basic rules for anyone wishing to participate.
(1) Yes, you can be under 18 and send me pics of you cosplaying. Just cover up your pretty bits so Mr. Bill doesn’t go to jail.
(2) If you’re over 18, you don’t have to wear pasties if you don’t want to. We have custom digital ones we can use as needed. However, I may ask for proof of age, so be prepared.
(3) If you’re already hairy, R’yune and Sland are both excellent and easy choices for you. I have others that I don’t have drawings of so ask if you’re interested.
(4) Except for the Pearls from Goptri of the Mists, who are clones of an Indian female serial killer coupled with the body of a Cephalopod, it is impossible to “race swap” any character. All my chimeras are built on a wide variety of human DNA. As long as you’re human, you’re halfway there.
(5) You can send all the pics you want. I will not use any without your permission. Just submitting them doesn’t grant me any rights. Years of experience have taught me that what seemed like a good idea at the time might not work so well in retrospect.
Yeah, you whimsical medical professional, I’m looking at you.Just send whatever you’ve got to info@mcscifibooks.com so they don’t get lost in my personal email.
I think that’s enough excitement for one day. I thank you all for following along and look forward to chatting again.
Actually, we got back Saturday afternoon. While my sinuses hate many forms of air conditioning, any discomfort was worth it to see my lady love so freaking happy, We stayed at the Wyndham Altra in Playa del Carmen. My wife and I agreed they have the best staff we’ve ever encountered. They were kind, nonjudgmental, and beyond helpful. When my arthritis rendered me unable to use the ladder to get out of the pool, the staff worked on solutions without once cracking a smile or a joke. Simply put, we had a wonderful time and hope to do it again.
Big ups to Meg Langley Sakka of MEGnificent Travel for putting it all together and saving us a ton of money. Since I recently totaled our car when a pickup truck dropped its load in front of me on the highway, those savings went to a good cause. Specifically, a 2025 Hyundai Elantra that we purchased at Happy Hyundai. They worked with us and never tried to upsell us. So, while we don’t need the expense right now, we can’t complain about our electric blue love machine.
Okay, enough chit-chat, let’s get back to the Wonderful World of McSciFi!
While I have had a TikTok channel for a few years, I didn’t really do much with it. A couple weeks ago, before the performative ban that lasted about an hour, I started cleaning things up and loading new stuff. TikTok has a sixty-second limit on music usage. That means all those wonderful, high definition files on my Vimeo page won’t work on TikTok. You should still go watch them with good sound. You just can’t do that on TikTok.
This meant we had to get creative. Now there are a bunch of new, sixty-second or so videos promoting books, authors, Azoth Khem, and celebrating all the little people who ride unicycles.
One of those things may not be true.
One thing that is true is that you and your daring friends can Cosplay McSciFi. If you want to take things to the next level, hit me up and I’ll send you links for DIY kits that allow you to match your bat wing colors to your flesh tone. That makes you a more realistic succubus. I also have links on how to make a working centaur costume. You need to be a little crafty, but it’s doable and cost-effective. Werewolf costumes can be altered to make wonderful Wolfen or Badgebeths and I even found a tentacle costume for the ladies. Granted, it’s for a Disney character, but a glance at the image below should give you ideas on how to make it work for this.
As always, tasteful bralets or pasties are welcome for the more modest feminine types among you. No matter what, if you’re under eighteen years of age, those accouterments are mandatory. Uncle McSciFi doesn’t want to go back to jail.
Also, while all the work to make The Brittle Riders a movie continues apace behind the scenes, we have set up new info pages for The Brittle Riders and Goptri of the Mists. They contain videos, graphics, reviews, pics of people clutching their favorite books, and links to purchase every single thing related to these titles.
For those of you who would rather just dip a toe into the ocean of McSciFi, keep in mind that Stuff About Things is out and looking for love. As noted online, “The squishy brain of Bill “McSciFi” McCormick has been responsible for many words. Some of them coherent. What you are looking at is a compendium of short stories, fun looks at history, and the greatest rejection letter ever penned. It was so great it started his career.”
Lastly, because you know the universe needs a chuckle now and then, I will be interviewed by Perfect Soulmates on Wednesday about romance and politics in The Brittle Riders. Yes, romance. There are several underlying love stories, and my wife thinks they’re sweet and fun. Obviously, any book that starts with the death of every man, woman, and child on the planet can also be sweet and fun.
Originally published on World News Center on January 17, 2011.
Today is the day set aside to celebrate the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. A day when people can reflect on the fact that, no, we’re not there yet. Even so, I’ve always been more of a Malcolm X kind of guy. When I first stumbled across his autobiography when I was 17, I was stunned. While everyone was aware of the good works of Dr. King, the majority of white America either ignored, or was ignorant of, Malcolm X. I fell into the latter category. His life story of a man who went from street hustling loser to scion of racial divisionism to finally finding out that Allah (God) truly is love and holds no man above another resonated with me deeply. It was the modern version of the story of Saul who became Paul. And while my personal faith may have taken many strange turns through the years, my admiration for him remained constant.
If Malcolm X was the modern allegory of the Apostle Paul, then Dr. King was the modern messiah illuminating the road to Damascus. His biography shows that he too suffered at the hands of the world. His family home was bombed, he was arrested numerous times and his followers were endlessly harassed. Yet he held himself above the fray once famously saying to an angry mob, “We must learn to meet hate with love.”
I’m not sure I have that level of self control, but it’s nice to know that it can be attained.
Another thing many people forget about Dr. King is that he was a practical man who espoused real world virtues, not just visionary hopes, to his followers. One speech of his, often relegated to history’s dust bin, is called The Drum Major Instinct. I’m only going to post an excerpt here, but I hope you will take the time to read it all. It clearly shows a man who had a grasp of the world around him as well as the world he wished to be.
Now the presence of the drum major instinct is why so many people are “joiners.” You know, there are some people who just join everything. And it’s really a quest for attention and recognition and importance. And they get names that give them that impression. So you get your groups, and they become the “Grand Patron,” and the little fellow who is henpecked at home needs a chance to be the “Most Worthy of the Most Worthy” of something. It is the drum major impulse and longing that runs the gamut of human life. And so we see it everywhere, this quest for recognition. And we join things, overjoin really, that we think that we will find that recognition in.
Now the presence of this instinct explains why we are so often taken by advertisers. You know, those gentlemen of massive verbal persuasion. And they have a way of saying things to you that kind of gets you into buying. In order to be a man of distinction, you must drink this whiskey. In order to make your neighbors envious, you must drive this type of car. (Make it plain) In order to be lovely to love you must wear this kind of lipstick or this kind of perfume. And you know, before you know it, you’re just buying that stuff. (Yes) That’s the way the advertisers do it.
I got a letter the other day, and it was a new magazine coming out. And it opened up, “Dear Dr. King: As you know, you are on many mailing lists. And you are categorized as highly intelligent, progressive, a lover of the arts and the sciences, and I know you will want to read what I have to say.” Of course I did. After you said all of that and explained me so exactly, of course I wanted to read it. [laughter]
But very seriously, it goes through life; the drum major instinct is real. (Yes) And you know what else it causes to happen? It often causes us to live above our means. (Make it plain) It’s nothing but the drum major instinct. Do you ever see people buy cars that they can’t even begin to buy in terms of their income? (Amen) [laughter] You’ve seen people riding around in Cadillacs and Chryslers who don’t earn enough to have a good T-Model Ford. (Make it plain) But it feeds a repressed ego.
You know, economists tell us that your automobile should not cost more than half of your annual income. So if you make an income of five thousand dollars, your car shouldn’t cost more than about twenty-five hundred. That’s just good economics. And if it’s a family of two, and both members of the family make ten thousand dollars, they would have to make out with one car. That would be good economics, although it’s often inconvenient. But so often, haven’t you seen people making five thousand dollars a year and driving a car that costs six thousand? And they wonder why their ends never meet. [laughter] That’s a fact.
Now the economists also say that your house shouldn’t cost—if you’re buying a house, it shouldn’t cost more than twice your income. That’s based on the economy and how you would make ends meet. So, if you have an income of five thousand dollars, it’s kind of difficult in this society. But say it’s a family with an income of ten thousand dollars, the house shouldn’t cost much more than twenty thousand. Well, I’ve seen folk making ten thousand dollars, living in a forty- and fifty-thousand-dollar house. And you know they just barely make it. They get a check every month somewhere, and they owe all of that out before it comes in. Never have anything to put away for rainy days.
But now the problem is, it is the drum major instinct. And you know, you see people over and over again with the drum major instinct taking them over. And they just live their lives trying to outdo the Joneses. (Amen) They got to get this coat because this particular coat is a little better and a little better-looking than Mary’s coat. And I got to drive this car because it’s something about this car that makes my car a little better than my neighbor’s car. (Amen) I know a man who used to live in a thirty-five-thousand-dollar house. And other people started building thirty-five-thousand-dollar houses, so he built a seventy-five-thousand-dollar house. And then somebody else built a seventy-five-thousand-dollar house, and he built a hundred-thousand-dollar house. And I don’t know where he’s going to end up if he’s going to live his life trying to keep up with the Joneses.
There comes a time that the drum major instinct can become destructive. (Make it plain) And that’s where I want to move now. I want to move to the point of saying that if this instinct is not harnessed, it becomes a very dangerous, pernicious instinct. For instance, if it isn’t harnessed, it causes one’s personality to become distorted. I guess that’s the most damaging aspect of it: what it does to the personality. If it isn’t harnessed, you will end up day in and day out trying to deal with your ego problem by boasting. Have you ever heard people that—you know, and I’m sure you’ve met them—that really become sickening because they just sit up all the time talking about themselves. (Amen) And they just boast and boast and boast, and that’s the person who has not harnessed the drum major instinct.
There’s nothing I can add to that so I’ll leave you to your thoughts.
Let today be a day where you look back lest ye forget, and look forward so you may see hope.
Azoth Khem Publishing and Perspective Film House have partnered to bring The Brittle Riders to life either as a streaming property on TV or full-length movie. No one will be using the pilot script I wrote. While there are elements everyone liked, there aren’t enough of them to move forward. Which is fine. At this point, I’ve been living these stories for almost a decade. Fresh eyes will be appreciated.
Perspective was aggressive in their presentation and provided clear expectations of what we could, and could not, expect. More importantly, at least to everyone at this end of the deal, was the fact they’d read the book prior to making an offer. Further, they’d read others that could have fit with their needs and still selected us.
If you haven’t read it yet, it really is a good story.
It’s got boobs, violence, guest appearances from the occasional dingus, morality issues, and gallons of booze.
Oh, yeah, it also has a plot.
Kind of a good one, now that you ask.
That could be why it was voted Best Sci-Fi Novel of 2022 by the Critters Readers Poll and had Kirkus Reviews give it a recommended rating and note it’s “(d)ensely packed, SF-tinged high fantasy that mildly satirizes the genre.”
Perspective will be handling the development of the formal presentation, which should take between six to ten months to get all spiffy and shiny, and then will secure the final investors to bring it all to life. Yes, they will need investors. This is too big a project to lay on the shoulders of one company. Unless that company is Marvel or something.
OMG! Can you see Robert Downey, Jr. portraying Sland?
No. No one can. Not even RDJ, back in his halcyon days of substance abuse, could see something like that.
Another reason to be excited about this is the fact they are realistically focused on Book 1 and not the entire universe. Obviously, they know it exists, but they aren’t getting ahead of themselves. That makes all of this possible.
If one works, and it will, they can always make more.
Just before the end of 2024, I posted a “starter pack” on social media of some of the characters from my novels in case anyone wanted to cosplay them. That led to some fun questions online and twenty-nine new subscribers to my email list.
HI EVERYONE!
Anyway, as to the questions, here are the answers.
(1) Yes, you can be under 18 and send me pics of you cosplaying. Just cover up your pretty bits so Mr. Bill doesn’t go to jail.
(2) If you’re over 18, you don’t have to wear pasties if you don’t want to. We have custom digital ones we can use as needed. However, I may ask for proof of age, so be prepared.
(3) If you’re already hairy, R’yune and Sland are both excellent and easy choices for you. I have others that I don’t have drawings of so ask if you’re interested.
(4) Except for the Pearls from Goptri of the Mists, who are clones of an Indian female serial killer coupled with the body of a Cephalopod, it is impossible to “race swap” any character. All my chimeras are built on a wide variety of human DNA. As long as you’re human, you’re halfway there.
(5) You can send all the pics you want. I will not use any without your permission. Just submitting them doesn’t grant me any rights. Years of experience have taught me that what seemed like a good idea at the time might not work so well in retrospect.
Yeah, you whimsical medical professional, I’m looking at you.
Just send whatever you’ve got to info@mcscifibooks.com so they don’t get lost in my personal email.
Feel free to share this with anyone you think might be interested.
This has been a long, occasionally strange, trip. However, at no point did I, or anyone involved, feel like we were being jerked around or shopping something useless. People genuinely liked this tale and all its possibilities.
Everything happened kind of fast. I’d been told by several industry professionals that something like this could happen, but it was still unexpected. In fact, we were in preliminary discussions with a different company when all of this occurred.
I will be forever grateful to all the people I met along the way who offered encouragement, their time, and detailed advice to help this project shine. Without their assistance, and guidance I’d probably be wondering if Wendy’s was hiring.
(jedi mind trick)Yes, you will want fries with that(/jedi mind trick).
Anyway, strap in gang, this ride has only just begun.
This was originally published on December 14, 2021. It became a holiday tradition on The Big Wakeup Call with Ryan Gatenby.
It always amazes me how two unrelated things can suddenly become one joyful thing. I doubt anyone ever said, “Hey! I have a great idea! Let’s add nuclear warheads to Santa’s arsenal!” And, yet, on December 24, 1955, that’s pretty much what happened. A Denver department store put an ad in the local paper offering kids the chance to talk directly to Santa on Christmas Eve. Although much is lost to the mists of time one must assume they had hired, or cajoled, someone to play Santa. As it turned out that dude was in for a lonely night. You see, the company had put the wrong number in the ad. Instead of getting the North Pole kids got the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) Operations Center in Colorado Springs, Colo. Their job was, and mostly still is, to make safe our shores and be prepared to drop nuclear warheads on any target ordered by the president. The wonderful film Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Love the Bomb may have been satire, but it was based on the command chain at CONAD and this scene could easily have played out in real life.
Fortunately for all, CONAD did not bomb the North Pole.
Instead, when the phone began to ring, Air Force Col. Harry Shoup, the commander on duty that night who answered the child’s phone call, was quick to realize a mistake had been made and assured the child he was Santa. After more incoming calls, Shoup assigned a duty officer to continue answering calls and a tradition was born, that continued when NORAD was formed in 1958. As the night wore on the officers would tell the children where Santa was and then let them know they were making sure he was safe.
Not wanting to keep the fun to themselves, they began sending out updates to radio stations all over the country so they could keep their listeners abreast of Santa’s progress. By the late 60s, Chicagoans could tune into to WGN-TV for hourly updates. Often offered by breathless weather men.
“Santa’s over Tobago now. He says the scenery is beautiful and the natives are friendly!”
As a kid I was glued to the TV wondering when Santa was going to get to me.
Of course, had I developed logic and reason, I would have noted the Santa Tracker updated as each time zone hit midnight. Which makes perfect sense.
As I got older, I would go to my uncle and aunt’s house so we could assemble all the toys after the kids went to bed. In essence, I had become Santa.
And you know what? I still watched the TV to see where he was.
You want to know something else? I still believe in Santa. And whenever someone calls me on it, I point them to an article written on Sept. 21, 1897 by veteran newsman Francis Pharcellus Church. Who was a piece of work in his own right, which makes this all the sweeter.
DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, ‘If you see it in THE SUN it’s so.’ Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?
VIRGINIA O’HANLON. 115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET.
VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
And, with that, allow me to wish each and everyone of you a Merry Christmas.
Origanlly posted December 18, 2015 on World News Center.
Since, this year, Christmas Eve falls on a Friday that means, if I want to do our annual Christmas radio show I need to do it today. Which is fine. Christmas is a fun, and interesting, holiday. Steeped in traditions that have nothing to do with its alleged origins it has become a global holiday that brings out the strangest in people. I’ve done my fair share of articles on the day, covering everything from the joys of Christmas poop to how Colonel Sanders is the image used for Santa in Japan. Today I’m not going to talk about those. Instead I’d like to spend some time talking about the two guys who represent the day. From the religious side of things. Because, believe it or not, a long time ago, in a Galilee far away, this whole thing had to do with a dude who said some very nice things and another dude who did some. Let’s take a look at them in chronological order.
A lot of people, including some Messianic Jews (Jews who believe Jesus is the Messiah), will call Jesus by a different name: Yeshua (Hebrew ????????). They say that Yeshua is the Jewish name that Jesus would have been called by those who knew Him. Some messianics and other groups say that Yeshua is Jesus’ real name and that the name “Jesus” is wrong. Others say that it is okay to use either one. But then again, there are those who say that the word, “Jesus,” is pagan in origin and should not be used at all. And if that weren’t enough, some say that “Jesus” is derived from “Zeus” and really means “hail Zeus.” With all these possibilities is there a real answer to what was the Messiah’s real name? Yes, there is. It is found in the New Testament.
YIKES!
Fortunately for us, the nice people at Got Questions (a faith based scholarship website), have the answer.
Some people claim that our Lord should not be referred to as “Jesus.” Instead, we should only use the name “Yeshua.” Some even go so far as to say that calling Him “Jesus” is blasphemous. Others go into great detail about how the name “Jesus” is unbiblical because the letter J is a modern invention and there was no letter J in Greek or Hebrew. Yeshua is the Hebrew name, and its English spelling is “Joshua.” Iesous is the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew name, and its English spelling is “Jesus.” Thus, the names “Joshua” and “Jesus” are essentially the same; both are English pronunciations of the Hebrew and Greek names
Quick note here, no matter which name you use, there’s no requirement in the bible that you only use one language or another. As long as you’re referring to the prophet of the New Testament, you’re golden.
Okay, so now we’ve named him. Let’s take a quick peek at the events leading up to His birth. I wrote Another Birther Conspiracy back in 2012 and, since the facts happened over 2,000 years ago, not much has changed. The one thing that did has been corrected with a minor, parenthetical, edit.
Before we get to the story of the birth of Jesus we need to back track a bit. Specifically we need to go back to 63 BC. That was when Rome invaded, and conquered, Judea, the land of the Jews. The Jews, as you might imagine, did not like being invaded and conquered so there were several minor rebellions. Rome dealt with them in their usual subtle fashion, they killed anyone who opposed them.
Keep in mind that Judea had many great warriors but Rome had an army. There is a massive difference there. And the result of their clash was obvious. In less than a year Judea was a Roman enclave.
Rome wanted two things from Judea; (1) a Mediterranean port for trade and; (2) taxes. The former it got by holding the land, the latter it got by imposing the same method that Romans used on any lands they conquered. A centurion would guesstimate the population of a town or village, round it up and say “You owe Rome this much money every month.” It was then up to whoever the Centurion assigned to collect that money.
In Judea that task fell mainly to the pharisees.
They don’t come off very well in the New Testament, and you can see why. Their job was nearly impossible. They had to keep the Romans happy by taking as much money as possible from their fellow Jews while at the same time keeping the Romans from killing their fellow Jews for sport.
It was a task that made no one happy.
Flash forward to 5 BC. Chinese astronomers recorded that a comet appeared in the spring of that year and hung in the sky for an extended period. It probably got caught in a gravity well for a bit. But whatever the reason, there would have been a glowing object in the sky and, thanks to an optical illusion, it would have appeared to be hanging there as if it just magically appeared.
That seems about right for the Star of Bethlehem.
Now a couple of annoying facts. First off, Rome never counted the people it conquered in any census. They really didn’t consider them people. You were either a Roman citizen or you were chattel. And, to Rome, Jews were chattel unless they, like the family of Saul who became Paul, earned citizenship. Second, I have already noted how the Romans collected taxes. They did it that way to keep everyone in place. The last thing they would do is set the people they worked so hard to conquer loose on roads where they could congregate and foment rebellion.
This would have been especially true of the Jews. Most Roman soldiers were illiterate. (Many) Jews were not. They could read and write from a young age. That’s because, unlike any other contemporary religions, Judaism was memorialized in a book, the Torah. If you wanted to be a good Jew you needed to be able to read the Torah.
So a group of people who could spread a plan for rebellion just by passing slips of paper scared the hell out of the Romans. Better to keep them in their little towns and lord over them with garrison troops.
Which is exactly what they did.
Many scholars have said illiteracy would have been rampant in rural areas populated by Jews, and there is a ton of data to back that up. However, in more metropolitan areas this would not have been true. Nevertheless, since Jesus was born in Nazareth, a/k/a Bu-Fu Nowhere, it’s assumed he was illiterate too. I don’t think so. All you need do is read the Sermon on the Mount to see a man who had a deep grasp of the current social order, was well versed in Mosaic Law, understood the division necessary between Church and State (later exemplified with “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.” [Matthew 22:21]), and had a wicked sense of humor. All signs of a very literate, and educated, man.
Sense of humor?
Oh yeah. Just ask any rabbi to read you Beatitudes in Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke. The rhythm of the speech will be immediately clear to you even if the words are not. It’s the same rhythm comedians still use for one liners to this day. It gets lost by many modern adherents that Jesus was a very funny dude.
All right, so now we’re clear who Jesus was, where he came from, and have a pretty good idea when he was born. Nowhere near December 25th is an acceptable answer if you don’t buy my theory about March in 5 B.C.
The whole late December dating ritual came about since no one had a clear idea when he was born and the Catholic Church needed to incorporate, i.e., override, many pagan holidays. The result was many pagan traditions such as the tree, the gift giving, the candles (e.g., Christmas lights), egg nog, wassailing (the most violent holiday tradition ever back in its day), all got rolled up in what was, a minor and simple celebration.
So how did all of that lead us to Santa Claus? You can thank Jolly Old St. Nick for that. Well, you can thank St. Nicholas, who really wasn’t all that jolly. The nice folks over at National Public Radio did a fun, if watered down, story about the man.
If you celebrate Christmas, you may have found some presents under the tree, and you may believe those mysterious presents came from a jolly old man in a red suit.
He has a lot of names, including Santa Claus, Kris Kringle, Sinterklaas, Noel Baba, Popo Gigio — and of course — St. Nicholas. But believe it or not, St. Nicholas was a real man. He was a bishop, living in the 3rd century, in what’s now modern-day Turkey.
Professor Adam English of Campbell University in North Carolina pieced together the life of St. Nicholas in his new book, The Saint Who Would Be Santa Claus: The True Life and Trials of Nicholas of Myra.
St. Nicholas oversaw a massive transition in the Christian faith, including participating in the Council of Nicaea — the first ecumenical council. Legend has it that he slapped a famous heretic with his sandal. English says the story isn’t true, but his bones show that he had a broken nose.
“So perhaps he did have a violent past, or perhaps he did get into a scuffle or two in his lifetime,” English tells NPR’s Celeste Headlee. But there was one true story that somehow captured the imagination of Christians for centuries.
English says that as a young man, Nicholas had inherited a sum of money. Nicholas hears about a man in town with three daughters on the verge of destitution. So he bags up some gold, and in the middle of the night, anonymously tosses the bag through the window.
Nicholas repeats the act two more times so that the family could use the money as dowries for the daughters, English says. Later legend adds that the window was locked, so Nicholas drops the bag down the chimney, where it lands in a stocking waiting by the fire to dry.
By the twelfth century, English says, nuns in France were making little gifts, leaving them on the doorsteps of children, and signing them “from St. Nicholas.”
None of this, however, was actually connected to Christmas or Christ’s birth. St. Nicholas Day is celebrated on December 6th.
English says that Santa Claus was initially introduced into the American context in the early 19th century. It was a combination of the day’s proximity to Christmas, and an effort by prominent New Yorkers to reclaim their European heritage.
“They were looking for roots, they were looking for traditions,” English says. “They turn to their Dutch heritage, and to be Dutch is to celebrate Sinterklass — celebrate St. Nicholas.”
Today’s image of Santa Claus is very different than that of the original St. Nicholas of Myra. English says he loves the stories of the jolly old man, with rosy cheeks, and a hearty laugh. But he wants to challenge Americans to consider the true story behind St. Nicholas.
“To not only give gifts to our family, those that we love and those that we know,” says English, “but to reach out beyond our family walls to those who we don’t know, who we don’t love, and to include them as well.”
I mentioned that the story was watered down. You see, Turkish sailors have a long tradition of sharing oral histories. And no one is allowed to tell a story unless they get it 100% right. And they have lots of stories about St. Nicholas. Basically, they all come down to this, the 5′ tall, rawboned, Bishop of Myra was perfectly capable of laying your ass right out if you crossed him or he caught you doing bad things. The recent autopsy of his remains seems to confirm that as a part of his charm.
Some people think that learning about this stuff somehow destroys the magic. I’m not one of them. I like to think that knowing the facts around each only adds to the richness of the tapestries their stories weave. When you know that Jesus played the Roman army like a violin to spread His message, you have to be impressed with the tremendous battle of wits He had to wage every day just to stay alive. When you know that St. Nicholas was capable of saving children from slavery, and able to knock the snot out of any miscreant, it just goes to show you how dedicated he was to his cause.
These people did not live in a bubble. They walked and talked and breathed and ate among their contemporaries. Their lives were influenced by their pasts while they held their collective vision on the future. Knowing that doesn’t lessen them. In many ways it makes them greater.
Now, how we ended up here from there says more about us than either of them.
