Halloween In Indiana 2016 - Failed TexSen Ted Cruz and Failed CEO Carly Fiorina

Photo: People Magazine (GERARDO MORA/GETTY)

http://www.people.com/article/ted-cruz-campaign-vetting-carly-fiorina-vice-president

Trick or Treat?
More like Trick and Trick..

Ted pimping the "Woman Card".

Ted in mucho need of the appeal to women. lmao


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Halloween - Global Culture - Day of the Dead

There are traditions that transcend cultures. There are traditions that are adopted. There are traditions that get recycled through time.

The ancient Celtic New Year used to fall on November the first. There are ancient Celtic customs related to the harvest and coinciding with this date.

A Celtic celebration called Samhain used to center around the building of a bonfire on the Celtic New Year’s Eve on October 31. The people of a village would extinguish all fires in the village and take fire from the community bonfire to bring a new light from fire into the new year.

With the Celtic or Irish disaspora to America in the middle of the nineteenth century came the tradition of dressing up on Halloween first in religious costumes and later in monster chic.

The Brits, who have been greatly Americanized in these past decades, have found and adopted the “American” (Irish American) custom of Halloween and trick or treat. Many purists over there are disturbed that their traditional harvest festival bonfire thing on November 5 of Guy Fawkes Day has somehow been corrupted by yet another thing American.

Which came first? The religious holidays of All Saints day on November 1st and All Souls day on November 2 or the ancient pagan rituals associated with the Celtic New Year.

As in a grinding merger of cultures, it is hard to tell the truth of any given custom or tradition. In a way, globalization and driving toward a global culture have been ongoing for millennium.

I think we have the Celts first and then the Christian era trying to dominate and own dates on a calendar.

People of the Meso-American cultures of Mexico and Central America have their Dia de los Muertos – Day of the Dead customs around November 1 and 2. November 1 is for memory of babies and small children – angels – saints. November 2 is for memory of dead adult relatives - souls.

While the symbols of this holiday and its festivities are far from the Victorian or Puritanical customs of mourning, Meso-American culture treats respect and memory of the dead along with the needs and celebrations of the living. Families meet, clean up a relative’s gravesite, have a picnic there, tell family stories or even keep vigil through the night with candles and musica.

The human skull as symbol of death is not a feared symbol but a reminder of death which is part of a cycle of life perspective. The skull in Meso-American culture had been around for centuries before the Spanish and their imposed religion. In many ways I think that western culture and or Christian culture is a culture that greatly fears death and has great self-doubts about its mission statement. The conquered give lip service to their new masters and ancient customs such as Dia de los Muertos and Halloween go on and on.

I have spent the last thirty odd years practicing my own form of pagan respect, not ancestor worship. I light a candle before sunset on Halloween in honor of the Samhain custom and help the New Year in with new light. I also light a candle in my home on November 2 to remember long gone friends and relatives. I also in true Irish tradition and variation thereof have a shot or two of tequila in their honor.

(October 30, 2009)

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New York State Textbooks Censored in favor of Religious Superstitions and continued Dumbing Down of America

http://open.salon.com/blog/annie_keeghan/2012/03/26/news_flash_new_york_educators_reject_dinosaurs

Any company submitting proposals to the state must exclude references to such topics as dinosaurs, birthdays, Halloween, slavery, swimming pools (and other allusions to wealth, such as mp3 players, video games, etc.), certain forms of dance (ballet is okay), among others. And there’s junk food of course, which unfortunately wasn’t fully defined. This means that there is great editorial debate going on in conference rooms around the country as publishers try to discern exactlywhat constitutes junk food (I know; I’ve sat in on such meetings. Pretzels? Frozen yogurt? No one is ever quite sure. Cookies? Pies? Those always yield a consensus)…

The reason for the list coming out of New York, according to one education official, is that these and other listed references have the potential to “evoke unpleasant emotions in students.” Unpleasant emotions in students? When was the last time a written reference to a dinosaur or a cupcake or an ipod left your child emotionally harmed? I suspect it’s more likely that the unpleasant emotions aren’t so muchevoked in as projected upon students by much older voices---parents and others with personal agendas, as well as those with legal credentials who are always on the hunt for anything that has the eensiest potential to offend the smallest minority in the most insignificant way. The thing is, even if these things aren’t mentioned in a state test, students are still exposed to many of these topics on a daily basis beyond the classroom. So why are they affected so dramatically only when exposed to such topics on tests but not in everyday life?

Most of the items on New York's list aren’t new to publishers. When it comes to junk food, we haven’t been able to use the words cake, cookie, cupcake, and ice cream for as long as I can remember. The only reason pizza is allowed—veggie with a wheat crust, please…

Certainly some topics make sense to avoid—terrorism, divorce, disease. No one wants to upset the poor kids any more than they already are on testing day. But even a Jehovah’s Witness has to live in a world where most of the population celebrates birthdays, and an evangelical has to live in a world of museums that generally include things like, say, dinosaur fossils. Halloween? Is there a child alive who doesn’t either know about the existence of this holiday or participate in the celebration of it? Are there scores of students standing up en masse declaring, “I’m offended by this reference to paganism.” Or course not. Most don’t even know what paganism is. But those with agendas do. The more we try to sanitize education to appease a one-size-fits-all mentality, the more we’re going to create a one-size-fits-none curriculum which does nothing to advance what should be the goal—academics, not politics….

Global Culture - Halloween - Day of the Dead

There are traditions that transcend cultures. There are traditions that are adopted. There are traditions that get recycled through time.

The ancient Celtic New Year used to fall on November the first. There are ancient Celtic customs related to the harvest and coinciding with this date.

A Celtic celebration called Samhain used to center around the building of a bonfire on the Celtic New Year’s Eve on October 31. The people of a village would extinguish all fires in the village and take fire from the community bonfire to bring a new light from fire into the new year.

With the Celtic or Irish disaspora to America in the middle of the nineteenth century came the tradition of dressing up on Halloween first in religious costumes and later in monster chic.

The Brits, who have been greatly Americanized in these past decades, have found and adopted the “American” (Irish American) custom of Halloween and trick or treat. Many purists over there are disturbed that their traditional harvest festival bonfire thing on November 5 of Guy Fawkes Day has somehow been corrupted by yet another thing American.

Which came first? The religious holidays of All Saints day on November 1st and All Souls day on November 2 or the ancient pagan rituals associated with the Celtic New Year.

As in a grinding merger of cultures, it is hard to tell the truth of any given custom or tradition. In a way, globalization and driving toward a global culture have been ongoing for millennium.

I think we have the Celts first and then the Christian era trying to dominate and own dates on a calendar.

People of the Meso-American cultures of Mexico and Central America have their Dia de los Muertos – Day of the Dead customs around November 1 and 2. November 1 is for memory of babies and small children – angels – saints. November 2 is for memory of dead adult relatives - souls.

While the symbols of this holiday and its festivities are far from the Victorian or Puritanical customs of mourning, Meso-American culture treats respect and memory of the dead along with the needs and celebrations of the living. Families meet, clean up a relative’s gravesite, have a picnic there, tell family stories or even keep vigil through the night with candles and musica.

The human skull as symbol of death is not a feared symbol but a reminder of death which is part of a cycle of life perspective. The skull in Meso-American culture had been around for centuries before the Spanish and their imposed religion. In many ways I think that western culture and or Christian culture is a culture that greatly fears death and has great self-doubts about its mission statement. The conquered give lip service to their new masters and ancient customs such as Dia de los Muertos and Halloween go on and on.

I have spent the last thirty odd years practicing my own form of pagan respect, not ancestor worship. I light a candle before sunset on Halloween in honor of the Samhain custom and help the New Year in with new light. I also light a candle in my home on November 2 to remember long gone friends and relatives. I also in true Irish tradition and variation thereof have a shot or two of tequila in their honor.

Happy Secular Holiday (Halloween)

Halloween is a secular holiday – corruption of original language Hallowed Eve of a holy day - All Saints day - November 1. I see that that the Swedes do the weekend thing making all saint’s day on the first Saturday of November, a secular manipulation of a once sacred day in the past.

The Church in the past has merged local customs and let the pagan festival stuff outside the church building proper. In many ways the church did not convert totally so much as it coexisted on certain levels with local customs and local religions.

Halloween came to the United States via the Irish immigration in the mid nineteenth century as a part secular and part sacred tradition. The costumes children might wear on all hallowed eve would be of angels and saints and the like. Kids like dress up and an excuse to stay up late and whatever.

The custom in the USA grew with marketing from regional custom to national custom via the old 5 and 10 cent stores and Woolworth’s selling cheap costumes – anybody remember that defunct chain of stores?

For some reason, the Brits or the Brit kids got a hold of Halloween – kids, trick of treat – candy – the American culture is addictive in many ways wherever it spreads. I’ve have heard some Brits complain about how their traditional Autumn festival Guy Fawkes Day, November 5, is watered down with a merging in time, close dates with Halloween. I guess British children cannot get too much of good things.

In many ways, the problems the USA has in its foreign policy has to due with secular culture, marketing and such interfering with the sacred and in many cultures where sacred is indistinguishable from the secular. These other cultures might call themselves theocracies but in the bottom line of any government is power, taxes and crowd control. They have their own secular festivals and any thing foreign might be misunderstood or considered taboo.

Growing up in Philly, Halloween was no problem to the religious community. It was a local and a kid’s thing. I have seen in the past decades how some mentally ill fundies want to turn Halloween into some sort of Satanic thing. No doubt, the child in many fundies is an eternal prisoner of fear. This end of the world stuff and wanting the power and money of medieval popes is what I think is behind the drive, attempt, at banning a secular kid’s custom such as Halloween.

Great thing about Halloween, is that it spreads year to year, century to century and country to country. It must be a good and a human enterprise. Joy and fun should not be only in the realm of children. Or celebrated only one night a year.

Happy Halloween.

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