Amongst the Sami, midwinter was an occasion for honoring the goddess Beiwe who was associated with the sun, fertility and sanity. She reportedly traversed the sky in a craft made of reindeer bones accompanied by her daughter, Beiwe-Neia. Beiwe's followers sacrificed white female animals and smeared their doorposts with butter for Beiwe to munch on during her journey.


Amongst the Germanic peoples to their south, Juletid referred to their take on midwinter festivities. By the late Viking Age the word "Yule" had come to refer to a pan-European bricolage of midwinter observances.



Yule logs were lit to honor Thor. The feasting would continue until the fires had burned out. Although
in 960, Norwegian King Håkon signed into law that Jul (Yule) was to be moved from the solstice to December 25, to align it with Jesus' birthday party; Icelanders continued to keep it real until the Reformation reached them and ended the fun.

It's already December 5th again. Everyone knows that I'm obsessed with holidays and St. Nicholas Day is one of my favorite. Most people have heard David Sedaris' story about Santa Claus vs. St. Nicholas and maybe some of us know that he was a Greek bishop in present-day Turkey who became the patron saint of children by resurrecting their little corpses and paying off debts of the living to keep them out of child sex slavery.
 
I know people still exchange gifts at least in parts of the Middle West. Fewer of us still stuff our shoes with carrots and hay for his white horse Amerigo (or in some places a donkey) with the expectation that tomorrow we'll find our initials in chocolate, chocolate coins or marzipan. Of course, if we've been bad there might be some salt or a bundle of sticks to get switched with.

In different parts of the world he's accompanied by different comrades.
 

All data seems to indicate that this planet is going to be uninhabitable by 2012. Jack van Impe says it's a good thing. Jesus is going to take charge.

    I, for one, don't plan on hanging around. I honestly heard that the Bush administration set aside billions of dollars for some project in Antarctica. I can't remember where I heard it or any specifics but my theory is that global warming will soon cause a major disaster. Sea levels will rise causing hordes of displaced, massive, occasionally cannibal Samoan and Maori populations to invade the continent-dwellers' homes- eating the skinny first and saving the chubby for last. The rich and powerful will retreat to the newly tropical Antarctica Maximum Security New Eden Colony like monks in the Dark Ages whilst those of us who've survived work the sand mines of the wastelands, occasionally fending off bands of marauders.

Halt! You have violated New Eden's borders.                                  "Give us the sand and we may let you live!"

I saw this documentary with Chaz. It's a documentary wherein director Oded Lotan explores the topic of male circumcision. Whereas female circumcision is an almost universally vilified procedure, one in five males in the world is circumcised the film tells us. The reasons given are usually the same:  To maintain the status quo, hygiene, aesthetics, health, tradition, to fit in, religion/kicks.


It's told in sort  of a contrived fairy tale structure with narration and whimsical cartoons which I found a bit annoying but I could imagine the more whimsically-inclined enjoying. Lotan attempts to track down both his Mohel and his estranged foreskin. In the process he engages his uncircumcised boyfriend, his mother, an adult Russian immigrant who undergoes the surgery to feel more whole, a seven year old Muslim kid with little idea what "becoming a man" entails and a group of Jews vehemently opposed to this strangely anachronistic and (more strangely) run-of-the-mill ritual.

 
Lotan presents compelling arguments. As a gay Jew, he still doesn't fit in even without his foreskin so why is it that his not-especially religious mother thought that penile similarity would ensure his acceptance in a society that probably never knows what his penis looks like unless speedos are popular in Israel. Why not get him a nose job or gender reassignment? Maybe remove some moles and birthmarks too.