Horror Report

Tag: history

  • The old fashioned war on Christmas revisited

    The old fashioned war on Christmas revisited

    All Christmas activities, including dancing, seasonal plays, games, singing carols, cheerful celebration and especially drinking were banned by the Puritan-dominated Parliament of England in 1644, with the Puritans of New England following suit.

    Christmas was outlawed in Boston, and the Plymouth colony made celebrating Christmas a criminal offense, according to “Once Upon a Gospel”The Puritans of New England then passed a series of laws making any observance of Christmas illegal, thus banning Christmascelebrations for part of the 17th century. A Massachusetts law of 1659 punished offenders with a hefty five shilling fine.

    In England, the ban on the holiday was lifted in 1660, when Charles II took over the throne. However, the Puritan presence remained in New England and Christmas did not become a legal holiday there until 1856. Even then, some schools continued to hold classes on December 25 until 1870.

    The upper classes in ancient Rome celebrated Dec. 25 as the birthday of the sun god Mithra. The date fell right in the middle of Saturnalia, a monthlong holiday dedicated to food, drink, and revelry, and Pope Julius I is said to have chosen that day to celebrate Christ’s birth as a way of co-opting the pagan rituals. Beyond that, the Puritans considered it historically inaccurate to place the Messiah’s arrival on Dec. 25. They thought Jesus had been born sometime in September…

    After the Civil War, America needed a lift.

    Christmas Day was formally declared a federal holiday by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1870.

    ….the rest? Was…history.

    Commercialism took its course.. Krampus came back en vogue.. and Santa Claus’ time traveling ways would not get him locked up in a slammer anymore.

    All is right with the world.

    So yes. INDEED. There WAS a war on Christmas. And Starbucks cups weren’t involved.

  • Watching 9/11 all year long

    Watching 9/11 all year long

     
    I have always struggled to know why I, along with many others, watch footage of 911 every year … also several times throughout the year. It seems ghoulish, it seems like we just relive a snuff film in real time every moment. For me, there is a sense of guilt that comes with it because of how it can also induce nostalgia. 

    For me, I become nostalgic for the year I turned 21, the moment when my youth seemed the most buoyant and yet obnoxious.. and a time when things seemed much more simple.

    Ever since the events of that day occurred headlines about it have been taken over by Xenaphobia, warmongers, and conspiracy theories of all nature.  If you were listening to the talking heads and pundits, then you most likely have been told the exact reason why 9/11 occurred.  Some will give you the backstory on the government officials that they believe were actually behind it. 

    Others will tell you about how we should have bombed Middle Eastern countries to smithereens because of their support of the terrorists.  A few may point out how inept American leadership was in the summer leading up to the event. Remember that memo given to Bush during his August vacation ??  

    We do this all the time, we relive the nasty events and try to shad them in a civilized way.  People strive to bring some common sense and normalcy of thought progression as to why things occurred.

    But I don’t believe that is why we watch footage of 9/11, and not why we relive the same 102 minutes time after time.

    I actually think the reason is quite simple.

    For the raw emotion.

    The true and visceral raw emotion that it brings, it seems real. We can relive those days when commercials along with TV coverage of the mundane and trivial was all we cared about. September 11 was the end of the Seinfeld era, the conclusion of the decade about nothing. Stock markets were strong, mortgage loans being given out like candy.. the conclusion came, though, and the piper was paid.

    I can recall the footage of the today show one Bryant Gumbel was cautiously curious as to why some would say the second plane flying into a building was a purposeful act.  Because we were naïve, because we were innocent. A generation that grew up lost in space forgot the space that they were in. The dotcom bubble was first, then everything burst at 9 AM on September  11th..

     

    When I watch coverage from those moments, when I view the footage again, and when I relive my own emotions and memories from that day, I don’t do it in any joy of those who perished.
    When viewing those television moments prior to the breaking news, I actually feel in some strange way like 911 will not happen. When I watch the footage of the ‘Everybody loves Raymond’ interview on CBS before the first plane hit, or the fact that Nokia stock was up 5% and Motorola was closing on CNN, I feel like the next moments actually will not occur. 

    An impossibility..

    Because we all know what occurs next, we all know the planes crash and that the Pentagon is it in that building is fall down, that President Bush is flown around the nation and Dick Cheney is in a bunker in no mans land. We all know that the speaker of the house is rushed out of DC and that news coverage comes to grips with the fact that their world, along with ours, has been changed forever with them only mere seconds.

    But we still watch, and I don’t believe we watch because it’s fun. I believe we watch because even to this day we have not come to grips with this moment and we have not been able to actually make sense of what we saw.

    We’ve gone to war, we debated who is behind the events, we have become divided as a nation and almost 20 years later a much more racist and bigoted world. None of it had to happen, but it did. And we watch the coverage of this day to feel that true and raw emotion because somehow perhaps we get united in our sadness in our anger. Even if it’s only for 102 minutes and it goes away once the replay on YouTube has ended. 


  • Sort of a strange little photo making its way around the…

    Sort of a strange little photo making its way around the…

    Sort of a strange little photo making its way around the internet.. 

    • The painting is called Mr. Pynchon and the Settling of Springfield
    • Mr Pynchon was a successful fur trader who founded Springfield, Massachusetts..
    • The painting is from 1937..
    • Most historians say the mystery object is a mirror – used widely in the 17th century
    • But that isn’t stopping people from pondering if the mystery item is actually a smart phone!
    • Look at the way he holds it! The way he stares.. Could it be an iPhone? or… maybe the other burning question.. An Android!?
    • from Tumblr http://ift.tt/2wz9o5S
  • A moment in history

    A moment in history

    I am preparing to write up a lengthly post about why I think, all of these years later, so many people are still fascinated and constantly watch footage of the attacks of September 11, 2001. And in the mean time I realized that on this day in 2005, August 7, Peter Jennings met his fate.

    I did not want the moment to pass without mentioning what a brilliant and amazing reporter I thought Jennings was. His voice was able to comfort me through a number of troubling world events. His evening news broadcast was reliable.. The day he died was a terrible moment.

    On that note, here was the final sign off from the man of the evening news hour on April 5 2005. With class.


    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vRfdgU2Q4E?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1&origin=https://safe.txmblr.com&wmode=opaque]

  • Rethinking the T REX

    Rethinking the T REX

    Researchers at the University of Manchester created a detailed anatomical computer model of the 7-ton dinosaur to calculate the load on its skeleton at various speeds and gaits. They found that its skeleton was perfectly capable of moving in a run – defined as having both feet off the ground at the same time – but if it had ever actually done so, its bones would have shattered. The study is published in the open-access journal PeerJ.
    from Tumblr http://ift.tt/2u4ogWz

  • CHECK YOURSELF BEFORE YOU WRECK YOURSELF

    CHECK YOURSELF BEFORE YOU WRECK YOURSELF

    Pittsburgh Daily Post, Pennsylvania, August 4, 1912

    And all these years I thought this saying started on Uncle Grandpa.. Glad to see we’ve been saying it since before two world wars. Sadly over the past century very few people have checked themselves before they wreck themselves..

  • HISTORY

    HISTORY

    Despite people’s belief system not allowing this information to become fact in their brains, it is true: The Jim Jones cult did not die drinking Kool-Aid. It was Flavor Aid.

    From a past story detailing the events: The surprising thing is that all the sources on the massacre say the powder was the grape variety of another drink brand, Flavor Aid. Made by Jel-Sert, Flavor Aid appeared in one of the first newspaper reports on the massacre.

    The claim is repeated in the 1982 book Raven: The Untold Story of the Rev. Jim Jones and His People. And surviving witnesses said that Flavor Aid was the drink used, not Kool-Aid.

    With the evidence so clear, why did the phrase “drinking the Kool-Aid” emerge? Mental Floss suggests Kool-Aid’s role as being a genericized name for all flavored drinks, the popularity of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, and other factors made it easier to remember “Kool-Aid” than “Flavor Aid.” Why it’s worth correcting the Kool-Aid mistake Many of the strongest arguments to abandon the phrase come from San Diego State University’s Jonestown Institute, including: Phyllis Gardner says the meme is part of the continuing dehumanization of victims at Jonestown. Mike Carter makes the obvious point that it trivializes the deaths to use the phrase at all. Al Tomkins at Poynter says that we shouldn’t continue to tarnish Kool-Aid’s name incorrectly.

  • The iceburg that gave us a song

    The iceburg that gave us a song

  • As Beltane became May Day.. as history turns

    As Beltane became May Day.. as history turns

    One important aspect of May Day often overlooked, along with the Beltane origins, is organized religion worked to overtake the pagan or communist roots with those of the more religiously themed ..

    Since the 18th century, many Roman Catholics have observed May – and May Day – with various May devotions to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

    In works of art, school skits, and so forth, Mary’s head will often be adorned with flowers in a May crowning. May 1 is also one of two feast days of the Catholic patron saint of workers St Joseph the Worker, a carpenter, husband to Mother Mary, and surrogate father of Jesus..

    Replacing another feast to St. Joseph, this date was chosen by Pope Pius XII in 1955 as a counterpoint to the communist International Workers Day celebrations on May Day

  • A look into history: The Woman Who Thought This Was the Solution to Painful Childbirth, Until She Died Trying It

    A look into history: The Woman Who Thought This Was the Solution to Painful Childbirth, Until She Died Trying It

    A look into history: The Woman Who Thought This Was the Solution to Painful Childbirth, Until She Died Trying It:

    KRISTINE GADDY WRITES,

    A German nurse led Charlotte Carmody to the “dearest room imaginable,” with blue and white walls and white frilled curtains. She was expecting a baby boy, and the beauty of the room — with its dainty white bassinet — overcame her. It didn’t feel like a hospital delivery room, because there were no shiny instruments or operating tables, just comfortable surroundings.

    It was the summer of 1914, and Carmody had traveled from her native Brooklyn to the Frauenklinik in Freiburg, Germany, for what seemed like a miracle: childbirth without pain. German doctors were offering something called Dammerschlaf, or Twilight Sleep, the name alone evoking a fairytale-like promise of an ideal delivery. Pregnant women were told they’d never remember the horrible pain of childbirth, and be less at risk of death or injury.

    Carmody lay down on the bed to receive her first injection, a cocktail of scopolamine — a painkiller that causes delirium and hallucinations — and morphine, which caused her brain to become less excited so that she could enter a sleep-like state. She would still be able to feel the baby and push, doctors said, but would wake up without any recollection of the pain and suffering she had endured. And that’s exactly what happened. Afterward, she awoke in her room and felt so well she thought “I must be dead,” Carmody recounted months later, to an auditorium filled with women curious about the procedure.

    She didn’t remember what had happened during her labor, but doctors and reporters chronicled the not-so-peaceful experiences they observed. Women still felt the full force of contractions; some became violent and thrashed in their beds, their faces flushed red — sometimes even blue — as they screamed. “The scopolamine induced amnesia, liberating women from normal self-control mechanisms, while the cocaine took the edge off,” says Dr. Patty Stokes, assistant professor of women’s and gender studies at Ohio University. The result was sometimes dangerous, and women had to be strapped down and carefully observed to ensure they didn’t hurt themselves. 

    This is an interesting read.. interesting history