Go Dawgs.
UPDATE: Final score 65-7. Congratulations to the back to back champions.
Go Mighty Bulldogs
I missed the first quarter due to Fire/Rescue training, which I suppose demonstrates my dedication to the latter. Tonight’s National Championship College Football Game is the most important game in any sport all year; indeed, as any true Southerner knows, college football is the only actual sport played anywhere in the world.
CounterPunch: COINTELPRO is Back
I noted this article last week, but I wanted to avoid politics for the holidays. It is highly unusual for the radical, normally-left site CounterPunch to publish something that is sympathetic to the right wing, but criticism of the FBI is in their lane.
The Senate report on COINTELPRO concluded: “Only a combination of legislative prohibition and Departmental control can guarantee that COINTELPRO will not happen again.” But the Ford administration derailed legislative reforms by promising an administrative fix. In 2002, Attorney General John Ashcroft threw out many of those reforms as part of “a concerted effort to free the [FBI] field agents… from the bureaucratic, organizational, and operational restrictions” imposed after their prior abuses. Ashcroft declared: “In its 94-year history, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been… the tireless protector of civil rights and civil liberties for all Americans.” ...The FBI’s latest war on wrong-thinking Americans took off after the FBI helped fabricate the 2016 RussiaGate fraud.... In our time, FBI officials pressured Twitter to suppress Americans based on false claims of fighting foreign influence. The same pretext was used by the Department of Homeland Security to massively suppress Americans’ criticism of election procedures (especially mail-in ballots) for the 2020 presidential election. As the covert war against “misinformation” expands, the list of federally prohibited online thoughts is snowballing. DHS is targeting “inaccurate information on the… U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the nature of U.S. support to Ukraine,”...One of the biggest “misses” in the media coverage of the Twitter Files is the stunning failure of Congress to expose the abuses that Elon Musk is revealing.... Is Congress terrified of the FBI nowadays like congressmen were in the COINTELPRO era? In 1971, House Majority Leader Hale Boggs revealed the shameless kowtowing on Capitol Hill: “Our very fear of speaking out [against the FBI] … has watered the roots and hastened the growth of a vine of tyranny…. Our society cannot survive a planned and programmed fear of its own government bureaus and agencies.”
That last point is one I've been hearing more often lately. Society cannot survive a collapse of trust in public institutions; therefore, it is suggested, we have a moral obligation to extend trust to those institutions. High-trust societies definitely do better than low-trust ones.
Trust has to be earned, however. When our institutions regularly betray their society and defy their constitutional limits, trust is not merited.
More on Viking Age "Migration"
A few years ago there was a famous study that showed that the early population of Iceland was made up almost 50-50 of Norsemen and Gaels -- that is, of Viking men and Scottish or Irish women. Now a study shows that there was a substantial amount of Celtic migration to Scandinavia proper, too.
The circumstances and fate of people of British-Irish ancestry who arrived in Scandinavia at this time are likely to have been variable, ranging from the forced migration of slaves to the voluntary immigration of more high-ranking individuals such as Christian missionaries and monks.
OK, although the monks should have been celibate, so their influence on the population's genetics ought not to have been great.
I have long reflected on the fact that the Norse sagas don't really mention Irish female slaves in great numbers -- in fact I can't think of even one example -- but they must have been pretty thick on the ground if they made up half the genetic heritage for a while. The sagas weren't written down until much later, and tend to be about high-status families or individuals, but still you'd think they'd come up.
Now there's a parallel discussion as to whether the Jews were ever slaves in Egypt, with some reform Jews arguing that the traditions are falsified because the only evidence for them is Biblical. However, the historic evidence for Jewish slaves in Egypt is much stronger than the evidence for female Irish slaves in Iceland; and there were very clearly a lot of Irish slave-women in Iceland. Maybe the Egyptians were no more interested in documenting their slaves' activities than were the Vikings, and the Irish women less literate and capable of documenting it themselves.
A Familiar Story
Writing from the southern Philippines, Georgi Engelbrecht describes a failed jihadist movement's attempts to establish a stronghold there.
I was in the southern Philippines myself in 2007, and this story about the Islamic State's attempt to do so is almost precisely a mirror of the earlier attempt by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and Abu Sayyaf - both of whom get mentioned.
A landmark peace agreement in 2014 reconciled the Philippine government with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the largest — and formerly secessionist — Moro Muslim rebel group. Bringing about peace, however, has been more complicated. Islamist outfits have formed outside the MILF and gained increasing popularity as the pact was delayed and formal Moro autonomy slowed despite the peace deal....Things escalated after the third battle in Butig in November 2016. Isnilon Hapilon, one of the few surviving leaders of the infamous Abu Sayyaf Group, a loose network of criminal and militant cells in the Sulu Archipelago, arrived in Lanao and was appointed emir (commander) of the local Islamic State franchise. Hapilon had left his home island, Basilan, when his group came under military pressure. Details remain murky, but the plan to take over Marawi likely emerged around this time, with militants linking up with criminal syndicates. Local politicians supported the militants with cash and protection. Foreign money was arriving through remittance centers and bank accounts.
To appreciate how similar these stories are, you need to know that the Moro Islamic Liberation Front was itself an offshoot of the Moro National Liberation Front, which had signed a "landmark peace agreement" in the 1990s. The MNLF deal brought in most of the militants in the southern Philippines, who were moved as much by Moro nationalism as by Islam; but a radical offshoot, MILF, splintered off and continued the fight.
Abu Sayyaf, meanwhile, was an ally of Al Qaeda instead of the manner in which this new ultra-radical group was an ally of the Islamic State (itself containing members of the old Al Qaeda in Iraq, an offshoot of AQ that came to exist only to fight us in Iraq, and who married to Saddamist insurgents in American prisons in Iraq where they were kept from killing each other long enough to find common cause). Al Qaeda friends Jemmah Islamiyah helped set up and fund 'the sons of the Sword' (a literal translation of Abu Sayyaf) to push for a Qaeda-led caliphate in the very same Islam-friendly territory. They used the MILF as militia capable of holding territory; the MILF used them as shock troops.
I guess you could say that the waves are getting smaller and smaller, which might be reason for hope. The same process happened in Ireland, where the Irish Republican Army was brought in but the Provisional Irish Republican Army stayed out, until the Provos came in but the Real IRA stayed out, until at last there is relative peace. That too makes this a familiar story; I hope it works out well. The Southern Philippines are one of the most beautiful places on earth, unbelievably beautiful, and it is a shame that such paradise has so long been marred by poverty and war.
The Feast of the Epiphany
As the discussion in the comments has illuminated, today marks the end of Christmas and the start of Epiphanytide, though in another sense the “Christmastide” continues for some time until Candlemas.
Growing up I was misled by Christmas pageants and Nativity scenes to believe that all the events happened at once: the Magi standing around the manger with the shepherds and the donkeys, everyone gathered together in celebration as we were ourselves come together as a family on Christmas morning. Epiphany was never mentioned. Of course it makes sense, though, that a journey in those days took quite some time. The mind prefers the easy, complete picture.
Epiphany Eve
The relevant festival for today seems to be informal: it is the eve of Epiphany, which brings about some duties and preparations. The formal feasts for today are several, including St. Syncletica who died after she gave away her wealth to the poor; and St. John Neumann, an important Eastern European figure of the 19th century.
For the purpose of the Christmas holiday, the Epiphany marks the end of the 12 days of Christmas (but not the Christmastide, which lasts until Candlemas at the end of what is also known as Epiphanytide -- see discussion below).
In many Western Churches, the eve of the feast is celebrated as Twelfth Night (Epiphany Eve). The Monday after Epiphany is known as Plough Monday.
Popular Epiphany customs include Epiphany singing, chalking the door, having one's house blessed, consuming Three Kings Cake, winter swimming, as well as attending church services. It is customary for Christians in many localities to remove their Christmas decorations on Epiphany Eve (Twelfth Night), although those in other Christian countries historically remove them on Candlemas, the conclusion of Epiphanytide. According to the first tradition, those who fail to remember to remove their Christmas decorations on Epiphany Eve must leave them untouched until Candlemas, the second opportunity to remove them; failure to observe this custom is considered inauspicious.
So if you are going to remove Christmas decorations according to this tradition, today is the day for it (as we are doing here). If you want to eat Three Kings Cakes tomorrow, today may be the day for preparing them. At least if you are Roman Catholic; the Eastern church has a whole different set of dates for all of this, and a more intense set of traditions about it.
If you are wondering about the name, it is Greek, which might explain why the Greek Orthodox church is more wedded to it.
The word Epiphany is from Koine Greek ἐπιφάνεια, epipháneia, meaning manifestation or appearance. It is derived from the verb φαίνειν, phainein, meaning "to appear". In classical Greek it was used for the appearance of dawn, of an enemy in war, but especially of a manifestation of a deity to a worshiper (a theophany). In the Septuagint the word is used of a manifestation of the God of Israel (2 Maccabees 15:27). In the New Testament the word is used in 2 Timothy 1:10 to refer either to the birth of Christ or to his appearance after his resurrection, and five times to refer to his Second Coming.
The Evils of Coca-Cola
I'm not doing political posts by intention during the Christmas season, so look for those to resume not sooner than Monday. This one is more about corporate corruption, though it bleeds over into government corruption -- especially the manner in which the government refused to discuss obesity as a risk during the COVID massacre period, which doubtless cost lives and in poor, disadvantaged communities.
We can hold fire on the rest of it until Monday. Hopefully the House Speakership won't be determined by then, or ever, so we can talk at length about it.
Feast of Elizabeth Ann Seton
Today is the feast day for St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, an eighteenth century(!) saint who is by far the furthest removed from the events of Christmas. She is the first US citizen to be canonized. She converted to Catholicism fairly late in life, and was influential in the establishment of the faith in a new nation dominated by Protestant churches.
This raises a general point I have been wondering about regarding the Twelve Days of Christmas. Some of these feasts, solemnities, and memorials are clearly "of" the 12 Days, such as Childermas, the Feast of the Holy Family, and the Solemnity of Mary. Others are perhaps only 'during' the 12 days, including perhaps this one, St. Thomas Beckett, and some others. I've never seen a clear answer on which is which. Is St. Stephen's Day 'of' or 'during'? John the Evangelist?
Perhaps one of you has better information on that than I do. D29?
Tomorrow is Epiphany Eve, which closes the 12 Days: The Feast of the Epiphany, which has a clear connection to Christmas, is outside the range. So too the Feast of the Baptism of Jesus, which is Monday the 8th.
Happy Birthday Tolkien
Today is also the 131st birthday of JRR Tolkien. The age has an analogue:
Since Bilbo had been a ring-bearer, he was allowed to accompany Frodo to the Undying Lands. On September 22, 3021, Bilbo turned 131 and became the oldest hobbit ever to have lived. On September 29, he, Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel, and Frodo had boarded a ship docked at the Grey Havens and sailed away from Middle-earth. His fate afterward is not known but as he too was a mortal being, he most likely died in the light of the Blessed Realm of Valinor.
Memorial of the Holy Name
January 3rd marks the day on which the baby was formally named by Joseph. One might object that the Son’s name predates the formality, having been given by the Father (perhaps in eternity) and certainly transmitted to Joseph by an Angel in a dream well before. However, the incarnation was an incarnation into a particular time and place, family and tradition; and Joseph was assigned thereby the formal duty of naming the child.
Today marks the day on which that naming occurred, and is an occasion to reflect on the name and its meaning.
Feast of St. Basil and St. Gregory
Today is the feast day of both St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory of Nyssa, who were brothers. They are as 4th century saints quite late compared to most of those whose feast days fall in the 12 days of Christmas (although Thomas Beckett is even quite a bit later); their role was in resisting the Arian heresy and developing the theology by which the exact nature of the relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is understood.
The Feast Day of Sebastian I
The 31st of December was the death day of Pope Sebastian I, later canonized as St. Sebastian I. He was Pope at the time of the conversion of the Roman Empire under Constantine the Great, and as such was an important influence on the Roman Catholic Church as it assumed a new role at the center of Western life.
Also today marks the death day of Pope Benedict XVI. May his soul rest in peace.
Duet
It's hard to beat either Bonnie Raitt or Allison Krauss, but I wouldn't have guessed they'd sing so well together. "You and I were created to be true."
Feast of the Holy Family
This one of the 12 Days of Christmas travels around the calendar. It’s normally the Sunday after Christmas, but when Christmas itself falls on a Sunday it’s 30 December.
The intent of this feast is to celebrate the Holy Family, and to draw inspiration from them for your own family.
The Feast of Thomas a Becket
A martyr, St. Thomas of Becket was the Archbishop of Canterbury. I assume that the story is well known here.
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