Don’t know about your neighborhood, but around here the fate of jack-o-lanterns after Halloween… is not pretty.
Happy Old Celtic New Year, and I don’t think too many people will be nostalgic for the last twelve months. If you’re still working on your resolutions or haven’t sent out your cards yet, you can always choose to celebrate the Viking New Year on November 11, known to medievalists and folksingers as Martinmas. The tradition in northern Europe was to butcher & preserve any livestock that wouldn’t be needed for next spring’s breeding on that day, and in the winemaking regions to tap the first of the summers’ vintage (thus recalling Viking customs), seasonal necessities where old pagan customs gradually accreted around the “new” Christian saint’s history. One season ends, the next one begins, and the wheel of the year progresses…
Moses2317
Here’s a guide I made for helping Get Out the Vote, including a link to find your polling place, an e-mail to send to family and friends, and links for canvassing and phonebanking the last two days of this election, so that we don’t all end up with John Boehner at our front door.
Winning Progressive
gbear
Brent Favre is nervous.
General Stuck
2011 – Year of the Shithouse Rat
jl
We need as many New Years celebrations as we can get. Let’s do em all. Do we have a list?
gbear
@Moses2317:
Have you seen this extranormal GOTV?
Omnes Omnibus
Happy New Year to you, Anne Laurie.
Comrade Mary
@General Stuck: Water Rat, Metal Rat, Wood Rat, Fire Rat, Earth Rat: I don’t remember a Shithouse Rat.
Also:
2002: Year of the Whopper
2003: Year of the Tucks Medicated Pad
2004: Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar
2005: Year of the Perdue Wonderchicken
2006: Year of the Whisper-Quiet Maytag Dishmaster
2007: Year of the Yushityu 2007 Mimetic-Resolution-Cartridge-View-Motherboard-Easy-To-Install-Upgrade For Infernatron/InterLace TP Systems For Home, Office Or Mobile (sic)
2008: Year of Dairy Products from the American Heartland
2009: Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment
2010: Year of Glad
Maybe 2011 is Year of Olestra, and it will all be about the anal leakage.
Moses2317
@gbear: I hadn’t seen that. It is awesome!
Winning Progressive
Redshift
@jl: Roman New Year was in March (which is why our ninth through twelfth months are named for the numbers seven through ten.) Of course, the New Year in a lot of cultures is in spring.
Gus diZerega
And Happy New Year to you.
Bright Blessings and Blessed Be
Comrade Mary
Whee! John Scalzi has an awesome election short story up!
Origuy
@jl: Wikipedia does, naturally. Islamic New Year, Ras as-Sana al-Hijreya, is coming up December 7, this year. Then there’s the Gregorian New Year on January 1, of course. The Eastern Orthodox still celebrate the Julian Calendar New Year to some extent, two weeks later. Then there are all the cultures that celebrate the lunar New Year around the same time as the Chinese, including the Koreans, Mongolians, and Vietnamese. Nowruz, the Persian New Year, is March 21, the vernal equinox. The Hindu calendar starts around the same time. Then the Thai, Lao, and Cambodians celebrate starting April 13. Finally, Rosh Hashanah starts at sundown of September 28 next year.
Lots of reasons to party.
Edit: Oh, and the next year in Chinese astrology will be the year of the Metal Rabbit. Run away!
General Stuck
@Comrade Mary:
Yes, I remember. and a very good year it was. and tasty. :-)
Yutsano
@jl: Let’s see…just had Rosh Hashanah, Chinese calendar New Year isn’t until March,
not sure when the Muslim New Year is, Baha’i is in late March…I know there are others.
@Origuy: Or this…
Anya
I just hope Reid, who’s a huge disappointment, defeats that nut-job, Sharron Angle, for the sake of humanity. Also, I can take all the disappointment that comes from the crazy party taking the House, if Scott McAdams and Feingold both win.
TaMara (BHF)
Happy New Year Anne.
Now I’m going to tune out until Wednesday. Somebody send up a flare if it isn’t a complete disaster.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Origuy:
Actually, there is an ecclesiastical new year in the (Chalcedonian) Orthodox calendar; I think its in September. I have no idea what the non-Chalcedonian Churches do.
Ash Can
Took Bottle Rocket to Lego Kidsfest at McCormick Place this morning, and we played until mid-afternoon. Upon returning home, he donned his Halloween costume and went out with one of his friends to shake the neighbors down for candy. Meanwhile, M-80 carved our two pumpkins and I prepared appetizers for the neighbors’ Halloween party. The three of us, along with approximately twelve metric shit-tons of neighbors, eventually congregated at said neighbors’ house for said Halloween party. M-80 and Bottle Rocket went home at a decent hour to get to bed for tomorrow’s work/school day. I, on the other hand, stayed late guzzling beer with the other grade-school moms and just got home a little while ago.
With any luck, Bottle Rocket will not have caught a raging cold running around with the rest of the neighborhood kids in the 40-degree weather tonight and will be able to go to school tomorrow. And I am off to collapse in a heap.
Next stop: Election Day, and GOTV efforts, if the local Dem organization will have my sorry ass.
::THUD::
ETA: Have I mentioned lately that I love my neighborhood?
Calouste
@Yutsano:
Chinese New Year is late January/early February. February 3rd in 2011.
jl
@Origuy: Thanks. I was going to look for something like that, but decided to be lazy.
New Year
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Year
I will operate on the assumption that these are all official Balloon Juice Holidays from now on.
Great idea, Anne. Thanks.
Better enjoy the parties while they last. Who knows if we will survive the Metal Rabbit?
General Stuck
@Anya:
Mcadams may well win. Since Miller is flaming out and even the queen wingnut herself is calling him a lost cause. Murkowski will likely get more write in votes than Mcadams, but faces the likelyhood that many of them may get thrown out because it is so easy to screw up a write in vote. But I have no idea about Feingold’s chances. So long as we keep the senate, I can live with the wingers taking the House, mostly because their certain antics will help dems and Obama in 2012. But they will likely create much mischief in those two years, especially with attacking the HCR via defunding parts of it. That might help dems later on, but will be just awful for the country, and maybe the uninsured not getting the relief they so desperately need.
Yutsano
@Ash Can: Some moms have all the fun. :)
General Stuck
@Ash Can:
You sound like a fun mom. “Bottle Rocket” LOL.
Mike G
The more things change, the more they stay the same —
A quote from HP Lovecraft, 1936 —
“As for the Republicans—how can one regard seriously a frightened, greedy, nostalgic huddle of tradesmen and lucky idlers who shut their eyes to history and science, steel their emotions against decent human sympathy, cling to sordid and provincial ideals exalting sheer acquisitiveness and condoning artificial hardship for the non-materially-shrewd, dwell smugly and sentimentally in a distorted dream-cosmos of outmoded phrases and principles and attitudes based on the bygone agricultural-handicraft world, and revel in (consciously or unconsciously) mendacious assumptions (such as the notion that real liberty is synonymous with the single detail of unrestricted economic license or that a rational planning of resource-distribution would contravene some vague and mystical ‘American heritage’…) utterly contrary to fact and without the slightest foundation in human experience? Intellectually, the Republican idea deserves the tolerance and respect one gives to the dead.”
(h/t Digby)
jl
@General Stuck: TPM says not so fast, Miller may win even though most Alaskans hate the guy. Because Murkowski will split the anti Miller vote.
” McAdams… is dramatically more popular than either Miller or Murkowski…. his favorable numbers are much, much better than either Miller or Murkowski. Miller’s favorability rating is 36% to 59%. Basically people totally hate the guy.
Next, bizarrely, the complete implosion of Miler’s campaign seems, if this poll bears out, to be ensuring that he’ll win. He being Joe Miller… Miller has collapsed so badly that Murkowski, rather than splitting the vote and making a McAdams win possible, now looks to him denying McAdams the victory he could win in a two person race.
The topline result is Miller 37% and Murk and McAdams both at 30%… ”
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/11/alaska_race_totally_bizarre_whats_new.php#more?ref=fpblg
Yutsano
@jl:
I’m a Metal Rat and a Scorpio. I haz issues.
@General Stuck:
De-funding is nice, but really will only be possible if they decide to de-fund the whole government. IIRC, the vast majority of the HCR money goes through HHS directly, and is pretty much impossible to strip out without just de-funding that agency period. And that won’t get out of the Senate period. The Republicans will set themselves up for a huge fall if they get in and then also don’t produce or even make things worse. It’s why I’m totally content with them taking the House, it will be the only way our children r learning.
Comrade Mary
@Yutsano: Happy very imminent or just missed birthday, sweetie.
General Stuck
@jl:
That may well be the case, as I know little about AK politics. My info came from this I read this morning.
General Stuck
@Yutsano:
I don’t really know how it is funded, but I am pretty sure it is discretionary, but whatever. They will find another way, if one exists, to tamper with a bill they viscerally hate to no end.
jl
@Yutsano:
“I’m a Metal Rat and a Scorpio. I haz issues.”
Sounds like a powerful combination.
jl
Rabbit: Gracious, good friend, kind, sensitive, soft-spoken, amiable, elegant, reserved, cautious, artistic, thorough, tender, self-assured, shy, astute, compassionate, lucky, flexible. Can be moody, detached, superficial, self-indulgent, opportunistic, stubborn.
Metal: firmness, rigidity, persistence, strength and determination. The metal person is controlling, ambitious, forceful and set in their ways… self-reliant and prefer to handle their problems alone…. materialistic, business oriented and good at organization and stability… appreciates luxury and enjoy the good things in life….has strong impulses and generative powers and can bring about changes and transformations for those who come into contact with them…. emotions… grief… courage
Edited from wikipedia entries on Chinese astrology.
Edit: just found I am a fire horse.
Yutsano
@Comrade Mary: Just missed, but grazie. :) I just got home not too long ago from a restful weekend at the parents in celebration. I have to say, I really enjoy that all we do for birthdays is go out to eat as a family. It takes a lot of the gift pressure off plus it’s fun for us all. And it’s amazing we’ve never been thrown out of a restaurant yet considering how loud we can get.
@General Stuck:
Heh. Why she’d agree to work with a bunch of minority backbenchers that essentially threw her to the wolves is beyond me. I could stomach her winning if only because it would stick in the crop of Bible Spice so bad.
Anya
@General Stuck: Some wingut was threatening today that when they (GOP) are done with HC, it will be unrecognizable. How can they do anything so drastic without the senate and I think they are forgetting that the President can veto any changes they make. It’s going to be a very long and painful two years.
Suffern Ace
@jl: Somehow, I think this is why multi-party poltics fails to take hold. Sure, some might argue that the winner take all nature of our elections means that two parties will eventually dominate. I think the simpler reason is that it is too confusing to report on three way races and write a simple narrative.
jl
@Yutsano: That is interesting. Then I can rest assured that the mighty GOP election manipulation machinery will swing into action and make sure everyone knows how to write her in.
Or, I dunno.
This election is going to be so weird. If polls are right, enough working and middle class independents and conservative Democrats will abandon the Democrats because… because… they’re pissed off about the economy and feel threatened by the black guy, so will vote for vicious loons who sold them down the river and blew up the economy.
Seems like a big unknown is how African Americans and Hispanics will vote. I’ve read stories about intense early voting in those communities where they can do that. But who knows? Hope they are alarmed enough to come in and save our asses, somewhat.
Some on volunteer to walk between to two bonfires tomorrow night, maybe that will please the wood spirits and get us out of this mess.
Mnemosyne
@jl:
I can’t remember where I read this but it sounded like there’s a weirdness in Alaska’s election system where “write-in” gets lumped together as a single category and Murkowski would have to get X number of the write-in votes to win or else the second-place winner would be declared the winner. Wish I could remember where I read that …
ETA: Aha! Yes, the General’s article is the one I was thinking of.
Spaghetti Lee
I envy all you growed-up people. My Econ professor scheduled a midterm for 6:30 on Election Night. I won’t even be able to focus.
MattR
@Yutsano:
Having been born on Thanksgiving, I get a home cooked turkey dinner every year.
@Anya: If the Republicans really wanted to fuck with us they would push a bill that repeals both HCR and the ban on gays in the military.
Suffern Ace
@Anya: It already is unrecognizable to them. I’m thinking what they should do is “repeal” the parts of the bill that are wildly unpopular with conservatives that don’t actually exist in the final bill. “READ THE BILL!” They can, for instance, vote to remove the Cornhusker Compromise and Death Panels. They won’t touch the parts that are unpopular with liberals just to keep liberals upset.
Spaghetti Lee
@Mike G:
Lovecraft said that? Was he not aware that his virulent racism was part of the problem?
Still, nice to have him on our side. Sic a shoggoth on ’em, HP!
jl
I’m thinking more and more that we need ranked voting. You rank the candidates on the ballot, 1, 2, 3 down the list from best to worst. If someone is totally unacceptable and you then you can leave them off, but actually if you really really do not want some one, you do them more harm by ranking them last than leaving them off.
You can also use it for an one step instant run off.
We need to start experimenting with voting systems again. The US used to be able to innovate in politics and elections. But now we are the bestest and most exceptional wondefulest special hyperleaders of goodness and right and Xtian values.
We can’t do anything but watch the slow motion traiwrecks.
I am glum. I will do something for Celtic New Years. Need to a new start.
A lot of places in the early US, you had to show up in person at the polling place, sign in, take an oath you were who you said you were, and publicly state your vote. That would be interesting too. Wonder how that would affect the Tea Peoples’ candidates.
Carol
@Spaghetti Lee: This is why professors sometimes get the reputation for being “clueless”. Scheduling testing on Election Day is like scheduling an online test for Christmas week. Some times simply cannot be good for focus or concentration, and this is one of them. Certainly next week would be a better bet.
morzer
.
Randy Moss, for one, has apparently decided that his Old Celtic New Year will indeed be different.
http://espn.go.com/blog/nfcnorth/post/_/id/18807/its-loony-time-for-the-vikings
hamletta
Well, Happy Reformation Day to all my fellow Lutherans!
1, 2, 3…A migh-ty fo-or-tress i-is our Go-o-od!
OK, whatever.
Loneoak
@Comrade Mary:
How I miss DFW. I need some Bob Hope.
Spaghetti Lee
@Carol:
In her defense, 90% of the class probably doesn’t even know it is election day, but jeez. Someone who is politically aware herself oughta know better.
MikeJ
@hamletta: I was gonna nail 95 girls against the door of the church, but they put in a new streetlight.
morzer
@MikeJ:
A church door big enough to hold 95 crucified girls? That’s definitely not your average ecclesiastical establishment.
MikeJ
@morzer: I didn’t say I was gonna crucify them. I like my women willing and able to move around when I nail them.
morzer
@MikeJ:
Ah, I assumed you were following Luther’s lead in the deployment of nails and church doors. I did rather wonder how you planned to persuade said young women to participate.
frosty
@Ash Can: I don’t believe I’ve commented that I love your family’s names.
My all-time favorite Halloween was the year we had semi-warm weather in our Baltimore rowhouse neighborhood. The parents walked the kids up to the porch … where other parents sat with a keg or a cooler. All I needed to do was say “Um, I’ll have one of those grown-up treats” and I got to go trick-or-treating carrying a brewski. Fun times were had by all.
Joseph Nobles
Harrison Morgan’s first words were “Bye-bye.” How perfect is that?
ETA: Wait, I just saw this a second time. It WAS “Da-Da,” just like Dexter thought at first. Super Nanny heard it wrong!
Lysana
And in Ireland for centuries after Christianity took the blood sacrifices out of the religion, many would still kill a rooster and sprinkle the lintel with its blood every Martinmas. It had to be done, you see. Also note that Samhain, aka Celtic New Year, would’ve been a lot closer to Martinmas before the Julian/Gregorian switch.
As a Celtic pagan, I did some observations this weekend and will do more next weekend. Excuse to party, indeed. :)
SiubhanDuinne
@Comrade Mary #11: Thanks, that was a wonderful read! I love the last line (which I will not quote here as *i am not a spoiler*) and think it should be considered as a BJ rotating tag.
SiubhanDuinne
@Joseph Nobles #52: My parents always swore that my first words were “Hello, feet!”
If that’s true, I hope I have sufficient presence of mind on my deathbed to have “Goodbye, feet!” as my last words.
R-Jud
Today is my birthday, so I have all the incentive to party that I need.
stuckinred
I’m Norske and my birthday is Nov 10th!
SiubhanDuinne
Happy birthday, R-Jud!!
Say, how did you do last month in the Chhicago Marathon? Did you finish? What kind of time?
Cheryl from Maryland
Blessings be for Samhain. For all you Harry Blackstone Dresden fans, Queen Mab rules now!
gene108
Tamil New Year usually falls on April 15, so there’s a reason to celebrate, even if your taxes are due.
Steeplejack
@R-Jud:
Happy birthday to you!
Julia Grey
Well, Happy Reformation Day to all my fellow Lutherans!
1, 2, 3…A migh-ty fo-or-tress i-is our Go-o-od!
I tell ya, with our massive pipe organ, we can reach about 6.4 on the Richter scale with that one (because it’s one of those hymns that EVERYBODY knows).