“Engravynges or it didd not happyn.”

“Merciefull God is Merciefull”

“This is clerely EngravureShopped. I have seene full manye an Exampelle of simillar False Engravyges in my Time, and I can telle from some of the Picksells.”

Guns, Germs & Steel

The ideas that founded this country were crap, until a brief period of idealism by slave owners produced a document we now send to the shredder.

Is this the revisionist history you mention, these words from the period? Are these the great and glorious ideas that you mention.

Many thanks to OxDeadBeef for this wondrous bit of revisionist history.

“But by this meanes Christ (whose great and glorious workes the Earth throughout are altogether for the benefit of his Churches and chosen) not onely made roome for his people to plant; but also tamed the hard and cruell hearts of these barbarous Indians, insomuch that halfe a handfull of his people landing not long after in Plimoth-Plantation, found little resistance…”

This was repeated throughout the Gulf Coast and up the Mississippi River.

Sorry I won’t be able to see your reply for a while. I have a Thanksgiving to celebrate!

Midsummer Eve (Solstice)
Autumnal Equinox (Harvest)
Winter Solstice (Hogswatch)
New Year Old Style
Spring Equinox (Planting Orgy)
the old Roman festivals (Saturnalia, Lupercalia etc
The Day of the Dead
Obon
Lunar New Year (Chinese style)
…lots there, it’s only inertia that binds you

This has happened quite a lot recently: it’s now usually worth our while to get things re-translated, or look elsewhere rather than pay the massive reprint fees which many publishers (usually US university presses) are now demanding. So they ask for a thousand pounds, but get nothing, whereas if they’d asked for three hundred, they’d have got it. And if _we_ can’t afford to pay them, who can?

This cost model might suit the publishers, but if I was one of the authors concerned I’d rather they sold it ten times for a hundred pounds than once (or perhaps never) for two thousand.

Chris Williams

“Incoming Settlers”. Please. We’re not trying to euphemise a la Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory. The Indian peoples were correct in assessing the newcomers represented a major threat to their sovereignty (written or not) over the land. They were invaders.

#22 love ya, but “savages”? An interesting slant on that is “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe – a Nigerian viewpoint on the arrival of the whites in Africa. We destroyed a functioning cultural system.

I refer you honourable gentlepeople back to Disney’s Pocahontas, in which we are clearly reminded that we call people who aren’t “like us” savages / infidels / uncivilised etc.

But #22, your point is accurate and appropriate. Thankyou for omitting to capitalise the god.

How can we express disgust at genocide abroad when this lives in our history?

No, I don’t take Pocahontas as serious history, although I think this is the finest Disney cartoon for social reasons.

.. very funny book Btw

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/science/15syph.html

Thanks, Christ, whose great and glorious workes the Earth throughout are altogether for the benefit of his Churches and chosen!

I generally never capitalize the word, god, unless at the beginning of a sentence. Trust me, no one wants me to discuss gods, but if you are curious as to my position, please feel free to read my bio and comment history.

http://www.theholidayspot.com/mayday/history.htm

collective guilt, ur doing it wrong.

If everyone who committed genocide were to remain quiet, the world would be silent. We who are human are responsible for all that is human. WE must all show disgust and take credit for what WE have all done, to do otherwise is a shallow lie. There are none of us any better than the worst of us, to believe otherwise is a futile act of denial and arrogance.

This is what we have done, this is who we have become. What will we learn, when will we become more than our past? Why can’t we understand that those ideas to which we cling are the very beliefs and fears that created this mess? If we are to ever grow beyond our past, we must forget the products of our ignorance and forgive ourselves the actions of our childhood.

“He must support himself on tradition, for tradition is the inevitable idiosyncrasies of a nation’s literature, but he must do everything he can to encourage its development in its natural direction. Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.”

W. Somerset Maugham

Love to you all and happy holidays.

The gateway to Christ’s birthday? Spare me.

You know a lot of people celebrate Thanksgiving who are not Christians. I find it annoying when people who are Christian either assume everyone else is, or that those who are not do not matter. Enjoy your religion. Don’t shove it in other people’s faces. If you feel compelled to share it, do so graciously, not arrogantly.

As far as all the other pagan holidays go, they sound fun. I’m not sure I see my extended family getting down with a planting orgy, but perhaps we could start some new traditions?