FormCritic wrote:Has anyone noticed that at least two teams in the Acaeum Collector's League are starting players who are on bye weeks?  

Thats probably me, I haven't had chance to check it...    

Hi,

I find it kind of sad that an old english custom, that largely died out here apart from parts of northern england, has now been re-imported from the USA, in an americanized form.

I never celebrated Halloween as a kid, but my wife used to go trick or treating as a child, and her father did when he was young too.

She never used to CALL it trick or treating, and they never played tricks - it was just kind of like sanctioned begging.

They never dressed up either, apart from maybe a witches hat made of paper, altho they did have traditional lanterns made out of turnips.

Apparently they used to put the lanterns outside someones front door, then all the kids would hide, one would ring the doorbell, and when someone answered they would all make scarey ghost noises for a minute, then all appear and look hopeful for sweets

Nowadays, as Martin says, its all Superman outfits and pumpkin lanterns. No effort at all to look spooky

It IS after all, an evening when all good christians should be afraid to leave the house for fear of losing their soul to the devil.

Cheers,
malc

Prufrock wrote:My home town paper ran an article about how a local school district decided to have a "Fall" party in place of the Holloween party and a "Winter" party in place of the Christmas party.  Local parents pitched a fit and the "Winter" party is now back to being a Christmas party.  I'm so tired of christian hipocrisy.  If it is correct to keep the CHristmas party it is also correct to keep the Holloween party.

Yes, I like Holloween.  But I'm tired of kids dressing up as a princess or an action hero coming to my door for candy.  I give kids wearing traditional holloween costumes, who come to my door, two pieces of candy and those with non-traditional holloween costumes one piece of candy.  That's how I mount my protest.

Martin

I don't understand how it's hypocritical to be for a holiday with Christian roots and against a holiday with perceived Satanic roots.  I do think the school board is being hypocritical in that it should support all religious holidays or none.  Personally, with education suffering as it is in many places, just have homecoming and an end of the school year party and that's it.  Spend the rest of the time educating.  It would also allow the school district to spend more time figuring out how to educate better.

Halloween actually originated as a Celtic holiday (Samhain).  It is true that Halloween is the day before All Saints Day as "All Hallows Eve" (the eve before the holiday) which is a Christian holiday, but that was just an attempt in the 800's to replace the Celtic holiday and make it Christian. However, both these holidays in America are now more of a celebration of commercialism than anything spiritual.  Christianity in America is fading in quantity and quality.  My guess is that we have opinionated people with nothing better to gripe about and an opportunistic newspaper.

All Indian, anyhow...

ashmire13 wrote:Christian hypocrisy? Never. Just listen to the current pope.

But I agree, Halloween is really getting popular in the stores here with parents buying all manner of costumes, but they are all ghosts, witches, etc.
However, last year we had no callers and the year before a dozen turned up in one hit, which was good as it was done in one go.
Weather was crap last year, so I guess 8pm in the rain puts the parents off, who go with the kids

What does the pope have to do with Christianity?

Over here Halloween has been all commercial for at least the last 40 years, now at least it has tinges of decent neo-paganism added in. Lots of enthusiam with very little sincere belief that large quantities of drink and drugs try to supplement. Still a good time is usually had by all.

But the USA needs to decide if it is a Christian country or a secular country in regard to its government especially education. You can't please everyone.

America is not a christian country.  However, a large fraction of the 82% who identify themselves as christain sorely want it to be.  Which is why we have Christmas parties in taxpayer supported schools and not Holloween parties or GOD FORBID Ramadan parties.  

Martin

A New York Times article, "Islam Attracts Converts by the Thousands," states:

   "With some 6 million adherents in the United States, Islam is said to be the nation's fastest-growing religion, fueled by immigration, high birth rates and widespread conversion. One expert estimates that 25,000 people a year become Muslims in this country; some clerics say they have seen conversion rates quadruple since Sept. 11."

Any child coming to the door with "the good old monster costumes like the vampire, werewolf, witch and ghost" will get two pieces of candy.  

Holloween is about ghosts and goblins (no one here in America equates Holloween with the celtic holiday except geeky folks who play RPG's) and I will reward those kids who understand that.  Those kids that wish to dress in a manner that has nothing to do with the holiday get one piece of candy.

"Or you could simply turn off your porch light, dont put up any decorations, and dont give away candy to trick or treaters period instead of short changing the kids that wear costumes that you deem to be inadequate."  Yeah, thats exactly what the christians want me to do.

Martin

Ah; sorry, Stephen; I forgot to check back...

bombadil wrote:Fair enough, and the same's been said of spectacled bears in the Amazonian lowlands (yes, lowlands; unusual claims for a mountains species, but I've seen polaroids taken by an anthropologist colleague who tells me the locals have been hunting them in the lowlands for years), but every little bit helps, and nice to know they're "still" there.

Agreed on that, of course, even if waving their presence on TV sets worldwide creates issues in its own right.
Another good example, thank you: documented more recently but still not well known/scoped-out for obvious reasons (good?!). Habitat niches seem to be as much in the mind these days (at least in part due to data deficiency/lack of historical perspective) and it's still a nuisance when the media plays up to such clichés as "jungle tigers" in order to further hype a particular story when a far more constructive (but less populist and certainly less popular) approach would be to present a picture whereby if anthropogenic effects are removed then the critters can refill their historical range/habitat.

bombadil wrote:Science is science, but all of the guys I know are motivated by a true passion for wilderness and beautiful, rare species as well. There's a great personal cost incurred doing fieldwork in remote places (leaving family members behind, for example), and when you actually accomplish something it can be overwhelmingly rewarding

Not planning to get stuck in an "office job", Stephen, unless you've prepared your own habitat thoroughly in advance?
Wish I could say the same for /all/ the individuals in the IUCN Cat SG - to pick a non-random example - but politics and attitudes towards "non-professionals" (including local inhabitants) can certainly creep in around the edges and personal passion sometimes leads to negative results; perhaps more so for those who don't have the opportunity to refocus with constant fieldwork?
02c, anyhow.

bombadil wrote:My interest in sharing the link was actually mainly related to the obvious emotional impact.  

*nods* And thank you for that.
Was more a nudge towards the media rather than anyone depicted thereon since I'd far rather they didn't "insist" on using such content in the voyeuristic soap opera-ish manner they're falling into. It was bad enough IMO when they had precisely zero interest in similar "big stories" (tiger side, too) unless they could be provided with good quality video footage, a decade ago, without proceeding further down that "must have wow, emotional impact" path. As if it wasn't possible to tell a good story and educate/encourage/inspire people by presenting the bigger picture without eye-popping video footage and force-feeding of emotional responses.
And still 02c only, of course...

Regards,
David.