Tag: Massachusetts

Celebrating 365 Days of Legends, Folklore & Spirituality for November 24th – Thanksgiving (approximately)

autumn witch

November 24th

Thanksgiving (approximately)

 

The American Thanksgiving Day began in Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts, in 1621, and celebrated the Pilgrims’ first year’s harvest. Originally set by president Abraham Lincoln as the last Thursday of November, the holiday was changed by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939 to the fourth Thursday of November.

Actually, days of thanksgiving are far older than our American can celebration, which is an adaption of Lammas (Loaf Mass Day). In Britain, it was celebrated on August 1, when the wheat crop was good. In fact, most agricultural peoples have special days set aside to celebrate a good crop and the end of the harvest-usually referred to as the Harvest Home. Our modern Thanksgiving is a combination of two very different customs: toms: the harvest home feast and a formal day of thanksgiving proclaimed by community leaders to celebrate a victory.

It was during the Revolutionary War that the need for national holidays, rather than local holidays, developed. It was George Washington that first declared November 1, as a national day of thanksgiving. But regional traditions were too strong and the day never caught on. With the Industrial Revolution and hundreds of immigrants pouring into America, the need for a national day of thanksgiving was once more addressed. It was finally during the Civil War that President Lincoln, in an effort to unite the country, declared the last Thursday of November as Thanksgiving Day. The holiday began with the usual morning ing church service, followed by a feast and then games.

Today we celebrate Thanksgiving with parades, the largest being Macy’s New York display, which began in 1927 with the appearance of Macy’s huge balloons designed by puppeteer Tony Sarg. The construction of the balloons is carefully executed by the Goodyear Aerospace Corporation, in Akron, Ohio. Preparations for the parade are year round, reaching a peak the day before Thanksgiving when the balloons arrive at 77th Street and Central Park West. They are removed from their crates and anchored with sand bags and giant nets. On Thanksgiving Day, more than 2000 of Macy’s employees arrive at 6 a.m. to march in the parade, which, 75 years later, is still the highlight of Thanksgiving Day.

 

Bridget Bishop – The First to Die in Salem Witch Trials

Bridget Bishop – The First to Die in Salem Witch Trials

 

Bridget Bishop was one of nineteen people executed for witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692. Born some time in the 1630s, Bishop had was on her third marriage by the time the witch craze began. Bridget had one daughter, Christian Oliver, by her second husband in 1667, and married Edward Bishop, a lumber worker, in 1685.

Bridget was well-known in her neighborhood. She publicly fought with all of her husbands, dressed flamboyantly (although for Puritans, that just meant she liked to wear big hats and a red bodice with her black dress), and was the mistress not one but two taverns.

She developed a reputation for entertaining into the wee hours of the night, playing forbidden games such as shuffle board, and generally being the target of much speculation and gossip. In other words, Bridget Bishop didn’t seem to care what society thought of her – and because of that, she became a likely target when the accusations began. She was, in personality and reputation, the polar opposite of the pious Rebecca Nurse, although they both ended up on a scaffold.

In April, 1692, a warrant was issued for Bishop’s arrest on charges of performing witchcraft and consorting with the devil himself. When she entered the courthouse, a number of the “afflicted” girls, including Mercy Lewis and Ann Putnam, howled that she was causing them pain. Bishop denied any wrongdoing, swearing that she was “innocent as the child unborn,” according to Mary Norton’s In the Devil’s Snare.

Bishop’s wild ways were used as evidence against her. Certainly the town dyer’s claim that she brought him yards of lace to color was proof that she was up to something; after all, no sensible or respectable woman could need that much colored lace.

In addition to this damning testimony, and the accusations of the teenage girls, Bishop’s own brother-in-law swore he’d seen her “conversing with the Devil” who “came bodily into her.” She was executed on June 10.

After Bishop’s hanging, eighteen others were executed for the crime of witchcraft, and one man was pressed to death. Several others died in prison. Within months of Bridget Bishop’s death, her husband remarried.

Bridget’s descendants through Christian Oliver still live in New England today, and her tavern, the Bishop House, still stands.

 

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A Little Humor for Your Day – New State Slogans

New State Slogans

Alabama: Yes, We Have Electricity
Alaska: 11,623 Eskimos Can’t Be Wrong!
Arizona: But It’s a Dry Heat
Arkansas: Litterasy Ain’t Everthing
California: By 30 Our Women Have More Plastic Than Your Honda.
Colorado: If You Don’t Ski, Don’t Bother
Connecticut: Like Massachusetts, Only The Kennedies Don’t Own It Yet.
Delaware: We Really Do Like The Chemicals In Our Water
Florida: Ask Us About Our Grandkids
Georgia: We Put The “Fun” In Fundamentalist Extremism
Hawaii: Haka Tiki Mou Sha’ami Leeki Toru (Death To Mainland Scum, But Leave Your Money)
Idaho: More Than Just Potatoes… Well Okay, We’re Not, But The Potatoes Sure Are Real Good
Illinois: Please Don’t Pronounce the “S”
Indiana: 2 Billion Years Tidal Wave Free
Iowa: We Do Amazing Things With Corn
Kansas: First Of The Rectangle States
Kentucky: Five Million People; Fifteen Last Names
Louisiana: We’re Not ALL Drunk Cajun Wackos, But That’s Our Tourism Campaign
Maine: We’re Really Cold, But We Have Cheap Lobster
Maryland: If You Can Dream It, We Can Tax It
Massachusetts: Our Taxes Are Lower Than Sweden’s (For Most Tax Brackets)
Michigan: First Line Of Defense From The Canadians
Minnesota: 10,000 Lakes And 10,000,000 Mosquitoes
Mississippi: Come Feel Better About Your Own State
Missouri: Your Federal Flood Relief Tax Dollars At Work
Montana: Land Of The Big Sky, The Unabomber, Right-Wing Crazies, & Very Little Else
Nebraska: Ask About Our State Motto Contest
Nevada: Whores and Poker!
New Hampshire: Go Away And Leave Us Alone
New Jersey: You Want A ##$%##! Motto? I Got Yer ##$%##! Motto Right Here!
New Mexico: Lizards Make Excellent Pets
New York: You Have The Right To Remain Silent, You Have The Right To An Attorney…
North Carolina: Tobacco Is A Vegetable
North Dakota: We Really Are One Of The 50 States!
Ohio: At Least We’re Not Michigan
Oklahoma: Like The Play, Only No Singing
Oregon: Spotted Owl… It’s What’s For Dinner
Pennsylvania: Cook With Coal
Rhode Island: We’re Not REALLY An Island
South Carolina: Remember The Civil War? We Didn’t Actually Surrender
South Dakota: Closer Than North Dakota
Tennessee: The Educashun State
Texas: Si’ Hablo Ing’les (Yes, I Speak English)
Utah: Our Jesus Is Better Than Your Jesus
Vermont: Yep
Virginia: Who Says Government Stiffs And Slackjaw Yokels Don’t Mix?
Washington: Help! We’re Overrun By Nerds And Slackers!
Washington, D.C.: Wanna Be Mayor?
West Virginia: One Big Happy Family…Really!
Wisconsin: Come Cut The Cheese
Wyoming: Where Men Are Men…And The Sheep Are Afraid!!!!!!!!!!

 

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Your Animal Spirit for Wednesday, August 22 – The Butterfly

Your Animal Spirit for Today
August 22, 2012

 

Butterfly

Beautiful butterfly has fluttered into your reading to remind you of the powerful transformational energies at work in your life. If something important seems to be stagnating, know that transformation is at work just below the surface—and just like the caterpillar, the “cocooned” situation you’re fretting about is about to be freed.

10 best towns for raising a family

10 best towns for raising a family

Family Circle magazine identifies 10 family-friendly towns and suburbs nationwide that make the grade in housing costs, school quality, green space and ‘giving spirits.’

When you’re looking for the right place to live, your judgment is based upon a variety of factors, including where you are in your life. That hip downtown loft, which you find delightful as a young single, probably won’t work for a family of four.

These days, we’re reading a lot about how young people and empty-nesters are flocking to urban cores, choosing city life over suburbs. But what if you’re looking for a nice place to raise a family? Not only is a high-rise condo not necessarily an ideal environment, but the neighborhood schools also often are not places you’d want to send your children for a good education.

Family Circle has compiled a list of the 10 best towns for families, based on affordable housing, good neighbors, green spaces, strong public-school systems and “giving spirits.” The towns are showcased in the August 2012 issue of the magazine.

To create the list, the magazine and a research firm compiled a list of 3,335 towns with populations between 11,000 and 150,000. From those, they pulled areas with a strong concentration of family incomes between $55,000 and $96,000. They then looked at housing affordability, school quality, health care, green space, crime rates and financial stability.

Here is Family Circle’s List of the 10 Best Towns for Families:

  • Bay Village, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland.
  • Lake Oswego, Ore., a suburb of Portland.
  • Vail, Ariz., a suburb of Tucson.
  • Fishers, Ind., a suburb of Indianapolis.
  • Ballwin, Mo., a suburb of St. Louis.
  • Louisville, Colo., 20 miles from Denver.
  • Longmeadow, Mass., in western Massachusetts near Springfield.
  • Fort Mill, S.C., 20 miles from Charlotte, N.C.
  • Zachary, La., a suburb of Baton Rouge.
  • Oak Park, Ill., a suburb of Chicago.

What do you think about these choices? Are those the criteria you would apply in seeking a family-friendly community?

E. Coli O145 Ban Opposed by Meat Industry

by Dr. Michael Greger

 

One child is dead and 13 others sickened across six states in an ongoing  outbreak of E. coli O145. Another child—a first-grader in  Massachusetts—also died recently, but that was due to a different strain of  E. coli, O157. After the Jack-in-the-Box outbreak in 1993, E.  coli O157 was declared an adulterant, meaning it became illegal to sell  meat testing positive for the deadly pathogen. It still, however, remained  perfectly legal to sell meat contaminated with the other “Big Six”  toxin-producing E. coli strains: O26, O111, O103, O121, O45 and O145.  These strains are collectively sickening twice as many Americans as O157. For years, food safety and  consumer organizations have fought to ban the sale of meat soiled with these  other deadly strains against meat industry objections.

In the 1990s, the American Meat Institute opposed the original ban on the  sale of raw meat contaminated with E. coli O157 despite the devastating  effect this pathogen could have on vulnerable populations, especially children.  Here’s how one mother described what E. coli O157:H7 did to her  three-year-old daughter Brianna:

“The pain during the first 80 hours was horrific,  with intense abdominal cramping every 10 to 12 minutes. Her intestines swelled  to three times their normal size and she was placed on a ventilator. Emergency  surgery became essential and her colon was removed. After further surgery,  doctors decided to leave the incision open, from sternum to pubis, to allow  Brianna’s swollen organs room to expand and prevent them from ripping her skin.  Her heart was so swollen it was like a sponge and bled from every pore. Her  liver and pancreas shut down and she was gripped by thousands of convulsions,  which caused blood clots in her eyes. We were told she was brain dead.”

The ban passed in 1994 despite meat industry opposition, and now the number  of Americans dying from E. coli O157 is half of what it used to be.  Unfortunately this lesson was lost on the American Meat Institute, which  continued to fight tooth and nail against similar regulations targeting the  other Big Six strains. This week they lost. Meat known to test positive for any of these  potentially deadly fecal pathogens can no longer be legally sold as of June 4,  2012. Too late for Maelan Elizabeth Graffagnini, though—the 21-month old victim  of E. coli O145 whose funeral was held the same day.

The immediate source of the current outbreak has yet to be identified, but  the original source is always the same: feces. How contaminated is the American  meat supply with fecal matter?

What about the hundreds of thousands of Americans that die from  non-intestinal E. coli infections? Please feel free to check  out my 3-min. video Chicken Out of UTIs.

The meat industry argues that they should be allowed to sell unsafe meat  because it only poses a risk if it’s not properly cooked or handled. Ironically,  they’re also opposed to safe handling labeling. See my 3-min. video Food  Poisoning Bacteria Cross-Contamination.

In health, Michael Greger, M.D.