Earth is unique among planets in our solar system in a number of ways — a habitable atmosphere being chief among them. But when it comes to solstices, Earth is just one in a crowd. The winter and summer solstices represent the shortest and longest days of the year, respectively. Because of the Earth’s 23.5-degree axial tilt, certain parts of the planet lean toward or away from the sun, which creates the seasons. It’s during the solstices (December 21 to 22 and June 20 to 22) that the planet reaches its maximum tilt away (or toward) the sun, depending on the hemisphere you call home.
Solstices also take place on other planets, but not quite in the same way. Both Mercury and Venus have little axial tilt, so they don’t experience seasons as Earth does. Mars, however, has a very similar tilt to Earth at 25 degrees, and the planet’s ice cap will grow and recede according to the seasons. Although Jupiter has a minuscule axial tilt, Saturn’s axial tilt at 26.7 degrees means solstices there are truly something to behold — during the planet’s summer solstices, its rings become intensely illuminated as they reflect the sun’s light.
However, Uranus is the true oddity. With an axial tilt of a whopping 98 degrees, the planet’s poles point directly toward the sun during its solstices. When Voyager 2 took images of the planet in 1986, Uranus was experiencing its southern hemisphere’s summer solstice, with that hemisphere bathed in continuous light while its northern hemisphere was trapped in frozen darkness. So although all planets have solstices, no two are exactly alike — and Earth’s remain something special.
In most cities, Christmas comes once a year… unless you live in Santa Claus, Indiana, the self-proclaimed home of the holiday season and America’s first theme park: Santa Claus Land. While amusement parks have existed in the U.S. since the 1840s, at the beginning the general idea was just having fun. It wasn’t until 1946, with Santa Claus Land’s opening, that amusement parks began developing specific themes. The attraction took advantage of the town’s unique name, hoping to draw in visitors who wanted to experience a bit of holiday spirit any time of year, and especially youngsters keen to meet St. Nick himself. Owner Louis Koch, who built the theme park as a retirement project, planned the destination with children in mind; his original park featured a toy shop, doll displays, children’s rides, and a restaurant. Over time, Koch also added a mini circus, deer farm, wax museum, and live entertainment.
But Santa Claus Land’s biggest attraction was, of course, its namesake: Santa. Its Kris Kringle impersonators took the job seriously; the park’s longest-working Santa, Jim Yellig, wore the red-and-white suit for 38 years. During his tenure, Yellig reportedly heard more than 1 million holiday wishes from park visitors, an achievement that earned him induction into the International Santa Claus Hall of Fame in 2010. Santa Claus Land went through some upgrades around the time of Yellig’s retirement in 1984, adding on zones for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and the Fourth of July. Today, the park goes by the name Holiday World, and continues to welcome more than 1 million visitors each season.
Well the new administration hasn’t even been sworn in yet and they are already doing their best to dismantle our government. A continuing resolution had been made to keep the government open but Musk (not elected) and Diaper Don pressured Johnson to scuttle the deal.
Back in 1980 Reagan ran with an add that stated, “ the most terrifying words you can hear are ‘I am from the government and I’m here to help’. The GOP has been running on that meme ever since saying that the government doesn’t work, elect me and I will prove it.
No we have re-elected an anarchist will misguided hope that he alone can fix it. We haven’t had to fight against an autocratic rule until now and I just hope we are up for the fight.
When our media literally see’s the house on fire and a guy with an empty gas can and a book of matches pointing at the people burning in the house saying they started the fire… my hope is that the media doesn’t praise the arsonist as the hero.
We are in for stupid times, please don’t join the oxymoron league.
Bottom Line Up Front, People! We Need a Resistance! It is time to organize a New Model American Resistance movement that is aggressive, and persistent. We need a recognizable resistance that will represent the disenfranchised, frustrated, and unmotivated voter base that just got its legs kicked out from under them. But let’s get something straight. The job of my new model of resistance is not to run massive protests and mobilize millions to hit the streets so Antifa can cause riots and Trump will suspend the laws to crush us. We must harness the rules of psychological warfare and strike Trump in a way to cause personal psychic injury. Our tactics must be deep enough to escape notice till the moment they happen and then have news media driving impact. I propose everyone be given simple, easy-to-understand goals to carry out the first impactful protest acts in such a way that the entire narrative of the Trump administration is challenged in the real space right in the face of Red America. In 1940 when France was occupied by the Germans and their government became a tool of a dictator, the French people did not comply … they acted like they complied, and then every moment when the enemy was not watching they ALL carried out resistance. Sometimes it was as simple as showing personal disdain and passively resisting by closing shops or showing patriotism by flying even more French flags everywhere. The point was not just to make the feeling of resistance known to the enemy, but to use the feeling to mobilize those who just tolerated the occupation. Until real opposition formed in London with the Free French, the locals did their subversive acts, right in the face of the Nazis. That’s how we must act. No one is talking about blowing up train lines, felling trees, or hurting people. In the present context that is just the excuse Trump will be looking for, so get it out of your head. However, subversion can take on national importance if done simultaneously, everywhere, and in the real world. Let’s suspend bitching on Bluesky and Twitter about the latest Trump outrage. Let us steer the conversation with our own brand of subversion, well protected by the First Amendment.
What About a National Opposition? Distinguished attorney and outspoken defender of democracy Marc Elias has spent years bringing the fight to Trump in the courts. He recently wrote an excellent piece on Democracy Docket arguing that resistance to Trump’s first administration was squandered when what was needed was an organized opposition. Elias argues correctly that “We must develop and foster new movements, structures, tactics, platforms, and leaders to oppose Trump and articulate a positive vision.” Optimally this would be an iron alliance of the Democratic party, Political Action Committees, and patriotic influencers, but I am not seeing this. The Democratic party is so cowed they barely publicly opposed anything Trump has proposed But as we saw in 2017 with the Women’s March against Trump, it takes time to organize an opposition and that never really formed. The typical democratic infighting for money, TV face time, and influence set the wide, diverse coalition to start acting like a bag of proverbial cats. For a short time, The Indivisible Guide provided a grassroots way for people to organize but it never amounted to more than a PDF and a name. As their national HQ collected money and a very short-lived notoriety, the people, who wanted guidance and direction never received much more direction than the guide book which essentially said “Start an Indivisible group!” My Indivisible NY-19 group was very effective locally but it was self-starting and aimless. None of the effective tactics they developed locally was ever shared nationally. But while the national opposition takes time to set up, each of us can form a wall of opposition ourselves that can perform collective actions with national impact.
MAGA focused on what they wanted; an embrace of an authoritarian, white supremacy, and economic favoritism oriented to MAGA. They wanted to rule over America and focused, laser-like, on that goal. Everything else was a distraction. On the other side Democrats, progressives, and never-Trumpers focused on flipping out over the latest outrage or astonishment at Trump’s never-ending lies. Karl Rove once characterized their policy of Distract, Rule, and Rewrite History when he said: “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.” Let’s just stop studying their manufactured unreality and make our own. The Democratic party’s job is to maintain a loyal opposition that will defend the Constitution and the American people at the legislative level. However, we have already seen Democratic Congressmen and Senators start to fold and comply with Trump’s insane cabinet choices. They think the guardrails will hold if they just play decently and do not upset MAGA too much. That is a form of national and party suicide. The 2024 election revealed people aren’t necessarily voting against someone who is a wrecking ball. For all the accurate talk about weirdness, lack of normalcy, and mountains of documentable lies, they want to see what the wrecking ball can do to people they hate. And just 31% of the eligible voters elected to usher in the end of democracy. The time for playing nice is over. The Resistance must eventually become strong enough and loud enough to push reluctant democrats to do the right thing. It must also warn the apathetic non-voting public about what is happening. In simple, easy-to-digest words and images. Let’s Form a New SuperPAC and call it the, I don’t know …FAFO PAC! I, for one, do not see the Trump regime as legitimate. Yes, he was legally elected, but it is a cabal of open criminals, Christian fascist crusaders, and super-rich oligarchs who are pushing America into a post-Constitutional autocracy. I reject that wholeheartedly. I spent every minute of my life defending the nation against foreign enemies and now that the domestic ones have reared their ugly heads we must not compromise ourselves, our values, or our founding principles. MAGA uses the patriotism of America as a figleaf to cover their faithless and deceitful exploitation of the people. We can express our disdain in a simple acronym: FAFO … as fun as that sounds, it’s not what you’re thinking. It’s a hijacking of the acronym to mean Focused Action with Focused Objectives. FAFO – Focused Action, Focused Objectives The Resistance must organize into a unified machine but through simultaneous individual acts of defiance. Why? Your life as an American with rights may be in mortal danger. Some of us will end up in physical danger. Your way of life has already changed with compliant media and politicians genuflecting to Trump weeks before he is in power. The only way out of this hole is to focus on carrying out single, unitary actions that achieve singular objectives simultaneously. I call it FAFO – Focused Actions with Focused Objectives. The very definition of being liberal or progressive meant thinking for one’s self, and acting in one’s interest based on a wide variety of social and personal beliefs. It’s admirable that we have such a big tent, but every one of those self-interested behaviors lets the right-wing unity of message steamroller us. Let us commit to three simple acts that will allow us to solidify our resistance to the incoming regime and give ourselves some focused points of solidarity until we flesh out a real opposition. Best of all, everyone can participate, simply by not going along with Trump’s horrifying unreality. P-Day: January 20, 2025. The National Day of Resistance The last time a major street protest was organized against Donald Trump garnered an enormous amount of media and brought millions of people together worldwide. Then the biggest story was how it fizzled out and left Trump standing. Our new model of resistance allows us to strike at Trump and the news media where it hurts the most… a complete and total absence of anyone or anything that would make his inauguration noteworthy. Then we will disappear until the next FAFO happens. The news story will become “What will FAFO do next?”
FAFO #1 – Participate in the National Inauguration Blackout A major part of the legitimacy of Trump’s authoritarian rule is the way that the national news media has already bent its knee and decided to capitalize on the chaos and mayhem of his threats to their livelihood. All of the major cable channels and national news organizations will be heavily represented at the inauguration with the intent to see outlandish statements Trump will make on the inauguration day. They will also be there to enlighten us with commentary on how the Democrat’s peaceful transition of power may be the last we ever see. One FAFO (focused action with a focused objective) every resistant can carry out is to commit to a complete and total blackout for 100 hours. The FA: Do not watch any inauguration or news media events for 100 hours. Read a book. Participate in a hobby. Enjoy time with family. Do ANYTHING except watch cable news or read any online or print news about the inauguration. This includes social media. Take that week back for yourself. Read the Federalist papers or history books. When the weekend comes you can ease back into it and process the carnage with a clear head. Encourage all others in your family and social circle to just not participate with a tyrannical regime and its compliant news media that intends to do us all harm. The FO: We will financially impact the news media for a period of time they want all eyes on the inauguration. This will in turn show them that their advertising bottom line can be damaged and that complying has consequences. It will show the Trump regime that not only are we NOT watching but that when we do focus our attention it will be laser-like and grassroots. It will give good politicians something to hold onto and bad ones a warning that they could find that FAFO can be brought to bear against them also. How Long: 100 hours Start: 08:00 ET Monday, January 20, 2025 End: 08:00 ET Saturday, January 25, 2025.
FAFO#2 – Participate in T-Day: The Great Twitter Walk-Away The FA: This action is to punish the Twitter propaganda machine for enabling the end of democracy by destroying a public square. Since the election, I have been encouraging people to maintain their Twitter accounts. Over the next 30 days take time to copy and download your posts and prepare to delete your account … at the exact moment Trump is sworn in. We know Elon Musk will likely be holding the Bible for him on the Capitol steps and we can make our displeasure known. High noon on inauguration day will be the time to walk away from this destructive propaganda device. Some resisters will want to keep putting their defiance it into MAGA’s face and remain on Twitter. That’s fine but if we can get the 25 million new followers on BlueSky to delete their Twitter accounts simultaneously the impact will be enormous. It will be one of the biggest stories of the week … which you can read about the following weekend after it is done. We will no longer participate in an alternative reality where Nazis and MAGA violence are threatened without consequence. When: 1200 Noon ET, January 20, 2025 FAFO#3 – Make Your Own Alternative Protests – We cannot afford a massive protest in Washington DC in which malicious players provoke a violent reaction from the MAGA who will come to the inauguration or the government that just took power minutes before. Columnist Dan Savage created a philosophy that I think will work well for us. We will show our protest our displeasure through our absence and lack of participation. Some of the alternative methods of protest are quite simple and legal. · Get Inauguration Tickets and Don’t Show – One example is to order your tickets to attend the inauguration now through your congressman or representative. Then simply do not show up. Protest with your absence. · Silent Protest on the March Route – Another alternative is to carry out a silent protest along the inauguration parade route, but carrying signs that will symbolize your displeasure. One of my favorites was developed by the late Scottish comedian Janey Godley, who quietly held up a sign “Trump is a C*nt”. That sign is now considered a Scottish national treasure. She didn’t have to say one word, but the sign said it all. If 20-30,000 people were to show up with similar signage and line the inauguration route it would also become one of the top stories of the week. Don’t forget to mask it with a TRUMP sign and whip it out at the right moment. · National Imperial March on a Kazoo Day – While the silent protest has appeal, I believe in designating January 20 as a National Day of Resistance through music. One of the top resistors in social media is the Star Wars hero Luke Skywalker, better known as the actor Mark Hamill. In his honor, let every person spend the next month buying a kazoo and the moment after they delete their Twitter accounts, they play the Imperial March on their kazoos. It’s what the Orange Vader deserves. Then splash your videos during your weeklong blackout onto social media. This way you could have some fun and make up your own inauguration March with finger puppets, paper cutouts or Claymation with the appropriate music … on a Kazoo.
As amusing as it may all sound these Resistance FAFO techniques are only effective if millions of us commit to them rather than one or two of us posting it on social media. We have a short time to start to organize. Let’s make it count.
What’s the old adage… when you’re pointing a finger at someone you have three fingers pointing back at yourself.
Well that’s the world we live in… Trump and his minions cry about the Biden crime family, unproven as the claim is, while ignoring the proven crimes that their demigod has committed.
I heard an add this morning telling people to transfer their money to precious metals because the current administration will intentionally crater the economy to hurt the people to hurt Trump. Until Donald was elected by the electoral college the first time no sitting President ever went after their predecessor or opponent but they are claiming that that is what Biden is going to do. This will be a perfect scapegoat when due to Trumps policies and incompetence the economy does crater in the first year of his term. (see Biden set us up) .
The ‘right’ is up in arms that Joe pardoned his son for crimes that nobody would have been charged with if their last name wasn’t Biden and for pardoning and community sentences for nonviolent drug offenders. They again ignore that Trump pardoned violent criminals and has said that he will in the first five minutes of his 2nd term will pardon the J6 insurrectionist.
The list of projections are limitless… I just hope more of us recognize the obvious.
Are we so defeated? Have we just woefully accepted our fate?
It seems we have Joe & Mika genuflected days after the election traveling to Mari logo and bending the knee to our would be dictator, Chris Ray resigned his post as FBI director, even though he was appointed in 2018 by Dear Leader but actually did the job, ABC has apologized and committed $14 million to the Trump presidential library for George Stephanopoulos calling him on air what a judge said he is, and adjudicated rapist, . I wish that was the end of what is happening millionaires i.e. Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg are donating $1 million each to his inauguration fund genuflecting to cheerleader so that they can possibly get some handouts from the new aligaracal government.
Again, I ask, have we given up? Is this the end of our democracy or are we gonna fight? Are we gonna just let this happen ? I for one haven’t given up on this nearly 250 year experiment and I hope I am not the only one.
The key is to bring more happiness sparks into your life — not by chance, but by choice.
It takes mental strength and discipline to adopt perspectives and make choices that can help bring you joy, especially when negative emotions and thoughts are hijacking you.
In times of adversity, it’s easy to focus on what’s gone. Maybe you lost time, money, or resources when something went wrong with that work project. Or you lost your identity when you got laid off. Or you lost a hangout buddy when your friend moved across the country.
Remembering to focus on what you still have makes a profound difference. Consciously practicing gratitude improves well-being, research shows.
In the situations above, for instance, you might be grateful for valuable insights, the loved ones you can spend more quality time with, and a new travel destination, as well as a friendship you can continue cultivating long-distance.
2. ‘There’s no such thing as a perfect path’
When you second guess a path you’ve chosen or lament that not everything is working out as you’d hoped, you can get stuck in a negative loop.
The truth is that there will always be unexpected twists and turns. It’s easier to find joy when you accept the imperfect path and overcome obstacles along the way.
Think of an accomplishment or outcome that made you happy. Odds are you dealt with some adversity to get there.
3. ‘Let it be’
When you’re frustrated and someone tells you to “just let it go,” that can make you more upset. It’s also bad advice, since you’ll likely be unable to ignore what happened and how it made you feel.
You can, on the other hand, tell yourself, “Let it be.” That means using a form of cognitive acceptance, which is a surer path to pulling out of a downward spiral.
Don’t try to banish an adverse event from your psyche or change what you feel about it. Let it sit there. Acknowledge and accept that your emotions are legitimate reactions and focus on how you’ll move forward in a productive way.
4. ‘Big picture, small step’
When we struggle in the face of setbacks, we can lose perspective. Small challenges may suddenly seem outsized.
Saying “Big picture, small step” to yourself does two things:
It reminds you of the ultimate goal or of the vision of the life you want to live and who you want to be. When you consider a setback in the context of the big picture, it shrinks.
It can help you identify one small thing you can do to get back on the path of progress and positivity. That first action can lead to another small step of hopefulness, which leads to another, and so on.
5. ‘Adversity creates Beliefs, not Consequences’
Think of this as your ABC phrase, inspired by the ABC model in cognitive behavioral therapy. The idea is to remind yourself that adversity doesn’t automatically mean negative outcomes.
The end result of adversity is determined by how you respond to it, and the beliefs you form because of it.
For example, will you believe that a job interview that didn’t go well was a non-recoverable disaster that clearly demonstrates you’re a failure? Or will you believe that it’s a learning opportunity and an obstacle you’ll overcome, like you have in other situations in the past?
Remember: ‘I’ll be happy when…’ is a trap
It’s easy to get caught up thinking that happiness is a destination, that if you can only make a little more money, or achieve some specific thing, then you’ll be happy.
You might tell yourself, “I’ll be happy when I finally get that promotion,” for example, or “If I could just fit into those old jeans, I’d be so much happier.” In the meantime, you let joy slip by unnoticed as you keep your head down, grinding.
Mentally strong people engage in what I call “grindfulness,” a practice at the intersection of gratitude and mindfulness. It allows you to notice and recognize your gratitude for the small positives, even in tough moments.
It encourages you to draw happiness from finding and experiencing joy in the world around you, right now, every day.
Soap is an everyday essential, but this incredibly useful (and lifesaving) cleanser hasn’t always existed. The earliest known mention of soapdates back 4,500 years, found on a cuneiform tablet unearthed from Girsu, in ancient Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). But even then — and for centuries afterward — humans likely weren’t using the slippery substance for handwashing. Bars of soap made from rendered fat and wood ash were primarily used to clean dirty clothing and raw fibers that were being prepped for weaving. Instead of soap, many ancient peoples (such as the Greeks) used scented olive oils and other substances — including coffee — to clean their bodies.
Historians believe the practice of drinking coffee originated in Ethiopia and slowly spread to the Middle East and Europe, becoming popular around the 15th century. Before then, some cultures relied on the brew not as a beverage, but as a cleanser. Around the 10th century, physicians and botanists in the Middle East began writing in Arabic about “bunk,” a compound similar to modern brewed coffee that could be used for handwashing. Surviving texts from the time credited bunk with removing strong odors from hands without drying out the skin, and recipes for the substance sometimes included spices such as cloves, cinnamon, and fruit peels. Bunk also may have been incorporated into other products, like body oils and perfumed powders. However, little is known about the compound. It appears the practice fell out of popularity as coffee became valued less for its odor-eliminating properties and more for the same thing modern consumers appreciate: that caffeinating buzz.
The English language is vast — so vast, in fact, that the average native speaker only knows about 6% of all English words, which equates to roughly 35,000 of the 600,000words in the Oxford English Dictionary. That percentage may seem small, but the fact that most of us get by just fine on a daily basis suggests the other 94% of words are fairly obscure or redundant. English has one of the largest vocabularies of any language due to its history of freely incorporating words from other languages, particularly French (the origin of at least 30% of English words). Most adults learn an average of one new word per day until middle age, when vocabulary growth tends to slow or even stop — all the more reason to keep the mind sharp with crossword puzzles and word games.
Different studies have shown slightly different stats, of course. While one estimates the average English-speaking adult’s vocabulary somewhere between 20,000 and 35,000 words, another estimates it closer to 42,000. The latter study featured 70 real words alongside 30 made-up words and asked subjects to identify which was which; however, they weren’t required to define the words. This could account for the higher estimate of known words, as participants may have recognizedsome words without actually knowing their meanings.
Esoteric Meandering Shouting Into the Void 
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