Author: iexposedus

Origin of Christmas on December 25th

By William “Doc” Halliday

Christmas, or Christmas Day is an annual celebration commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ.  This event is celebrated on December 25th in the United States and in many other countries.  However, most scholars do not believe the December 25th date.  The date is not given in the bible, not even the time of year. The biblical reference to shepherds tending their flocks at night when they receive the news of Jesus’ birth (Luke 2:8) might suggest the spring lambing season.  On the other hand, sheep might well have been enclosed in the cold month of December. 

The earliest historical recording of birthdays occurs in the bible.  Birthday celebrations are mentioned in the Bible on three separate occasions and, in each case, something terrible occurred. I use a Geneva Bible (1599) for my documentation.  In Genesis 40:20 the birthday of the Pharaoh of Egypt is referred to.  In Matthew 14:6 and in Mark 6:21, the birthday of Herod Antipater is referred to.  And, perhaps Job 1:4 is referring to the birthdays of Job’s sons.  Nowhere in the bible is the date of Jesus’ birth mentioned. 

The early Christians did not celebrate Christ’s birth because they considered the celebration of anyone’s birth to be a pagan custom.  For the same reason, ancient Jews did not celebrate birthdays.  The first century Jewish historian Josephus noted that Jewish families did not celebrate birthdays.  It was common for kings and rulers to have their horoscopes made by astrologers.  Their birthdays were considered very important omens of the future.  Thus birthdays started as a celebration for kings and deities.  It was a pagan celebration. 

Instead, early Christians celebrated the death and resurrection of Jesus.  Easter was the dominant celebration for members of the Christian faith.  As time passed, Jesus’ origins became of increasing speculation.  You can begin to see this shift in the New Testament. The earliest writings of both Paul and Mark make no mention of Jesus’ birth. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke provide familiar but quite different accounts of the event.  Still, neither Matthew nor Luke specifies a date for the birth of Jesus.

In about 200 A.D., Clement of Alexandria, a Christian teacher in Egypt, records a reference to the date Jesus was born. According to this man, several different days had been proposed by various Christian groups.  Interestingly, Clement doesn’t mention the December 25th date at all. 

In the fourth century, however, we find references to two dates that were widely recognized, and are now also celebrated as Jesus’ birthday.  These dates are December 25 in the Western Roman Empire and January 6 in the East, especially in Egypt and Asia Minor.  The celebration of Christmas by the modern Armenian Church remains on January 6.  However, for the vast majority of Christians December 25th prevails.  January 6 would eventually come to be known as the Feast of the Epiphany.  The Feast of the Epiphany commemorates the arrival of the magi in Bethlehem. The period between the two dates became the holiday season which has become known as the 12 days of Christmas.

In 354 A.D., Bishop Liberius of Rome ordered the people to celebrate the solstice as the anniversary of Christ’s birth. He probably chose this date because the people of Rome already observed it as the Feast of Saturn, celebrating the birthday of the sun.  This was an effort to recruit pagans into the church.  These idol worshippers held pagan festivals to celebrate the “rebirth” of the sun when the days began to lengthen.  The solstice of course takes place on December 21st, so why do we celebrate December 25th?  The difference is due to the transition from the Julian to the Gregorian calendars. 

For Christians, the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ is significant regardless of the day. 

Photo of the nativity scene is from interruptingthesilence.com

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Feedback for the week – 12/16/2018

Marshall Texas Financial Reserves Under Funded

12/20/2018 — Will Ryan Fason — facebook
☝️☝️ yes, where will half a million be found that wasn’t there. Magic tricks with wands & tophats!

“Papa was so proud he couldn’t talk, just smiled….. cause everyone knows, 5 is greater than 1”

12/18/2018 — Julie Richey — facebook
They can’t fix it. It’s all broken

12/20/2018 — Randy Reeves — facebook
Glad I moved….

F$&(ing unbelievable…

12/20/2018 — Shawne Brophy Somerford — facebook
I can’t wait to hear how the Mayor is going to make sure we find 500,000 to cover our short fall before the end of the year. Get out and spend people!

12/20/2018 — Will Ryan Fason — facebook
And worth the question …. is the Animal Shelter portion in reserves Gone!!???!?!

12/18/2018 — Will Ryan Fason — facebook
Well Well Well Look who spent your $$$$$

So in case you weren’t paying attention, or worried about who didnt get a job promotion, maybe Take Note of this.

Reserves Went from Excess to Lacking in a very short time. Financial stewards some of these are not.

There’s an old saying…….

“Always watch where the money goes”. Havent you heard it before? (Oh yeah, I’m sure somebody said something about this 😄)

12/20/2018 — Tyler Watson — facebook
Wow

12/20/2018 — Bertha Maples — facebook
Memorial hall?????

12/20/2018 — Don Parks — facebook
Just print some more cash!!

12/20/2018 — Heath Parker — facebook
Sounds like the Commissioners are doing a great job!!!

12/20/2018 — Linda Coker — facebook
Let the games begin!!

12/20/2018 — Sheila Harber Watson — facebook
Wow..

12/20/2018 — David Granger — facebook
I would say that I’m shocked, but I am not.

12/18/2018 — Will Ryan Fason — facebook
Who would have ever known?

Uncertain Christmas Parade

12/18/2018 — Jan — text message
Great photos.

12/18/2018 — anonymous — text message
Sounds like you had skin in the game.

Flying



By William “Doc” Halliday

Have you ever flown in an airplane?  Since at least the legend of Icarus in Greek Mythology, mankind’s dream of flying has been recorded.  This is the legend of a father and son using wings made of wax and feathers to escape Crete.  The father, Daedalus, warns the son not to fly too high or the heat of the sun will melt the wax.  Icarus ignored his father’s instructions, and did fly too close to the sun.  The heat melted the wax causing him to fall into the sea and drown. 

But even prior to this legend, some men (and women) would look at the birds flying and wonder if they could fly also.  In about 1,000 B.C. kites were invented by the Chinese.  In 852 B.C. English King Bladud attempted to fly.  Legend says he used necromancy to build a pair of wings that attached to his arms. Bladud made an attempt to fly at the temple of Apollo while wearing the wings, but the mythical figure unfortunately didn’t get the right blueprints from the spirits; he fell to his death. 

In 400 B.C. Archytas of Tarentum is alleged to have designed and built the first artificial, self-propelled flying device, a bird-shaped model propelled by a jet of what was probably steam, said to have actually flown about 650 feet.   This machine, which its inventor called “the pigeon”, may have been suspended on a wire or pivot for its flight.  It was described in the writings of Aulus Gellius five centuries after Archytas lived. 

In 1250 A.D. Roger Bacon, an English cleric, proposed flying machines and motorized ships and carriages in his writings.  In the late 1400s, Leonardo da Vinci designed flying machines and a parachute. 

In 1670, Francesco de Lana Terzi published a design for a lighter-than-air ship.  In 1680, Giovanni Borelli an Italian mathematician concluded that human muscle was inadequate for flight.  Then, in 1709, Bartolomeu Laurenço de Gusmao designed a model glider. 

In 1783, Jean François Pilâtre de Rozier and Marquis d’Arlandes made the first free aerial flight in a Montgolfier hot-air balloon.  That same year, Jacques Alexandre César Charles and M.N. Robert flew in a hydrogen balloon.  Two years later Jean-Pierre Blanchard and John Jeffries crossed the English Channel by balloon.  Jean François de Rozier and Pierre Romain became the first documented fatalities of flying that same year, 1785. 

In 1797 André Jacques Garnerin made the first human parachute descent, from a balloon.  George Cayley published a classic treatise on aviation in 1809.  William Henson’s design for an aerial steam carriage was published in 1843.  That same year, George Cayley published a design for a biplane. 

Baptiste Henri Jacques Giffard invented the Giffard dirigible. It was an airship powered with a steam engine, and weighed over 400 pounds.  It was the world’s first passenger-carrying airship (then known as a dirigible). Both practical and steerable, the hydrogen-filled airship was equipped with a 3 horsepower steam engine that drove a propeller. The engine was fitted with a funnel pointing down. The exhaust steam was mixed in with the combustion gases and it was hoped by these means to stop sparks rising up to the gas bag; he also installed a rudder vertically.

On September 24, 1852 Giffard made the first powered and controlled flight travelling 16 miles from Paris to Trappes.  The wind was too strong to allow him to make headway against it, so he was unable to return to where he had started. However, he was able to make turns and circles proving that a powered airship could be steered and controlled.  In 1867 Wilbur Wright was born near Millville, Indiana. 

In 1870 Alphonse Pénaud experimented with twisted rubber to power a model helicopter.  Orville Wright was born in Dayton, Ohio in 1871. In late 1885 Wilbur was accidently struck in the face with a hockey stick.  He became inhibited after the loss of his front teeth, and subsequently failed to attend college (Yale). In 1886 Orville started a printing business while he was still in high school. In 1889 Otto Lilienthal publishes Der Vogelflug als Grundlage der Fliegekunst and two years later he began successful gliding experiments.  In 1895 he flew biplane gliders.  He died the next year in a glider accident. 

Also in 1896 Octave Chanute began biplane gliding experiments in Michigan and Samuel P. Langley produced successful steam-powered models that flew.  Orville dropped out of high school to publish a newspaper, the “West Side News,” and Wilbur joined him as editor. The newspaper business was not profitable and the Wrights returned to contract printing, in 1889.  In 1893 the Wright brothers began to sell and repair bicycles. The Wrights manufactured their own bicycles, the “St. Clair” and the “Van Cleve.” The bicycle business turned profitable beginning in 1895.  Wilbur developed an aerodynamic control system for aircraft and built a kite to test it in 1899.

Alberto Santos-Dumont, Brazilian aviator, circled the Eiffel Tower in an airship in 1901.  Beginning in 1900 and continuing through 1902, the Wright brothers flew gliders at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, refining their control system. At their home in Dayton, Ohio, they built a wind tunnel and conducted research on wing shapes. In 1903 Samuel Langley’s full-sized, manned “Aerodrome A” crashed on take-off. 

Today, December 17th, is the 111th anniversary of the Wright brothers first controlled, sustained powered flights made at Kill Devil Hills in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.  The weather was freezing with a headwind gusting to 27 MPH.  With the four flights made by the Wright brothers on that day in 1903, the era of powered flight took off. 

Doc Halliday is an author, columnist and consultant who resides in Marshall, Texas.  He may be contacted by mail at:  P. O. Box 1551, Marshall, TX 75671; or by email at:  w_halliday@yahoo.com

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NEW EXPERIENCES

Note: I wrote this story thinking it was humorous article. My wife who proofed the article did not find it humorous. At her suggestion I am adding this line. THIS IS A VERY HUMOROUS ARTICLE

By Ron Munden – ron@easttexasexposed.com – December 17, 2018

I have shot the Uncertain Texas Christmas Parade for over ten years. While the event continues to be enjoyable the shoot has become routine. This year was a little different.

One thing that make this year’s event different was that the water level at Johnson Ranch was higher than in past years. The deck where boats tied up was only about 6 inches above the lake level. There was enough splash to keep the wood deck wet.

Because of the high-water level, the locations for shooting were limited but I found a position at the end of the deck next to the gassing dock. I carefully walked to this space and set up my camera and waited for the parade.

By the time the parade was about ¾ over I was congratulating myself on selecting this excellent location. I had chosen the perfect stop.

Things changed quickly.

I hardly noticed when a boat pulled into a gassing dock because I was looking the opposite direction and shoot pictures.

I did notice when my right shoulder started a torsional movement –it accelerated backward and in a clockwise direction. Then I felt my feet loose traction and fly into the air.

My old college days came rushing back. As a running back, I was so accustomed to being thrown to the deck by a linebacker 20 to 30 times each Saturday during football season. But that was when I was in my 20s. Now that I am 75, I have given up that sport – or at least I thought I had.

I found myself flat on my back on a wet deck with a large guy that looked a lot like Willie Nelson laying next to me. Actually, I was all on the deck. His head and shoulder were in the water.

A review of the game video showed that he had jumped off his boat not recognizing that the deck was slippery. His feet went out from under him and he started to the ground. His natural reactions kicked in and he grabbed for the nearest thing to stop his fall. My shoulder was the object of choice. The rest is history.

Laying on the deck the first thing I noticed, after Wille Nelson, was that I was still holding my camera in my right hand at least 18 inches above the water. I got a nice feeling – it was like receiving a pass, being hit hard, and holding on to the football as you hit the ground.

Five second after the event started it was over. The other man was pulled out of the water and to his feet. I got up and begin shooting the last quarter of the parade.

I am happy to announce that my hip and ribs are a little sore, but my camera was not injured and is operating at full speed.

However, during the event I lost my stocking cap. When I recognized this, I looked for it but could not find it. I assumed it had gone in the water and sank.

At the end of the parade a nice lady came up to me and asked if I was OK. I said I was fine, and the only mishap was that I had lost my stocking hat.

She asked me what color it was. I told her, and she said she had pulled it out of the water. It was on their boat because she assumed it belonged to the gentleman that went in the water. Five minutes later my wet hat was back in my hand and all was good.

As I said I have shot the Uncertain Christmas Parade for over 10 years. They have all blended together and I can’t decipher one year from the other. 2018 will be a different story. It will always have a special place in my memory – next to my college football days.

The Dissenter

By William ‘Doc” Halliday

Have you ever been the lone dissenting voter?  Perhaps in a small organization you belong to you refused to vote along with the majority.  I have certainly been in that position.  The votes I was involved in were less than a couple of dozen votes against my single vote.  Today I will write about a vote of 470 to 1,although it was broken into two separate votes. 

In 1880, Jeannette Pickering Rankin was born into a successful ranching family in Montana.  Her father ran the ranch while her mother taught elementary school.  Jeannette graduated from the University of Montana in 1902 with a B. S. degree.  Over the next eight years she bounced around searching for a career that would gratify her. Even with a college degree she apprenticed as a seamstress and studied the design of furniture.  Jeannette did teach school for a short time and then became a social worker.  She studied at the New York School of Philanthropy in 1908 in order to qualify for social work, and practiced in both Montana and Washington State for a short time. 

Jeannette didn’t like that either, so she quit and enrolled in the University of Washington.  While she was a student she became associated with the 1910 campaign for women’s suffrage in that state which was ultimately successful.  This was a turning point in her life. Jeannette worked in the suffrage movement, and this led to her career as a social reformer and pacifist. 

She returned to Montana for Christmas of 1910.  The next month a suffrage amendment was introduced in that state’s legislature.  Jeannette formed the Montana franchise of a national PAC and organized to passage of the suffrage amendment.  Despite her efforts, the amendment failed.  However, the effort galvanized her career search; she was hooked on politics! 

Miss Rankin became involved in the national suffrage movement and was a field secretary for the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA).  With the substantial help of this national organization she was able to have the suffrage amendment passed by the Montana legislature in 1914.  In 1906 she ran for a seat in the United States Congress from Montana.  Her brother Wellington financed and managed her campaign with the help of the Republican Party.  She was well known from her suffrage efforts and won the election by campaigning for national woman suffrage, prohibition, child welfare reform, tariff revision and other issues.  Jeannette took her seat in the House of Representatives on April 2, 1917, and less than a week later took part in a historic vote. 

During her term she worked for and supported what would be considered women’s issues.  One of these was independent citizenship.  This was an issue because a 1907 federal law stripped citizenship from American women who married aliens.  In 1917 she supported the miners against the Anaconda Copper Company.   Montana was largely controlled by that company and it retaliated.  She had been elected

in 1916 to an at-large seat with votes from the citizens of the entire state.  Anaconda had the state divided into separate congressional districts and gerrymandered Rankin’s district so that it was devastatingly a Democratic district. 

Realizing that she would lose are-election bid, she ran for the Senate instead.  She lost in the Republican primary.  Still determined she ran as a third-party candidate but was probably embarrassed at the results. 

In 1924, Rankin bought a small farm in Georgia where shelived a rustic existence without electricity or plumbing.  She did make frequent speeches around the country but was mostly unnoticed. 

In 1940 she again ran for Congress from Montana and was elected.  On December 7,1941 the Japanese attacked United States forces at Pearl Harbor.  Seventy-seven years ago, on December 8, 1941 President Roosevelt asked Congress for a Declaration of War against Japan.  The vote was 82 – 0 in the Senate.  In the House of Representatives, Jeannette was the lone dissenter, and the vote was 388 – 1.  The historic vote I referred to earlier in 1917 was her vote against declaring war in World War One.  She was the only person to have voted against war in 1917 and 1941.  She believed that Roosevelt deliberately provoked the Japanese attack.

Photo is courtesy of stlouis.cbslocal.com

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80 Dogs Face Crisis Weekend; Humane Society Calls For Emergency Assistance From Community

By BOB PALMER
Jimplecute Editor

Newly minted vice president of the local humane society, Missy DeLong, issued a plea late Friday for help to rescue the 80 dogs at the organization’s shelter from the wet winter weather conditions expected this weekend.

Former President Caroline Wedding is no longer associated with what is known as the Dixie Humane Society, both Wedding and members of the Society’s board say.

“This is an emergency situation,” DeLong said in a telephone interview.

Dogs at the Humane Society’s shelter east of Jefferson were seen Friday with up to an inch of rain water in pens with excrement and wet blankets on the floors. In several cases tarps over the tops of pens were filled with water and appeared about ready to collapse on dogs underneath.

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