#vietnamese martyrs

[cruger2984]

THE DESCRIPTION OF THE VIETNAMESE MARTYRS Feast Day: November 24

"In the midst of these torments, which usually terrify others, I am, by the grace of God, full of joy and gladness, because I am not alone — Christ is with me." -St. Paul Le-Bao Tinh

One man, a priest, gives his name to today's feast, but the one stands for many: 117 Vietnamese faithful.

They were bishops, priests, and many laypeople, a mother of six and even a nine-year-old child, who gave their lives for Christ between the 17th and the 19th centuries. 96 were native Vietnamese and 21 were Spanish or French missionaries who had embraced that land and culture. The group of 117, canonized together by Pope John Paul II in 1988, in turn stands for a nameless multitude estimated at between 100,000 and 300,000 martyrs, the 'great cloud of witnesses' whose blood was the seed of a thriving Church in the land of Vietnam.

Fr. Andrew Dũng-Lạc, who gives his name and his life's story to this group of martyrs, was born with the name Trần An Dũng to a poor, ordinary family in northern Vietnam around the year 1795. The family followed the traditional religion of their land. But when An Dũng was twelve, his family moved to Hanoi to look for work. There the boy met a Christian, a catechist who housed him and taught him about the Lord and Savior of mankind. The boy was baptized with the name Andrew. In 1823, Andrew was ordained a priest, and his preaching and simplicity of life led many others to baptism. But it was a dangerous time to be a Christian in Vietnam.

In 1832, the Emperor Minh Mạng (Minh Mệnh), the second emperor of the Nguyễn dynasty-reigned Vietnam, banned foreign missionaries and commanded Vietnamese Christians to trample on crucifixes in order publically to renounce their faith in Jesus Christ. Many would not. Love made the faithful creative, and they hid priests in caves or sometimes in their houses, risking and often giving their lives. Some of these faithful were beheaded; some were suffocated; some were flayed alive; and some, often priests, were hung in cages in public squares until they died.

Fr. Andrew was first arrested in 1835, but his parishioners ransomed him. He changed his last name to Lạc and moved to a different region to avoid persecution, but persecution followed him. In 1839, he was arrested again along with another Vietnamese priest, Fr. Peter Thi, whom Fr. Andrew had visited in order to go to confession. The two were ransomed, then arrested again, tortured, and finally beheaded in Hanoi on December 21, 1839.

Other waves of persecution followed Fr. Andrew's death, just as they had preceded it. Indeed, the Vietnamese faithful were subjected to some of the cruelest forms of martyrdom in the history of Christianity. Christians had the words 'ta dao,' or 'false religion,' written across their faces. They were stripped of their belongings and families, and subjected to diabolically inventive forms of torture. Christian villages were destroyed. But the baptized members of the Body of Christ in the land of Vietnam knew the voice of their Shepherd too well to betray Him. What the rulers of the land did to wipe out the Church, the Spirit of God used to give the Church deep and lasting roots among the Vietnamese people. By the end of the 20th century, Catholics were estimated at 10% of the Vietnamese population.

When Fr. Andrew Dũng-Lạc and the Vietnamese martyrs – the 117 named and the hundreds of thousands unnamed – were canonized on June 19, 1988, the communist government of Vietnam did not permit a single representative from that country to attend. But 8,000 Vietnamese Catholics from the diaspora were there, filled with joy to be the children of this suffering Church.

[portraitsofsaints]

Happy Feast Day  St.Andrew Dung Lac, pray for us! 

He was a Catholic priest and missionary in Vietnam and one of the 117 Vietnamese martyrs canonized by Pope St. John Paul II in 1988

{website}

Happy Feast Day  St. Agnes Le Thi Thanh, pray for us! 

She was a mother of 6, who helped hide priests to avoid persecution during Emperor Minh Mang’s rule & one of the 117 Vietnamese martyrs canonized by Pope St. John Paul II in 1988.  

{website}

[catdotjpeg]

11 Feb 2024, Lunar New Year vigil for Palestine led by Nodutdol and 30+ Korean, Palestinian, Asian American, and anti-war organizations, Queens, NY

The text on the kite in the first photo comes from "If I Must Die" by Palestinian martyr, poet, and educator Refaat Alareer; the text on the placard in the second photo comes from a quote by the Vietnamese revolutionary Hồ Chí Minh.

[hadeth]

 عَنْ أَبِي هُرَيْرَةَ ـ رضى الله عنه ـ أَنَّ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم قَالَ ‏ "‏ الشُّهَدَاءُ خَمْسَةٌ الْمَطْعُونُ، وَالْمَبْطُونُ، وَالْغَرِقُ وَصَاحِبُ الْهَدْمِ، وَالشَّهِيدُ فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ ‏"‏‏.‏ صحيح البخاري ومسلم حديث ٢٨٢٩ - ١٩١٤

Narrated Abu Huraira: Allah's Messenger (peace be upon him) said, "Five are regarded as martyrs: They are those who die because of plague, Abdominal disease, drowning or a falling building etc., and the martyrs in Allah's Cause." Sahih al-Bukhari 2829 In-book reference : Book 56, Hadith 45 // Sahih Muslim 1914In-book reference : Book 33, Hadith 235

قَوْلُهُ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ : ( الشُّهَدَاءُ خَمْسَةٌ : الْمَطْعُونُ ، وَالْمَبْطُونُ ، وَالْغَرِقُ ، وَصَاحِبُ الْهَدْمِ ، وَالشَّهِيدُ فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ ) فِي رِوَايَةِ مَالِكٍ فِي الْمُوَطَّأِ مِنْ حَدِيثِ جَابِرِ بْنِ عَتِيكٍ : ( الشُّهَدَاءُ سَبْعَةٌ سِوَى الْقَتْلِ فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ ، فَذَكَرَ الْمَطْعُونَ ، وَالْمَبْطُونَ ، وَالْغَرِقَ ، وَصَاحِبَ الْهَدْمِ ، وَصَاحِبَ ذَاتِ الْجَنْبِ ، وَالْحَرِقَ ، وَالْمَرْأَةَ تَمُوتُ بِجُمْعٍ ) وَفِي رِوَايَةِ لِمُسْلِمٍ : ( مَنْ قُتِلَ فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ فَهُوَ شَهِيدٍ ، وَمَنْ مَاتَ فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ فَهُوَ شَهِيدٌ ) وَهَذَا الْحَدِيثُ الَّذِي رَوَاهُ مَالِكٌ صَحِيحٌ بِلَا خِلَافٍ ، وَإِنْ كَانَ الْبُخَارِيُّ وَمُسْلِمٌ لَمْ يُخَرِّجَاهُ ، فَأَمَّا ( الْمَطْعُونُ ) فَهُوَ الَّذِي يَمُوتُ فِي الطَّاعُونِ كَمَا فِي الرِّوَايَةِ الْأُخْرَى : ( الطَّاعُونُ شَهَادَةٌ لِكُلِّ مُسْلِمٍ ) وَأَمَّا ( الْمَبْطُونُ ) فَهُوَ صَاحِبُ دَاءِ الْبَطْنِ ، وَهُوَ الْإِسْهَالُ . قَالَ الْقَاضِي : وَقِيلَ : هُوَ الَّذِي بِهِ الِاسْتِسْقَاءُ وَانْتِفَاخُ الْبَطْنِ ، وَقِيلَ : هُوَ الَّذِي تَشْتَكِي بَطْنُهُ ، وَقِيلَ : هُوَ الَّذِي يَمُوتُ بِدَاءِ بَطْنِهِ مُطْلَقًا . وَأَمَّا ( الْغَرِقُ ) فَهُوَ الَّذِي يَمُوتُ غَرِيقًا فِي الْمَاءِ ، وَصَاحِبُ الْهَدْمِ مَنْ يَمُوتُ تَحْتَهُ ، وَ ( صَاحِبُ ذَاتِ الْجَنْبِ ) مَعْرُوفٌ ، وَهِيَ قُرْحَةٌ تَكُونُ فِي الْجَنْبِ بَاطِنًا . وَالْحَرِيقُ الَّذِي يَمُوتُ بِحَرِيقِ النَّارِ . وَأَمَّا ( الْمَرْأَةُ تَمُوتُ بِجُمْعٍ ) فَهُوَ بِضَمِّ الْجِيمِ وَفَتْحِهَا وَكَسْرِهَا ، وَالضَّمُّ أَشْهَرُ قِيلَ : الَّتِي تَمُوتُ حَامِلًا جَامِعَةً وَلَدَهَا فِي بَطْنِهَا ، وَقِيلَ : هِيَ الْبِكْرُ ، وَالصَّحِيحُ الْأَوَّلُ . شرح النووي على مسلم

قَالَ بن التِّينِ هَذِهِ كُلُّهَا مِيتَاتٌ فِيهَا شِدَّةٌ تَفَضَّلَ اللَّهُ عَلَى أُمَّةِ مُحَمَّدٍ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ بِأَنْ جَعَلَهَا تَمْحِيصًا لِذُنُوبِهِمْ وَزِيَادَةً فِي أُجُورِهِمْ يُبَلِّغُهُمْ بِهَا مَرَاتِبَ الشُّهَدَاءِ قُلْتُ وَالَّذِي يَظْهَرُ أَنَّ الْمَذْكُورِينَ لَيْسُوا فِي الْمَرْتَبَةِ سَوَاءً... وَيَتَحَصَّلُ مِمَّا ذُكِرَ فِي هَذِهِ الْأَحَادِيثِ أَنَّ الشُّهَدَاءَ قِسْمَانِ شَهِيدُ الدُّنْيَا وَشَهِيدُ الْآخِرَةِ وَهُوَ مَنْ يُقْتَلُ فِي حَرْبِ الْكُفَّارِ مُقْبِلًا غَيْرَ مُدْبِرٍ مُخْلِصًا وَشَهِيدُ الْآخِرَةِ وَهُوَ مَنْ ذُكِرَ بِمَعْنَى أَنَّهُمْ يُعْطَوْنَ مِنْ جِنْسِ أَجْرِ الشُّهَدَاءِ وَلَا تَجْرِي عَلَيْهِمْ أَحْكَامُهُمْ فِي الدُّنْيَا  . فتح الباري لابن حجر

Hadith Translation/ Explanation : English French Spanish Turkish Urdu Indonesian Bosnian Russian Bengali Chinese Persian Tagalog Indian Vietnamese Sinhalese Tamil: https://hadeethenc.com/en/browse/hadith/4971

[t4t4t]

What can we do against monsters?

This has been something that I have been thinking deeply about for a few days now, and it's been a few days not because the news broke, but because I was one of the first people to see it.

And that's because Aaron Bushnell had watched my content, my friends and comrades' content, and supported us. I saw the video of him calmly, bravely, stepping into a storm of flames that would ultimately kill him to bring attention to others on the other side of the ocean who were dying in similar and worse ways, on the very day that he did it. On the Twitch channel he streamed it on. Another member of my community had brought the account to my attention, and I recognised the name, and a corresponding youtube channel.

To be frank, my first thoughts were "why? you could have done anything but this! why?" I'm sure many of us can relate to this.

But recently it has hit me.

A person, who by all accounts of what information I can find online, was a closeted trans person (he used he/she pronouns in other discords I shared with her, and overwhelmingly went by the name of "Lilly" on her youtube and twitch and discord accounts) who was in the US Air Force, an organisation that has indeed in the past simply disappeared individuals who express any sentiments that their operations are unjust or evil, who knew in fact that one day soon, she may be sent to murder innocent Gazans in one of the most despicable genocides in recent history. 

Perhaps she had already been forced to participate in it. From what we know, she didn't appear to have been directly involved in the genocide. 

https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/what-aaron-bushnell-did-in-the-military

But she ultimately felt complicit in a way that demanded action.

So what were Aaron/Lilly's options? Sedition? Traitorism? Perhaps it simply wasn't in her nature to want anyone to die. Perhaps she had already been forced to kill people indirectly and didn't want anyone else to, no matter how complicit they were in the murder of the colonised Palestinians. These are unknowns. But what we do know is that she completed one of the most radical and extreme acts of protest possible. She joins a long list of self-immolated martyrs of many struggles.

And to be clear here, I do not use the word martyr here flippantly. The countless Yemeni and Palestinian voices who have called her that, and awarded her many other honourable accolades including being publicly honoured in Sana'a, Yemen, yesterday (February 27th, 2024), confirm that this is how colonised and oppresssed people view her as part of their struggle.

https://x.com/intifada/status/1762670714060968139?s=20

https://x.com/Aldanmarki/status/1762043564870045992?s=20

https://x.com/ShaykhSulaiman/status/1762225663673561346?s=20

https://x.com/karaokecomputer/status/1762232705717322180?s=20

https://x.com/BIG__Brother7/status/1762090633873752093?s=20

Not just Palestinians, but globally, multiple anti-imperialist nations' representatives have expresssed a deep love and respect for her actions.

https://x.com/upholdreality/status/1762275594622943430?s=20

https://x.com/magne_toes/status/1762219467507945956?s=20

https://x.com/evoespueblo/status/1762588988445962341?s=20

It is only really white western imperialists who do not understand the act of self-immolation as an act of protest. From the endlessly proselytising zionist fascists who are celebrating another dead supporter of Palestine, to the moronic liberal desperation we've seen focusing on individualist and poorly understood anti-abolitionist mental health based criticisms: they simply do not understand what this means. What it represents. 

I would encourage people to read the information available about Thich Quang Duc, the Vietnamese buddhist monk who famously self-immolated in protest of the colonising of his homeland in 1963. It sent shockwaves around the world, just as Aaron/Lilly's death has and will continue to do. 

Thich Quang Duc's heart refused to burn to ashes even on a second cremation attempt of his remains, and is now displayed as a holy relic in Vietnam. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%ADch_Qu%E1%BA%A3ng_%C4%90%E1%BB%A9c

I wonder if Aaron/Lilly's heart would be given the same attention by her funeral organisers. I believe her heart, and the heart of everyone who engaged in such an act in the past for righteous causes are simply indestructible. Wherever it is, may it bless all those who come near and remind them of what she died for. These people were too kind and sweet for this world and the permanence of their remains is an testament to that.

Aaron/Lilly's friends have all commented on how sweet and kind and caring she was, and how  dedicated she was to the cause of liberation and anti-colonialism worldwide. There is nothing bad that can be said about her, even in the long aftermath of her death. She was simply human, in a world that is deeply, deeply inhuman.

She was up against monsters. Monsters that cannot be slain by ordinary means. Monsters that are many headed, can regenerate, and duplicate. Powerful demons that control our world and wreak havoc and pain and suffering wherever they choose to plunder, as greed is at their heart.

She acted in a way that she felt was the only way that she could. Her hand was inarguably forced, to do the one desperate thing she could to draw attention to what is happening.

May her spirit soar in the halls of our ancestors and rest easy knowing that we are all completely in awe of her bravery, dedication and solidarity.

I want to make some things clear at the end of this post however.

I have stated this on my twitter, and on my stream, but it bears repeating here. While I think this needed to be addressed in an appropriate way, and I stand by everything I have said above, I do not want anyone else to do this. I do not believe this is something that we have to do in order to make change happen.

I have always said that the need for non-violent building of power takes precedent over every single action that is done or proposed here in the imperial core. The fact of reality is that capitalism and imperialism are failing. It will soon come to a head where these violent machines will fail to work, or simply be abandoned by those who operate them. It is at that point that we absolutely necessarily must have a support network of power that means we can survive outside of that system and create a new world of fairness where everyone has what they need to survive and no one suffers harm and discrimination. I stand firm in my position that we can build this world together.

I want this world desperately. I want a world where people like Aaron/Lilly do not feel so desperate to do something so valiant and self-destructive because they have no other option.

So my final word on this matter is this.

We must continue to fight for this world and build it in her memory and honour. Not only is it what she would have wanted, it is what she died for. 

Mourn the dead. And fight like hell for the living.

[butchered-icarian]

In honour of Dr. Refaat Alareer who was martyred today alongside his family by the IOF, I translated his poem "If I Must Die" into Vietnamese.

This follows a thread with op translating the very same work into Chinese, and many people are following suit to translate the work into their own language.

Let his words live on.

[labbaik-ya-hussain-as]

BREAKING: HAMAS LEADER OFFICIAL STATEMENT

Khaled Meshaal:

If the Algerians, Afghans and Vietnamese listened to the advocates of defeatism who demand that we surrender, Algeria, Afghanistan and Vietnam would not have been liberated from colonialism and occupation.

The Al-Aqsa flood inflicted on the occupation psychologically, militarily, and intelligence-wise, and this defeat will be complete soon, God willing.

Oct 7th proved that the terrorist Zionist occupation can be defeated, and it has awakened awareness throughout the world about the justice of the Palestine issue.

The occupation appeared for its barbaric nature when turned into a raging bull that brutalized innocent people and targeted schools, hospitals, mosques, churches, and all aspects of life in our beloved Strip, Gaza.

Why does the Arab & Islamic nation not unite around the resistance? Western countries also rallied to support the Zionist occupation.

After 49 years of terrorist Zionist aggression, the resistance is fine, despite the martyrs among the fighters and some leaders, but our tunnels, ammunition and weapons are still intact, and we are still able to maneuver, launch missiles, and target invading tanks.

We follow the example of our noble Messenger, when he was besieged in the Battle of the Trench and heralding the conquest of the lands of the Romans and Persia.

Our heroic fighters turned tanks that cost millions and are equipped with the latest technology into a “farce,” with a small package attached to their back door and killing the cowards inside.

Hamas leaders lost dozens of their families during the aggression, and we bid farewell to the acting Speaker of the Legislative Council, Dr. Habib, the martyr Ahmed Bahr, and the representative in the Legislative Council, the martyr sister, Jamila Al-Shanti.

The terrorist Zionist occupation failed to achieve its declared goals of eliminating Hamas and displacing the entire population of the Gaza Strip, and the majority of the population of the north remained in the north despite everything that our great steadfast north is exposed to.

Some Western politicians are discussing Gaza after Hamas, and I say to them, save your time, your imagination, and your dreams, and within years, God willing, you will discuss the situation of the region after “Israel.”

We reject the participation of any international or Arab forces in the administration of Gaza, and all these plans will be trampled upon by our heroes in the resistance, led by our victorious Al-Qassam Brigades.

On the first day, we expressed readiness to release detained civilians. Because the objectives of the battle did not include taking them; But the circumstances of the battle, after the collapse of the occupation's Gaza division, led to this, and we released a number of detainees.

When we saw the brutality of the terrorist aggression, we said we must run this card; And to serve the civilians in Gaza and relieve them.

The truce achieves the release of children and women from Zionist occupation prisons, a temporary cessation of aggression, and humanitarian relief for Gaza.

The temporary truce sparked controversy within the entity about the controversy of the war that wants to eliminate Hamas, and then they are forced to negotiate with it indirectly to exchange detained children and women.

Gaza must be supported militarily, and the nation must not be spectators, and must contribute to the outcome of the battle.

We thank everyone who participated in supporting Gaza militarily, and everyone who asks us about the extent of our satisfaction with the participation of some parties, we answer the question: What did you participate in?

Gaza must be supported financially and humanitarianly,the political, popular and public pressure movement must be escalated to stop the aggression.

We showed Israel as it is,weak as a spider’s web, in need of someone to protect it, in addition to its illusory ability to protect others or fight wars on their behalf

[elwenyere]

My Father’s “Norton Introduction to Literature,” Third Edition (1981) 

Certain words give him trouble: cannibals, puzzles, sob, bosom, martyr, deteriorate, shake, astonishes, vexed, ode    ...     These he looks up and studiously annotates in Vietnamese. Ravish means cướp đoạt; shits is like when you have to đi ỉa; mourners are those whom we say are full of buồn rầu. For “even the like precurse of feared events” think báo trước.

Its thin translucent pages are webbed with his marginalia, graphite ghosts of a living hand, and the notes often sound just like him: “All depend on how look at thing,” he pencils after “I first surmised the Horses’ Heads / Were toward Eternity —” His slanted handwriting is generally small, but firm and clear. His pencil is a No. 2, his preferred Hi-Liter, arctic blue.

I can see my father trying out the tools of literary analysis. He identifies the “turning point” of “The Short and Happy Life of Francis Macomber”; underlines the simile in “Both the old man and the child stared ahead as if they were awaiting an apparition.” My father, as he reads, continues to notice relevant passages and to register significant reactions, but increasingly sorts out

his ideas in English, shaking off those Vietnamese glosses. 1981 was the same year we vượt biển and came to America, where my father took Intro Lit (“for fun”), Comp Sci (“for job”). “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” he murmurs something about the “dark side of life how awful it can be” as I begin to track silence and signal to a cold source.

Reading Ransom’s “Bells for John Whiteside’s Daughter,” a poem about a “young girl’s death,” as my father notes, how could he not have been “vexed at her brown study /  Lying so primly propped,” since he never properly observed (I realize this just now) his own daughter’s wake. Lấy làm ngạc nhiên về is what it means to be astonished.

Her name was Đông Xưa, Ancient Winter, but at home she’s Bebe. “There was such speed in her little body, / And such lightness in her footfall, / It is no wonder her brown study / Astonishes us all.” In the photo of her that hangs in my parents’ house she is always fourteen months old and staring into the future. In “reeducation camp” he had to believe she was alive

because my mother on visits “took arms against her shadow.” Did the memory of those days sweep over him like a leaf storm from the pages of a forgotten autumn? Lost in the margins, I’m reading the way I discourage my students from reading. But this is “how we deal with death,” his black pen replies. Assume there is a reason for everything, instructs a green asterisk.

Then between pp. 896-97, opened to Stevens’ “Sunday Morning,” I pick out a newspaper clipping, small as a stamp, an old listing from the 404-Employment Opps State of Minnesota, and read: For current job opportunities dial (612) 297-3180. Answered 24 hrs. When I dial, the automated female voice on the other end tells me I have reached a non-working number.

-- Hai-Dang Phan

[coinandcandle]

The Winter Solstice

This is a two-part post! This part focuses on the winter solstice and surrounding holidays.

What is the Winter Solstice?

Coming from the Latin sol (sun) and stare or sistere (to stand or to stop), a solstice is an astronomical event that happens twice a year; one being the Summer Solstice, the other being the Winter Solstice.

In the Northern Hemisphere, this Solstice takes place on December 20th or the 21st. In the Southern Hemisphere, it’ll take place on June 20th or 21st.

The Winter solstice is the shortest day of the year. The Sun travels the shortest path through the sky, causing this day to have the least daylight.

This post will focus on the winter solstice of the northern hemisphere.

Celebrations on or around the Winter Solstice

This is not a complete or absolute list of Solstice holidays, these are the most common I’ve found while researching. Feel free to comment if you know of any more!

Yule is an ancient holiday still celebrated by many witches and pagans today though it is historically observed by the Germanic peoples. The holiday takes place in mid-winter and spans 12 days. Historically the holiday would land around what is now mid-November and end around early January.

Bruma/Brumalia, the winter solstice festival of the eastern Roman Empire.

Saturnalia, the ancient Roman festival in honor of the god Saturn would be held on December 17th. The holiday involved a festival, gift-giving, and social taboos were permitted. During this time slaves were seen as almost equals and were allowed to take part in festivities. This is the Roman equivalent to the Greek Kronia held for the Greek god Kronos which was celebrated instead during midsummer around what is now late July and early August.

Inti Raymi (Quechua for "Inti festival") is a holiday in honor of the Incan god Inti. This is a celebration of the winter solstice as well as the Incan New year and is held on June 24th near the Southern Hemisphere’s winter solstice. The holiday was banned by Spaniards in the past but has since been revived since the 20th Century.

Dongzhi (冬至) or the Winter Solstice Festival is celebrated by Mainland Chinese, Hong Kong Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Koreans, and other East Asian-related people during the Dongzhi solar term, landing somewhere between December 21 to December 23. Dongzhi is especially popular in Taiwan as well.

Yaldā Night (Persian: شب یلدا shab-e yalda) is an Iranian festival that lands on the winter solstice (December 20 or 21st in the Gregorian Calendar) and to the night between the last day of the ninth month (Azar) and the first day of the tenth month, Dey, of the Iranian solar calendar. Families and friends will gather to eat, drink, and read poetry. This holiday is also observed in Iranian-influenced regions such as Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. Pomegranates and watermelons are significant during this holiday.

Many North American indigenous tribes also have traditions surrounding the winter solstice, with celebrations and beliefs differing by tribe. Some examples of festivals are Soyal of the Hopi and Shalako of the Zuni.

In Japan, there is a tradition surrounding the new year that is associated with luck and good health called Toji.

Quviasukvik (Inuktitut: ᖁᕕᐊᓲᑎᖃᕐᕕᒃ) is considered the first day of the year for the Inuit, who hold festivities from December 24th to January 7th. The holiday is observed by Yupik, Aleut, Chukchi, Iñupiat, and NunatuKavut peoples.

Christmas is the Christian holiday that celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ. Observed on the 25th of December and is celebrated culturally by non-Christians as well.

Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights. This holiday begins on the eve of the 25th of the Jewish month of Kislev and lasts eight days. In the Gregorian calendar, it usually falls somewhere in December.

St. Lucia’s Day is a festival celebrated in Sweden, Norway, and areas of Finland and lands on December 13th in honor of St. Lucia, one of the earliest Christian martyrs.

Looking for ideas on how to celebrate the winter solstice as a modern witch? Stay tuned for the second part of this post coming sometime this week!

[readingsquotes]

"Typically, journalism has a proclivity to overly rely upon the accounts of soldiers, military officers, and politicians in times of war—often of those who are doing the most killing. (Take for example the PBS NewsHour’s bizarre February story “Israeli soldier’s video diaries offer unique perspective on war in Gaza.”) This is a misdirection. As writer Viet Thanh Nguyen said in October,

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how the ramifications of war are oftentimes very visible for soldiers, because when we think about wars, we generally think of wars, soldiers, battles, tanks and so on, but the fact of the matter is that wars usually kill more civilians than soldiers. And civilians bear enormous burdens, both of violence but also of ongoing trauma in the years afterwards.

Nguyen said this after a reading of his Vietnamese migration memoir A Man of Two Faces had been canceled by the 92nd Street Y, because he had signed an open letter in the London Review of Books to “demand an end to the violence and destruction in Palestine.” The media depiction of people in Gaza, which has no military and where tens of thousands of civilians  have been killed, is a particularly brutal example of civilian dehumanization by western media.

In the binaries determining whether journalists consider lives to be “grievable or ungrievable” as outlined by Judith Butler in Frames of War—or if reporters determine such lives are “worthy” and “unworthy” as designated by Edward Hermand and Noam Chomsky in Manufacturing Consent—mainstream American journalists and politicians have largely presented Palestinian deaths as both ungrievable and unworthy.

Deaths in Palestine are treated as numbers, if even that. In October, President Biden was asked about the thousands of civilian casualties, and he said he had “no confidence” and “no notion that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed.”

A necessary intervention in this dehumanization of a people experiencing genocide is a project like the Martyrs of Gaza. With 142,000 followers on Twitter and 62,000 on Instagram, the social media endeavor memorializes, humanely and with compassion, Gazans killed during Israel’s assault—and will continue to do so, as long as the people running it in Gaza do not become martyrs themselves."

[banananutmilk]

Head Film Essay (1968)

Directed by Bob Rafelson and Jack Nicholson

Written by Jacob Christopher

“Of course Head is an utterly and totally fragmented film. Among other reasons for making it was that I thought I would never get to make another movie, so I might as well make 50 to start out with and put them all in the same feature." - Bob Rafelson

Head is a fun film, not because of it's plot, but it's absence of any sensical story direction at all. Released with it's corresponding album, the film utilizes the talents of the boy band The Monkees traversing through an obstacle of hijinks on their movie set, searching for sense trapped in a surrealist inspired story progression. Taking a satirical tongue and cheek approach to it's humor and messaging. Expressed through it's dialogue and formalistic style of cinematography, often the point is played vaguely and subtly due to it's delivery. Exemplified as a pariah for the time, The Monkees, Hollywood TV's answer to The Beetles. Were a Family TV show tied with music production, blurring the lines between actors and musicians. From mid-sixties to the year of 1967, The Monkees group of boys, Micky Dolenz, Peter Tork, Davy Jones, Michael Nesmith, soared towards the top of American notoriety and attention, before the inevitable downfall that waits for most manufactured trends.

In a glory of self destruction, the creator of The Monkees Bob Rafelson and the boys of the band had set to create a film as if it were their last opportunity to throw every editing tool and story beat, accumulating into a fun mess of a send off for the band. Ultimately flopping at the box office in extortionary fashion, only garnering $16,111 in the box office. The ticket sales in comparison to it's budget of $750,000 clearly show the disparity of the investment's outcome.

Reception during the airing of the movie was very mixed if not mostly negative, To quote a review of the time by  Renata Alder of The New York Times: Head "might be a film to see if you have been smoking grass, or if you like to scream at the Monkees, or if you are interested in what interests drifting heads and hysterical high-school girls." Alienating their audience of families due to the un-child friendly subject matters shown, while also unable to reach an adult audience due to the already concrete notions of The Monkees tween image. Despite the poor reception of the film upon release a cult following for the film had managed to be birthed from the film's obscurity and ambitious story telling.

The film is the lease bit conventional in everything it does, exemplified from it's camera cuts, video editing and especially the lack of coherent story progression. In the beginning sequences of the movie Mickey Dolenz jumps from a bridge and into the water, where psychedelics sequences of inverted colors and high contrasting visuals of mermaids swimming around his drowning body, transitioning backwards in time to the band being kissed by a woman, who rates all of the members to be about the same quality of partner. Where things become harder to describe is the plot of the film, or as many put it, the lack of a plot at all. However there is more to be dissected than just face value, or even what the film just shows you at all. Most of what makes Head (1968) interesting isn't just the summer of love aesthetic brought by the hippie movement, but also the martyr philosophy the the band and directors try to make of the novelty.

(Top Image: Article of MLK's assassination)

(Bottom Image: Moments before the execution of Nguyễn Văn Lém)

To emphasize the tumultuous times of the late sixties, Martin Luther King had unfortunately been assassinated in Memphis, and war waged furious. The scene that had staked itself into my attention, forcing me to see this film as something more than just zany 60s sitcom antics. Is that of the execution of Nguyễn Văn Lém, a captive of south Vietnamese troops. A polarizing scene to include, especially regarding The Monkees previous audience of children and family orientated television. For many it can be deemed as none less than shock, but also play part of the messaging of the time. 1968, the Vietnam War curtained prevalent over many lives. In usage of the execution, the scene plays also as commentary on what America's television programming hid from it's audience, The Monkees used as a blanket of blissful ignorance, but not anymore. Unappreciated for it's time, Head (1968) has aged into a relic of the past to be appreciated by a newer audience in retrospective perspective.

[capricornsicle]

So here's a comment I received on this post (I shared the promo picture of Amy Workman as Hikari Zhang for the Teen Wolf movie, as well as a behind-the-scenes of her that was posted on her official Instagram page).

(Image: Comment from Tumblr user @thyfggfy. It reads, "I don't see a problem as long as she looks the part. I mean isn't that the whole idea of acting? Pretending to be someone you are not. Should we also be mad that Stiles wasn't portrayed by a half Polish actor?")

My tags on this post, which thyfggfy responds to, are basically "hope they don't send her to the desert" and "there's a joke here about Hollywood assuming all East Asians are the same".

To take things one at a time, the first statement. I am assuming none of this is meant in malice, and is genuine, as I see no reason to assume otherwise.

"She looks the part." But does she? Amy Workman is a Chinese-American actor. Hikari Zhang is a Chinese-Japanese character. There's a similar situation with Arden Cho (Korean-American) as a Korean-Japanese character. Can you hire any East Asian to play another, or to play a mixed East Asian character when they are not mixed?

Well, yes. You can hire anyone to play anyone. But is it good? No. Because saying a Chinese actor looks enough like Japanese to play the character is like to say a Russian is basically Serbian or Bulgarian or Polish or Swedish. It's not the same, and people will get offended if you assume it is. Especially when there is race involved, because it's so common in the US (where the show/movie is made) to hear "all Asians look the same" or "all brown people look the same" or "all poc look the same", or so on. A close Chinese friend of mine is often asked to translate something from Japanese or Korean. I am often called Mexican (I am mixed Native American/Cree and Arab/Syrian). It's rude, and it's racism.

Not to mention, you can circumvent this problem easily. Either send a casting call for a Chinese-Japanese character, if one is needed, or change the character to be just Chinese when you hire a Chinese actor. I like the second, as Amy Workman is fantastic and I'm excited to see her in the movie. It's not like kitsune is specific to Japan. In Japan there's きつね/kitsune, in China there's 狐狸精/huili jing, in Korea there's 구미호/kumiho or gumiho, in Vietnamese there's 狐狸精/hồ ly tinh. All are fox spirits. So why keep the character mixed Japanese? I think because, to Hollywood, and especially to the Teen Wolf writers, it's close enough, right? But it's really not.

Next, "acting is pretending". You're right, it is. In grade school productions, I pretended to be Brutus in Julius Caesar, a forest fairy in Midsummer Night's Dream, a man with a broken hip in The Man Who Came to Dinner, and, in other plays, variously dead, grieving, injured, drunk, old, young, rich, poor, a traitor, a villain, a hero, a martyr, and so on. But I was pretending to be a kind of person having a certain experience. I wasn't pretending to be another race. Because that is a bad thing.

Lastly, "should we therefore insist Stiles is half Polish?". Well, first of all, he's not. What we know about Stiles' ancestry is this: he is named after his mother's father, his grandfather, who is Mieczysław, a Polish name. That's all we know. We don't know if his maternal grandfather is Polish or he was a first- or second- or x-generation immigrant or anything else. We don't even know if this person was Polish, or if it was another Slavic country. We certainly can't say that Stiles is half-Polish. We don't know that his maternal grandmother is, we don't know that his mother is. But it's fair to assume that Stiles is around 1/4 Polish and his grandfather is a first- or second-generation immigrant.

And because literally all we know about Stiles and being Polish is a name, we can't say that the character himself would identify as Polish, would speak the language, would practice Polish culture. We simply don't know. Fandom likes to assert that fanon and headcanon is basically canon, but headcanon does not make absolute truth, and it doesn't serve in place of canon. We can't assume a level of Polish heritage is absolute fact that may or may not exist.

That's not to say that you can't headcanon Stiles as being thoroughly Polish, because you can do whatever you want, and that's why there are such excellent fanworks as this one by KuriKuri (a fantastic Sciles fic that heavily involves Polish language, food, and overbearing grandmothers -- go read it!). I enjoy anything that expands upon the world characters live in.

But another important thing here is that Polish is not a race. It's a nationality. You can cast one white American guy to play another white American guy no problem, because you can't visually tell one white American from another. The only real differences are language -- there are dialects and accents in English that are harder to imitate and, depending on what kind of story you're telling, might have benefited from a different actor or a change to the character.

And if casting for a character who is European-American, you can often benefit from an actor who is the same, especially if the story involves them speaking the language a lot, but it doesn't necessarily mean you need an actor of the same heritage. For example, while Crystal Reed is a great actor, she did not make a very convincing French woman in 5x18 Maid of Gevaudan, and as a native French speaker I would have preferred if they had taken some measures to alleviate listening to a fake French accent that wasn't very good -- an American accent would have done less to take me out of the story, or if her lines had been dubbed over by a French speaker, or whatever. But it's not hurting anyone to have someone do an unconvincing French accent, because French is not a race which is often discriminated against and subject to racism. The same does not apply for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean actors and characters, because racism is always hurting people.

In fanwork, though, you can do whatever you want. Let me not be maliciously misquoted as saying anything but. You can write characters with how much or how little heritage you like, because you're not tracking ancestry, you're telling a story, through writing, through art, through audio, through any medium. But it is vitally important to recognize fanwork as just that. Fan-made work that appreciates some part of the source material, and fills in a gap that the source doesn't go into depth on -- or tears it down and rebuilds it, for fix-its and AUs and the like. Fanwork isn't canon, and you cannot treat it like canon. Everyone's interpretation of the source is valid and acceptable, because it is an individual, personal interpretation they have chosen to share. Biased? Often. Prejudiced? Unfortunately, also often. But acceptable? Always.

Though when it comes to Teen Wolf, well... A lot of the time people who headcanon Stiles as more Polish than he appears to be on the show also refuse to believe that Scott is Latino. His mother's maiden name is Delgado, both his parents are Latino, the actor is Mexican. And yet so often fandom will, on the one hand, call Stiles Polish and talk about his heritage and culture, refer to Derek's "Native American cheekbones" (I wish this was fake. I wish I did not read the post that talked about this. Sometimes I hate it here.) and assume based on a later-retracted tweet by Hoechlin that he was learning more about his ancestry and believed there was something Native American there (and I have a lot of posts about dubious Native American "ancestry") that Derek is therefore Native American (I love fanwork as much as the next person, but No.), or blah blah blah, and insist that Scott cannot be Latino.

And of course there is a lot of racism there, because there is a lot of racism in this fandom. I don't think the vast majority of people are doing it on purpose (although I can think of a few people who have all the resources to know better and remain obstinate about being a tool), but it's impossible not to notice when you look for it.

If fans want to talk about characters having interesting heritage to connect with, how about the Hispanic/Latino heritage of Scott McCall/his family (actor/mentioned in canon), Erica Reyes (by surname), Nolan Holloway (actor is Latino/Caxcan), Gabe Valet (actor is Brazilian), Josh Diaz (surname/actor is Brazilian), Theo Raeken (actor is Penobscot tribe -- like, actually a member), Tracy Stewart (actor is Chinese -- and while there's a lot to dislike about Kelsey Asbille her character remains interesting), Danny Mahealani (actor/character is Hawaiian), Corinne/The Desert Wolf (actor is Latina), Nathan Pierce (actor is Singaporean), the Calaveras (all Mexican), Hayden Romero (surname/actor is Latina), Jiang (actor is Chinese), Satomi Ito (Japanese), the Yukimuras (Korean and Japanese).

The reason no one seems to want to write about these characters, and Stiles is always the center of attention, even in posts like these where he was never even implied? Well, to paraphrase @princeescaluswords, I'm sure it has nothing to do with race.

[portraitsofsaints]

Saint Agnes Le Thi Thanh

1781-1841

Feast Day: November 24

Saint Agnes Le Thi Thanh was the only non-clergy Vietnamese of the 117 Vietnamese martyrs canonized by Pope St. John Paul II in 1988. She was a married Catholic, mother of 6, who helped hide priests to avoid persecution during Emperor Minh Mang’s rule. In a raid to capture priests, she was arrested, savagely beaten, and tortured both physically and psychologically. Her aggressors once even put poisonous snakes in her clothes. St. Agnes stayed calm crediting Our Lady’s help and the snakes did not bite her. Her family begged her to relent and renounce her faith, but she refused and died of her wounds in prison.

Prints, plaques & holy cards available for purchase here: (website)

Saint Andrew Dung-Lac

1795-1839

Feastday: November 24

Saint Andrew Dung-Lac, a Catholic priest and missionary in Vietnam, was one of the 117 martyrs who gave their life for the faith in the 19th century.  In 1832, Emperor Minh-Mang banned all foreign missionaries and tried to wipe out Christianity. Churches were destroyed, instructions forbidden, villages and families were obliterated. The tortures of these Christians is considered the worst in Church history. St Andrew was tortured, then beheaded in 1839 for the offense of being a Catholic priest.

Prints, plaques & holy cards available for purchase here: (website)

[tinyshe]

The Vietnamese Martyrs (Vietnamese: Các Thánh Tử đạo Việt Nam), also known as the Martyrs of Indochina, Martyrs of Tonkin, Annam, and Cochinchina, or Andrew Dung-Lac and Companions (Anrê Dũng-Lạc và Các bạn tử đạo).

More Saints of the Day November24

St. Andrew Dung Lac

St. Alexander

St. Anthony Nam-Quynh

St. Bernard Due

St. Bieuzy

St. Chrysogonus

St. Colman of Cloyne

St. Columbanus

St. Crescentian

St. Eanfleda

St. Felicissimus

St. Firmina

St. Flora & Mary

St. Joachim Ho

St. Kenan

Bl. Lawrence PeMan

St. Leopardinus

Bl. Maria Anna Sala

St. Marinus

Martyrs of the Dominican Order in Vietnam

Martyrs of Vietnam

St. Peter Domoulin Bori, Peter Khoa, and Vincent Diem

St. Romanus of Le Mans

St. Stephen Theodore Cuenot

St. Stephen Vinh

Bl. Thaddeus Lieu

St. Theophane Venard

St. Thephane Venard

St. Vicente Liem de la Paz

[brookstonalmanac]

Holidays 5.22

Holidays

Abolition Day (Martinique)

Bălți Day (Moldova)

Bear Waking Day (Norway)

Buy A Musical Instrument Day

Canadian Immigrants' Day

Carpet Day (Turkmenistan)

Clover Day (French Republic)

Dia do Abraço (National Hugging Day; Brazil)

EMS Education Day

Ethernet Day

Ewokalypse

Find Your Soul Mate Day

Flag Adoption Day (Australia)

Goth Day

Growing Flavor in the Garden Day

Harvey Milk Day (California)

Heat Awareness Safety Day

International Being You Day

International Coco Mom Day

International Day For Biological Diversity (UN)

International Day of Syndrome 22q11

International Sherlock Holmes Day

Jumping Frog Jubilee Day (Angel's Camp, California)

Lee Rigby Memorial Day

Leiria Day (Portugal)

Loch Ness Monster Day

Manchester Arena Remembrance / 22 Angels Day (UK)

Mattie Stepanek Day (Rockville, Maryland)

Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood Day

National Boss Babes Day

National Coco Mom Day

National Curly Hair Day

National Day of First Nations Fishing Rights (Canada)

National Desert Storm Reservists Day

National Gout Awareness Day

National Heroes Day (Sri Lanka)

National Julie Day

National Maritime Day

National Psychopath Day

National Solitaire Day

National Sovereignty Day (Haiti)

National Title Track Day

National Toothpaste Tube Day

NF2 & Schwannomatosis Awareness Day

Pac-Man Day

Recliner Day

Republic Day (Sri Lanka)

Sherlock Holmes Day [also 1.6]

Toothpaste Tube Day

Translation of the Relics of Saint Nicholas from Myra to Bari (Ukraine)

Unification Day (Yemen)

United States Colored Troops Day

Unity Day (Yemen)

Watch Movies All Day Day

World Goth Day

World Pre-Eclampsia Day

Food & Drink Celebrations

Bitcoin Pizza Day

National Craft Distillery Day

Vanilla Pudding Day

World Paloma Day

4th Monday in May

Victoria Day (Canada) [Monday before 25th]

Independence Days

Dale Empire (Declared; 201) [unrecognized]

Feast Days

Basiliecus, Bishop of Corinna (Christian; Saint)

Biological Diversity Day (Pastafarian)

Bobo (Christian; Saint)

Castus and Emilius (a.k.a. Cactus and Æmilius; Christian; Martyrs)

Conall (Christian; Saint)

Elphinstone Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)

Fulk (Christian; Saint)

Humilita (Christian; Saint)

Julia of Corsica (Christian; Saint)

The Mackerel (Muppetism)

Mary Cassatt (Artology)

Michael Hồ Đình Hy (Christian; One of Vietnamese Martyrs)

Quiteria (Christian; Saint)

Ragnar Lodbrok (Viking)

Rita of Cascia (Christian; Saint)

Romanus of Subiaco (Christian; Saint)

St. Cyprian (Positivist; Saint)

Yvo (Christian; Saint)

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Shakku (赤口 Japan) [Bad luck all day, except at noon.]

Premieres

Alien 3 (Film; 1992)

Bone Sweet Bone (WB MM Cartoon; 1948)

Bullwinkle Goes to Press or All the Moose That’s Fit to Print (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S1, Ep. 52; 1960)

Claws for Alarm (WB MM Cartoon; 1954)

Clean Pastures (WB MM Cartoon; 1937)

Far and Away (Film; 1992)

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Film; 1998)

The Four Seasons (Film; 1981)

The Girlfriend Experience (Film; 2009)

Great Expectations (Film; 1947)

Gunga Din, by Rudyard Kipling (Poem; 1890)

Headquarters, by The Monks (Album; 1967)

Imperial Woman, by Pearl S. Buck (Novel; 1956)

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Film; 2008)

Mission Impossible (Film; 1996)

The Negotiator, by Frederick Forsyth (Novel; 1989)

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (Film; 2009)

The Opposite of Sex (Film; 1998)

Outland (Film; 1981)

Preacher (TV Series; 2016)

Rocketman (Film; 2019)

That’s What You Get, by the Castiles featuring Bruce Springsteen (Song; 1966)

Tomorrowland (Film; 2015)

Water on the Brain or The Deep Six and 7/8 (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S1, Ep. 51; 1960)

Well Worn Daffy (WB LT Cartoon; 1965)

When Marnie Was There (Animated Film; 2015)

The Wind and the Lion (Film; 1975)

Today’s Name Days

Julia, Ortwin, Rita (Austria)

Julija, Rita (Croatia)

Emil (Czech Republic)

Castus (Denmark)

Leivo, Oliver (Estonia)

Hemminki, Hemmo (Finland)

Émile, Quitter, Rita (France)

Julia, Ortwin, Renate, Rita (Germany)

Emilios, Kodros (Greece)

Júlia, Rita (Hungary)

Rita, Valente (Italy)

Emīlija, Mile (Latvia)

Aldona, Eimantas, Elena, Julija, Rita (Lithuania)

Henning, Henny (Norway)

Emil, Helena, Jan, Julia, Krzesisława, Rita, Wiesław, Wiesława, Wisława (Poland)

Vasilisc (România)

Júlia, Juliana (Slovakia)

Joaquina, Julia, Rita (Spain)

Hemming, Henning (Sweden)

Jolee, Joleen, Jolene, Jolie, Marshall (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 142 of 2024; 223 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 1 of week 21 of 2023

Celtic Tree Calendar: Huath (Hawthorn) [Day 9 of 28]

Chinese: Month 4 (Ding-Si), Day 4 (Geng-Chen)

Chinese Year of the: Rabbit 4721 (until February 10, 2024)

Hebrew: 2 Sivan 5783

Islamic: 2 Dhu al-Qada 1444

J Cal: 21 Bīja; Sevenday [21 of 30]

Julian: 9 May 2023

Moon: 9%: Waxing Crescent

Positivist: 2 St. Paul (6th Month) [St. Cyprian]

Runic Half Month: Ing (Expansive Energy) [Day 13 of 15]

Season: Spring (Day 64 of 90)

Zodiac: Gemini (Day 2 of 32)

[thepastisalreadywritten]

SAINTS OF THE DAY (November 24)

During his papacy, Pope John Paul II canonized a group of 117 martyrs who died for the Roman Catholic Faith in Vietnam during the nineteenth century.

The group was made up of ninety-six Vietnamese, eleven Spaniards, and ten French.

Eight of the group were bishops, fifty were priests, and fifty-nine were lay Catholics including a 9-year-old child.

Some of the priests were Dominicans and others were diocesan priests who belonged to the Paris Mission Society.

This feast day and the witnesses of the lives of the martyrs give testament to the sufferings inflicted on the Vietnamese Church, which are among the most terrible in the long history of Christian martyrdom.