Back to the root
I have been trying to discover exactly what New Year's Day is.
Not an easy task.
People will say that it's the start of a new year but that's just the response of an unthinking mind and is as valid as saying "because".
Let me try to explain myself. Suppose just for a moment you meet up with an Extraterrestrial [I'm sure Supershadow wll have something to say on this] and he/she/it asks what New Year's Day is? Remember that this E.T. has no idea of calendars so you can't say the start of the new year [meaningless] or the first day of January [meaningless]. The only thing that will make any sense whatsoever is to tell the E.T. that it's the eleventh day after the Winter Solstice which at least defines a day that can be mathematically established.
It all goes back to the Julian Calendar apparently, and they established the start of the calendar year as the Feast of the Circumcision which will utterly confuse our friendly E.T. [Here we have a species that bases its year on genital mutilation? What the fuck?]
I know that New Year's Day has been celebrated at different days in the past, and some cultures have based their on the Lunisolar Calendar which makes a lot more sense, though don't ask me to work it out.
So here we are on an arbitrary day nursing hangovers from celebrating a day which in turn celebrates genital mutilation.
Makes you think?
The oldest known lunar calendar was found in Scotland; it dates back to around 8000 BC according to whoever built that wiki page…men in skirts…in a cold place…genital mutilation…all fits.
Fits all right. 'Tis fierce windy around the Trossocks.
Its only gentile mutilation if it happens to girls silly grandad the un will send its reeducation goons around to teach you the difference
Surely gentile mutilation would be liquidising non-Jews? I stand by my stance that foreskin is part of the male genitalia and as such constitutes mutilation if removed.
I wonder if all those people in London and New York realise they were celebrating the removal of a foreskin?
Damn auto correct !
Well you learn something every day. I had no idea that New Year was based on genital mutilation day. Funny old world, innit?
I remember when my sons were born (in Australia, where they have, or had in the 70s, a similar attitude to the USA to circumcision) the raised eyebrows when I insisted that my sons should remain complete after they were born. I'm not really into that particular kind of barbarism, even for boys, for whom I admit it is not nearly so traumatic or life altering an operation as the female version. Nature did a pretty good job of designing us, and I see no reason to fuck around with the original.
Maybe I should start celebrating the winter solstice and nothing else? I actually don't need any excuse to celebrate anyway. Any day will do for me. And I certainly don't see circumcision as anything to celebrate. Quite the reverse, in fact.
The Chinese lunar New Year will fall on 19th February this year, so expect to see pictures of dragons on a Dublin street in the morning newspapers. The Year of the Sheep. Maybe another year in Ireland of lambs led to the slaughter.
…and the Muslim new year won't come until about 13 October. At the moment it is 1436 AH, as muslims began their calendar in 622 AD. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_calendar
What year are we in now according to the Druids of Knowth? Their year seems to have rotated in concentric circles, unless I'm mistaken.