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reetings from Australia. 

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Pip Wilson

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I hate television. I hate it as much as peanuts. But I can't stop eating peanuts.
Orson Welles

I wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence, There's a knob called brightness, but it doesn't work.
Eugene P Gallagher

Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can't help but cry. I mean I'd love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff.
Mariah Carey did not say this. See Snopes.

When I was a child, there were times when we had to entertain ourselves. And usually the best way to do that was to turn on the TV.
Jack Handey, American comedian

They call television a medium. That's because it is neither rare nor well done.
Ernie Kovacs, American comedian

It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper.
Rod Serling, TV producer and director of The Twilight Zone

The bigger the information media, the less courage and freedom they allow. Bigness means weakness.
Eric Sevareid, ' The Press and the People', television program, 1959

The marvels – of film, radio, and television – are marvels of one-way communication, which is not communication at all.
Milton Mayer

While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially I consider it an impossibility, a development of which we need waste little time dreaming.
Lee De Forest, American radio pioneer and inventor of the vacuum tube, 1926

I do not believe television will come to stay until the picture shown is sufficiently larger, cleaner and more detailed to permit a family of five to see what is going on, without exerting any great amount of effort on their part.
L Waters Milbourne, WCAO Baltimore, US, 1944

Television won't be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.
Darryl F Zanuck, President, 20th Century Fox, 1946

Television won't matter in your lifetime or mine.
Rex Lambert, The Listener, Editorial, 1936

Television won't last. It's a flash in the pan.
Mary Somerville, pioneer of radio educational broadcasts, 1948

Television? No good will come of this device. The word is half Greek and half Latin.
CP Scott, 1846 - 1932

Television in the home is now technically feasible. The difficulties confronting this difficult and complicated art can only be solved from operating experience, actually serving the public in their homes.
David Sarnoff, RCA, October 1938

The average American family hasn't time for television.
The New York Times, 1939

On September 10, half the world was already living, if one can call it that, on less than $2 a day, with a fifth surviving on half of that. Thirty thousand children were already dying needless deaths daily. Inequality is exploding both within and among nations, and perhaps contrary to the poor of the nineteenth century, today's poor know they are poor. The plausible fantasies of Western television constantly remind them of their own failure to capture the material rewards of modernity.
Susan George of the Transnational Institute

Channel One, an advertiser-sponsored school television program, beams its news and ads for candy bars, fast food, and sneakers directly into the classroom for twelves minutes a day in more than 12,000 schools. In exchange for a satellite dish and video equipment, for each classroom, the school must agree that Channel One will be shown on at least 90 percent of school days to 90 percent of the children. Teachers are not allowed to interrupt the show or turn it off.
David C Korten, When Corporations Rule the World

Our grasping arms are being crammed with the produce of an age of abundance, our eagerness to grasp being more than matched by the zeal of the people who shower such produce upon us. Abundance in the West has become a menace threatening to inundate us under mountains of television sets, houses, clothes, flowery toilet paper, cars, snowmobiles, books, furniture. In order that we may avoid being deluged, goods must be "kept moving." Advertising has been carried to lengths never before known. Our mailboxes, telephones, radios and televisions are channels for would-be sellers of merchandise who are hard put to get rid of what the manufacturers produce. There is nothing wrong, of course, with a proper distribution of goods and services. I am not talking about that but about the promotion of superabundance. We need food, clothing and shelter. Even abundance and comfort are gifts of God. But we are no longer his creatures accepting and distributing the goodness he pours upon us but the feverish and slavish worshipers of abundance itself.
John White, The Golden Cow, 1979

Consumer sales depend on the habits and behaviors of consumers, and those who manipulate consumer markets cannot but address behavior and attitude. That is presumably the object of the multibillion-dollar global advertising industry. Tea drinkers are improbable prospects for Coke sales. Long-lunch traditions obstruct the development of fast-food franchises and successful fast-food franchises inevitably undermine Mediterranean home-at-noon-for-dinner rituals—whether intentionally or not hardly matters. Highly developed public transportation systems lessen the opportunity for automobile sales and depress steel, rubber, and petroleum production. Agricultural lifestyles (rise at daylight, work all day, to bed at dusk) are inhospitable to television watching. People uninterested in sports buy fewer athletic shoes. Health campaigns hurt tobacco sales. The moral logic of austerity contradicts the economic logic of consumption. Can responsible corporate managers then afford to be anything other than immoral advocates of sybaritism?
Benjamin R Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld, 1995

So many sins against the poor cry out to high heaven! One of the most deadly sins is to deprive the laborer of his hire. There is another: to instil in him paltry desires so compulsive that he is willing to sell his liberty and his honor to satisfy them. We are all guilty of concupiscence, but newspapers, radios, television, and battalions of advertising men (woe to that generation!) deliberately stimulate our desires, the satisfaction of which so often means the degradation of the family.
Dorothy Day (1897 - 1980), The Catholic Worker, April 1953

The gospel preached during every television show is 'You only go around once in life, so get all the gusto you can.' It is a statement about theology; it is a statement about beer. It's lousy beer and even worse theology.
John Silber, president of Boston University quoted in Time, May 25, 1987

I don't know what's wrong with my television set. I was getting C-Span and the Home Shopping Network on the same station. I actually bought a congressman.
Bruce Baum

Heaven would be a place where bullshit existed only on television. (Hallelujah! We's halfway there!)
Frank Zappa, The Real Frank Zappa Book, p. 234

I don't mind your being killed, but I object to your being taken prisoner.
Lord Kitchener, British commander, answering the Prince of  Wales's request to go the front line in World War I, December 18, 1914

Good morning, Mr Richards, your transfusion is ready. Would you care for a spot of tea with that?
Otto Luck, on Keith Richards, Rolling Stone born on December 18, 1943   Source

December 18 is the 352^nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (353^rd in leap years), with 13 days remaining.
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Festival of Epona, Celtic horse goddess

Epona ('mare goddess', known also as Edain) had two main celebrations: June 13 and the Festival of Epona on December 18. The latter was a Roman commemoration, the only major one in which the Romans honoured a Celtic deity. When Julius Caesar conquered Gaul in the Gallic Wars (58 BCE - 49 BCE), he allowed the Gauls to retain their religion and did not discourage the Roman religion from adopting and adapting Gallic mythology to its own purposes. His cavalry adopted Epona, giving her the name Bubona, and worshipping her as the goddess of horses and cattle. 

The horse was vitally important in the Celtic/Gallic world. The great chieftain of the Arverni, Vercingetorix (72 BCE - 46 BCE), who led the great Gallic revolt against the Romans in 53 - 52 BCE, in his last stand against the Roman army, sent the horses behind the lines and his army faced the Romans on foot rather than risk the slaughter of the beasts. 

Lucius Apuleius (c. 124 CE - c. 180) in his Latin novel Metamorphoses, better known as The Golden Ass, mentions Epona and provides some insight into her cultus. 

In Celtic mythology, too, she was the goddess of horses and cattle, and moreover of donkeys, mules, oxen, springs and rivers. She was also a psychopomp, accompanying souls to the land of the dead. Possibly more inscriptions, statues, and shrines dedicated to this goddess have been found than those dedicated to any other Celtic deity. Throughout the Roman Empire, her statues can be found alongside other Roman gods and goddesses. She is often shown riding a horse (frequently side-saddle, or lying on the horse's back), seated with horses around her or else with foals eating out of her lap ...

Read on at the Epona page at the Scriptorium    Deities of many cultures in the Book of Days

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Click stars for Universe today Cafe Diem! For all my Yule needs Highly recommended: Folklore of World Holidays by Margaret Read MacDonald Celtic Astrology Phyllis Vega Celtic Myth & Magick Celtic Gods Celtic Goddesses Celtic Myth and Legend Magic of the Celtic Gods and Goddesses Yule Decking the Halls Folklore & traditions of Christmas plants The Winter Solstice The Fires of Yule A Keltelven Guide for Celebrating the Winter Solstice Sabbat Entertaining The Pagan Book of Days Eight Sabbats for Witches Celebrate the Earth A Year of Holidays in the Pagan Tradition Wheel of the Year Be A Goddess The Wiggles - Yule Be Wiggling The Oxford Dictionary of Saints The Book of Saints The Encyclopedia of Saints Daily Everything Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable Lord of the Rings   To support this project Search by keywords for books, music, computers, software, home and family products and much more.     Search for posters An Inconvenient Truth By Al Gore; DVD & book The Permaculture Home Garden By Linda Woodrow The Corporation Highly recommended DVD A Question of Torture By Alfred McCoy Remotely Controlled: How Television Is Damaging Our Lives and What We Can Do About It What Would Jefferson Do? By Thom Hartmann How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World Pagan Christianity Songs in the Key of W For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism Under Fire By James Yee Crimes Against Nature : How George W Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy By Robert F Kennedy, Jr The Price of Loyalty The Torture Debate in America The Culture of the New Capitalism Lawless World The Great War for Civilisation By Robert Fisk The God Who Wasn't There A Question of Torture By Alfred McCoy When Corporations Rule the World Alternatives to Economic Globalization Feminism Without Borders Commercialization of Intimate Life By Arlie Russell Hochschild The Skeptic's Dictionary Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them 365 Goddess Adventures in a TV Nation Michael Moore Drawing Down the Moon Globalization/Anti-Globalization Body Wisdom More books, calendars, T-shirts, mugs, music, posters, etc at   Cafe Diem! Celtic Daily Prayer Dude, Where's My Country? Photo of the day Mother Earth Spirituality Bushwhacked Shamanism Imagine The John Lennon Collection Lennon Legend Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band Anthology All We Are Saying Lennon Legend The Beatles Anthology Lennon   Real Love The John Lennon Encyclopedia All We Are Saying Lennon's last interview John Lennon in His Own Write Lennon Remembers The Playboy Interviews Click to promote  your blog or website  another excellent  way we do

Tulya's E'en – The Return of the Dead, Orkney Islands According to 19th-Century Shetland folklorist, Jessie Saxby, Yule season began on Tulya's E'en – the night seven days before Yule (as this is in the Christian tradition, we take 'Yule' to mean December 25, or Christmas, rather than December 22). The name might be a corruption of Tolyigi's E'en – itself a corruption of St Thorlak's Eve. This St Thorlak was a saint of Iceland whose feast day is celebrated on December 23. However, Sigurd Towrie suggests that the name might derive from the dialect word tulye or tulyo, meaning a battle or a struggle in combat. On this day the trows (ugly, nocturnal, gnome-like creatures) were free to leave their underground homes "in the heart of the earth and dwell, if it so pleased them, above the ground". Tulya's E'en was the commencement of the Yuletide period from which supernatural spirits were abroad, plaguing mortals so much that it was not considered safe to venture out unless protective steps had first been taken. These included v     Sainin' – making the sign of the cross over both livestock and property; v     Laying a cross formed of two pieces of 'strae' (straw) outside the yard and plaiting a hair from the tail of each cow or 'beast of burden'. This plaited hair was hung over the byre door to ensure the beasts' protection; v     As in Norway, crosses were also put over food and ale; v     A sheaf of corn was placed on the roof of the house. Yule's strong association with mischievous spirits stems from its origins as a feast for the dead, honouring the ancestors who were thought to ensure luck, health and prosperity. Orkney's hogboon also had to receive special attention at this time. Orkney Islanders had to bring offerings of food and drink at Yule to this fairly benign mythical mound-dwelling creature, whose name is a corruption of the Norse mound-dweller and practically identical to the Norwegian nisse.   Ursids meteor shower (Dec 17 - 26) Halcyon Days, ancient Greece and Rome (Dec 14 - 28) Saturnalia, ancient Rome (Dec17 - 23) Egyptian day (dies egypticus, dies ægypticus or dies mala), unlucky day in Medieval Europe. ("But, notwithstanding, I will trust the Lord" was the associated saying.) Advent (Nov 30 - Dec 25), season of the coming of Jesus Christ Feast day of St Desiderius of Fontenelle Feast day of St Expectation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Fiesta of Our Lady of Solitude (Virgin of the Lonely), Oaxaca, Mexico Patron saint of the Lonely, and also the patroness of Oaxaca and of sailors who bring her the pearls she wears in her crown. Feast day of St Flannan of Killaloe Feast day of St Gatianus, 1st Bishop of Tours Feast day of St Mawnan of Cornwall Feast day of St Moses of Africa Feast day of Ss Rufus and Zozinus (Zosimus), martyrs Feast day of St Samthann of Clonbroney Feast day of St Victor Feast day of St Winebald, abbot and confessor (New Holland cypress, Cupressus australis, is today's plant, dedicated to this saint) Click for Eastern Orthodox liturgical days    Shop saints Kasuga Wakamira (Shrine) Matsuri, continues (Dec 13 - 18), at Nara Prefecture Las Posadas, Mexico (Dec 16 - 25) Republic Day, Niger (1958) New Jersey Admission Day (New Jersey, USA)   Visit of Deda Mraz, Former Yugoslavia Father Christmas, Deda Mraz (compare this name with Russia's D'yed Moroz) appears a week before Christmas to hear what gifts children would like, and to invite them to a New Year's Day party. On January 1, the candles on a New Year's tree are lit and gifts opened. Then there are parties and dancing. See also St Nicholas/Santa Claus.   International Migrants Day "The International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, (the Migrant Workers Convention) came into on force on 1 July 2003. It is the seventh international human rights treaty. The current number of states that have ratified the Convention stands at 35. "The every-day reality for many migrants around the globe remains a bleak one. Vilified by politicians and the popular media, often subject to discrimination and human rights violations, many migrants continue to live their lives at the margins of societies unwilling or unable to accept or integrate them fully. In this context, Amnesty International reiterates its call to all states to ratify the Migrant Workers Convention."   Source Committee on the Rights of Migrant Workers    Global Commission on International Migration List of international observances    See also World Refugee Day, June 20       1626 Queen Christina of Sweden (d. 1689) 1707 Charles Wesley (d. 1788), co-founder of the Methodist movement 1779 Joseph Grimaldi (d. May 31, 1837), English clown, creator of the classic white-face clown makeup; sometimes called 'The Greatest Clown in History'. His Memoirs in two volumes (1838) were edited by Charles Dickens. Wikipedia says: The famous 'sad clown' anecdote was first told of Grimaldi (later also told of Grock): A young man goes to see his doctor. He is overcome by a terrible sadness and doesn't think anything will make him feel better. The doctor says "Why not do something happy, like going to see Grimaldi the clown?". The young man answers "Ah, but doctor," with a knowing look "I am Grimaldi". 1851 John Farrell (d. January 8, 1904), Argentine-born Australian poet and journalist, a precursor of the Bulletin school of the 1890s "The boy worked on farms, and when he was 19 obtained a position in a brewery at Bendigo. He wandered about Australia for some time, went into brewing again, and alternated this occupation with farming for some years. In 1878 he published, under the name of John O'Farrell, Ephemera: An Iliad of Albury, a little pamphlet of verse now one of the rarest of Australian publications. In 1882 Two Stories, a Fragmentary Poem was published at Melbourne, and about this period he began to be a regular contributor to the Bulletin. He was then working in a brewery at Albury, and in 1883 was a partner in a brewery at Goulburn. He became much interested in the tenets of Henry George after reading Progress and Poverty. In January 1887 a collection of Farrell's verses was published in Sydney under the title of How He Died and Other Poems which was favourably reviewed, and in 1887 he sold his brewery interests and went to Sydney hoping to obtain employment as a journalist He bought a paper, the Lithgow Enterprise, but was unable to make it a financial success, and in 1889 returned to Sydney to edit the Australian Standard, a single tax paper for which Farrell did much writing. In October 1889 he began a series of articles on George's theories for the Daily Telegraph, and in the following year joined its staff. When Henry George arrived in Sydney in March he was met by Farrell who accompanied him on his inland tour. The two men became great friends. In June 1890 Farrell was appointed editor of the Sydney Daily Telegraph, but found the responsibility too great and resigned three months later. He continued, however, to be a regular contributor until shortly before his death on 8 January 1904. He [had] married in November 1876 Eliza Watts, who survived him with seven children. A memorial edition of Farrell's poems was published in 1904 with a memoir by Bertram Stevens under the title of My Sundowner and other Poems. This was re-issued in 1905 as How He Died and other Poems. The contents differ considerably from those of the 1887 volume with the same name.  "Farrell as a poet was a precursor of the Bulletin school of the nineties. Much of his work is no more than vigorous, unpolished popular verse, and Farrell had no illusions about it. His 'Australia to England', however, is an example of first rate occasional verse and contains more than one memorable phrase. He was an excellent journalist and a first-rate talker, much interested in political economy generally, and the single tax theory in particular. His attitude to life was sanely humorous. He was modest about his own work, thoroughly appreciative of the work of others, generous with his own time and money, and considerate and courteous to all; no literary man of his period was more beloved." Bertram Stevens, Memoir in My Sundowner and Other Poems; Sydney Morning Herald and Daily Telegraph, 9 January 1904   Source "Farrell found a good job at a brewery in Queanbeyan for a time and became something we might not have expected: a writer, a poet, a representative of that new literary movement that was taking shape in Australia as a vital expression of the new sense of Australian nationalism permeating the still separate colonies. Such nationalism found its expression above all in the Sydney Bulletin, for which Farrell wrote. Indeed he is credited with having written the first short story about Australian local life ("One Christmas Day") in 1884. By the late 1880s, still barely 40, he felt confident enough to move to Sydney as a wrtiter and journalist - and political activist. He accompanied Henry George on his tour throughout the Australian colonies and wrote extensively about it. His poems, stories and journalism continued throughout the rest of the decade until his death in 1904, aged 57." Source: Georgism in Australia    Henry George in the Book of Days From 'Australia to England' By John Farrell ... Red sins were yours: the avid greed  Of pirate fathers, smocked as Grace,  Sent Judas missioners to read  Christ's Word to many a feebler race –  False priests of Truth who made their tryst  At Mammon's shrine, and reft or slew –  Some hands you taught to pray to Christ  Have prayed His curse to rest on you!  Your way has been to pluck the blade  Too readily, and train the guns.  We here, apart and unafraid  Of envious foes, are but your sons:  We stretched a heedless hand to smutch  Our spotless flag with Murder's blight –  For one less sacrilegious touch  God's vengeance blasted Uzza white!  You vaunted most of forts and fleets,  And courage proved in battle-feasts,  The courage of the beast that eats  His torn and quivering fellow-beasts;  Your pride of deadliest armament –  What is it but the self-same dint  Of joy with which the Caveman bent  To shape a bloodier axe of flint? ... First printed as 'Ave Imperatrix' in the Daily Telegraph, Sydney, June 22, 1897, during the week of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee (June 20) Lawson & Co: associations with Henry and Louisa Lawson   1863 Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria (d. 1914). His assassination by Gavrilo Princip on June 28, 1914 in Sarajevo, Austrian-annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina, precipitated the Austrian declaration of war against Serbia, which triggered World War I. Franz Ferdinand was nephew of the Emperor Franz Josef I of Austria and next in line to the crown following the suicide of his cousin, Crown Prince Rudolph, at Mayerling (January 30, 1889) and the death of his father Karl Ludwig (May 19, 1896). Hungarian nationalists opposed his advocacy of universal male suffrage which would undermine Magyar domination in the Hungarian kingdom. Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Australia and USA The Archduke arrived in Sydney, Australia on May 17, 1893 on board the Austrian warship SMS Kaiserin Elisabeth on a world tour when he was 29. Within 24 hours of his arrival he left Sydney by train for Nyngan, a frontier town in the west of New South Wales, accompanied by Francis Bathurst Suttor, Member for Bathurst and Minister for Public Instruction in the Government of Sir George Dibbs, and Herr Alfred Pelldram, the German Consul-General. He spent most of his time in Australia hunting in the Nyngan and Narromine districts, but also travelled to Moss Vale in the Southern Highlands of NSW. An article in a Sydney newspaper in 1977 ('Sarajevo victim complained about barbecues', by James Prior, The Sun, July 20, 1977) says: "He kept a diary describing everything he did and saw. Some of his impressions were predictable – the beauty of Sydney Harbour, the friendliness of Australians, and the uniqueness of the wild life (although that did not prevent him and his party shooting it in large numbers). But he did single out for special mention the beauty of Sydney women and he found it noteworthy that Australians who had been seriously affected by the economic crisis and the collapse of the banks were still able to joke about it. At an official ball in Sydney he and the officers of the Kaiser Elisabeth [sic] introduced and demonstrated the Cotillion dance and he was pleased to note that it met with great enthusiasm. He intensely disliked the barbecues organised for his hunting trips and commented on the 'half-cooked meat burned on an open fire.' He also considered the practice of ring-barking trees in order to clear the forest 'wasteful' and was astonished at the 'swiftness and endurance' of Australian horses ... After leaving Sydney, the Kaiser Elisabeth [sic] made some brief calls on the east coast then sailed to New Caledonia, the Solomon Islands and New Guinea, eventually arriving in Japan. From there the Archduke travelled to the United States on a British ship. The Americans he found 'were virtual supermen in dealing with nature,' but he didn't think much of their attitude to the poor. 'They seem to think that no arrangements for the relief of the poor are needed in their land of freedom,' he wrote. 'The almighty dollar reigns supreme and, as for the working classes, their freedom means freedom to starve.'" Lawson & Co: associations with Henry and Louisa Lawson (no, there's no record that the archduke met the poet or suffragette, and it is unlikely that he did, but Lawson passed through Nyngan in June, 1893 around the time Franz Ferdinand was in that remote district.)   1870 Saki (HH Munro), Burmese-born British humorist (The Unbearable Bassington) and master of the short story who died in battle in France in 1916 1879 Paul Klee (d. 1940), Swiss painter and etcher, born at Munchen-Buchesee, Switzerland 1911 Jules Dassin, American film director (Rififi; The Naked City) 1913 Willy Brandt (d. 1992), German Chancellor, 1969-74 1916 Betty Grable (d. 1973), actress, American actress and World War II pin-up girl 1927 Ramsey Clark, US Attorney General during Lyndon Johnson's presidency 1939 Michael Moorcock, science fiction author 1943 Keith Richards, British guitarist, singer and songwriter (The Rolling Stones) 1943 Bobby Keys, American saxophone player who has played in concerts and/or on albums by Chuck Berry, Eric Clapton, Joe Cocker, Sheryl Crow, Donovan, George Harrison, Buddy Holly, BB King, John Lennon, Keith Moon, Harry Nilsson, The Rolling Stones, Carly Simon, Ringo Starr, Barbra Steisand, The Who, and many other famous acts Wilson's Almanac Book of Days hip list 1946 Steven Spielberg, American film director (Jaws; ET; Schindler's List) 1946 Steve Biko, South African/Azanian anti-apartheid activist; leader of the Black Consciousness Movement; murdered in a lockup by South African police in 1977 1950 Leonard Maltin, American movie critic 1950 Gillian Armstrong, Australian film director 1951 Andy Thomas (Andrew SW Thomas; b. in Adelaide, South Australia), American astronaut working for NASA. Three