Santa Claus Is Coming To Town

By Darlene Mitchell December 20, 2017 April 21, 2020 Distractions

Our image of Santa is pretty much the result of an effective advertising campaign. Santa Claus wasn’t always a rotund omniscient gift-giver who circumvents the world on December 25th propelled by flying reindeer, assisted by an army of adorable elves. The Santa we know today, a jolly man in a red suit and full white beard was the vision of Haddon Sundblom. Sundblom was commissioned in 1930 to develop advertising images for Coca-Cola to use during the next Christmas season. Sundblom used the 1822 classic poem “A Visit From St. Nick” by Clement Clark Moore as his inspiration for his new image of Santa Claus. Previous images of St. Nicholas had ranged from a tall gaunt religious man to a tiny elf creature. Moore and Sundblom together created the image of our Santa as a warm, friendly, pleasantly plump humanoid.

The historical basis of Santa Claus is St. Nicholas. St. Nicholas was the renowned Bishop of Myra-a Roman town near Demire, Turkey, around 300 A.D. St. Nicholas even before he was appointed Bishop was known for his generosity. A well told story was one in which he came to the assistance of a poor man who could not afford a proper dowry to marry off his three daughters. In those times, it would mean that the daughters would remain unmarried, making it likely they’d be forced into prostitution. St. Nicholas wanted to spare the family any embarrassment yet wanting to help, he traveled to the man’s house in the dark of night, and threw three purses filled with gold coins through the peasant’s window.

After St. Nicholas died he became a beloved patron saint, but during the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century, the importance of Catholic saints was rejected and St. Nicholas’ popularity dwindled across Europe. However, in the Netherlands he remained popular, living on as a mythical figure, known as Sinterklass, who went from house to house on the eve of St. Nicholas’s name day, December 5th, leaving treats and gifts for children. Sinterklaas traditionally wore red bishop’s clothes and employed elves, and he traveled with horses that could walk across rooftops.

When the Dutch emigrated in droves to America during the 17th and 18th centuries, they brought the kindly St. Nick to the new colonies, but it wasn’t until the 1930’s that Coke and Sundblom introduced today’s version of the beloved winter visitor.

Merry Christmas.

Calamity Politics is a Progressive on-line news magazine featuring news of the day accompanied by comment and opinion.

Dar

Part VII: Behind The Curtain

By Darlene Mitchell October 14, 2017 April 21, 2020 Donald J. Trump, President, Donald Trump, Jr., Eric Trump, Ethics, Rex Tillerson, Scandals

Part VII: Behind The Curtain

D. S. Mitchell

At the end of Part VI it was January 11th and Donald Trump was holding his first press conference since his Electoral College win. Trump stood to one side of the stage, flanked by Donald Jr 39, Ivanka 35, and Eric 33, listening to his tax attorney, Sheri Dillon explain to the audience of reporters and staff, the changes that were being made to the Trump Organization.

The stage with a center podium was decorated with solemn dark blue drapes and a row of American flags with long gold tassels giving the event a sober tone. On a black shrouded table, to the left of where Dillon stood at the podium, were stacks of manila folders. The stacks were impressively high. Pointing to the stacks of folders, Dillon claimed they were filled with 1000’s of documents proving that Trump was re-arranging his empire to satisfy the growing chorus of critics.

Dillon claimed the Trump “business empire” was “massive”. She emphasized massive several times. A couple of times Dillon tried to draw a correlation between Trump and former Vice President, Nelson Rockefeller as she talked about the changes being made at the Trump Organization. Evidently, she did not know that Rockefeller had released his tax returns and later offered to place his sizeable assets in a blind trust. Neither of which Trump has offered to do.

“The plan” was, according to Dillon, to put the Trump Organization into a trust to be managed by his sons and a long time executive. She emphasized that there would be no more foreign deals, an ethics advisor would be chosen and lastly, Donald Trump would have no involvement in the business. It quickly became clear that Trump was not going to sell his business or put those assets in a blind trust, or release his tax returns.

Part VII: Behind The Curtain

D. S. Mitchell

“I will not allow my life’s light to be determined by the darkness that surrounds me.” Sojourner Truth

“No god would want a child killed in his name.” D.S. Mitchell 2023

“If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.” Booker T. Washington

www.chasingthespider.com

Chasing The Spider by D.S. Mitchell

“I want to disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed.” Arthur Ashe

“If people stopped searching for things that offended them and started looking for things that inspired them; what a wonderful world this would be.” Night Owl

“Worry is a waste of valuable time.” D. S. Mitchell 2015

“My favorite old car had no reverse gear. It taught me I could only go forward.” Flavia

“The rain falls because the cloud can no longer handle the weight. The tears fall because the heart can no longer handle the pain.” The Wise You

“Education is the most powerful weapon which we can use to change the world.” Nelson Mandela

“My art is my heart.” D. S. Mitchell 2015

“Sometimes when challenged we find out we are capable of the unthinkable.” D. S. Mitchell 2022

“I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret between the shadow and soul.” Pablo Neruda

“If now isn’t a good time for the truth I don’t see when we’ll get to it.” Nikki Giovanni

“Let my old days be my best days,” Cousin Lucille

“Everything happens for a reason. Sometimes the reason is that you are stupid and make bad decisions.” Your mother

“Surround yourself with those on the same mission as you.” Anonymous

“I wonder, if you were blind, lost and confused, would you care what color the offered hand?” D. S. Mitchell 2015

“The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.” Christian Grey

“Love life and life will love you back. Love people and they will love you back.” Arthur Rubenstein

“To be happy and contented, count your blessings, not your cash.” Chinese Proverb

RIP RBG

“Studying American politics has taught me several disgusting lessons, the first being, money buys friends in Congress. That alone should terrify the American public.” D. S. Mitchell 2021

“Those who think they can control the mob are fools and are often the victims of their own incitement.” D.S. Mitchell 2021

“The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true. So I elect for neither label.” – James Branch Cabell

“I don’t need to attend every argument I’m invited to.” Unknown

“Voting is like a prayer.” Raphael Warnock 2021

Smile

“We are all valuable. The problem is not everyone is smart enough to realize it.” D. S. Mitchell 2021

“Outer beauty attracts but inner beauty captivates.” Kate Angell

“Dimming the lights will not hide the social injustice in America.” D. S. Mitchell 2017

“Silence in front of savagery is savagery itself.” Abhijit Naskar

“We can never be too busy to be kind.” D. S. Mitchell 2017

“We only fail when we fail to try.” Rosa Parks

“Every moment is a fresh beginning.” T. S. Eliot

“Every lie is like stepping in a quicksand pit. Every lie as dangerous, as telling the truth.” D. S. Mitchell 2020

“Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes.” Charles Dickens

“Thoughtful people are slow to anger, not necessarily less efficient in their killing.” D. S. Mitchell 2019

“Endings are not always bad. Most times they’re just beginnings in disguise.” Kim Harrison

“The United States like so many countries around the world has chosen to give to the few and deny the many.” D.S. Mitchell 2020

“It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. This is true, its called life.” Terry Pratchett

“Law without humanity is injustice.” D. S. Mitchell 2020

“When people start acting as though the past is the same as the present and context doesn’t matter, things start to get dangerous.” Trevor K. McNeil 2020

“Pardoning the Bad, is injuring the Good.” – Benjamin Franklin

“In no instance have… the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people.” James Madison

“Anger helps straighten out a problem like a fan helps straighten out a pile of papers.” Susan Marcotte

“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” Winston Churchill

“Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.” ― Bruce Lee

“A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward.” Franklin D. Roosevelt

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.” Franklin D. Roosevelt

“I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.” Thomas Jefferson

“The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.” Albert Einstein

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

“The 7 Social Sins are: Wealth without Work; Pleasure without Conscience; Knowledge without Character; Commerce without Morality; Science without Humanity; Worship without Sacrifice; Politics without Principle.” Frederick Lewis Donaldson

“Trickle down economics is like having three dogs and giving one of them a hot dog, and thinking he’ll share.” Bill Maher

“All evils are equal when they are extreme.”-Pierre Corneille

“Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.” John F. Kennedy

“People without vaginas shouldn’t be able to regulate them.” Unknown

“Let’s just remember that social security is not the government’s money, it belongs to the people who had it taken out of the checks involuntarily their entire working lives.” Mike Huckabee

“Be sure to put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.” Abraham Lincoln

“I have insecurities of course, but I don’t hang out with anyone who points them out to me.” ADELE

“I have been far oftener discriminated against because I am a woman than because I am black.” Shirley Chisholm 5/21/1969

“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” John Kenneth Galbraith

“Too bad that all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxicabs and cutting hair.” ― George Burns

“What this country needs is more unemployed politicians.” Edward Langley, artist

“The turning points of lives are not the great moments. The real crises are often concealed in occurrences so trivial in appearance that they pass unobserved.” ― George Washington

“Our task must be to free ourselves… by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and it’s beauty.” ― Albert Einstein

“So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.” ― Kurt Vonnegut

“A politician thinks of the next election – a statesman of the next generation.” – James Freeman Clarke

“Imagination is the bridge between the things we know for sure, and the things we need to believe, when our world becomes unbearable.” Staceyann Chin

“Freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit political convenience. I don’t believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others.” Coretta Scott King

“Inspiration descends only in flashes to clothe circumstances; it is not stored up in a barrel, like salt herrings to be doled out.”Patrick White

“Without music, life would be a mistake.” Friedrich Nietzsche

“Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change the locks.” Doug Larson

“When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw.” ― Nelson Mandela

“Pretty comes in all sizes. My size is cute.” Honey Boo Boo, reality TV star

“If you can’t be a poet, be a poem.” David Carradine