The Ancient of Days, fresco in Ubisi, Georgia, 14th century
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COLD FIRES
My last Christmas Eve in Warsaw —
the gray, uncertain day
dying into the early dark.
We wait for the first star, then light
the twelve skinny candles on the tree
and break the wishing wafer.
Holding a jagged shard of a wish,
mother intones: “Health and success,
fulfillment of all dreams.”
Kissing on both cheeks,
we break the wafer each with each.
So begins Wigilia,
the supper of Christmas Eve.
The number of the dishes
has to be odd: spicy red borscht
with uszka, “little ears” —
pierogi with cabbage and wild mushrooms
soaked back to dark flesh
from the pungent wreaths;
and poppy-seed cake.
Father counts: “If it doesn’t
come out right, we can always
include tea.”
He drops a pierog
on the starched tablecloth.
I stifle laughter as he picks it up
solemnly like a communion host.
On the fragrant, flammable tree,
angel-hair trembles in silver drafts.
We turn off the electric lights.
Now only candles in the dusky hush.
Father sets a match
to the “cold fires.” Icy starbursts hiss
over the staggered pyramid of gifts:
slippers and scarves, a warm skirt,
socks and more socks,
a book I will not finish.
We no longer sing carols,
mother playing the piano —
the piano sold by then,
a TV set in its place.
Later, unusual for a Christmas Eve,
we go for a walk. The streets
are empty; a few passers-by
like grainy figures in an old movie.
It begins to snow.
I never saw such tenderness —
snowflakes like moths of light
soothing the bare branches,
glimmering across
hazy halos of street lamps.
Each weightless as a wish,
snowflakes kiss our cheeks.
They settle on the benches and railings,
on the square roofs of kiosks,
on the finally forgiven city.
~ Oriana
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Marcel Proust on Christmas:
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WHO WERE THE MAGI?
There were no Magi.
There was no “virgin birth.”
There is nothing to reconstruct.
Herod had been dead for ten years at the time of the census mentioned in the gospel of Luke.
Did god allow Herod to resurrect in order to mass-murder babies, or is the entire story a badly-told myth?
Obviously, the “virgin birth” narrative in the gospel of Matthew was a badly-told fairy tale.
There is nothing to believe, nothing to reconstruct.
No other author of the new testament knew anything about the Magi, or the long-dead Herod resurrecting to attempt to murder the baby Jesus, or the “flight into Egypt.”
The author of Matthew made the whole thing up, in his attempt to portray Jesus as a new and improved Moses. ~ Michael Burch, Quora
Oriana:
If we follow historians, and above all common sense, Michael is right: there were no Magi (a Magus was, originally, a hereditary priest of Zoroaster; later, primarily, an astrologer.) And yes, the authors of the Gospels wanted to fit their story into the already existent Jewish mythology and the Jewish religious calendar. Later the Church managed to hijack the existing pagan holidays such as the Winter Solstice; the worship of the Sun had to give way to a new god, a Savior born in a manger (to choose just one of the colorful details we come to love if we first learn the story as children).
But humans need stories, especially those that touch the heart and give hope. Dickens knew that; modern movie-makers know that (there need not be a literal “happy ending” as long as we can discern an overall positive message).
Fully understanding that we are talking about myth, and not history, we can still enjoy all the details of the Christmas story (children especially enjoy the part about the animals; Jungians think it makes certain special sense that a divine child should be born surrounded by animals). Belief is not a requirement, and Christmas cards showing both snow and camels (the Magi traveled by camel) are not criticized as historically incorrect. Of course northern cultures would eventually modify the story to include snow and reindeer (once a song popularized reindeer; in the US, camels clearly lost to reindeer).
I remember how disappointed we were as children when the nature of the gifts of the Magi was revealed: gold, incense, and myrrh. Only gold made sense to us. A proto-capitalist little boy in my religion class suggested that Joseph used the gold to finance the flight into Egypt. We rejoiced: finally something in religion that made sense!
This was long before the internet and the ability to instantly look up information. "Myrrh" remained a profound mystery.
What did bother me — but only later, in adulthood, even though I no longer believed — was that the census was obviously fake. Yes, there was a census of Quirinius in 6 CE, but no census ever requires anyone to return to their home town. And it can be a little absurdity of this kind — never mind the huge absurdity of the three Magi (usually supposed to represent three different races: white, Asian, and African) traveling huge distances to bring expensive gifts to a village carpenter’s newborn son — all the bizarre details that relentlessly point out the made-up nature of the story.
My one complaint is that the gifts aren't symbolic enough, at least in modern times. In stories like that, across all religious traditions, every detail needs to be heavily symbolic.
But ultimately it’s not historical truth that matters, but what people believe. The birth of a child, any child, is a new beginning, a symbol of hope.
Three Kings (an alternate version of the Three Magi) being instructed by an angel as they sleep. Note the Star of Bethlehem.
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AT WHAT POINT DOES THE SANTA MYTH BECOME A DANGEROUS DECEPTION?
Towards the end of every year, many parents find themselves fielding difficult questions, such as: how does a man fly across the entire world in a single night to deliver presents? How does he fit down a chimney? Does he really eat cookies at every house?
Children start to distinguish fantasy from reality around preschool, but a belief in Santa Claus or Father Christmas usually lasts longer, to around seven or eight years old, according to research conducted in the United States in the 1980s and ’90s. This isn’t too surprising: many parents continue to tell their children that Santa is real for as long as possible, and they sometimes enact elaborate schemes to provide evidence of his existence.
But, inevitably, there comes a time when cracks in the Santa story start to appear. If you’re a parent, relative or teacher and you’re interacting with children at this stage of their belief in Santa, you might be wondering about the best way to respond – or what the loss of belief might be like for them.
In 2014, a mother wrote in to Slate’s advice column Dear Prudence, written by Emily Yoffe, with concern about how to break it to her child that Santa was made up. The mother thinks that, once her daughter is old enough to ask questions about Santa, she should be told directly. ‘I feel very dishonest about this and worry that our daughter would feel hurt by the extreme steps we took to keep her in the dark just so we could enjoy the innocence and magic for a little while longer,’ she wrote.
Yoffe responded that one of the ‘delights’ of childhood was to ‘spread a little fairy dust occasionally’ – but many readers subsequently wrote to the magazine describing how they had been hurt by believing in Santa well into puberty, because of how their parents had kept the myth alive.
Is it really possible that promoting the Santa myth to your children is a kind of harmful deception? To find out, a pair of psychologists, Candice Mills at the University of Texas at Dallas and Thalia Goldstein at George Mason University in Virginia, recently investigated how children and adults learned the truth about Santa, and how they felt about it.
For their paper in Developmental Psychology, they asked children aged six to 15 how they found out Santa wasn’t real, and the emotions they experienced afterwards. Then they asked 383 adults to remember how they came to disbelieve in Santa.
About a third of children and half of adults said they felt some negative emotions when they learned Santa wasn’t real. It was the child and adult participants whose parents had heavily pushed the Santa story who also tended to have more negative emotions upon learning the truth. The adults who remembered feeling the worst were at an older age when they learned about Santa, they tended to have found out abruptly, and from another person, rather than figuring it out on their own.
Yet a similar number of children, and around 13 per cent of adults, recalled experiencing positive emotions upon learning Santa wasn’t real. ‘Some said they were relieved that they finally had resolution to some of their nagging questions,’ Mills and Goldstein wrote in an essay for The New York Times in 2023. ‘Others reported pride, as if they’d solved a complicated puzzle.'
As well as the ethical aspects of exploding the Santa myth, understanding how and when children grow out of it offers a way to examine how children develop skepticism. According to Jean Piaget’s influential theory of cognitive development, when children are in a ‘preoperational stage’ and aged around four to eight, they can’t easily tell the difference between reality and fantasy. That ability emerges in the next stage – the ‘concrete operational stage’; in the 1970s, researchers suggested that losing the belief in Santa could mark a transition moment between these cognitive stages.
But back to the delicate issue of whether you should encourage or slow children’s understanding of the true nature of Santa Claus. ‘As developmental psychologists, we’ve long been interested in such questions, in part because they raise larger issues about the role of imaginative play in the life of a child and how parents might best engage with it,’ Mills and Goldstein wrote.
In their essay, Mills and Goldstein offered advice on how parents should talk about Santa with their children. If your children start asking probing questions, they said there is no need to tell them lies. ‘Consider answering by asking your child what she thinks, talking about what “some people” believe or simply acknowledging that she has asked an interesting question,’ they wrote. Even kids who are upset by suddenly finding out about Santa seem to get over it relatively quickly – usually within a year – and both children and adults said they would still incorporate Santa into their own holiday traditions.
‘Your child may have imaginary friends and believe in the Tooth Fairy – that’s OK,’ Mills and Goldstein wrote. ‘Blurring the line between fantasy and reality is a normal part of being a young kid.’
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From Trump's Truth Social:
Merry Christmas to all, including the many Sleazebags who loved Jeffrey Epstein, gave him bundles of money, went to his Island, attended his parties, and thought he was the greatest guy on earth, only to “drop him like a dog” when things got too HOT, falsely claimed they had nothing to do with him, didn’t know him, said he was a disgusting person, and then blame, of course, President Donald J. Trump, who was actually the only one who did drop Epstein, and long before it became fashionable to do so. When their names get brought out in the ongoing Radical Left Witch Hunt (plus one lowlife “Republican,” Massie!), and it is revealed that they are Democrats all, there will be a lot of explaining to do, much like there was when it was made public that the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax was a fictitious story — a total Scam —and had nothing to do with “TRUMP.” The Failing New York Times, among many others, was forced to apologize for their bad and faulty Election “Reporting,” even to the point of losing many subscribers due to their highly inaccurate (FAKE!) coverage. Now the same losers are at it again, only this time so many of their friends, mostly innocent, will be badly hurt and reputationally [sic] tarnished. But sadly, that’s the way it is in the World of Corrupt Democrat Politics!!! Enjoy what may be your last Merry Christmas! President Donald J. Trump
Dec 25, 2025, 3:51 PM
Oriana:
One of the characteristic features of dementia is repeating oneself: the same phrases, the same stories, the same insults. And ending on a threat — "Enjoy what may be your last Merry Christmas!" — is also a typical manipulation, trying to control people through fear. Only I stand between the paradise of the holidays and sheer hell, the misery you'd be experiencing with someone else as president, Trump seems to imply.
The negativity of this Christmas message stands in hellish contrast to the loving-kindness spirit of Christmas.
Most characteristically Trumpian is the beginning of what is supposed to be a jovial holiday greeting: "Merry Christmas to all, including the many Sleazebags who loved Jeffrey Epstein." Always attack, attack, attack. Anything for the delusion of strength. Again I'm reminded of Michael Wolff's story of how, back in 2016) he asked Trump why he was running for President. Without a moment's hesitation, Trump replied, "Because I want to be the most famous man in the world."
And he wants that fame NOW, not "in the eyes of history." If we believe Michael Wolff and others who know Trump closely, Trump truly lives in the here and now. He doesn't care how history will judge him. He has zero interest in posterity. When he's judged as the worst president in the US history (check your social media), he simply rejects that label and go into denial. He is the master of denial. I can imagine his tombstone: "No, I'm not dead. That's fake news made up by the Democrats." And of course there'll be posthumous sightings of Donald, as happens when deluded fans make someone their messiah.
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HOW PUTIN HAS DAMAGED RUSSIA
Putin has effectively rendered Russia irrelevant on the world stage. In the years to come, no one will care what Russia thinks.
Putin’s terrible, unforced error in attacking Ukraine was bad enough. Then he followed that by attempting to weaponize Russia’s primary export—fossil fuels—and cause Europe to freeze during the winter. You don’t take risks with your cash cow, but that’s exactly what Putin did.
What followed was an unprecedented European shift away from Russian energy. At first, Russians laughed because Europe stocked up on Russian oil and gas prior to the winter. They thought Europe would fund Russia’s invasion indefinitely, and they thought it all hilarious.
That’s when Europe pulled the rug out, and developed LNG processing terminals faster than anyone ever imagined possible, especially Putin. Now, Russia is dependent on oil and gas sales to China and India, who are buying at bargain basement prices. Russia is barely covering the cost of production/shipping, and sometimes losing money. Far from being worried that Russia is selling to China and India, the West hopes this trend continues. With Russian oil still moving, it keeps the oil prices low, furthering ensuring Russia’s economic doom.
Russia’s military has been revealed as a stumbling drunk, and Russia’s already stunted economy is doomed to shrink into insignificance.
Perhaps one day, many years later, Russia might rebound as a cheap tourist destination.
Russia’s greatest contribution to the world might be ethnic dancers performing traditional dances for tourists, and hoping for an odd coin or two tossed their way…by the wealthy tourists from nations—like Ukraine—that actually matter. ~ Eric Wiklung, Quora
HOW PUTIN EXPLAINS RUSSIAN SETBACKS IN UKRAINE (Dima Vorobiev, a Russian patriot living abroad)
“Setbacks”? In Ukraine?
Absolutely not.
President Putin thinks that the SMO is proceeding just fine. In other words, “setbacks” in our minds are really just smart parts in his grand plan to “demilitarize” and “de-Nazify” Ukraine.
Also, talking about setbacks (or God forbid, “failures”) weakens the battle spirit.
This, like any attempt to argue with President Putin’s plans for Ukraine, may easily bring you a lengthy prison term. Why would anyone want that?
There are a few brave souls on the margins of public discussion in Russia. Telegram and suchlike. That’s where the "Z-bloggers" scream into the void between bouts of (unfounded) panic. A recurring theme is the solidarity of Europeans in backing Ukraine.
At first glance, this dovetails nicely with President Putin’s claim that NATO is part of the ongoing war.
But the claim is very risky nonetheless. The SMO was preceded by Russia’s ultimatum to the West just a few weeks before the fireworks started. This fact brings you dangerously close to the claim that our President was stupid in his assumption that NATO remains indifferent to our threats. (This is why our President doesn’t like to talk about it much.)
Don’t do that. We don’t.
The "Satanic" Pivot
Instead, we use the “Satanism” line of argument. Much publicity these days.
The math is simple, even for the rubes: Neo-Nazism + Liberalism = The Literal Antichrist.
This way, the SMO is a Holy War.
Once you frame the SMO as a cage match against Satan, the "setbacks" stop being incompetence and failures. There are no “setbacks” in a holy war. Only trials and tribulations. True believers take that on the chin.
We’re the "Army of God," which means we have to fight with "clean hands." Don’t blame deaths and misery on us. If a city is in ruins, that’s just the Ukrainians "Sataning" themselves.
The Army of God
Here’s the good news.
We’re the army of the Orthodox God. We have several things going for us.
One is the spiritual might of our Holy Church. It has chaplains serving our soldiers in the line of fire. Weekly sermons for Russia’s victory are a must, as are the silent prayers of the soldiers’ families. Tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of tiny religious icons sit in the soldiers’ pockets. Along with crosses on their chests, they protect them from the Satanic Ukrainian drones and NATO’s Himars.
Ukrainian trickery
However, metaphysics is never simple.
The magic power of Orthodox amulets and spells seems to be sabotaged by the Christian notion of idolatry and doubt about God’s armor alone (Ezekiel 13:20). The Ukrainians still have a few trump cards. Godless as they are, they act unencumbered by Biblical truths.
From the pre-modern times, they were known for battle sorcery far superior to ours.
Dungeons & Dragons in Bloodlands
Starting from the medieval Cossack era, rumors go of their warrior-sorcerers called Kharakternyky. This is the "high-end" of battle sorcery. These guys catch bullets with their bare hands or their shirts. Must be a blessing not to have to wear bulletproof vests in summer heat and cramped hideouts.
Also, Kharakternyky can see for miles across the steppe using "magic mirrors" (likely early telescopes or bowls of water). Some of them turn into wolves (vovkulaky) to scout enemy camps. Thank God we’ve got surveillance drones to counter that!
They also know how to remain underwater for hours using reeds to breathe. How do you think they managed to blow up the dam that fed water to Crimea while the dam was under our control?
“Russia stands for truth”— a patriotic World War I poster
Russia is the athletic lady with the Frankish sword and shield, donning an Arabian helmet. The double-headed dragon she tramples has the facial hair of the Austrian Emperor and the German Emperor. Depicting Russia as a sassy female was a French import, after the Third Republic trademarked Marianne as its national brand.
The poster was published early in WW1 when defeating the Central Powers looked like a cakewalk. Hence, the defeat of the satanic Teutonic dragon is depicted as a mission accomplished. The SMO in Ukraine has now lasted longer than WW1 (we logged out half a year earlier), so you may see more than one parallel there.
Charles T Goolsby:
Some time soon the SMO will exceed the Great Patriotic War in terms of time.
The Soviet Union was split into a dozen fascist oligarchies and that is still all they are. A dozen fascist oligarchies full of pogroms, civil wars, and cartels.
None of you will have dignity ever again so long as the great Soviet people are ruled by so many petty thieves, religious extremists, and ethno-nationalist cosplayers.
Oriana:
The “great Soviet people”? I was always amused by this kind of nationalist bragging (including the motto "The Soviet Union is the most democratic country in the world"), so familiar to me from childhood through high school. Of course there is no shortage of nationalism in the US, but Putin made Russian nationalism especially murderous. Of course there is a long tradition of nationalist boasting and entitlement typical of countries that can be described as empires or former empires. “The bigger they are, the harder they fall.” And the most relevant saying: “Pride goes before a fall.”
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WHEN THE WAR WITH UKRAINE ENDS . . .
I have spent a lot of time interviewing experts on Ukraine, people who have been to the front lines. I have spoken to former CIA analysts who have known Putin and Russia for decades. I just finished a pod with Fiona Hill who is scathing in her criticism of Trump and what he is doing to destroy the USA and as she puts it, PAX AMERICANA is over.
Yes, the only way the Russian Ukraine war ends is if Putin leaves. One way or the other the consensus is clear, Putin will have to leave before any of this is over.
While Trump is ready, willing and wants the US to retreat and become a regional power, not everyone agrees with that analysis. On Episodes 40 and 41 we interview, CHRISTOPHER FUSSNER who is one of the most knowledgeable Republicans and Security analysts in the world. If you want detail on what is really going on in the world, far better than Fiona Hill or John Bolton who he calls his friend, then listen to Mr Fussner.
None of those interviewed want to say it. I am not sure why but it all comes down to Putin has to go.
Why?
Trump has the US moving away from Europe, everyone now gets it.
Europe is filling the gap with money but not troops. No one feels Europe will put boots on the ground, at least not now.
Everyone agrees, besides Trump and his acolyte Orban, that Putin has not just attacked Ukraine, but he has attacked Europe.
Everyone agrees including the Europeans that they have sat on their asses all the way back to the 1960’s when Kennedy (you know the guy who used to have a Performing Arts Center solely named in memoriam for him) and LBJ pushed Europe to begin to defend themselves. They refused.
Instead Europe played with everyone and enjoyed a free ride. It is over and will never come back. Fiona Hill states. While expected, it is sad that that it has taken Europe so long to wake up.
Europe has around 500 million people and in aggregate the largest economic block in the world. They can and will fund Ukraine, so that idea of Putin starving or beating Ukraine into submission has flown. Not gonna happen.
Ukraine is resilient and Trump cannot give anything away that Ukraine doesn’t want to. In fact, Ukraine is now settling into the fact that they have lost parts of the East and will fix the battle lines and carry on a war of attrition with Russia which Russia is losing. As in also 1/3 of the Black Sea fleet.
Russian dependency on China is more and more. Russia will get more drones from Iran until there is regime change there via Israel.
Trump will never change in his feelings and support of Putin. He wants the world split into 3 spheres which we have mentioned over and over. Putin gets Europe but the Europeans are finally awake and will block him forever.
SO WHAT HAPPENS?
People will die, a lot more people. There will be no cease fire because now Ukraine doesn’t have to accept it with the Euro loans and defense equipment and Trump cannot make them. Within 1 or 2 years max, the war will be completely run by the Europeans.
Europeans will sadly allow Ukrainians to die, they will not allow direct conflict anywhere else. Russia is already attacking everywhere on cyber and other incursions. Trump is helping Russia by ending Cyberattacks on Russia.
TRUMP IS IN EFFECT A RUSSIAN PLANT
Every neutral analyst says this. Only Republicans disagree.
Trump doesn’t listen to anyone and has eliminated all experts so he gets no real truthful information any longer on Russia.
Putin is realizing he cannot get Trump to pressure Zelensky as the Euros have stepped up.
DO YOU SEE WHERE THIS IS GOING?
Round and round that is where. Europeans no longer are allies of the USA, they are increasingly independent. NATO is no longer critical, Article 5 is dead as Putin will not attack a NATO country.
With what? Other than Nukes, Putin has nothing to scare Europe.
MORE IMPORTANTLY WITH THE END OF THE US NUCLEAR GUARANTEE AND UMBRELLA THERE WILL BE MANY MORE NUCLEAR COUNTRIES IN THE FUTURE. TRUMP HAS ALL BUT GUARANTEED THIS TO HAPPEN.
You take it however you want to. The analysts who will speak about it, off the record or not, all agree. Putin cannot stop: his entire life is focused on reconstituting the Russian Monarchy and Empire. Trump wants the same in the USA. Xi has it in China.
There are 3 things standing in the way of this happening.
2026 mid terms in the USA to slow down and stop Trump if Democrats win.
Europeans step up to support Ukraine.
Ukraine does not give in as according to everything I have heard, they will never give in as this is an existential life or death situation for the Ukrainian people. Maybe they will, but I don’t think so as they have proven they can stop Russia but they may be getting it into their heads that they cannot win back what they have lost.
BOTTOM LINE
At some point, someone will remove Putin. There is a mixed feeling that he can protect himself or not with his long tables and layers and layers of bodyguards and supporters.
Regardless, until he goes, this war will not end. ~ Henry R. Greenfield, Quora
Anthony Higham:
So an ideal scenario would be for internal Russian interests to remove Putin and in the ensuing political paralysis and uncertainty Israel remove the Ayatollah.
Mark Ruscak:
Why doesn't anyone state the obvious? Ukraine is fighting WW3. They quit, they die. They should be helped or actually do crazy foolish thing, like crush Moscow or St Petersburg.…which probably start the actual WW3.
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IS TRUMP LIKELY TO START A WAR?
In Congress, there is growing concern that Trump might start an unauthorized war. While he occasionally invokes the separation of powers cynically and without legal credibility in order to insulate himself from criticism—as when he claimed he couldn’t do anything about the separation of families at the border because Congress wouldn’t let him—Trump has no patience for consulting Congress even when it comes to areas, like the declaration of war, over which the Constitution gives the legislative branch significant power.
https://www.iiss.org/online-analysis/online-analysis/2018/10/my-button-works/
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“THE RUSSIAN QUESTION” — DIMA VOROBIEV
The Russian Question will linger, no matter what.
Total surrender by the West, with a dissolution of NATO and “business as before” after the Georgian “Ivanishvili doctrine”[extreme anti-West nationalism]? You still have the Poles and the Nordics, who will make waves no matter if the Germans fall back into the sweet dream of Wandel durch Handel ["Change through Trade"]. In a post-NATO Europe, the Brits, the Dutch, and the French will lurk not so far behind.
A DMZ along the battle lines? That’s “unfinished business” through our lens and a whole lot of internationally unrecognized borders through the Western lens. If borders may be changed by force, like Putin and Trump see fit, how can anyone have a good sleep at night?
Rolling Russia back to its 1991 borders? That’s a promise for a mighty Russian Reconquista any moment down the line.
The main factor is that after Feb ‘22, it became plain to see for everyone: Russia’s geopolitics is 100% internally driven.
No one, apart from acts of God and oil markets, can determine what Russia will define as its legitimate security interests. It’s blank space tomorrow, blank space 10–20 years from now.
You may have all kinds of treaties or alliances in Europe. But any future “Trump” or “Putin” in the Kremlin can turn it all around on a dime. Sooner than you say “de-Nazification.”
Oriana:
What a strange spectacle it’s been: Putin proclaiming the need to “de-Nazify” Ukraine, failing to see that he himself is a neo-Nazi, a wannna-be Hitler, and that Russia, starting with Ivan the Terrible and including the Soviet Union, has always been an autocratic, fascist country bent on grabbing as much land from its neighbors as possible.
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YULE STARTED WITH PAGAN GERMANIC TRADITIONS
A family at their Victorian-era Christmas dinner, circa 1840
On a chilly December night in Sandy Spring, Md., dozens of people crammed into the Woodlawn Manor for a Victorian-era Yuletide dance lesson, the wood floors creaking under the uncertain steps of 21st-century people learning 19th-century English country dances.
"Every good party has dancing," said Angela Yau, a historical interpreter for the parks department who was teaching the dances — and the Victorians loved a good Yuletide shindig.
The merriment was emblematic of how many think of Yule; today, it's synonymous with Christmas. But centuries ago, before crooners sang about carols being sung by a fire, Yule meant something different: a pagan mid-winter festival around the solstice, dating back to pre-Christian Germanic people.
It was particularly important to Scandinavian communities during that time of year, beset by late sunrises and early sunsets, according to Maren Johnson, a professor of Nordic studies at Luther College.
"All these kinds of winter traditions are tied very intricately into small communities," she said. "You develop between yourselves a folklore about this winter time and this period of darkness."
Feasting, drinking and animal sacrifices
Scholars of these early pagan festivals don't have much concrete evidence of what actually went on at them, according to Old Norse translator Jackson Crawford, because much of the written record comes much later from Christians. But what is clear, he said, was that feasting and drinking were abundant.
Terry Gunnell, a professor of folkloristics at the University of Iceland, agrees. Drinking copious amounts of ale was not only encouraged but required, he said, and animals were slaughtered as part of the sacrifices to gods and spirits typical of these early festivals.
"The snow is coming down the mountains and in a sense, the nature spirits are moving closer," he said — and people wanted to appease them.
And then, there was the oath-swearing. Crawford said this was one of the major hallmarks of early Yule celebrations as recorded in myths like The Saga of Hervör and Heidrek from the 13th century. In it, a man swears to the king of Sweden that he'll marry his daughter with no real prospects of doing so.
"But your oaths during Yule are kind of sacred, extra binding," he said. "So he has to try to fulfill it," even though he eventually gets killed.
Crawford thinks that this oath-swearing could be where the word "Yule" actually comes from. The earliest roots could come from Indo-European words for "speaking," he said, and then Germanic peoples came to use it for more judicial purposes like admitting, confessing or swearing.
There's other theories out there, though, the dominant one being that the word could come from the Old Norse word hjól, meaning "wheel" — as in the "wheel of the year" that keeps turning with the seasons, Gunnell said.
Yule gets co-opted into Christmas
Christianization of this part of Europe, however, changed how people celebrated Yule. The church began to align its own holidays with pagan celebrations, Gunnell said. Easter replaced the festival at the beginning of summer, for example, and St. John's Day replaced midsummer.
"And then we hear in Icelandic source material that [Yule] was replaced with Christmas," he said.
"So what the church is really doing is to allow people to go on doing what they had done before, but now under a Christian name," he added.
Around the 900s, Crawford said, Scandinavians started saying "Yule" and "Christmas" interchangeably.
"I think it suggests that, fundamentally, both of them are basically parties," he said.
That's not to say that Christmas was the exact same as the Yule celebrations of old. There was a new emphasis, Gunnell said, not so much on winter spirits but "a period of joy with the birth of Christ." But much of the feasting and drinking spirit of Yule stuck around — and became Christmas traditions throughout much of Europe.
Fast forward to the Victorian era, where the spirit of merriment became embedded in English culture, thanks to two important cultural influencers: Prince Albert, who imported traditional Yuletide customs popular in his native Germany, and Queen Victoria.
The queen fell in love with the traditions, Yau of the parks department said. And since she was a fashion icon, "These Christmas traditions really spread from the royal couple out through England and out through the colonies and everywhere else." And, as cultural customs are wont to do, the traditions morphed — creating, among other things, Santa Claus.
Still making sacrifices — just sweeter
Although slaughtering animals to please winter spirits is perhaps less typical of modern Yuletide celebrations, the spirit of sacrifice still remains, according to Gunnell.
That's particularly true in Scandinavian Christmas folklore. People leave out porridge for nisse and tomte, small trickster spirits who live in local forests, around the winter solstice in hopes of placating them or receiving gifts. (Though these days, Johnson said, many Scandinavians also celebrate the Julenisse, more of a Santa Claus figure.)
In Iceland, there's not really a Santa Claus figure at all, Gunnell said. Instead, there are the "Christmas Men," also known as the Yule lads. As the stories have told it, the mystic men – with names like "Window Peeper," "Sausage Swiper," "Bowl Licker" and "Meat Hook" — come one by one down from the mountains by your community, play pranks and steal things from homes. (To be fair to them, they'll also leave presents in windows for children.) On top of that, they have an ogress mother, Grýla, who eats misbehaving children "like sushi for Christmas," Gunnell said.
And although he doesn't swipe sausages or eat children, Santa Claus is not a completely dissimilar figure.
"The idea of sacrifices remains in leaving out a little bit of sherry or whiskey for Santa Claus and some food for the reindeer," Gunnell said.
It's something to consider the next time you leave out cookies and milk.
https://www.npr.org/2025/12/24/nx-s1-5643035/yule-christmas-word-origin
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Memory, our past, is not behind us but ahead because of how it shapes our decisions, which form our lives.
~ Carmen Giménez, https://lithub.com/beyond-memoir-a-roundtable-on-health-identity-and-the-invisible-injury-we-arent-talking-about/
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HOW WE THINK ABOUT HOW WE THINK
It’s late 1941, and seven-year old Daniel Kahneman has stayed at a friend’s house past curfew. Before he hurries home through the empty streets of Nazi-Occupied Paris, he turns his sweater inside out, hiding the yellow Star of David sewn to the front.
When a German soldier in an SS uniform spots him on the street, and beckons, Daniel is terrified he’ll make out the yellow star through his sweater. But instead of arresting him, the soldier picks him up and embraces him. After putting him down, the soldier speaks to him in German, and with great emotion, opens his wallet to show him a little boy, about his age. The weepy Nazi then hands him money from his wallet and sends him on his way.
That moment would shape the rest of Daniel Kahneman’s life.
As he’d say later, "I went home more certain than ever that my mother was right: people were endlessly complicated and interesting."
That moment of cognitive dissonance—the recognition that a Nazi soldier could be moved by paternal love even as he participated in the wholesale murder of other people’s children—planted the seed for one of the most revolutionary discoveries in modern psychology. The SS officer had made an associative error, seeing in Daniel’s face his own son rather than the Jewish child he was trained to despise. It was irrational, contradictory, and, as Kahneman would later understand, deeply human.
That childhood fascination with human contradiction eventually led Kahneman to psychology. After his family fled France in 1946, he studied at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and later earned his doctorate at Berkeley in 1961. By the late 1960s, he was back teaching at Hebrew University when a colleague named Amos Tversky gave a guest lecture in one of his seminars.
Tversky was everything Kahneman wasn't—a mathematical psychologist with an ego to match his brilliance. Where Kahneman was anxious, Tversky was confident. Where Kahneman was reserved, Tversky was charismatic. It could have gone either way, but when they started talking, something clicked. They began meeting to discuss their hunches about how people make judgments, and those conversations turned into one of the most productive collaborations in the history of psychology.
What they discovered changed everything: humans aren't rational. What we are is predictably and consistently irrational, in very specific ways. Our brains rely on mental shortcuts (called heuristics) to make quick decisions that often lead us to make the same kinds of errors over and over. For instance, if you ask people to judge how common something is they'll base it on how easily examples come to mind rather than actual statistics. These patterns are so reliable you can design experiments around them.
As Amos Tversky’s widow Barbara Tversky (who would later become Daniel Kahneman’s romantic partner), explained about their research: “People tend to see patterns and make connections that are not really there and to base decisions on that.”
Kahneman and Tversky ran experiments showing that even trained psychologists and statisticians made these mistakes when reasoning under uncertainty. We anchor our estimates to irrelevant numbers. We judge probability based on how easily examples come to mind. We see our small sample sizes as representative of larger patterns. They called these systematic mistakes cognitive biases and spent the 1970s cataloging them—anchoring bias, availability heuristic, representativeness heuristic, loss aversion.
Their 1974 paper in Science, "Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases," became one of the most cited works in psychology. They'd essentially founded behavioral economics—a field that challenged the core assumption underscoring economics (that people act rationally) and reshaped how we understand decision-making in everything from medicine to finance to public policy.
The book laid out his theory of two systems of thinking: System 1, fast and intuitive, and System 2, slow and deliberate. System 1 is where most of our cognitive biases live—quick, automatic, and frequently wrong.
thinking fast and slow.webp
By then, the research he and Tversky had started had spawned hundreds of identified cognitive biases.
Tversky died of cancer in 1996, at just 59. Six years later, Kahneman won the Nobel Prize in Economics. (Nobel Prizes aren't awarded posthumously, but Kahneman always insisted it was a joint prize.) In 2011, Kahneman published Thinking, Fast and Slow, which became an international bestseller and introduced their research to millions of readers.
https://www.thehowtolivenewsletter.org/p/cognitivebias
Chery Young:
Humans aren't rational beings but rationalizing beings. We rationalize, create a story around, our prejudicial beliefs.
Mary Trot:
Rreligion, explained
Addendum:
Daniel Kahneman was born in Tel Aviv, in the British Mandate of Palestine (now Israel), on March 5, 1934 while his mother Rachel (née Shenzon) was visiting her family. His parents were Lithuanian Jews who had emigrated to France in the early 1920s; his paternal uncle was Rabbi Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman, the head of the Ponevezh Yeshiva. He spent his childhood years in Paris. Kahneman and his family were in Paris when it was occupied by Nazi Germany in 1940. ~ Wikipedia
Famous quotes by Daniel Kahneman (1934 - 2024)
“We can be blind to the obvious, and we are also blind to our blindness.”
“Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.”
“Success = talent + luck; great success = a little more talent + a lot of luck.”
“A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth.”
“The illusion that we understand the past fosters overconfidence in our ability to predict the future.”
“The world in our heads is not a precise replica of reality; our expectations about the frequency of events are distorted by the prevalence and emotional intensity of the messages to which we are exposed.”
“The confidence people have in their beliefs is not a measure of the quality of evidence but of the coherence of the story the mind has managed to construct.”
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SAINT PAUL: A FALSE PROPHET?
Paul is not popular in Christendom for two reasons.
The first is that he is very direct, and condemns practices galore the church openly preaches and engages in itself. The second is because he was a zealous evangelist who went to the people, rather than sitting in a gilded palace pontificating and expecting them to come groveling on their knees to him.
Both Paul's words and example show up the churches as hypocritical in the extreme, and so while they might pay lip service to him, in reality he's quietly pushed aside or even overly shunned in favor of uninspired dogma and the philosophy-inflected writings of apostates.
Whenever I've heard or read criticism of Paul it is always because Paul's epistles condemn something the individual in question is doing or believes. There's been something of a resurgence in Pauline criticism following the bizarre phenomenon of liberal/progressive “Christianity”, which simply doesn't mesh with Paul's frankly extraordinarily blunt and explicit inspired proscribing of practices common and popular today, but forbidden by God.
I have never seen mental gymnastics like those which accompany people trying to make out that God is cool with whatever is their particular brand of sexual immorality, usually by attempting to trash the Apostle Paul. 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 10 alone disqualifies the majority of nominal Christians today. ~ Marc Lawrence, Quora
Ascended Master:
They don't like him because they think he's against same sex sex. so if they take what is in the Bible literally from him, it makes them feel that they are condemned, that they are doing something that God doesn't want, and therefore they can't really join in. That's their issue. and so the approach is to attempt to delegitimize Paul and separate him out as an imbecile who didn't understand what Jesus was saying.
Robert M. Ward:
All those who don’t like any authority but their own tend to be antagonistically anti Christian.
Edward S:
A better interpretation, consistent with Paul’s own life as related in his letters and Acts, is that someone who sincerely converts can be expected to behave very differently than from before the conversion.
The things that are held to be good things in this world and and this life would be devalued in the eyes of those who can see clearly.
William Schlesinger:
One of the aspects not mentioned here was Paul’s own separation of his personal views from what he considered to be the ‘gospel.’ He was highly critical of other church leaders particularly about the issue of circumcision; traditional behavioral values simply did not apply to the ‘new creation.’
Paul has a clear role Augustine’s comment, “Love God and do as you please.’
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GOOD ECOLOGICAL NEWS IN 2025
This year's environmental backdrop is familiar: emissions are rising and nature is continuing to decline. But there have nevertheless been bright spots in 2025. Targeted action in clean energy, conservation and indigenous rights have led to some tangible positive results for the climate and nature.
These quiet breakthroughs can sometimes go unheard amidst the noise of the news cycle. So, from dramatic growth in renewable power to the return of endangered turtles and tigers, the BBC revisits seven milestones reached in 2025.
Surging renewables
Wind, solar and other renewable power sources overtook coal as the world's leading source of electricity this year. The global growth in renewables is driven by China, which is massively expanding its clean energy output and dominating exports of clean-energy technologies. In addition to huge growth in solar, China is even harnessing the power of extreme storms with typhoon-resistant wind farms.
Other countries have also seen striking advances thanks to wind. In the UK, a 2025 review found that wind had become the largest single energy source the previous year, covering about one-third of demand, while coal has practically disappeared as a power source. The UK is also making strides in how to store clean energy when the wind isn't blowing (or the Sun isn't shining) by starting to build the world's largest liquid-air-battery storage facility in the north of the UK.
Globally, the rate of growth in renewable power capacity is accelerating in more than 80% of countries. By 2030, overall renewable power capacity is on track to double compared to today's levels, according to the International Energy Agency.
wind turbines
The world is rapidly expanding its capacity for clean energy
Much of that growth is down to China. As a result of its clean energy drive, China saw CO2 emissions fall this year for the first time, according to an analysis for Carbon Brief, with its emissions in decline in the 12 months up to May 2025. While it's still early days, it indicates that the country's emissions may be peaking – and the trend did appear to hold into the latter part of the year, according to a second Carbon Brief analysis.
China also updated its pledge for reducing emissions, although many other nations failed to submit their new pledges before the UN climate talks.
Still, overall, the world's surge in clean energy, driven by China, is creating conditions for a global peak and decline in energy-related fossil fuel use, according to a report by the global energy think tank Ember. Though clean energy growth is rapid and accelerating, it is not fast enough to avoid dangerous levels of climate change.
Ocean protections
The high seas, waters beyond national jurisdictions, make up nearly two-thirds of the world's oceans. Currently, just 1% of this vast area is protected – but that is about to change. After decades of negotiations, a global agreement to protect the high seas was at last agreed in 2023, and in September 2025 it was ratified by enough countries to bring it into force.
This High Seas Treaty pledges to put 30% of these waters into Marine Protected Areas (MPA): parts of the ocean dedicated to the protection of habitats, species and healthy marine ecosystems.
The oceans in national waters have also seen additional protections. This year the world's largest MPA was established in French Polynesia's Tainui Atea – the MPA will aim to protect 1,100,000 sq km (425,000 sq miles) of ocean.
sharks bullish
French Polynesia's waters are rich in biodiversity, and its new MPA aims to protect these species
Forest turnarounds
Brazil this year hosted COP30, the first UN global climate conference to take place in the Amazon rainforest, and it made forests a key platform. The November negotiations in Belém, Brazil were nicknamed the "forest COP".
While Brazil struggled to follow this through fully, the country did announce plans for a "roadmap" to implement a previous commitment to end deforestation by 2030. It was supported by more than 90 countries, although it exists outside the formal text of the summit and its legal standing is still uncertain.
Brazil also established a funding platform to protect existing forest areas called the Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF). It aims to ensure that maintaining tropical forests is valued more than their destruction, with financial rewards for those who have taken successful, verified steps to keep their forests up. It's a different approach to many other forest funds, which tend to reward emissions reductions rather than areas of forests maintained. Its target is $125bn (£95bn), though pledges to the fund so far have reached only $6.7bn (£5.07bn).
There were also some on-the-ground signs of hope on deforestation this year. Brazil's official data shows that deforestation in its portion of the Amazon fell 11% in the 12 months leading up to July 2025, to the lowest deforestation rate in 11 years. Deforestation also dropped in its delicate Cerrado ecosystem, another biodiversity hotspot. Similarly, independent NGO Imazon found that forest clearing in the Brazilian Amazon was 43% lower in October 2025 than in October 2024.
Globally, annual deforestation rates were 38% lower in the period 2015-25 compared to 1990-2000, according to a 2025 UN report, with more than half of forests now covered by long-term management plans. Some 10.9 million hectares (26.9 million acres) – an area roughly the size of the US state of Nevada – are still being cleared globally each year, it said.
climate protesters
Protestors marched at COP30 to demand solutions to climate change
A landmark legal case
The International Court of Justice (ICJ), considered the world's highest court, issued a landmark decision this year, clearing the way for countries to sue each other over climate change. The move could help nations heavily impacted by climate change to take legal action against polluting nations.
The ruling is non-binding on the court itself and in domestic courts, but experts say the ICJ's findings carry significant weight and could have substantial influence on the way climate cases are handled elsewhere.
The court's opinion was welcomed as "a watershed legal moment", by Joie Chowdhury, a senior attorney at the Centre for International Environmental Law, as Esme Stallard reported at the time.
Wins for wildlife
Several endangered species experienced remarkable comebacks this year, showing just how effective conservation measures can be to slow or reverse biodiversity loss.
Once hunted for their eggs and decorative shells, green turtles have been rescued from the brink of extinction. Thanks to decades of conservation efforts, from releasing hatchlings on beaches to reducing accidental capture in fishing nets, green turtle populations have rebounded. The species was this year moved from an "endangered" to a "least concern" rating on the IUCN's (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) Red List. (You can read about this major conservation victory in Helen Briggs's report.)
In other good news for turtles this year, Florida saw a record-breaking sea turtle nesting season, with more than 2,000 leatherback nests.
India, meanwhile, is now home to 75% of the world's tigers, having doubled its tiger population to more than 3,600 in just over a decade, as Soutik Biswas reported in January 2025. They live in an area spanning 138,200 sq km (53,400 sq miles) – roughly half the size of the UK – alongside some 60 million people, where much work has gone into protecting them from poaching and habitat loss, and reducing conflict with humans. Scientists say this effort provides valuable lessons and shows the rest of the world how conservation can protect big cats, boost biodiversity and support local communities.
green turtle
Indigenous developments
This year, indigenous peoples were formally recognized at UN level as leaders in the planet's protection and stewardship.
The concluding part of the UN's COP16 biodiversity summit, held in February, saw indigenous peoples given an official voice in global decision-making on conservation. The agreement of a new permanent committee enshrined this right, replacing indigenous peoples' previously informal and symbolic status at the talks with something lasting and formal.
Emphasis on the importance of ancestral knowledge carried forward to the COP30 climate conference in Brazil. Here, indigenous voices were represented by their largest delegation in COP history, with an estimated 2,500 indigenous people attending.
Wins during the climate summit included the adoption of new funding pledges and commitments to recognize indigenous land rights. In Brazil alone, 10 new indigenous territories were created. But concerns remain that promises won't translate into real change. Meanwhile, threats to many indigenous communities are still ongoing. During the conference, Survival International reported the violent death of a Guarani Kaiowá leader in the south of Brazil.
Klamath restoration
Just one year after the historic removal of four dams along California's Klamath river, salmon have returned to their traditional spawning grounds.
"There are salmon everywhere on the landscape right now," Michael Harris, the environmental manager for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife's Klamath Watershed Program, told local news. "The speed of their return is remarkable."
Salmon had been absent from the upstream areas of the river for generations. But a tribal-led campaign saw four hydroelectric dams – that had severely polluted the river for decades – pulled down in 2024, allowing the mighty Klamath to flow freely once more.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20251212-seven-quiet-wins-for-climate-and-nature-in-2025
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OVERCOMING CYNICISM: LESSONS FROM A DRUNK RACCOON
In late 2025, a photo of a drunk raccoon charmed the internet. Passed out next to a toilet in the bathroom of a liquor store, the creature was sleeping off the, ahem, cocktail he drank. He broke into bottles containing vodka, rum, moonshine, eggnog, and even some peanut butter whiskey. Were you skeptical when you first saw this story? It turned out to be true, but this is just the kind of artificial intelligence (AI)-fueled hoax that we encounter every day.
drunk raccoon
Have you found yourself becoming more and more cynical when confronted with information? The drunk raccoon story doesn’t really matter to our lives, but there are so many news topics that do—vaccine efficacy, election integrity, climate change.
The Backlash Effect: When Skepticism Goes Too Far
With an overwhelming flood of information, it can be hard to separate fact from fiction, opening the door for dangerous mis- and disinformation. As we wrote about a few years ago, a number of interventions have been introduced aimed at “inoculating us” against false news, including two online games, Bad News and Go Viral!. Both are designed to prompt us to think critically by exposing us to misinformation techniques. Early research suggested that such games showed some effectiveness (e.g., Maertens et al., 2021).
Despite their early promise, newer research reveals that games aimed at inoculating us to false news may backfire, making people cynical about all information—not just the false stuff. Researchers examined research on inoculation games and found that people did indeed become better at identifying false information but also started incorrectly identifying true information as false (Modirrousta-Galian & Higham, 2023). The authors wrote that “participants become skeptical of all news and are less willing to assign high reliability ratings” to any news story.
A more recent study also showed rising rates of skepticism. A meta-analysis of 67 studies (including nearly 200,000 participants across 40 countries) found that people can generally differentiate true news from false news but are better at spotting falsehoods than recognizing truth (Pfänder & Altay, 2025). That is, they tend to question false information and true information. And when they make errors in judgment, they err on the side of skepticism—they are more likely to mistakenly disbelieve true news than to believe false news.
Although it’s promising that people can learn to become more skeptical of false information, it’s alarming that they simultaneously seem to become more skeptical of true information. Such general increases in skepticism and cynicism may erode trust in legitimate institutions, science, and journalism.
Regulations and Cybersecurity
In response to this research, Giulia Maria Galli (2025) of the European Commission wrote that digital literacy education isn't sufficient. Galli suggests we need structural changes, which include regulations and cybersecurity. Research makes clear that we can’t put the onus of solving such an entrenched problem on individuals. After all, most governments don’t expect you to be skeptical of, for example, foods you buy in the grocery store and test them yourself for contamination. That’s what regulations are for.
With respect to misinformation, Galli asserts that regulation and cybersecurity should work toward the following three goals:
“The truth has to be more fluent”—that is, clear and easy to understand.
“The politicization of content must be prevented” so that people can focus on accuracy and not on whether they “are liked and accepted” by their political side.
“Echo chambers must be avoided and platforms’ algorithms left unfed” to avoid the “funnel” toward politicized and extreme content.
Roles for Psychological Literacy and Emotional Literacy
Of course, we can’t give up on individual-based solutions either. After all, regulations will never work perfectly. To continue our food metaphor, we may trust regulations regarding food in our grocery stores, but we aren’t going to buy a clearly rotten tomato. Moreover, disinformation is not only online but also in face-to-face encounters. At the individual level, Galli argues that we need to emphasize psychological and emotional literacy as essential foundations for effective digital literacy programs.
Galli defines psychological literacy as “the ability to apply psychological knowledge to solve real-world problems, understand behavior and communicate effectively”—a means to recognize the psychological processes that make us vulnerable to manipulation.
She defines emotional literacy as “recognizing, labelling and managing the emotions that psychological processes trigger”—the emotions that make us vulnerable to manipulation.
More specifically, psychological literacy enables us to recognize and understand the psychological mechanisms that make us vulnerable to manipulation, including confirmation bias, cognitive biases, the illusory truth effect, and the powerful influence of social recognition needs. By understanding these processes, we can better identify when our judgment is being compromised, including by our need for group acceptance. This awareness is particularly crucial for younger generations, who are especially susceptible to the desire for social validation in virtual contexts.
Emotional literacy complements psychological literacy by empowering us to recognize, label, and manage emotions triggered by information exposure. Galli argues that disinformation campaigns deliberately exploit emotional responses, and without the ability to analyze these reactions, people's critical thinking skills become compromised. When individuals can identify their emotional responses to content (whether outrage, fear, or excitement), they can pause before these feelings override their critical thinking abilities.
Together, psychological and emotional literacy address what the author identifies as the "heart of the problem": not merely the ability to identify false information but also the capacity to understand one's own cognitive and emotional responses to it, thereby countering both polarization and corrosive skepticism.
The Drunk Raccoon Strikes Again
Would you believe us if we told you that the drunk raccoon is a repeat offender? Or are you skeptical?
We recently wrote about the benefits of fact-checking. We noted that research suggests that people are generally supportive of fact-checking, though they seem to want others to do the work, rather than do it themselves. The researchers who conducted the meta-analysis we referenced above conclude that their findings about our inherent skepticism toward news “lend support to crowdsourced fact-checking initiatives and suggest that, to improve discernment, there is more room to increase the acceptance of true news than to reduce the acceptance of fact-checked false news.” That is, individually or together (as in crowdsourcing), we can’t leave the fact-checking to corporations and professionals.
We won’t leave you hanging. We fact-checked the serial burglar raccoon, and it’s true. “‘Supposedly this is like the third break-in he's had,’ a local animal control officer said,” although not always to drink alcohol. He also broke into a karate studio and a Department of Motor Vehicles office, where he helped himself to some snacks.
Again, whether you believe or discount a story about a recidivist raccoon isn’t all that important. But there are too many news stories that really do matter to our lives, and it’s worth culling fact from fiction. But not through increased cynicism. The fight against misinformation isn't about teaching people to be more suspicious; it's about building regulatory and cybersecurity systems that make truth accessible and cultivating citizens who understand their own minds.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/misinformation-desk/202512/overcoming-cynicism-lessons-from-a-drunk-raccoon
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INGE LEHMANN: DISCOVERER OF THE EARTH'S INNER CORE
How can we find out what’s happening deep inside the Earth? The temperatures are too hot, pressures too extreme, and distances too vast to be explored by conventional probes. So scientists rely on seismic waves—shock waves generated by earthquakes and explosions that travel through Earth and across its surface—to reveal the structure of the interior of the planet.
Thousands of earthquakes occur every year, and each one provides a fleeting glimpse of the Earth’s interior. Seismic signals consist of several kinds of waves. Those important for understanding the Earth’s interior are P-waves, (primary, or compressional waves), and S-waves (secondary, or shear waves), which travel through solid and liquid material in different ways.
earth cross section
The seismic waves called S-waves do not travel through liquid. We know that the outer core is liquid because of the shadow it casts in S-waves.
The seismograph, which detects and records the movement of seismic waves, was invented in 1880. By the end of that decade seismic stations were in place all over the world. At the time, geophysicists believed Earth to be made up of a liquid core surrounded by a solid mantle, itself surrounded by a crust, all separated by abrupt density changes in the Earth called “discontinuities.”
In 1929 a large earthquake occurred near New Zealand. Danish seismologist Inge Lehmann “the only Danish seismologist,” as she once referred to herself—studied the shock waves and was puzzled by what she saw. A few P-waves, which should have been deflected by the core, were in fact recorded at seismic stations. Lehmann theorized that these waves had traveled some distance into the core and then bounced off some kind of boundary. Her interpretation of this data was the foundation of a 1936 paper in which she theorized that Earth’s center consisted of two parts: a solid inner core surrounded by a liquid outer core, separated by what has come to be called the Lehmann Discontinuity. Lehmann’s hypothesis was confirmed in 1970 when more sensitive seismographs detected waves deflecting off this solid core.
earth cross section P waves
The seismic waves called P-waves pass through the core and are detected on the far side of the Earth. Indirect signals received in the P-wave shadow zone suggest there is a solid inner core deflecting some waves.
Born in Denmark in 1888, Lehmann was a pioneer among women and scientists. Her early education was at a progressive school where boys and girls were treated exactly alike. This was a sharp contrast to the mathematical and scientific community she later encountered, about which she once protested to her nephew, Niles Groes, “You should know how many incompetent men I had to compete with—in vain.” Groes recalls, “I remember Inge one Sunday in her beloved garden…with a big table filled with cardboard oatmeal boxes. In the boxes were cardboard cards with information on earthquakes…all over the world. This was before computer processing was available, but the system was the same. With her cardboard cards and her oatmeal boxes, Inge registered the velocity of propagation of the earthquakes to all parts of the globe. By means of this information, she deduced new theories of the inner parts of the Earth.”
earth cross section inner core
Cut away showing the four main layers of Earth: solid inner core, liquid outer core, mantle, and crust
A critical and independent thinker, Lehmann subsequently established herself as an authority on the structure of the upper mantle. She conducted extensive research in other countries, benefiting from an increased global interest in seismology for the surveillance of clandestine nuclear explosions. When Lehmann received the William Bowie medal in 1971, the highest honor of the American Geophysical Union, she was described as “the master of a black art for which no amount of computerizing is likely to be a complete substitute.” Lehmann lived to be 104.
https://www.amnh.org/learn-teach/curriculum-collections/earth-inside-and-out/inge-lehmann-discoverer-of-the-earth-s-inner-core
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MISOGYNY INFLUENCING YOUNG BOYS
The words “incels,” “alpha” and “manosphere” never crossed Abby Eckel’s mind when she was pregnant with her two sons. Now that the boys are 8 and 10 ― on the cusp of their teenage years ― keeping them away from the manosphere is sometimes all she and her husband can think about.
“It’s literally the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, because I have to be, I feel like, ready 24/7,” Eckel, an online content creator, told HuffPost. “I have to remain vigilant every moment I’m around my sons.”
The manosphere ― a dark rabbit hole where YouTubers and bro podcasters mask their misogyny in self-help, fitness tips and “pickup artist”-style dating advice ― offers young men a sense of community and purpose. The message that women are lesser beings and that you’re being denied your rights to sex or a relationship is particularly potent for boys who feel ignored by mainstream society.
Eckel and her husband monitor the boys’ online activity. They keep the lines of communication open and try to steer them toward healthier models of masculinity. But there’s little they can do to stop the influence of other boys who’ve been radicalized online.
“The hardest thing is that the largest influence is not parents, it’s their friends,” she said. “We’re trying to raise them to be leaders and empathetic, but then they walk out of this house, and society is working overtime to undo that.”
She can’t control what the kids’ friends watch or listen to: The shy friend who starts to identify as an incel, building his identity around his perceived inability to attract girls at school.
Or the loud friend who, looking for dating advice, stumbles upon a clip from Andrew Tate ― the kickboxer turned popular male supremacist podcaster who believes women are a man’s property and that rape victims should “bear responsibility” for their sexual assault. (In spite of facing multiple criminal charges of rape and human trafficking in both Romania and the United Kingdom, Tate’s mainstream influence is growing, thanks in part to his being platformed and supported by the likes of Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump Jr. Barron Trump, the president’s 19-year-old youngest son, is also reportedly a fan.)
Andrew Tate in Las Vegas
Countering all of these outside influences is “exhausting on a scale that I was never prepared for in raising sons,” Eckel said.
“I never considered any of this would be a possibility when I was pregnant with either of them,” she said.
Payal Desai’s sons are even younger ― 5 and 9 years old ― but she’s already worried about one of them stumbling down the pipeline of misogyny or equally dark views through TikTok, YouTube shorts or a seemingly innocuous gaming chat.
Desai’s parents are shocked by it all. They raised their kids in the 1990s and early 2000s, when such male rights-centered ideologies were more nascent and harder to come across. When boomer and Gen X parents worried about the media negatively influencing their sons, the conversation was centered on whether violent video games contributed to mass shootings in the wake of the Columbine High School attack. (They don’t, research continues to show.)
“When I talk to older parents, including my own, they’re pretty shocked by all this incel and red pill stuff,” Desai, who runs a parenting blog, told HuffPost. “Not because misogyny is new, it is not, but because the delivery system is so targeted and constant. It is engineered.”
The kids’ grandparents are surprised by how young boys are when they first encounter it, and how easy it is for these messages to feel normal if parents aren’t actively involved.
Parents who raised kids in the '90s are surprised by how young boys are when they first encounter it, and how easy it is for these messages to feel “normal” if parents aren’t actively involved, said Payal Desai, a mom of two young boys.
The manosphere message is nothing new, but it’s never been so accessible.
The modern manosphere has been quietly lurching toward the mainstream for decades now, according to David S. Smith. He’s a lecturer in psychology at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, Scotland, and author of the forthcoming book “The Incel Mindset: Entering and Exiting Inceldom.”
Seduction guides and pickup artist methods (popularized by books like Neil Strauss’ bestseller “The Game” and a subsequent reality show about pickup artists) have existed for decades, and men’s rights groups have been around since the sexual revolution of the 1970s, fighting for their right to patriarchy and women’s subordination.
“The pickup artist community in the early 2000s acted as a lynchpin for the manosphere, arguing there’s a war on traditional, natural masculinity, there’s a hierarchy of both men and women delineated by their market value, and one of the central ways we can qualify a man’s value is through competition,” Smith explained.
Today, it’s incredibly easy to find male rights influencers waxing poetic about all of this in bite-sized video clips in between sports and video game discussions.
“If a young man wants to understand dating, and a lot do, it’s just a TikTok search away,” Smith told HuffPost. “In my research, I’ve come across a lot of men who first go into pickup artistry or incels through looking up something fairly banal, like, ‘how do I know if a girl likes me,’ and were soon met with red pill and black pill content.”
The “red pill” and “black pill” terminology originates from the 1999 sci-fi film “The Matrix,” where the protagonist, Neo, faces a pivotal choice between two pills. For incels and men’s rights influencers who’ve co-opted the language, taking the “red pill” signifies an “awakening” to the belief that society has a systemic bias against men. To take the “black pill” is to recognize that your subordination is permanent. In internet parlance, you’re doomed to be “forever alone.”
Pickup artist methods, popularized by books like Neil Strauss’ “The Game,” helped usher in some of the elements of the current-day manosphere.
With algorithmically driven social media sites like X, content like this gets boosted and normalized. For boys who feel like outcasts or unappealing to girls, it’s comforting to know you’re not alone in being “forever alone.”
Social media gives young boys in-groups and clearly delineated out-groups: women and other more romantically successful men,” he said. It’s empowering in some ways, too, because “they form insular echo chambers in message boards and chats where people who disagree are banned.”
There have always been sexually disgruntled and romantically alienated, insecure men, but they wouldn’t necessarily meet each other or have an outlet to give voice to their thoughts. Now, thanks to the red pill community, they do.
“It also begins in a negative feedback loop where they can become increasingly unlikable and convinced of their inability to fit in, so they become more reliant on the group for support, and thus less able to connect with others, so they keep visiting, which makes them feel worse, and so on,” Smith said. “It’s a downward spiral.”
What can parents do to counter the manosphere?
Sheldon Reisman, a therapist and owner of Therapy Cincinnati, thinks parents have a right to be concerned about any fringe idea that becomes normalized, including red pill content. Still, he stressed that parents don’t need to panic about their sons being exposed to manosphere or incel views. Instead, they just need to communicate.
“Keeping open lines of communication with our children, helping them talk about these ideas without becoming panicked or upset, will allow them to work through what they really think,” he said.
Asking critical-thinking questions helps children determine what they actually believe and why they believe it.
“From there, we can attempt to help them see a different, bigger perspective and guide them toward ideas that are rooted in truth,” he said. “Otherwise, they will not learn how to critically analyze ideas and could fall prey to whatever ideologies feel good in the moment.”
Eckel, the mom of 8- and 10-year-old boys, gave a good example of how important nonjudgmental open communication is when dealing with issues like this. A few months back, her older son called his younger brother a “pussy” after hearing the word from a friend.
Instead of defaulting to “Oh, we don’t say things like that” or “we don’t watch streamers who say things like that” she opts for questions like, “Oh, why did you think that?” or “Hm, where did you hear that? ”
“It was really hard for me to check my emotions in that moment, but I’ve found that leading with curiosity and providing a safe space for them to talk to me about things is the best thing,” she explained.
"Keeping open lines of communication with our children, helping them talk about these ideas without becoming panicked or upset, will allow them to work through what they really think," said Sheldon Reisman, a therapist and owner of Therapy Cincinnati.
With the above example, her older son wasn’t even sure what the word meant.
You have to be the one explaining these things to them, because if you don’t, somebody else will, Eckel said.
If your kids are older or you worry they’ve fallen deeper into incel ideology, they need you to listen to them even more, said Smith. While violent tendencies of incels get highlighted in the news ― the mass stabbing and shooting by incel cult hero Elliot Rodger near the campus of the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2014, for instance ― more often than not, incels turn their anger inward; acts of self-harm and suicide threats are especially common among the group.
That’s not surprising, given that there’s very little actual support in incel communities. Their forums are often hyper competitive, acting as a misery economy. “Everyone wants to be the most screwed, and therefore the least screwed,” Smith said.
“While they’ll often share very personal things with each other, which they wouldn’t speak to their family or friends about, they also don’t seem to like each other very much,” Smith said.
“I think part of this is the subverted hierarchy they operate in, where the most ‘trucel’ is the one least able to change their situation. For supposed ‘fakecels,’ it’s more a personality failing.”
(A “trucel” is an incel who has never experienced any form of physical intimacy. A “fakecel” claims to be an incel but they’ve had some romantic or sexual success.)
So while finding others who are alienated may be a comfort at first, incel forums aren’t really a place for emotional support or the promise it’ll get better. That’s an opportunity to seize for a parent who’s willing to listen or offer nonjudgmental concern.
"I think the biggest misconception is that talking about gender, consent, power and empathy 'too early' will confuse boys," Desai said. "But if we know the internet is already going to be having these conversations with them in a very toxic way, we need to get ahead of it. “
As opposed to inceldom, the manosphere ― personified best by a podcaster like Tate ― is loud, confident and designed to feel “cool.” The only way to approach and counter that is to be proactive instead of reactive, said Desai, the mom of 5- and 9-year-old boys.
“We talk about feelings, boundaries, empathy, respect, friendships, consent, and the conversations began way before puberty, way before dating,” she said.
She treats these conversations and lessons like any other life skill. Because she’s building that foundation early, she’s a lot less worried about them being pulled into spaces that thrive on insecurity and fear as teens.
She’s even boiled it down to a list for parents of young boys. Her biggest pointers?
Normalize empathy as a strength. Give them an emotional vocabulary so they don’t mistake vulnerability for weakness.
Talk openly about media, influencers and what “power” actually means.
Show them what healthy masculinity looks like, don’t just tell them what not to do.
Make sure home is the place where they feel fully accepted. “Kids don’t go searching for belonging in toxic corners of the internet when they already have belonging and acceptance at home,” she said.
For Desai and her husband, that latter point means dispelling traditional gender roles and norms that box boys into unreasonable “rules,” she said. (“If my son wants to paint his nails, he is free to do so,” she explained.)
Basically, parents need to start early, stay curious and keep informed. You can’t control the algorithm, she said, but you can build the kind of internal compass that helps boys recognize when something feels off, disrespectful or rooted in hate.
“I think the biggest misconception is that talking about gender, consent, power and empathy ‘too early’ will confuse boys,” she said. “But if we know the internet is already going to be having these conversations with them in a very toxic way, we need to get ahead of it.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/parents-worried-about-manosphere_l_69373bdbe4b013f1f7d2992e?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us
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KINGS OF THE HILL: HOW THE TOP 20% OF MEN RULE THE DATING LANDSCAPE
In today’s modern dating landscape, the concept of the Pareto Principle, or the 80–20 rule, has found new relevance. Initially an economic theory, the Pareto Principle suggests that 80% of outcomes come from 20% of causes. This principle has been applied across various domains, from business to sports, and now — more controversially — in dating. It posits that 20% of men are garnering the romantic attention and success of 80% of women in the dating marketplace.
In an age dominated by dating apps, social media, and increasing social mobility, the 80–20 rule provides insight into why some men seem to dominate the dating pool while others struggle. But what’s driving this phenomenon in modern-day relationships, and what does it say about the dynamics of attraction?
The Modern Dating Landscape: A Digital Shift
The rise of dating apps like Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge has revolutionized how people meet and form romantic connections. But these platforms have also changed the rules of engagement. While the concept of dating is as old as time, algorithms, swipes, and matches are new factors that have tipped the scales toward a digital-first dating experience.
The 80–20 rule comes into play because dating apps often highlight the hyper-visibility of top-tier candidates, making it easy for women to gravitate toward a small subset of the most attractive, wealthy, and socially adept men. As algorithms prioritize these individuals, a select few men receive the lion’s share of likes, messages, and dates.
According to research from dating platform OkCupid, men in the top 20% in terms of looks, career success, or charisma, receive an overwhelming portion of female attention. Conversely, the remaining 80% of men receive far fewer opportunities for romantic engagement. This creates an imbalance in the dating pool, leading to frustration among men who feel left out and women who find themselves competing for the same limited pool of desirable partners.
What Makes the Top 20%?
But what exactly qualifies a man to be in this elite 20%? The answer lies in a combination of traditional and modern factors:
Physical Attractiveness: As shallow as it may seem, physical appearance still plays a significant role in attraction, especially on visual platforms like Tinder and Instagram. Men who fall within society’s conventional standards of attractiveness tend to perform better, particularly in the initial stages of dating where first impressions are key.
Financial Success: In an era where economic stability is often equated with status and desirability, men with successful careers or wealth tend to be seen as more attractive long-term partners. This trend has become more pronounced as women increasingly seek partners who can match their own financial independence and success.
Social Skills and Confidence: The top 20% of men tend to excel in social situations. Their ability to communicate confidently, flirt successfully, and navigate social settings with ease puts them in high demand. Many women are drawn to men who exude confidence and assertiveness, traits often associated with leadership.
Lifestyle: The era of social media has brought lifestyle into sharp focus. Men who are well-traveled, fit, and display a certain level of sophistication or excitement in their lives often rise to the top of women’s preferences. These men often project a “high-value” lifestyle that is aspirational and attractive to many.
The Impact of Hypergamy
At the heart of the 80–20 rule is hypergamy — the idea that people, especially women, tend to “marry up” in terms of socioeconomic status or attractiveness. In modern dating, this has become a driving force, with many women seeking men who either match or surpass their own qualities in terms of looks, success, and social standing. This preference has further compressed the pool of men women consider to be ideal partners, amplifying the imbalance predicted by the Pareto Principle.
A growing number of women are highly educated and career-oriented, making financial stability and status an important factor in partner selection. As a result, the pool of men that can meet these heightened criteria narrows significantly, leaving the top 20% of men to meet this demand.
What Does This Mean for the Remaining 80%?
For men who fall outside the top 20%, dating in the modern marketplace can be a source of frustration. Many feel overlooked or even discouraged by the perceived “dating inequality” created by the 80–20 rule. This phenomenon has contributed to the rise of online communities dedicated to discussing dating disparities, particularly among men who feel alienated from mainstream dating success.
However, all hope is not lost for the 80%. Many men outside the top tier find success in alternative avenues. Niche dating apps, shared interests, and long-term strategies of personal growth, including improving one’s social skills, financial situation, and overall well-being, can bridge the gap. Additionally, many women are not solely motivated by surface-level characteristics, such as looks or money, and often prioritize qualities like emotional intelligence, kindness, and compatibility.
The Role of Self-Improvement
For men aiming to rise above this perceived dating hierarchy, self-improvement is key. Dating coaches, self-help programs, and online communities encourage men to focus on bettering themselves — physically, financially, and emotionally. By becoming a more complete and confident individual, men can enhance their dating prospects regardless of where they initially fall in the 80–20 spectrum.
Personal development, however, should not only be about becoming more attractive to potential partners, but also about fostering a stronger sense of self-worth, resilience, and happiness outside of romantic pursuits.
Conclusion: The Dating Market Is Evolving
While the 80–20 rule appears to dominate the modern dating landscape, it’s not an absolute law. The digital age has certainly concentrated attention on a select few, but there are still many paths to romantic success for the broader spectrum of individuals. As dating continues to evolve in the age of technology, both men and women are adjusting to new norms, and the key to success might lie in self-improvement, authenticity, and understanding how to navigate the complex marketplace of attraction.
In the end, dating is not just a numbers game — it’s about connection, mutual respect, and finding the right fit. Even in a world dominated by algorithms, there’s still plenty of room for love to flourish across all segments of society.
https://medium.com/@gettingfrankpodcast/kings-of-the-hill-how-the-top-20-of-men-rule-the-modern-dating-landscape-d80ade7eb0f5#:~:text=It%20posits%20that%2020%25%20of,dating%20pool%20while%20others%20struggle.
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radioactive reindeer. Several thousand reindeer rounded up for slaughter in northern Sweden in 1988, following the Chernobyl accident.
In 1986, after the Chernobyl disaster, the Earth Island Journal ran a story titled “Rudolph the Rad-Dosed Reindeer?” In the article, Gar Smith described fears that radioactive Cesium-137 had contaminated reindeer, threatening the health and livelihoods of the indigenous Sami people. Government officials tried to reassure people about the level of danger, but Smith remained skeptical.
In fact, scientists had been aware of fallout-contaminated reindeer for decades. In the 1960s, the discovery of contaminated caribou triggered a major public health investigation in Canada. Historian Jonathan Luedee describes how, in their efforts to unravel the mystery, scientists and politicians grappled with the reality of a nuclearized world.
After a brief testing pause, the Soviet Union resumed nuclear weapons tests in the Arctic skies in 1961. Fallout from years of testing gradually fell onto lichen. Animals grazed on the lichen, absorbing radioactive particles into their bones and their flesh.
In 1962, biologist William Pruitt at University of Alaska-Fairbanks published a detailed report on the lichen-caribou-human contamination pathway. Luedee quotes Pruitt’s frightening conclusion: “one would expect the entire food chain to be contaminated.”
By 1963, a constellation of Canadian government agencies, led by the Radiation Protection Bureau (RPD), put together a plan. They divided the country up into geographic regions based on aerial studies of caribou herds. Researchers collected samples from caribou, while also studying peoples’ dietary habits and collecting their urine samples.
While the neatly drawn regions on their maps made things seem manageable, Luedee writes that “on the ground…the reality was much less orderly.” Some regions were largely inaccessible, while preserving and transporting samples proved complex and difficult. By 1965, researchers had lots of samples, but limited geographic coverage.
After several more years, they determined that human exposure had peaked in 1965, then declined. But Luedee points out that “even at 1965 levels, the amount of Cesium-137 detected in caribou meat was more than 580 times greater than that found in Ottowa’s poultry sample.”
The primary question was whether human exposure from dietary contamination exceeded “safe limits.” For this, officials relied on international standards created early in the nuclear age. Urine testing showed that radiation exposure was, on average, below the “maximal permissible dose” according to these standards—the point at which problems like leukemia or genetic issues arise.
Luedee argues that the Canadian government’s approach to this issue reflected older colonial approaches to managing complex geographic areas. “Through the management of caribou,” he writes, “the state sought to manage northern Indigenous peoples and their relationship with northern environments.”
https://daily.jstor.org/the-radioactive-reindeer-problem/
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LACK OF HISTORICAL EVIDENCE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF JESUS
Why do the stories of other cultic “saviors” such as Horus, Osiris, Dionysus, Romulus, Krishna, et al, lack historical evidence?
Because they were myths, not real people.
Ditto for Jesus.
There is no evidence that Jesus or any of the apostles were real people.
They are all unknown to actual history.
No one who lived at the time Jesus allegedly lived wrote a single word about him.
This despite all the bible’s wild claims, which include:
1. Jesus being hailed as the Messiah and King of the Jews by cheering Jerusalem crowds. That would have attracted the immediate attention of the Romans, who would not have allowed a threat to their rule to incite a mob. But there is no evidence of anything like this in Roman records.
2. Jesus cleansing the temple. This would have resulted in the temple guards arresting Jesus on the spot, but there is no evidence of anything like this in Jewish records or the first-century reports of prolific Jewish writers like Josephus and Philo.
3. Jesus being tried by the Sanhedrin, Pilate and Herod in six different trials.
But no one living at the time mentioned any of these trials, including the well-connected, well-informed Josephus and Philo.
4. Jesus, who had been hailed as the Messiah and King of the Jews by cheering Jerusalem crowds, was crucified by the Romans.
But no one living at the time mentioned the Messiah and King of the Jews being crucified, including Josephus and Philo.
5. This crucifixion resulted in a three-hour worldwide eclipse that would have terrified the Roman Empire and half the globe, but no one noticed.
6. According to the gospel of Matthew there was an earthquake so powerful that it split rocks and opened graves.
But rocks have more structural integrity than first-century houses, so an earthquake that powerful would have leveled Jerusalem, and we know that didn’t happen.
7. Also according to Matthew there was a ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE with “many” reanimated corpses appearing to “many” people in Jerusalem.
But of course no one noticed this either, and no other bible author would touch this tater with a ten-foot pole.
8. According to the book of Acts, after his “resurrection” Jesus spent 40 days teaching a crowd of around a hundred followers in Jerusalem, but neither the Sanhedrin nor the Romans noticed that the man they had crucified was running around stirring up trouble again.
How likely is “any of the above”?
What conclusion can we reach, except that the authors of the bible were writing cultic fan fiction?
~ Michael R. Burch, Quora
Oriana:
It should be noted, however, that most scholars accept the historicity of Jesus. They believe that such a religious leader did exist, one of the many apocalyptic preachers predicting the end times and the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven. (What came instead was the Catholic Church, as one French biblical scholar noted.)
Accepting the historical existence of Jesus does not automatically means accepting the legends about him, such as walking on water and healing the lame and the blind, much less being divine. That took the doctrine of the Trinity, finalized in 381 AD.
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THE AMAZING HISTORY OF COFFEE
The history of coffee is a journey from the ancient forests of the Ethiopian plateau to a global commodity second only to crude oil in trade value.
Coffee's journey began in Ethiopian highlands, discovered by energetic goats, then cultivated and brewed into a stimulating drink in 15th-century Yemen, becoming vital for Sufi prayers and spreading to Arabia, Persia, and Turkey via trade. It reached Europe in the 17th century, sparking coffee house culture as intellectual hubs, before Dutch traders broke the Arab monopoly by smuggling plants, eventually bringing coffee to the Americas and fueling industrial workforces with its stimulating properties, transforming it from an aristocratic drink to a global necessity.
Origins & Early Spread (9th - 15th Century)
Kaldi the Goatherd: According to popular legend, coffee was discovered by an Ethiopian goatherd named Kaldi, who noticed his goats became energetic and "danced" after eating red berries from a certain shrub.
Monastic Use: Kaldi shared these berries with a local monk. Initially rejected as "the devil's work" and thrown into a fire, the resulting aroma of roasted beans intrigued the monks. They began boiling the beans to create a drink that helped them stay awake during long hours of prayer.
Early Preparation: Before becoming a beverage, African tribes often ground the coffee cherries and mixed them with animal fat to create high-energy "protein bars" for warriors.
2. The Arabian Peninsula & The First Coffeehouses (15th–16th Century); Yemen & Cultivation:
Coffee reached Yemen by the 15th century, where it was first cultivated as a crop. The port city of Mocha became the world's primary gateway for the coffee trade.
Expansion: By the 16th century, coffee had spread to Persia, Egypt, Syria, and the Ottoman Empire.
Coffeehouses (Qahveh Khaneh): The first public coffeehouses emerged in cities like Constantinople (1475). These became hubs for socializing, chess, music, and political debate, earning them the nickname "Schools of the Wise.”
3. Arrival in Europe & "The Devil's Drink" (17th Century)
After Pope Clement VIII famously blessed coffee around 1600, the "bitter invention of Satan" became a respectable social and intellectual fuel that transformed European life. 
During the 17th century, coffee arrived in Europe through Venetian trade routes, bringing with it both fascination and fear. The dark, bitter beverage had already gained popularity in the Ottoman Empire, but its association with Muslim culture led some European clergy to view it with suspicion. Many believed it was a dangerous stimulant that could corrupt Christian minds, earning it the nickname "the bitter invention of Satan."
Some rulers even attempted to ban coffee houses, fearing they encouraged political dissent and intellectual debate. Despite these concerns, coffee continued to spread, becoming a staple among merchants, scholars, and the general public.
In 1615, Venetian clergy sought Pope Clement VIII’s intervention, urging him to condemn the drink. However, upon tasting it, the Pope reportedly found it so enjoyable that he declared, "This Satan’s drink is so delicious that it would be a pity to let the infidels have exclusive use of it."
With his approval, coffee gained widespread acceptance in Christian Europe, leading to the establishment of the first coffee house in Rome in 1645. Over time, coffee became an integral part of European culture, fueling intellectual gatherings and revolutionizing social life. Its journey from suspicion to acceptance highlights the power of cultural exchange and the evolving nature of societal norms.
The Rise of the Coffeehouse Culture
Coffeehouses became the "third place"—a social sphere between work and home—where individuals of different social classes could congregate.
The first coffeehouses appeared in Damascus. These Ottoman coffeehouses have also appeared in Mecca, in the Arabian Peninsula in the 15th century, then spread to the Ottoman Empire's capital of Istanbul in the 16th century and in Baghdad. Coffeehouses became popular meeting places where people gathered to drink coffee, have conversations, play board games such as chess and backgammon, listen to stories and music, and discuss news and politics. They became known as "schools of wisdom" for the type of clientele they attracted, and their free and frank discourse.
Coffeehouses in Mecca became a concern of imams who viewed them as places for political gatherings and drinking, leading to bans between 1512 and 1524. However, these bans could not be maintained, due to coffee becoming ingrained in daily ritual and culture among Arabs and neighboring peoples. The Ottoman chronicler İbrahim Peçevi reports in his writings (1642–49) about the opening of the first coffeehouse (kiva han) in Istanbul:
Until the year 962 [1555], in the High, God-Guarded city of Constantinople, as well as in Ottoman lands generally, coffee and coffeehouses did not exist. About that year, a fellow called Hakam from Aleppo and a wag called Shams from Damascus came to the city; they each opened a large shop in the district called Tahtakale, and began to purvey coffee.
A coffeehouse in Cairo, 18th century
Persia
The 17th-century French traveler and writer Jean Chardin gave a lively description of the Persian coffeehouse (qahveh khaneh in Persian) scene:
People engage in conversation, for it is there that news is communicated and where those interested in politics criticize the government in all freedom and without being fearful, since the government does not heed what the people say. Innocent games ... resembling checkers, hopscotch, and chess, are played. In addition, mollas, dervishes, and poets take turns telling stories in verse or in prose. The narrations by the mollas and the dervishes are moral lessons, like our sermons, but it is not considered scandalous not to pay attention to them. No one is forced to give up his game or his conversation because of it. A molla will stand up in the middle, or at one end of the qahveh-khaneh, and begin to preach in a loud voice, or a dervish enters all of a sudden, and chastises the assembled on the vanity of the world and its material goods. It often happens that two or three people talk at the same time, one on one side, the other on the opposite, and sometimes one will be a preacher and the other a storyteller.
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The English word café to describe a restaurant that usually serves coffee and snacks rather than the word coffee that describes the drink, is derived from the French café. The first café in France is believed to have opened in 1660. The first café in Europe is believed to have been opened in Belgrade, Ottoman Serbia in 1522 as a Kafana (Serbian coffee house).
Venice(1645): The first European coffeehouse opened in Venice, a natural gateway due to its trade with the Ottoman Empire. By 1763, the city had over 200 coffeehouses, including the still-famous Caffè Florian (opened in 1720).
London (1652): The first London coffeehouse was established by Pasqua Rosée in St. Michael's Alley. By 1675, England had more than 3,000 coffeehouses.
Vienna (1683): Tradition holds that after the Siege of Vienna, sacks of coffee left by the retreating Ottoman army were used to open the city's first coffeehouse by Jerzy Franciszek Kulczycki. He is credited with popularizing the practice of adding milk and sugar, creating the famous "Viennese coffee.”
The "Penny Universities" & Modern Institutions
In England, coffeehouses earned the nickname "Penny Universities" because, for the price of a penny (the cost of a cup), anyone could listen to and participate in high-level intellectual and political debates. Several modern institutions trace their roots directly to these venues.
Lloyd’s of London: Started at Edward Lloyd's Coffee House (c. 1688), a hub for sailors and merchants to share shipping news and arrange marine insurance.
London Stock Exchange: Originated at Jonathan’s Coffee House, where stockbrokers met to trade after being barred from the Royal Exchange.
Sotheby's and Christie's: These premier auction houses began as sales held in London coffeehouse rooms.
Political & Social Resistance
Coffee’s association with free speech and political dissent made it a target for monarchs:
King Charles II (1675): In England, the King attempted to ban coffeehouses, labeling them "seminaries of sedition" where people spread "false news". The public outcry was so intense that the ban lasted only 11 days.
The Women’s Petition Against Coffee (1674): In London, women protested that their husbands spent all day at coffeehouses, claiming the "drying" liquor made them "unfruitful" and useless at home.
Frederick the Great (1777): The Prussian king issued a manifesto in favor of beer, hiring "coffee smellers" to sniff out illegal home roasting to keep money from leaving the country to buy imports.
Impact on the Enlightenment
Coffee is often credited with fueling the Age of Enlightenment. By replacing alcohol—which was consumed daily as it was safer than water—with a stimulant, coffee shifted the European population from a "drunken stupor" toward a state of focused, sober intellectualism. Famous frequenters of these "hubs of reason" included Voltaire, who reportedly drank 40–50 cups a day, and Benjamin Franklin.
A coffeehouse in London, 17th century
Over time, a special coffee house culture developed in Habsburg Vienna. On the one hand, writers, artists, musicians, intellectuals, bon vivants and their financiers met in the coffee house, and on the other hand, new coffee varieties were always served. In the coffee house, people played cards or chess, worked, read, thought, composed, discussed, argued, observed and just chatted. A lot of information was also obtained in the coffee house, because local and foreign newspapers were freely available to all guests. This form of coffee house culture spread throughout the Habsburg Empire in the 19th century.
Scientific theories, political plans but also artistic projects were worked out and discussed in Viennese coffee houses all over Central Europe. James Joyce even enjoyed his coffee in a Viennese coffee house on the Adriatic sea in Trieste, then and now the main port for coffee and coffee processing in Italy and Central Europe. From there, the Viennese Kapuziner coffee developed into today's world-famous cappuccino. This special multicultural atmosphere of the Hapsburg coffee houses was largely destroyed by the later National Socialism and Communism and can only be found today in a few places that have long been in the slipstream of history, such as Vienna or Trieste.
(multiple sources)
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HOW STIMULANTS AFFECT THE BRAIN
Scientists are updating their view of how drugs like Adderall and Ritalin help children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder stay on task.
The latest evidence is a study of thousands of brain scans of adolescents that confirms earlier hints that stimulant drugs have little direct impact on brain networks that control attention.
Instead, the drugs appear to activate networks involved in alertness and the anticipation of pleasure, scientists report in the journal Cell.
"We think it's a combination of both arousal and reward, that kind of one-two punch, that really helps kids with ADHD when they take this medication," says Dr. Benjamin Kay, a pediatric neurologist at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the study's lead author.
The results, along with those of smaller studies, support a "mindset shift about what stimulants are doing for people," says Peter Manza, a neuroscientist at the University of Maryland who was not involved in the research.
The new research analyzed data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study, a federally funded effort that includes brain scans of nearly 12,000 children. About 4% of these kids had ADHD when they entered the study, and nearly half of those were on a prescription stimulant.
About 3.5 million children in the U.S. take an ADHD medication, and the number is rising.
Medication and brain networks
The brain scan data included a type of MRI that measures brain activity when a person is at rest. That allowed Kay and a team of scientists to see which brain areas were becoming more active in response to the drugs.
Kay expected to find lots of activity in areas that let a person control what they pay attention to.
"What I actually found was that those were the parts of the brain that were least affected," he says.
Instead, the drugs were stimulating areas that help people stay awake and alert, and areas that anticipate a pleasurable reward.
This double effect seems to occur because stimulants like Ritalin and Adderall boost levels of two different brain chemicals, says Dr. Nico Dosenbach, the paper's senior author and a professor at Washington University.
The first chemical is norepinephrine, which prepares the body and brain for action.
The study found that this "fight or flight" response counteracts the usual cognitive declines associated with sleep deprivation on cognitive performance. Lack of sleep is a problem for many adolescents, but especially those with ADHD.
The second brain chemical is dopamine, which plays an important role in the brain's reward system. And a boost in dopamine levels may help children with ADHD feel more positive about mundane tasks like homework.
Usually, the brain's expectation is, "this is going to be terrible, this is going to be boring," Dosenbach says. "Dopamine can make you more tolerant because you are feeling a slight, low-level reward."
It's still too soon to know whether that's what's going on, Manza says. But he agrees that stimulants are doing something in the brain that helps kids with ADHD do things like homework.
"They don't find math problems very interesting, but after a dose of Ritalin it might seem more interesting to them," he says, "and so they're willing to persist and finish the task."
Brain scans before drugs?
The new study's findings shouldn't undermine clinicians' confidence in the effectiveness of stimulants for ADHD, Kay says. But they do suggest that it's important to rule out factors like sleep deprivation before turning to medication.
"This was a really personal paper for me because I prescribe these drugs all the time," Kay says.
The results also suggest that brain scans might eventually offer a way to know whether a child is likely to benefit from drug treatment, Manza says.
"Stimulants don't work for everyone," he says, "so we need to better target the individuals who need them."
MRI scans could even offer a better way to diagnose ADHD someday, Manza says. That's badly needed, he says, in an era where more and more children and young adults are being told they have the disorder and should be on medication.
https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/12/27/nx-s1-5658291/adhd-adderall-ritalin-mechanism
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THE IMPORTANCE OF CHOLINE
The compound has been linked to improved cognitive performance and reduced anxiety – but are you getting enough of it?
You may not have heard of choline before, but studies show that it's crucial for our health, at various stages of life.
Choline is neither a vitamin or a mineral – it's an organic compound that's vital to the healthy functioning of the human nervous system. Now there's emerging evidence that consuming more choline can have a wide range of powerful effects, from improving cognitive performance to protecting against neurodevelopmental disorders, including attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and dyslexia.
The nutrient also seems to play a significant role in human neurodevelopment. In one study, babies who whose mothers took choline supplements during pregnancy gave birth to infants with higher information processing speeds – a measure of healthy cognitive functioning.
Scientists say that choline is a wonder-nutrient, but that it has been hugely overlooked. So, where does choline come from – and are you getting enough of it?
A crucial nutrient
Every cell in our body contains choline, says Xinyin Jiang, professor of health and nutrition sciences at Brooklyn College in New York, US.
Choline is an "essential" nutrient, which means we need it for our health, but our bodies don't produce enough on their own. Instead, we need to get some of it from our diets. In this sense, it's similar to omega 3 fatty acids, although it's actually closely associated with B vitamins, says Emma Derbyshire, science writer and founder and CEO of the consultancy Nutritional Insight.
Choline can be found mostly in animal-based foods, including beef, eggs, fish, chicken and milk, but it's also in peanuts, kidney beans, mushrooms and cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli – although animal foods tend to contain more choline than plant-based sources.
We need choline for numerous functions in our bodies, including liver function. Not having enough can cause a number of problems.
"Choline helps fat transport out of the liver, and when a person is deficient, they can get a fatty liver," says Jiang.
Choline also helps the body to synthesize phospholipids, which are the main component of the cell membranes in our bodies. Being deficient in the nutrient can affect the expression of genes involved in the process of our cells multiplying. During the development of a fetus, choline deficiency can be particularly harmful because it inhibits cell proliferation in the brain.
Choline's role in the brain is crucial – in fact it's primarily a "brain nutrient", says Derbyshire. It's needed for our bodies to produce the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which is a chemical that carries messages from your brain to your body through nerve cells. Acetylcholine plays a major role in brain nerve cells, which are needed for our memory, thinking and learning.
In one study involving almost 1,400 people aged 36 to 83, researchers found that people with a higher choline intake tended to have better memories, and that choline intake during midlife may help to protect our brains. Choline is commonly included as an ingredient in supplements taken as "nootropics" – a diverse group of substances which some people believe can enhance learning and memory.
On the other hand, choline deficiency has also been associated with neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.
Another way choline may affect the brain is our mental health. One study found that higher intake of choline was associated with lower levels of anxiety. In another study, having a higher dietary intake of choline was linked to a lower risk of depression.
Separately, research in mice has found that choline can help to lower the levels of homocysteine, an amino acid which can increase the risk of heart disease. High levels of homocysteine can also be linked to osteoporosis, and research has found that people with higher choline intakes from their diets tend to have a higher bone density – an indicator of strong, healthy bones with a lower risk of being fractured.
"Choline can potentially have an effect against bone loss," says Øyen Jannike, a researcher at the Institute of Marine Research in Norway, who has studied the link between choline and bone health.
This may partly be because of homocysteine, she says, but also because choline is an essential structure in our cell membranes.
The first 1000 days
It's well established that a child's first two years are critical for their development, and that the mother's diet during pregnancy and breastfeeding has an integral influence on this.
Studies show that choline is vitally important for a baby's development in the womb. In fact, babies are born with three times as much choline as their mothers, which Derbyshire says shows how important it is at this stage of life.
According to one study, people who eat eggs tend to have roughly twice the choline intake of those who don’t.
Several studies have found that the supply of choline in the womb correlates to the cognitive outcome of the baby, and its benefits may continue for years as the child develops. In one study, pregnant women who had the highest dietary choline intake during the second trimester of pregnancy (from week 13 to week 28) went on to have children who scored higher on a test of short- and long-term memory at the age of seven.
Some research even suggests insufficient choline intake when a woman is pregnant could be linked ADHD behaviors in their offspring.
Are we getting enough choline?
In Europe, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has set recommendations for choline intake: 400mg for adults, and 480mg and 520mg for pregnant and breastfeeding individuals, respectively.
In the US, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) first established adequate choline intake recommendations in 1998: 550mg per day for men and 425mg per day for women, or 450mg during pregnancy and 550mg while breastfeeding.
An egg has around 150mg of choline, while a chicken breast has around 72mg, and a handful of peanuts has around 24mg.
In 2017, the American Media Association (AMA) also advised that prenatal vitamin supplements should contain "evidence-based" amounts of choline.
"We're seeing a lot more ADHD and dyslexia in schools, and some is genetic, but it's also possible that, in utero, they're not getting key nutrients," Derbyshire says. "These very subtle neurodevelopment changes are occurring and impacting them later on. We're treating the aftermath now."
Jiang has studied the relationship between the supply of choline during pregnancy and breastfeeding, and brain development. "In animal findings, when the mum has more choline, the cognitive development of their offspring is better," she says. "We're starting to find similar results in human studies, although, not exactly the same."
Feeding the brain
A 2020 review of 38 animal and 16 human studies concluded that choline supplementation helps brain development. However, only animal studies currently show a strong link between choline and improved cognitive function. The paper doesn't define the ideal amount of supplementation, but says most human studies use supplements providing up to 930mg choline daily – an amount equivalent to the choline in roughly six chicken's eggs – with no adverse effects reported.
There may also be some people that require more choline than the recommended daily amounts, says Øyen – including post-menopausal women, for example, who have lower levels of estrogen, and people with fatty liver disease.
We also know, Derbyshire says, that, due to the genetic differences from one person to another, some people may have higher requirements for choline. (Derbyshire has previously consulted for and advised The Meat Advisory Panel, Marlow Foods (Quorn), the Health Supplement Information Service and the British Egg Information Service, among other organizations).
Peanuts contain high levels of choline, with 61-66mg per 100g of peanut butter
When we eat foods containing choline, it's very easily absorbed into our blood, says Jiang, which should go some way to ensuring we're consuming enough choline.
However, several studies show that many of us aren't getting enough. One study found that only 11% of American adults consume the recommended daily amount.
Eggs are one of the most potent dietary sources of choline, and there is some concern that those who choose to follow a vegan diet may not be getting enough of this nutrient – though there are many plant-based sources and choline supplements are widely available in developed countries.
One study found that people who eat eggs have almost twice the usual choline intake compared with those who don't, leading the researchers to conclude that consuming the daily adequate amount of choline was "extremely difficult" without eating eggs or taking a supplement.
But the EFSA's recommendation of 400mg of choline per day is achievable for most people if you plan your diet carefully, says Jiang. Some vegan sources of choline include tofu (28mg of choline per 100g), peanut butter (61-66mg per 100g) and soy beans (120mg per 100g).
Anyone concerned they're not getting enough choline can take a daily supplement, Øyen says. In the meantime, she adds, there needs to be more animal and human research to better understand the mechanisms behind some of choline's health benefits.
However "clinicians are becoming more aware of [choline]", says Derbyshire. While it often seems to be slightly overlooked, she is hopeful that choline will soon start to enjoy the limelight.
CHOLINE AND COFFEE
Food sources of choline:
Eggs (especially the yolk)
Beef liver and chicken liver
Legumes (kidney beans, navy beans, peas)
Vegetables, particularly cruciferous ones like Brussels sprouts, broccoli, kale, collards, and bok choy, as well as soybeans, potatoes and shiitake mushrooms
Canned tuna and salmon
Milk and milk products, including yogurt
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