Many people are well aware that when the Church expanded from the Mediterranean into northwestern and central Europe, the existing Feast Days of both the solar observances and the cross quarter days were given substitutions in Catholic observance, meant to preserve the folkway of a festival observance while giving it a whole new meaning.
Of course, this met with limited success. The Old Religions had entire pantheons with a very well-developed mythology which tended to somewhat absorb and modify the new mythologies, and never was this more the case than on the observations of change of agricultural seasons. In Springtime the ancient tales and rites of Demeter and Persephone -- by whatever their names -- fit well with the springtime observance of the Christian Martyrdom and Resurrection. We know little of the practices of the cult of the Mothers and Matrons, but we do know that long before word of the Passion spread to Europe, the ladies all dressed in their finest for the feasts of Ostara. Celebrations of the renewal of the world, and of the bursting forth of the green, of new life returning to the world, belonged to and were all about the female principles and actors and their roles in creation of new life.
And at the other end of the year?
Even before the Christians came to the New World, here as in other places, there was the observance of Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead.
In ancient Athens, the women made observance of Demeter's impending imprisonment for a third of the year in the Underworld, with their retreat to the Thesmophoria, where the married women retreated to temporary shelters apart from their men, to celebrate their private ways and female subculture.
Other ancient celebrations thankfully don't much survive in the modern day, such as the Bacchanals of the Maenads, though your opinion may differ as to whether or not the practices survive, if you've ever been near a college campus on Hallowe'en.
At least, thank goodness, locally the observance of Hallowe'en is not banned.
Some things are, and should be, banned.
Text messaging while driving is banned in Maryland, and in many other States as well. Momentum is building for a Federal ban on the practice, which is as it should be:
As noted briefly in last Saturday's blog entry, trouble is piling deeper on Montgomery Planning Director Rollin Stanley.
The Washington Post's Miranda Spivak, Maryland Beat reporter extraordinaire, provides coverage that is practically condemnatory, less due to Ms Spivack's tone than to the content of the report she cites:
[ ... ]
The audit report details instances in which Montgomery Planning Director Rollin Stanley "failed to fully cooperate" with requests for information, delayed auditors' interviews with staff members and provided "misleading and contradictory information." The report says Stanley lacked "high ethical and professional standards."
The report, provided late Friday to The Washington Post in response to a public records request, says Stanley had improperly used his government credit card, paid too much for some meals and failed to properly document his spending. Some sections of the audit were deleted because they related to proprietary information about computer security, officials said.
[ ... ] ("Montgomery Planner Tried To Hinder Audit, Report Finds", Spivack, Miranda S., Washington Post, October 12, 2009, downloaded 2009 October 12)
Now, I shouldn't need to imply what the Astute Reader must infer: there is totally inadequate computer security and the report, if it were to mention this, would doubtless start a mad rush by l33t h4X0r5 to attain Epic Pwnage of Planning Board information systems, leading to Epic Fail:
Further,
[ ... ]
"We believe the department's ability to improve its internal control weakness has been hindered by the attitude of the senior leadership," the audit says.
[ ... ]
The audit began in a routine manner last spring, agency officials said, when auditor Abinet Y. Belachew and his staff were trying to sort out why a government-issued credit card was used to pay for the computer fix at the Montgomery agency.
The auditors' initial findings then led to questions about Stanley's spending habits, because some of the purchases were linked to him.
Stanley was cited for improperly using his agency credit card to buy furniture for his office, some meals that exceeded the spending limit and, in one instance, alcohol. He was cited for using his cellphone for calls unrelated to work.
[ ... ]
As the audit was progressing, Stanley disputed some findings and said the audit had become "harassment" and included "slanderous" statements. In a written response last spring to the audit, which his staff released late Friday, Stanley said the audit was retaliation for his staff's resistance to the parent agency's decision to buy a technology system that was "wasteful and questionable business practices."
[ ... ]
The audit report says officials at the Montgomery planning agency had known for some time that there were problems with its computer firewall aimed at keeping out cyber intruders.
But the agency did not move to correct them until a staff member used an agency credit card to go outside usual procurement practices to purchase a fix, the report says.
[ ... ]
The audit report says that the firewall purchase and an $800 contract with an outside auditor brought in by Stanley to do his own audit of the technology system were improper and should have been subject to competitive bidding. Stanley said in his written reply that he was trying to save the parent agency money.
Well, a certain fiction character name of "Gaius Balthar" could tell you what happens when you go outside of proper channels and wind up giving core system access to the Cylons:
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