All Entries Tagged With: "Ouray"

Antiguos druidas veneran bayas de muérdago

(Irlanda) Si alguna vez has vagado por los bosques de Irlanda, no puedes evitar tropezar con el muérdago. Crece en todas partes. Sorprendentemente, cuando el resto del verde está en hibernación, la planta del muérdago continúa produciendo bayas durante todo el invierno.

Los médicos-sacerdotes druidas consideraban que las bayas eran caras por sus beneficios medicinales y muy probablemente en la prevención de la concepción. Las bayas contienen altas concentraciones de progesterona (rimas con testosterona) que estimulan la libido.

Parafrasearemos lo que pudo haber ocurrido después, según lo teorizado por el Dr. John Lee, autor de Natural Progesterone – The Multiple Rolls of a Notable Hormone.

Aquí está el escenario: durante muchos siglos, los druidas patrocinaron un festival del solsticio de invierno que, según nuestro calendario, cayó el 22 o el 23 de diciembre. El evento, que duró una semana, tuvo como objetivo evitar que el sol desapareciera por completo del cielo. (Los paganos también estaban tensos con respecto a las cosas, especialmente el dios sol tomando polvo).

La celebración se llevó a cabo para que la primavera volviera algún día y el mundo no muriera. Katy, abre la puerta! Se pagaron las deudas, se intercambiaron regalos y se presentaron fiestas. Además, abundaba una mezcla sagrada de aguamiel caliente atada con bayas de muérdago. ¿Qué? No Guinness?

Una vez que comenzó la fiesta, la influencia del alcohol caliente y la progesterona ayudaron a que todos se relajaran y se conocieran mejor.

La medicina moderna reconoce el hecho de que el desprendimiento de la menstruación es el resultado de una caída abrupta de progesterona, que sin duda ocurrió después de que terminó la semana de la convulsión celta.

Por lo tanto, cualquier concepción que tuvo lugar durante la semana de relaciones sexuales sin restricciones se perdería en el flujo inducido. Además de permitir a los participantes el acceso a la licencia sexual primitiva, la fiesta del solsticio reforzó la percepción de que el sexo festivo sin responsabilidad posterior era simplemente otro regalo de los dioses. Suficientemente simple.

Con el inicio del nuevo año todo volvió a la normalidad. Y pensaste que habías estado en algunas fiestas … Feliz Navidad, Feliz Hanukkah y Feliz Solsticio. Muérdago bayas y aguamiel

Trump Clobbers Lame Duck With Nine Iron

(Mar de Mars) President for now Donald Trump used a nine-iron on a bothersome lame duck Friday on the 16^th hole at his golf corpse here. The duck reportedly laughed at his backswing and the Commander in Chief flew into action repeatedly whacking the quacking bird with his golf club.

It was not clear if the injured duck was of the Peking variety.

Trump, as has been the case recently, played alone with even the regular Republican sycophants avoiding him. Several challenging holes were restricted due to a pending government shutdown that sent greens keepers home without pay.

Angry onlookers rescued the lame duck and brought it to a local veterinarian’s office where it is expected to survive the impulsive attack. One fed-up golfer even cornered the President and lectured him on evangelistic climate change while describing the daily routine life in a federal prison cell.

That Huckabee woman, acting as pending press secretary said the President had every right to strike the duck that was no doubt a feathered immigrant. They said that the mallard pest deserved what he got and since the animal was no longer protected under the Endangered Species Act it was fair game.

“Our leader is no pigeon. He’s tough to the bone,” she stressed. “He stands up to protect America from these kind of terrorist episodes.”

One Trump critic suggested that Trump should be tougher on Russians, White Supremacists, Saudis, bloodthirsty dictators and his immediate family.

A local newspaper defended Trump a la tongue-in-cheek:

“It takes a brave man to do what our President did while under duress,” said an editorial in The Capitol City Poultry Examiner. “His courage is without comparison.”

The Lame Duck along with the Squatting Heifer, the Flint Water Muskrat, the Palomino Kingfisher and most of the fish in both oceans were dropped from the protected status by Trump during his first few hours in office. This action raised eyebrows and started people chatting about unnatural science and the priorities of a self-consuming business agenda.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was perhaps the harshest critic saying “the unprovoked assault on a duck made Trump look like the turkey that he has become.”

After sinking a four-foot putt on number 18 Trump said he didn’t care what the majority of Americans thought of him so long as his base continued to “slurp the pabulum”.

The President will attend a January White Sale rally in West Palm Beach before returning to Washington on Friday.

Temporada de duendes Se espera que tenga un gran impacto

(Gunnison) Se espera que la temporada de elfos de 2004 lleve a más de 5000 cazadores a la cuenca de Gunnison durante las dos semanas de Navidad. A pesar de los conflictos por las licencias y el acceso a las áreas de caza tradicionales, se espera que la caza tenga un gran impacto económico. Los ingresos recaudados podrían saltar a millones de personas, lo que permitirá a los residentes dinero extra con el que vivirlo o tal vez un escape a climas más cálidos durante el invierno.

Tanto el Tesoro de Colorado como el IRS les recuerdan a los comerciantes que no están obligados a reportar ganancias relacionadas con los elfos ya que no hay pruebas de que realmente existan. ¡Las dos agencias fiscales pasaron a desearles a todos una Feliz Navidad!

Christmas Planned Again for 2019

(New York) With the final approval of federal and state funding, it appears that consumers will again experience the holiday season next year. As recently as one week ago, with the private sector dragging knuckles on promises to match the assets accrued from a system of floating bonds, things looked bleak.

Supporters of Christmas have been accused of using ancient guilt techniques and playing into fears of impending social disorder in the attempt to raise consciousness and, in turn, money toward the goal. They say that since the holiday has been around so long, it would only follow that it should be preserved both from a religious and a secular approach.

“Without the continued assistance of our state and federal bureaucracies, Christmas would be relegated to the status of say, Halloween or Valentine’s Day, at least from an economic viewpoint,” said Melvin Toole, founder and treasurer of Christmas ‘20. “We fully realize that these holidays are important but that economically speaking Christmas consistently kicks butt.”

Toole explained that year after year more money is circulated during the holiday season than on all the other holidays combined.

“Yes, flowers and candy generate substantial dollars, but that figure,” he smiled, “does not even come close to the money spent on worthless junk during the Yuletide. In addition, people will go without fireworks or cranberry sauce but then Christmas rolls around and the same people adopt an oh what the hell attitude and spend money they may not have.”

Toole thanked the credit card companies, the elevator Christmas carol pushers, the lumber industry, the makers of an assortment of pine sprays, the weather, the replacement Christmas light bulb concerns, Charles Schultz, the wrapping paper giants, the clever card writers union, Bing Crosby and Belle Toole, his wife of 133 years, for his recent ascension to greatness in the field of Christmas marketing concepts.

Although the exact amount of money needed to pull off Christmas next year has not been disclosed, conjecture has it that it is a whole lot more than was needed for Christmas 2018.

“It’s just more expensive to pull off than it was back in the Fifties,” harped Toole. “Why, insurance on Santa’s sleigh, reindeer rights, elf unions and the type of presents coveted by little kids put the fiscal motion of the celebration into outer space. Do people really think that just because Christmas is sacred that it can side-step reality? It’s a business, son. Nothing more and nothing less, at least from our perspective,” he frowned.

Toole added that Christmas ’19 would kick off on or about Thanksgiving Weekend and run through December, culminating on December 25, with the following week dedicated to getting over the entire experience in time for a New Year’s celebration.

“We hope to hold New Year’s on January 1 again so as to be in compliance with all the calendars printed in August,” he said.

– Al Kahall

Merry Christmas to the people of of Jardin, Antioquia, Colombia

Christmas Eve On Lonesome

It was Christmas Eve on Lonesome. But nobody on Lonesome knew that it was Christmas Eve, although a child of the outer world could have guessed it, even out in those wilds where Lonesome slipped from one lone log cabin high up the steeps, down through a stretch of jungled darkness to another lone cabin at the mouth of the stream.

There was the holy hush in the gray twilight that comes only on Christmas Eve. There were the big flakes of snow that fell as they never fall except on Christmas Eve. There was a snowy man on horseback in a big coat, and with saddlepockets that might have been bursting with toys for children in the little cabin at the head of the stream.

But not even he knew that it was Christmas Eve. He was thinking of Christmas Eve, but it was of the Christmas Eve of the year before, when he sat in prison with a hundred other men in stripes, and listened to the chaplain talk of peace and good will to all men upon earth, when he had forgotten all men upon earth but one, and had only hatred in his heart for him.

“Vengeance is mine! saith the Lord.”

That was what the chaplain had thundered at him. And then, as now, he thought of the enemy who had betrayed him to the law, and had sworn away liberty, and had robbed him of everything in life except a fierce longing for the day when he could strike back and strike to kill. And then, while he looked back hard into the chaplain’s eyes, and now, while he splashed through the yellow mud thinking of that Christmas Eve, Buck shook his head; and then, as now, his sullen heart answered:

“Mine!” The big flakes drifted to crotch and twig and limb. They gathered on he brim of Buck’s slouch hat, filled out the wrinkles in his big coat, whitened and his long mustache, and sifted into the yellow, twisting path that guided his horse’s feet.

High above he could see through the whirling snow now and then the gleam of a red star. He knew it was the light from his enemy’s window; but somehow the chaplain’s voice kept ringing in his ears, and every time he saw the light he couldn’t help thinking of the story of the Star that the chaplain told that Christmas Eve, and he dropped his eyes by and by, so as not to see it again, and rode on until the light shone in his face.

Then he led his horse up a little ravine and hitched it among the snowy holly and rhododendrons and slipped toward the light. There was a dog somewhere, of course; and like a thief he climbed over the low rail fence and stole through the snow-wet grass until he leaned against an apple-tree with the sill of the window two feet above the level of his eyes.

Reaching above him, he caught a stout limb and dragged himself up to a crotch of the tree. A mass of snow slipped softly to the earth. The branch creaked above the light wind; around the corner of the house a dog growled and he sat still.

He had waited three long years and he had ridden two hard nights and lain out two cold days in the woods for this.

And presently he reached out very carefully, and noiselessly broke leaf and branch and twig until a passage was cleared for his eye and for the point of the pistol that was gripped in his right hand.

A woman was just disappearing through the kitchen door, and he peered cautiously and saw nothing but darting shadows. From one corner a shadow loomed suddenly out in human shape. Buck saw the shadowed gesture of an arm, and he cocked his pistol. That shadow was his man, and in a moment he would be in a chair in the chimney corner to smoke his pipe, maybe – his last pipe.

Buck smiled – pure hatred made him smile – but it was mean, a mean and sorry thing to shoot this man in the back, dog though he was; and now that the moment had come a wave of sickening shame ran through Buck. No one of his name had ever done that before; but this man and his people had, and with their own lips they had framed palliation for him. What was fair for one was fair for the other they always said. A poor man couldn’t fight money in the courts; and so they had shot from the brush, and that was why they were rich now and Buck was poor – why his enemy was safe at home, and he was out here, homeless, in the apple-tree.

Buck thought of all this, but it was no use. The shadow slouched suddenly and disappeared; and Buck was glad. With a gritting oath between his chattering teeth he pulled his pistol in and thrust one leg down to swing from the tree – he would meet him face to face next day and kill him like a man – and there he hung as rigid as though the cold had suddenly turned him, blood, bones, and marrow, into ice.

The door had opened, and full in the firelight stood the girl who he had heard was dead. He knew now how and why that word was sent to him. And now she who had been his sweetheart stood before him – the wife of the man he meant to kill.

Her lips moved – he thought he could tell what she said: “GI up, Jim it up!” Then she went back.

A flame flared up within him now that must have come straight from the devil’s forge. Again the shadows played over the ceiling. His teeth grated as he cocked his pistol, and pointed it down the beam of light that show into the heart of the apple-tree, and wailed.

The shadow of a head shot along the rafters and over the fireplace. It was a madman clutching the butt of the pistol now, and as his eye caught the glinting sight and his heart thumped, there stepped into the square light of the window – a child!

It was a boy with yellow tumbled hair, and he had a puppy in his arms. In front of the fire the little fellow dropped the dog, and they began to play.

“Yap! Yap! Yap!”

Buck could hear the shrill barking of the fat little dog, and the joyous shrieks of the child as he made his playfellow chase his tail round and round or tumbled him head over heels on the floor. It was the first child Buck had seen for three years; it was his child and hears; and, in the apple-tree, Buck watched fixedly.

They were down on the floor now, rolling over and over together; and he watched them until the child grew tired and turned his face to the fire and lay still – looking into it. Buck could see his eyes close presently, and then the puppy crept closer, put his head on his playmate’s chest, and the two lay thus asleep.

And still Buck looked – his clasp loosening on his pistol and his lips loosening under his stiff mustache – and kept looking until the door opened again and the woman crossed the floor. A flood of light flashed suddenly on the snow, barely touching the snow-hung tips of the apple-tree, and he saw her in the doorway – saw her look anxiously into the darkness – look and listen a long while.

Buck dropped noiselessly to the snow when she closed the door. He wondered what they would think when they saw his tracks in the snow the next morning; and then he realized that they would be covered before the morning.

As he started up the ravine where his horse was he heard the clink of metal down the road and the splash of a horse’s hoofs in the soft mud, and he sank down behind a holly-bush.

Again the light from the cabin flashed out on the snow.

“That you, Jim?”

“Yep!”

And then the child’s voice: “Has oo dot thum tandy?”

“Yep!”

The cheery answer rang out almost at Buck’s ear, and Jim passed death waiting for him behind the bush which was left foot brushed, shaking the snow from the red berries down on the crouching figure beneath.

Once only, far down the dark jungled way, with underlying streak of yellow that was leading him wither, God only knew – once only Buck looked back. There was the red light gleaming faintly through the moonlit flakes of snow. Once more he thought of the Star, and once more the chaplain’s voice came back to him.

“Mine!” said the Lord.

Just how, Buck could not see, with himself in the snow and him back there for life with her and the child, but some strange impulse made him bare his head.

“Yourn,” said Buck grimly.

But nobody on Lonesome – not even Buck – knew that it was Christmas Eve.

Copyright 1901

by Charles Scribner’