that sounds true

Oh no anon, O Holy Night is the BEST. Listen.

First, it’s gorgeous and so moving. You can sing it in church on Christmas or while caroling, but still be blown away by an exceptional performance of it. The Romantic rises and falls, and the way it builds…it’s perfect. It’s been described by several ppl as the “lord of the rings” of xmas carols.

Second, it’s an explicitly very religious Christmas song written by a Jewish atheist composer who was trying to capture what he thought Christmas was like for christians. He created this incredible hymn of hope and the dawn of a new world during the darkest days of the year, and the coming of a person who would protect the meek and overthrow the powerful oppressors.

And then it was translated into English by a Unitarian Transcendentalist who used it as a rallying cry against slavery and racial discrimination. His translation somehow skewed even MORE hopeful and awed. I feel like it truly conveys what it feels like to celebrate a spark of hope in the middle of winter.

Third, it has an incredible history. Once the French churches found out it was written by an atheistic jewish man (in French), it was banned. However, it continued to be people’s favorite hymn, and the ban was universally ignored to the point it became known as the “religious Marseillaise.” There are stories of French peasants filing out of Christmas mass to stand outside of the church and sing the song in defiance of Churches’ prohibition of it.

Additionally, the lines in French are implicitly, and the lines in English are deliberately and explicitly, in favor of abolitionism, which is why it spread through North America so quickly: “chains shall He break, for the slave is His brother / and in His name all oppression shall cease.”

It was also the first song to ever play over airwaves (via violin) one Christmas Eve, as part of a chemist’s experiment. And it was allegedly sung by French, English, and German soldiers all together on Christmas during the Franco-Prussian War and in the trenches during WWI.

I don't know if you've alrady been given a plethora of suggestions by now, seeing it's been a year, but allow me to give another one.

My personal favourite rendition of the French version of O Holy Night, "Minuit Chrétien", comes from the QuébecIssime production "Décembre":

You know the perennial question:

"What if they threw a war, and nobody came?"

Well, this is the other side of that coin (an answer of sorts):

EASTERN STANDARD TIME

FROM HERE ON IN

I SHOOT WITHOUT A SCRIPT

SEE IF ANYTHING COMES OF IT

(INSTEAD OF MY OLD SHIT)

1 quastion

Due South - Text Posts

Fraser/Ray K:

[1][2]

Fraser:

[1][2]

Ray Vecchio:

the 80s tylenol murders. tl;dr: you know that tamper seal on new bottles of medicine everyone hates? those are there because in the 1980s, some freak went into a pharmacy and poisoned a bunch of tylenol. 7 people died in the initial crime, more in subsequent copycat crimes. they never caught who did it.

Even though they weren't doing anything differently from other medication companies that made them vulnerable to this--and it remains unclear whether the tampering was happening in the factory, the stores, or some other part of the supply chain--they moved very quickly to recall products and develop tamper-resistant packaging, and as a result they regained the public's trust a lot more quickly than you might guess. (And the new packaging they developed also became the industry standard.)

minimalist pencil sketches of cats by Shou Xin (手訫)

Also preserved in our archive

Making every poor person dance for the internet in order to get their snazzy twitter begging flyer traction will only set people up for long term failure.

Imagine: I’m a young person down on her luck so I beg on twitter with my real name and face along with every personal detail, I get my coin, I am actually able to put myself through schooling but now whenever an employer googles me they can find this incredibly personal information about me!

You can also consider giving to an Umbrella Nonprofit. These groups distribute funds to much smaller orgs that may have trouble reaching a large audience on their own. The most well-known of these is The United Way which has over 1,000 individual charities it distributes funds too. You can often designate your donations this way - either to be distributed to charities all who serve a cause, or to specific charities only.