Douglas E. Berry

April 30th is Hexennacht – an occasion to honor those who have fallen victim to superstition and pseudoscience, whether by witch hunt, Satanic panic, or other injustices. ​​We must continue to remember the importance of our Second Tenet as we honor those who have endured unjust persecution.

Fundamental Tenet II
The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.

The pursuit of justice is dependent, on and subordinate to, the apprehension of truth. When truth is compromised, injustice inevitably arises.

Hail Satan!

In Congress, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Georgia

Button Gwinnett

Lyman Hall

George Walton



North Carolina

William Hooper

Joseph Hewes

John Penn



South Carolina

Edward Rutledge

Thomas Heyward, Jr.

Thomas Lynch, Jr.

Arthur Middleton



Massachusetts

John Hancock

Maryland

Samuel Chase

William Paca

Thomas Stone

Charles Carroll of Carrollton



Virginia

George Wythe

Richard Henry Lee

Thomas Jefferson

Benjamin Harrison

Thomas Nelson, Jr.

Francis Lightfoot Lee

Carter Braxton



Pennsylvania

Robert Morris

Benjamin Rush

Benjamin Franklin

John Morton

George Clymer

James Smith

George Taylor

James Wilson

George Ross

Delaware

Caesar Rodney

George Read

Thomas McKean



New York

William Floyd

Philip Livingston

Francis Lewis

Lewis Morris



New Jersey

Richard Stockton

John Witherspoon

Francis Hopkinson

John Hart

Abraham Clark



New Hampshire

Josiah Bartlett

William Whipple



Massachusetts

Samuel Adams

John Adams

Robert Treat Paine

Elbridge Gerry



Rhode Island

Stephen Hopkins

William Ellery



Connecticut

Roger Sherman

Samuel Huntington

William Williams

Oliver Wolcott



New Hampshire

Matthew Thornton

By far, my favorite Halloween tale.

The Great Old Pumpkin by John Aegard

Enjoy!

Washington, D.C.
October 3, 1863

By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation.

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

William H. Seward,
Secretary of State

Oh, what joy. Two of my least favorite days of the year happen to fall on the same day this year. Easter Sunday and April Fool's Day. I am an early adopter of curmudgeonhood, so let me hold forth at length why I loathe both events celebrated today. I will admit that having been born on July 4th, and sharing that birthday with a younger sister soured me on holidays in general at an early age.

But Easter! Still tied to an astronomical calendar that made no sense 2,000 years ago, Easter wanders around like a drunk at a party, bumping into other dates and finally crashing into the punch bowl. Ideally, Easter is a holy day of celebration, the day when Dionysus - sorry, Jesus - rose from the dead to assume his place on Mt. Olympus. Damn. Heaven, his place in heaven. Honestly, read enough religious history and your dying and religious tropes get confused.

But since there is a traffic jam of resurrecting deities around the vernal equinox, Christianity eager absorbed those traditions, mostly of fertility and agricultural gods and goddesses, as the coming of Spring represents the rebirth of life. So along with sunrise masses and shouts of Χριστός Ανέστη in Greek Orthodox churches, you get fertility symbols like eggs and bunnies. Yes, moms and dads, you just gave little Susie offering encouraging her to go have sex.

Now, about that name . . . it was nothing to do with Ishtar. However, the Venerable Bede, writing in the 8th century, links the celebration of the equinox to a goddess named Ēostre, one of the many goddesses of the dawn linked to the Proto-Indo-European goddess Haéusōs. In Greek and Latin, the name is local variations on Passover.

But of course, even though I have nothing to do with the religion, it attacked my daily existence. If I see that clucking bunny commercial for chocolate eggs one more freaking time I shall scream. Ever advert we get in the mail assumes that we need a big ham for our non-existent big family dinner. If I gave in to all the candy deals I would be a diabetic in three days. And the money spent on special outfits for children that will be worn once kills me.

Seriously, I wish American Christians could learn from Judaism and reclaim their holidays from the media and secular blitz. Know what I heard about Passover this year? When it started. And that's only because there was some anger about scheduling the Hugo Finalists announcements on the first full day of the holiday.

Enough about that. let's get to a day I look forward to with mounting rage every freaking year. April 1st. April Fool's Day.

Look, I love me some Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales introduced me to the joy that is Middle English. His stories are timeless. But if I had a time machine, one of my first stops (after seeing the Grateful Dead play the last show at Winterland) would be to get him to through the Nun's Priest Tale in the fire.

It's not even the best story in the very long series and eliminating it eliminates this bizarre fixation on stupid jokes. We even have the date wrong! Chaucer wrote that the Nun's tale is set "Syn March bigan thritty dayes and two" which many readers interpreted as March 32nd, better known as April 1st. Modern scholars believe that there is a copying error in the extant manuscripts and that Chaucer actually wrote, Syn March was gon. If so, the passage would have originally meant 32 days after March, i.e. May 2nd.

Copying errors and the oddities of Middle English aside, I hate this day because 90% of the so-called "jokes" are stupid, hurtful, or just fall flat. In my opinion, Think Geek is the only company to regularly win at April Fool's because if there is a strong enough response, they'll put the joke item into production. A joke can holder that looked like a beet stein was so popular they made it in sold thousands.

But so many of the jokes are just cruel. I've already seen several fake proposals, and a kid getting a fake acceptance latter to Harvard. What is the fucking point here? First of all, everyone knows it's coming, so the impact of most of the big hoaxes is diluted, and the jokes played on people tend to hurt them. Seriously, if someone pulled these jokes on me, I'd shove my cane down their throats. It's not funny anymore.

So yeah. I won't even get into the stupid store closures and the like. And don't even get me started on Arbor Day.

And so the winter holiday season has come crashing down on us again like a truckload of old Sears catalogs. No matter which mid-winter festival you celebrate, and there are so many to chose from, the true faith of humanity, Capitalism and Greed, means that we will spend the next month being told that $50,000 automobiles (plus $699.99 for the giant red bow on top) are the perfect gift.

Personal rule: if it doesn't fit in the room where the holiday is being celebrated with family and/or friends, it's not a gift, it's an investment. So even that big red bow is off my list.

But here's why I'm so cynical about the approach of Giftmass. I'm not a material person. I've never wanted a huge pile of things. I look at these huge mansions of the rich and wonder what the hell they do with all the room! I love old maps and coins, but even if I had the money, I'd want the really cool pieces to go to museums where they could be admired by everyone. I seriously do not get buying a Monet and hanging it where no one else can see it.

I just don't get greed or the need for endless toys. I love books, but I don't hoard them. Even my beloved collection of role-playing games has been culled several times to remove stuff I no longer play. At my heart, I'm just a very utilitarian type.

Which makes buying me presents pretty hard. I have trouble coming up with things I want (right now my Amazon wishlist is almost entirely made up of books) and I don't understand many traditional gifts that people give. Kirsten is constantly frustrated by my "meh" attitude towards Giftpalooza.

Part of this may come from the aforementioned Sears' catalog. When it would show up in early October, I would pour over the toy section with the grim determination of detective searching for clues. I would examine every category, committing every detail of the Micronauts' Micropolis Megacity set to memory. Because I knew I wasn't getting it. My parents believed in not spoiling the kids. We got good gifts for the holidays, but never the overload some of my friends had. Which meant my wish list had to be limited to the things I really wanted and was likely to pass muster with the parental units.

I would also spend long hours staring at the hunting and outdoors section of the catalog. Sears sold guns back then. That particular obsession had to wait until I got into the Army, however. But what I would do with my extensive knowledge of every page of the catalog is dream. With the few Micronauts I had, I could just imagine the playsets I didn't own and write them into my adventures.

This early training has stayed with ever since. And once you can visualize what you want, the need to own it fades. When we would go to the beach house we used at Pajaro Dunes, I would sit on the porch and conjure up alien invaders fighting desperate Terran Marines in the sand, or just lie on the beach at night looking up at the stars and imagine the great fleets and clever traders plying the routes between the stars.

It's why I'm a good storyteller. I summon stories from the vasty deep, to paraphrase Shakespeare, and have learned to control them. It's why I always crave more books, especially biographies and histories, so I can learn more stories to share, even if I twist them a bit.

So that's where I am this holiday season, I'm the guy who has little and is mostly happy with it. But if any of you have a rich relative looking to make someone happy, I could use a few things.

A new Ford F-150 with optional 4x4, crew cab, 270-degree doors, 8-foot bed, and towing assistance package. All the electronics and touchscreen gizmos. Base white is good. I love my Ford Ranger, but an upgrade would be amazing. This would cost about $40,000.

To go with the new truck, a new trailer would be nice. A Chalet XL 1935 would be perfect. That's about $25,000. Permanent queen-sized bed, solar power, optional toilet and shower . . . better than our first apartment!

Finally, I need new dentures. What I really need is bone grafts on both jaws to rebuild mass, have posts inserted, and new dentures made so I can chew again. We've been told this would be a minimum of $15,000, more likely $18-20,000 for a really good job.

So there you go. Three material things I actually want. None of which are frivolous. Oh, and books. Keep the books coming.

It's Heavy Metal Turkey Day!

Back when I did Heavy Metal Sunday on Live Journal, I always made sure to have a really terrible video for Thanksgiving. Because "turkey" has come to mean something really bad as well as being a delicious bird. Even though I've stopped doing the HMS posts, I still like to do Turkey day.

Chris Holmes is the former guitarist for W.A.S.P and is perhaps best known for the vodka-drenched interview he gave while floating in his pool, with his mother sitting silently nearby, in the amazing film The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years. After the breakup of W.A.S.P, he bounced around with a couple of different acts before embarking on a solo career.

What can you say about the video for Let It Roar? Apparently shot on an iPhone and editing by a small child, the video follows Chris around his adopted home in Cannes, France. Dude, there is nothing metal about your semi-retired life.




and as a bonus, the infamous interview: