the merry month of May

 

May Day is a May 1 celebration with a long and varied history, dating back millennia. Throughout the years, there have been many different events and festivities worldwide, most with the express purpose of welcoming in a change of season (spring in the Northern Hemisphere). In the 19th century, May Day took on a new meaning, as an International Workers’ Day grew out of the 19th-century labor movement for worker’s rights and an eight-hour workday in the United States. May Day 2021 will be celebrated on Sunday, May 1, 2022.

The Celts of the British Isles believed May 1 to be the most important day of the year, when the festival of Beltane was held.

This May Day festival was thought to divide the year in half, between the light and the dark. Symbolic fire was one of the main rituals of the festival, helping to celebrate the return of life and fertility to the world.

When the Romans took over the British Isles, they brought with them their five-day celebration known as Floralia, devoted to the worship of the goddess of flowers, Flora. Taking place between April 20 and May 2, the rituals of this celebration were eventually combined with Beltane.

Beltrane  is one of the four Gaelic seasonal festivals—along with Samhain, Imbolc and Lughnasadh—and is similar to the Welsh Calan Mai.

Beltane is mentioned in some of the earliest Irish literature and is associated with important events in Irish mythology. Also known as Cétshamhain ("first of summer"), it marked the beginning of summer and it was when cattle were driven out to the summer pastures. Rituals were performed to protect the cattle, crops and people, and to encourage growth.

Beltane celebrations had largely died out by the mid-20th century, although some of its customs continued and in some places it has been revived as a cultural event. Since the late 20th century, Celtic neopagans and Wiccans have observed Beltane or a related festival as a religious holiday. Some neopagans in the Southern Hemisphere celebrate Beltane on or around 1 November.

 Another popular tradition of May Day involves the maypole. While the exact origins of the maypole remain unknown, the annual traditions surrounding it can be traced back to medieval times, and some are still celebrated today.

Villagers would enter the woods to find a maypole that was set up for the day in small towns (or sometimes permanently in larger cities). The day’s festivities involved merriment, as people would dance around the pole clad with colorful streamers and ribbons.

Historians believe the first maypole dance originated as part of a fertility ritual, where the pole symbolized male fertility and baskets and wreaths symbolized female fertility.

The maypole never really took root in America, where May Day celebrations were discouraged by the Puritans. But other forms of celebrations did find their way to the New World.

The connection between May Day and labor rights began in the United States. During the 19th century, at the height of the Industrial Revolution, thousands of men, women and children were dying every year from poor working conditions and long hours.

In an attempt to end these inhumane conditions, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions (which would later become the American Federation of Labor, or AFL) held a convention in Chicago in 1884. The FOTLU proclaimed “eight hours shall constitute a legal day’s labor from and after May 1, 1886.”

The following year the Knights of Labor—then America’s largest labor organization—backed the proclamation as both groups encouraged workers to strike and demonstrate.

On May 1, 1886, more than 300,000 workers (40,000 in Chicago alone) from 13,000 business walked out of their jobs across the country. In the following days, more workers joined and the number of strikers grew to almost 100,000.

Overall, the protests were peaceful, but that all changed on May 3 where Chicago police and workers clashed at the McCormick Reaper Works. The next day a rally was planned at Haymarket Square to protest the killing and wounding of several workers by the police.

The speaker, August Spies, was winding down when a group of officers arrived to disperse the crowd. As the police advanced, an individual who was never identified threw a bomb into their ranks. Chaos ensued, and at least seven police officers and eight civilians died as a result of the violence that day.

The Haymarket Riot, also known as the Haymarket Affair, set off a national wave of repression. In August 1886, eight men labeled as anarchists were convicted in a sensational and controversial trial despite there being no solid evidence linking the defendants to the bombing. The jury was considered to be biased, with ties to big business.

Seven of the convicted men received a death sentence, and the eighth was sentenced to 15 years in prison. In the end, four of the men were hanged, one committed suicide and the remaining three were pardoned six years later.

A few years after the Haymarket and subsequent trials shocked the world, a newly formed coalition of socialist and labor parties in Europe called for a demonstration to honor the “Haymarket Martyrs.” In 1890, over 300,000 people protested at a May Day rally in London.

The workers’ history of May 1 was eventually embraced by many governments worldwide, not just those with socialist or communist influences.

https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/history-of-may-day

Are funeral homes a dying business?

 

There was a time when the majority of the population chose a traditional funeral for their loved ones – but that has changed dramatically in recent years.

 In his half-century in the death business, Richard Moylan has never experienced years like these.

 As president of Brooklyn’s Green-Wood cemetery, he spends his days managing the historic site where families have spent the past couple years tending to loved ones lost to the pandemic. But the bigger change had been building before then: the choice to routinely cremate over traditional casket burial of years past.

 

At the height of the pandemic, Green-Wood’s crematory burned constantly, 16 to 18 hours daily. A wall recently collapsed. Maintenance costs spiked. Last year, 4,500 bodies entered the five chambers, a 35 percent increase over 2019.

So many ashes to ashes, so much dust to dust. Cremation is now America’s leading form of final “disposition,” as the funeral industry calls it — a preference that shows no sign of abating.

 

In 2020, 56 percent of Americans who died were cremated, more than double the figure of 27 percent two decades earlier, according to the Cremation Association of North America (CANA). By 2040, 4 out of 5 Americans are projected to choose cremation over casket burial, according to both CANA and the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA).

 

This seismic shift represents potentially severe revenue losses for the funeral industry. It’s leading innovators to create a growing number of green alternatives and other choices that depart from traditional casket funerals. And rapidly shifting views about disposing with bodies have also led to changes in how we memorialize loved ones — and reflect an increasingly secular, transient and, some argue, death-phobic nation.

 

Other countries have been quicker to embrace the practice, like Japan, with a rate of almost 100 percent, in part because of its high density and paucity of burial grounds. Cremation is central to Hindu and Buddhist funeral practices, releasing the soul from the body. But Judaism, Catholicism and Islam resisted it, because of views about the sanctity of body and spirit in death.

 

Though the United States’ first crematory opened in 1876 in Washington, Pa., Americans were slow to acceptance. They were just queasy about the practice. It took a century or more to evolve.

 Cremation finally skyrocketed as America became increasingly secular. Last year, the number of people belonging to a house of worship dropped below 50 percent for the first time since Gallup launched the poll in 1937.

 

Americans also started to recognize the convenience of cremation and its lower cost. Comparisons are challenging because of the many options, but the median price of a funeral with burial and viewing is $7,848, according to the NFDA, while the median cost of direct cremation is a third of the price at $2,550. Cremation with viewing and funeral is comparable to traditional burial, with a median cost of $6,970.

 

For families scattered across multiple states, there often seems little point in investing the effort and expense to bury a loved one in a cemetery no one will visit. Like pet food and leisure footwear, cremation is now available through direct-to-consumer websites such as Solace and Tulip.

 

Cremation is more popular in states that vote Democratic, include large transient populations or endure brutal winters that make the earth frozen solid. (Canada’s rates are notably higher than those of the United States.) Cremation rates already hover near or over 80 percent in Nevada, Washington, Oregon and Maine. They remain half that in Utah and many Southern states with large religiously observant populations.

 

“If there’s anything that is going to slow down or reverse the cremation rate in the United States, it is green burials,” says Kemmis, the CANA executive director. “People are looking to the greenest final disposition so that our deaths will reflect our lives.”

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/04/18/cremation-death-funeral/

 

 Founded in spring 2019, Recompose in Seattle is the nation’s first company to offer natural organic reduction. The body is laid in a vessel on a bed of wood chips, alfalfa and straw and transformed into soil over 30 days, enough to fill a pickup truck, for a flat fee of $7,000. Some families take some soil for personal use; about half donate it to a forest or farm. Subscribers to Recompose’s newsletter about “the death care journey” have swelled to 25,000. “People are looking for different options,” says Recompose outreach manager Anna Swenson. “Cost is a factor. Cultural beliefs are a factor. Guilt is a factor. The environment is a factor.” Recompose plans to expand to 10 facilities during the next decade.

 

Other options include being buried in a coral reef off the coast of Florida, or being turned into mulch. I also know at least one person who had sprinkled his mate’s ashes into Lake Superior.

 

The funeral home business is still a big business, with estimated revenues of $17 billion a year. That’s still a lot of money, but growth rates are down a lot from what they use to be.

 

https://bizfluent.com/12081976/are-funeral-homes-profitable

  Both of my parents are buried at Ft. Snelling cemetery in St. Paul, Minnesota, and we visited there a few times when we lived in states that were close to Minnesota. The reality, though, is that we now live 1500 miles away, and will likely never visit the cemetery again in our lifetimes.

Although my demise is likely at least a decade in the future, my final remains (after the hospital obtains the parts it needs from my carcass), will likely be an urn of some type.

For now, here is one of my favorites:

 https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81QNfSnLfHL._AC_SX679_.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Easter at St. Brendan's

 

St. Brendan’s is a magnificent old Catholic church that was opened in the Dorchester area of Boston in 1933, during the worst part of the Great Depression. Like Old St. Pat’s church in Chicago, the majority of the parishioners were immigrants from Ireland.

Noreen Kelley always sat in the same pew for Sunday Mass at St. Brendan, halfway up the church, on the right side.

It’s where her mother, Rosemary O’Brien, always sat. It’s where her grandmother, Nonie Sullivan, always sat.

Noreen Kelley’s grandmother was a longtime parishioner at the church that opened in 1933, at the height of the Depression. Her mother was in the first graduating class at St. Brendan church.

They will probably be the last. St. Brendan, one of the great Catholic churches of Dorchester, has been designated by its pastor for so-called relegation, which sounds more like the fate of an underperforming soccer team than a neighborhood institution that means so much to so many.

The church’s future now lies in the hands of Boston’s archbishop, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, but the current pastor, the Rev. Chris Palladino, has recommended the church be closed, citing declining attendance and $1.6 million in repairs needed over the next 18 months. Whatever Cardinal O’Malley decides, Father Palladino said there will be no more services after May 31. Her three daughters became the fourth generation of their family to worship at St. Brendan Church.

In 2018, St. Brendan was merged with St. Ann’s, a mile away in Neponset, to form the new parish of St. Martin de Porres. Father Palladino says St. Ann’s can easily accommodate those who now attend Mass at St. Brendan.

But parishioners like Kelley say talking about St. Brendan as if it is nothing more than a building fails to appreciate that it has its own distinct history and culture, that families measure their lives and every signature stage in those lives — birth, marriage, death — wrapped in the comforting arms of a space and a spirituality that can’t simply be moved like furniture.

This year, for the first time in her life, Noreen Kelley will be unable to attend Easter Sunday services at St. Brendan’s.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/04/11/metro/sins-father-geoghan/

 Kelley believes the beginning of the end of St. Brendan began 20 years ago, when the Archdiocese was roiled by the massive coverup of sexual abuse of minors by priests. In the 20 years that followed, she said, St. Brendan has had a dozen pastors, with needed maintenance not deferred so much as ignored.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Archdiocese_of_Boston_sex_abuse_scandal

No man was more scandalous and evil than the predator posing as a priest named John Geoghan. Geoghan was the poster boy for the sexual abuse scandal that rocked the Archdiocese. St. Brendan, where he served three years in the early 1980s, was merely one of his myriad postings, as he was moved around by bishops more concerned with protecting the church’s reputation than protecting the bodies and souls of the young people he raped.

The Catholic Archdiocese of Boston sex abuse scandal was part of a series of Catholic Church sexual abuse cases in the United States that revealed widespread crimes in the American Roman Catholic Church. In early 2002, The Boston Globe published results of an investigation that led to the criminal prosecutions of five Roman Catholic priests and thrust the sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy into the national spotlight. Another accused priest who was involved in the Spotlight scandal also pleaded guilty. The Globe's coverage encouraged other victims to come forward with allegations of abuse, resulting in numerous lawsuits and more criminal cases.

 John Geoghan (1935–2003) was accused of sexual abuse involving more than 130 children. Charges were brought in Cambridge, Massachusetts alleging molestation that took place in 1991. Geoghan was laicized in 1998. In January 2002, Geoghan was found guilty of indecent assault and battery for grabbing the buttocks of a ten-year-old boy in a swimming pool at the Waltham Boys and Girls Club in 1991, and was sentenced to nine to ten years in prison.

The trial included testimony by the victim. Dr. Edward Messner, a psychiatrist who treated Geoghan for his sexual fantasies about children from 1994 to 1996 also testified, as did Archbishop Alfred C. Hughes, who testified that he banned Geoghan from the swimming club after a complaint that he had been proselytizing and had engaged in prurient conversations.

After initially agreeing to and then withdrawing a $30 million settlement with 86 of Geoghan's victims, the Boston archdiocese settled with them for $10 million, and is still negotiating with lawyers for other victims. The most recent settlement proposed is $65 million for 542 victims. The settlements are being offered in response to evidence that the archdiocese had transferred Geoghan from parish to parish despite warnings of his behavior. Evidence also arose that the archdiocese displayed a pattern of transferring other priests to new parishes when allegations of sexual abuse were made.

Geoghan was charged in two other cases in Boston's Suffolk County. One case was dropped without prejudice when the victim decided not to testify. In the second case, two rape charges were dismissed by a judge after hotly contested arguments because the statute of limitations had expired. The Commonwealth's appeal of that ruling was active at the time of Geoghan's death, and remaining charges of indecent assault in that case were pending.

On August 23, 2003, while in protective custody at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley, Massachusetts, Geoghan was strangled and stomped to death in his cell by Joseph Druce, a self-described white supremacist serving a sentence of life without possibility of parole for killing a man who allegedly made a sexual advance after picking up Druce while he was hitchhiking. An autopsy revealed the cause of death to be "ligature strangulation and blunt chest trauma." There have been questions raised about the advisability of placing these two men on the same unit, as prison officials had been warned by another inmate that Druce was planning to assault Geoghan.

Because of molestation claims, at least 325 of America's 46,000 priests were removed from duty or resigned in the year following the Geoghan case. Cardinal Bernard Law resigned as Boston archbishop in December, giving up his post as spiritual leader to 2.1 million Catholics because of his mishandling of abuse cases.

Cardinal Law was not the only archbishop who covered up the sexual abuse committed by priests.

According to the National Catholic Reporter, the abuse scandal has cost the Catholic Church close to $4 billion. In addition, separate research recently published calculates that other scandal-related consequences such as lost membership and diverted giving has cost the church more than $2.3 billion annually for the past 30 years.

https://www.ncronline.org/news/accountability/ncr-research-costs-sex-abuse-crisis-us-church-underestimated

Over the last 14 years, 19 Catholic dioceses and religious orders in the United States have filed for bankruptcy protection because of the clergy sexual abuse crisis, according to the watchdog group Bishopsaccountability.org.

The Diocese of Tucson was one of the first to file, and it settled for $22 million in 2004.

I grew up in the Twin Cities, which was not immune for the sexual abuse scandals. The Archdiocese filed for bankruptcy in 2015, after agreeing to pay $210 million to 400 victims.

Even today, cases are still pending for 5 more dioceses.

https://www.ncronline.org/news/accountability/catholic-dioceses-and-orders-filed-bankruptcy-and-other-major-settlements

 

Attendance at Catholic churches has been declining for years. In the United States, 38% of the Catholic population attends mass on a regular basis, and it is much less than that in European counties.

https://comparecamp.com/church-attendance-statistics/

In France (where only 12% of the Catholics attend mass regularly) any church built before 1905 is actually owned by France, rather than the archdiocese of Paris.

 The archdiocese of Paris could not afford to cover the estimated $1 billion that will be needed to rebuild Notre Dame Cathedral – but is makes sense for France itself to pay for it because it is a symbol of the country itself, since it is the most visited destination in the entire world.

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2019/04/we-are-all-french_19.html

So, what will happened to St. Brendan’s?

As developers gobbled up churches in downtown Washington in 2013, the Rev. Amy Butler had a realization. Institutional Christianity, she believed, was unlikely to revive itself after decades of declining membership.

 Butler later learned that religious institutions in the United States were valued at $1.2 trillion. And she met a man who was distributing money to anyone he perceived to be working for some kind of community healing.

 Those experiences prompted a lightbulb moment for Butler. Why couldn’t money left in the coffers of dying churches be repurposed to fuel projects aimed at doing good in the world? Years later, Butler has brought her idea to life through Invested Faith, a fund established to receive assets from closing houses of worship and disburse them to entrepreneurs motivated by faith and focused on social justice.

 Now the pastor of National City Christian Church in Washington, Butler knows that some see accepting the closure of churches as akin to giving up on institutions that mean a lot to many. But she rejects that framing, reminding skeptics that belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead lies at the heart of Christianity. “We don’t need to be afraid of death,” Butler said. “We’re people who believe that after death is resurrection.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/04/15/amy-butler-invested-faith-dying-churches/

There’s a possibility that St. Brendan’s will be sold to developers and torn down, making room for new offices or condominiums.

In Europe, old churches have been re-purposed as libraries or gymnasium s or restaurants – and dozens of other uses.

 https://www.dw.com/en/repurposed-churches/av-17136647#:~:text=Repurposed%20Churches%20As%20congregations%20in%20Europe%20see%20their,converted%20into%20luxury%20hotels%2C%20private%20homes%2C%20or%20restaurants.

Noreen Kelley will likely regret the death of St. Brendan’s, but in the greater scheme of things, it is a blessing in disguise.

On the day that we celebrate life after death, what could be more fitting than to see the church being repurposed as something else that is more relevant to the current needs of the community it served?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

murder on 34th Street

 

 

If you saw a group of crows on 34^th Avenue in New York City, it would constitute a murder – because that it was a group of crows is called.

Stephen Pastis (who draws the cartoon “Pears before Swine” reminded us recently that some groups of animals have unusual names.

https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2022/04/07

He is correct in saying that a group of zebras is called a dazzle, but the group could also be called a harem or a zeal. However, due to its bulbous shape, I can’t think of a better name for a rhino than “bloat”

The link below will allow to view the names of 60 different groups of animals:

https://wordcounter.io/blog/how-many-words-does-the-average-person-know/

 

Some of them you are already familiar with.

A swarm of bees

A caravan of camels

A litter of kittens

A pack of dogs, or a litter of puppies

A herd of elk

A school of fish

A gaggle of geese

A pride of lions

A barrel of monkeys

A pack of mules

A team of oxen

A pack of wolves

The complete list can be found below:

 

• Apes: a shrewdness
• Badgers: a cete
• Bats: a colony, cloud or camp
• Bears: a sloth or sleuth
• Bees: a swarm
• Buffalo: a gang or obstinacy
• Camels: a caravan
• Cats: a clowder or glaring; Kittens: a litter or kindle; Wild cats: a destruction
• Cobras: a quiver
• Crocodiles: a bask
• Crows: a murder
• Dogs: a pack; Puppies: a litter
• Donkeys: a drove
• Eagles: a convocation
• Elephants: a parade
• Elk: a gang or a herd
• Falcons: a cast
• Ferrets: a business
• Fish: a school
• Flamingos: a stand
• Foxes: a skulk or leash
• Frogs: an army
• Geese: a gaggle
• Giraffes: a tower
• Gorillas: a band
• Hippopotami: a bloat
• Hyenas: a cackle
• Jaguars: a shadow
• Jellyfish: a smack
• Kangaroos: a troop or mob

 

 

• Lemurs: a conspiracy
• Leopards: a leap
• Lions: a pride
• Moles: a labor
• Monkeys: a barrel or troop
• Mules: a pack
• Otters: a family
• Oxen: a team or yoke
• Owls: a parliament
• Parrots: a pandemonium
• Pigs: a drift or drove (younger pigs), or a sounder or team (older pigs)
• Porcupines: a prickle
• Rabbits: a herd
• Rats: a colony

Ravens: an unkindness

Rhinoceroses: a crash

Shark: a shiver

Skunk: a stench

Snakes: a nest

Squirrels: a dray or scurry

Stingrays: a fever

Swans: a bevy or game (if in flight: a wedge)

Tigers: an ambush or streak

Toads: a knot

Turkeys: a gang or rafter

Turtles: a bale or nest

Weasels: a colony, gang or pack

Whales: a pod, school, or gam

Wolves: a pack

 

https://wordcounter.io/blog/how-many-words-does-the-average-person-know/

Some of the names makes sense, but a few of them will have you scratching your head.

Since crocodiles like to bask in the sun, “bask” is a good name for a group of them

Since flamingos can stand on one leg, “stand” is a good name for a group

Since giraffes have long necks, “tower” is a perfect name

If you have seen “The life of Pi”, you’d agree that “cackle” is a good name for a group of hyenas

Although you are unlikely to ever use some of the more unusual names, you are smarter than you might think.

By the time the average American has reached 20, they would have acquired a vocabulary of 42,000 words, and 48,000 words by the age of 60.

https://wordcounter.io/blog/how-many-words-does-the-average-person-know/

Either one of those numbers, though, barely scratches the surface when it comes to the English language

The Second Edition of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary contains full entries for 171,476 words in current use (and 47,156 obsolete words). Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged, together with its 1993 Addenda Section, includes some 470,000 entries. But, the number of words in the Oxford and Webster Dictionaries are not the same as the number of words in English, since they don’t take into account slang or jargon.

If you tried to learn 10 new words per day in the Oxford-English dictionary, it would take you 63 years to learn all of them. Keep in mind, though, that the average person learns one new word a day until middle age, and after that, NO new words are typically added.

 https://wordcounter.io/blog/how-many-words-are-in-the-english-language/

There was a story in The Washington Post the other day about a carpet cleaner who can speak 24 languages fluently, but he also speaks at least 12 more, which makes him a hyperpolyglot.

https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/37013/20220406/carpet-cleaner-speak-over-24-languages-making-real-live-polyglot.htm#:~:text=Carpet%20Cleaner%20Can%20Speak%20Over%2024%20Languages%2C%20Making,Portuguese%2C%20Spanish%2C%20Russian%2C%20Romanian%2C%20Bulgarian%2C%20Slovak%2C%20and%20Czech.

A person who speaks two languages is bi-lingual

A person who speaks three is tri-lingual

A person that speaks more than three is a polyglot.

A person who speaks one language?

An American.

In closing, I’d like to offer this advice:

If you witness a murder on 34^th Street, it’s not necessary to call the police.

If your memory is good, you may remember that the movie, "Miracle on 34th Street" was released in 1947. It won three Academy Awards, 

In more recent years, there has been a miracle on 34th AVENUE, which is in Queens.

The Jackson Heights, Corona and Elmhurst areas of Queens were among the hardest hit in the United States by the Covid-19 epidemic.

A recent film looks at the months-long struggle in Jackson Heights to get an open street on its beautiful tree-lined 34th Avenue. Featuring two-way streets separated by a median, it was the perfect place in the neighborhood to allow more social distancing, allow people to get some exercise and have better mental health due to the virus' long shadow on our city.

Now that the open street runs for 1.3 miles every day from 8am to 8pm, you will see children, families, exercisers, seniors and people using it that need to shop & run vital errands.

It was a unique partnership from the city and neighborhood alliances. And in these days where we could use some good news and inspiration, the folks that made this happen should be applauded!

https://vimeo.com/424830957?gclid=Cj0KCQjwgMqSBhDCARIsAIIVN1UGxx5eL7vNAcpv5JmMk-zdClK57nu-0XK4xNccLQbSh8qkQ04uAkwaAjNSEALw_wcB