Ten pounds of personality in a five-pound bag
Today someone linked to this BBC article about Rogozov, the guy who performed his own appendectomy in Antarctica.
His description here is 100% accurate for appendicitis:
It hurts like the devil! A snow storm whipping through my soul, wailing like 100 jackals.
Anyway, go check it out! A neat piece of medical history.
This afternoon one of my friends started talking about Ded Moroz and Ukrainian tree traditions and anyway my mind is blown.
My Jewish Family Always Had a Christmas Tree — But Not for Christmas
I had no idea about ANY of this.
We just had Santa/Saint Nicholas, and another one…Black Piet, I think? Not the weird Dutch blackface one, but just a second Santa Claus figure who followed along dressed in black robes (not red) and had the job of handing out the coal to the bad kids (presumably so that Santa wouldn’t have to get his hands dirty, literally or metaphorically).
(Side note: Stardew Valley has made me see coal as a good present.)
I’m not sure if this was just my family’s adaptation of Krampus or what. But anyway, just wanted to share!
Do not honor a man who took up arms against his own country in order to defend the right to hold other men in bondage.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/4UB9LtcJY3
Today, my friend sent me this video that referenced the book “Ishmael,” by Daniel Quinn. This book changed my life when I read it in high school, and I highly recommend it.
The thesis of the video is that Millennials feel weird and out of place because our lives straddle the third major human inflection point: not Agriculture, not the Industrial Revolution, but the Information Revolution.
Go give it a listen.
Emilybook 