Winter Solstice is here

December 21, 2024

Shortest daylight of the 366-day year

for the Northern Hemisphere

Philippians 2: 10 - 11 (Latin transl.)

Ut in nomine Jesu

omne genu flectatur

caelestium

terrestium

et infernorum.

Et omnis lingua confiteatur,

quia Dominus Jesus Christus

in Gloria Dei Patris.

Frankfurt Silver Inscription (amulet foil writing, Latin)

A.D. 230 - 270

18 lines of Latin Text in amulet

"In the name of St. Titus

Holy! Holy! Holy!

In the name of Jesus Christ,

Son of God

The Lord of the World

Resists to the best

of his ability

All attacks / setbacks

The God grants the well-being

Entry.

This means of salvation

protects the human being who 

surrenders to the will of 

the Lord Jesus Christ, 

the Son of God, 

since before Jesus Christ

All knees bow to Jesus Christ: 

the heavenly the earthly 

and the subterranean and 

every tongue confess to Jesus Christ"

cnn.com/2024/12/20 online article "Silver Amulet discovered in Germany

could rewrite Christian history in Europe"

Pentagon admits that 2,000 troops (NOT 900 as formerly publicized)

. . . are on site in Syria to support the

core official deployed forces participating

in the Pentagon's mission of keeping

Islamic State's armed forces from reconstituting

nytimes.com/2024/12/19/us/politics/us-troops-syria.html

Military prepares to go without pay due to GOP budget shutdown

LIVE Update CNN

However, the Dept. of Defense will continue to work

after Friday's shutdown. . .

CNN.com/politics/live-news/trump-government-shutdown-

news-12-19-24/index.html 

Wrath of Trump

No, not another sci-fi blockbuster in the Star Trek franchise

INSTEAD,

an early order from the President-elect to show how his DOJ

will begin its FBI Inquiry as far as her actions on

Jan. 6 Congressional committee that examined 

Trump's attempts to hold on to Presidential power when he

lost the 2020 election.

nytimes.com/2024/12/18/us/politics/trump-liz-cheney-report.html

Tom Homan

Trump-Vance incoming

Border Czar

needs 100,000 beds far beyond the

40,000 already currently funded for

to deal with the 11 million illegal

immigrant "issue" : his plan is to

carry out Trump-Vance plans by 

immediately arresting and holding

in "detention camps" the undocumented

immigrants . . .

cnn.com/ border-czar-homan-trump-

deportation-plans/index.html

Jared Moskowitz

FL Congressman (D) denies any job in Trump-Vance administration

was offered -- He will stay in Congress representing his district.

(23rd)

There are always areas for bipartisanship // he will not be named

as FEMA chief by #DJT

CR "Stopgap measure" does not emerge until 14 March 2025

Speaker of House Johnson negotiated specific assistance

for farmers - $10 billion new spending

DETAILS CNN.com/2024/12/17/politics/

government-spending-negotiations-congress/index.html

Stop gap measure he originally planned for was to run thru 

March 14 next year

UPDATE:

As of Wed. -- outside agitator Elon Musk is calling

for GOP members to vote against this bipartisan

deal -- leaving Mike Johnson in the "lurch"

RFK , Jr. plans to continue to question the science of vaccines

Trump - Vance nominee for HHS and all health agencies at

federal level told Senator Mark Wayne Mullin (Oklahoma)

that he plans to continue to

question the science of

vaccines -- CNN.com/

2024/12/16/politics/

kennedy-vaccines-gop-

senators/index.html

French Prime Minister

Dec. 17, 2024

President Macron named this fellow party member as incoming

Prime Minister

Francois Bayrou,

founding member of MoDem Party

Dec. 17 new entries in "National Film Registry"

LOC (Library of Congress) announces these new titles for 2024

Star Trek II : The wrath of Khan

Dirty Dancing

No Country for Old Men

Beverly Hills Cop

The Social Network

Up in Smoke

Angels with Dirty Faces

The Chelsea Girls

Spy Kids

Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Thomas Edison short film

American Me

Mi Familia

Powwow Highway

Compensation

Common Threads: AIDS Quilt stories

Ganja and Hess

Invaders from Mars (1953)

Koko's Earth Control (1928)

The Miracle Worker

My Own Private Idaho

The Pride of the Yankees

Uptown Saturday Night

Will (1981)

Zora Lathan Student Films

Alberta Clipper

The first "Alberta Clipper" of the winter precipitation

season will hit Michigan on Dec. 19 - 20, 2024 : SOURCE

Michigan Live! dot-com

storm system that moves from

the Pacific Ocean to SW Canada &

then SE into the Northern Plains,

then moves SE over the Great Lakes

region

mlive.com/weather/2024/12/weather-this-week-

1st-alberta-clipper-gradually-turns-us-wintry.html

Winter Solstice 2024

The shortest daylight of the year will

take place at the Winter Solstice at 4:20 a.m. eastern

December 21, 2024;

from that point in the season the amount of

daylight increases until the longest Daylight

of the year at the Summer Solstice !

Happy Birthday, Ludwig B.!

Beethoven's Birthday

[Schroeder of Peanuts

comic strip honored this day]

Dec. 16, 1770

Bonn, Germany

he would live 56 years, 3 months

Parents: Johann B. & 

Maria Magdalena Keverich

Bonhoeffer War Sermon (1930)

Concerning the early 20th century international war termed

The Great War or The First WORLD War:

War bears within itself the justification

of sin.  For it contradicts God's command-

ment.  A final answer to the question of

whether a Christian should or should not

participate must be rejected.  Both answers

are possible.

One person shows solidarity and goes along.

The other one says: "Even the authorities 

are demanding sin; I will not participate."

On the one hand, we are threatened by

militarism.  And on the other,

by doctrinaire pacifism.

This is not a matter of assessing people

morally.  Here people did die heroic

or miserably cowardly deaths.  One can

be even more grateful to the cowardly 

than to the person who died heroically.

Just think what it means for a poor,

cowardly person to offer up life itself!

The heroes at least had an ideal.  The 

others died without such an ideal, 

miserably, but perhaps with all the more

difficulty.

But both suffered death, stood together

in a single line like a wall.  Gratitude!

But God amid all this!  It is not our

place to award retroactive medals for

bravery.  Nor the opposite either.

They died.  How?  Who knows?  Enough

simply that they died.  As a result,

we live.  That prompts us to offer

thanksgiving and to repent before

God!

Pray for the victory of one's own

cause?  No.

It, the church, prays only for peace

for soldiers on both sides.  War sermons?

They were equally bad in both Germany

and England.

Han Duck-Soo

With today's impeachment of the former president

Yoon Suk Yeol

the Prime Minister Han Duck-Soo

will step in to govern the E. Asian democracy,

on an interim basis (12/14/2024).

Yoon Sook Yeoul - elected leader in S. Korea

Korea's President who declared Martial Law this month

and who is today impeached by the constitutional

court (Dec. 14, 2024).

Celebrations broke out across the cities and region

of South Korea.  He did vow to fight removal from

office DETAILS at

nytimes.com/live/2024/12/14/world/south-korea-impeachment

president-yoon

2025 invitation to a communist leader

#DJT invited by phone and written request for

Xi Jinping

of China to attend his swearing-in

ceremony, overshadowing democratically

elected officeholders, ex-Presidents, military brass,

and members of Congress.  A formal decline was

conveyed by the autocrat, given that their

ambassador and wife were assumed to be

adequate representation. . .

cnn.com/2024/12/12/politics/trump-xi-inauguration-

china-analysis/index.html

SUPPLEMENT:

NY Mayor Eric Adams wants a ticket to

Trump inauguration (20 Jan. 2025) -- reporting

in NY Times 17 Dec. 2024 that advisers

are approaching the Trump-Vance arrangers / 

staff about a ticket to the D.C. event

Aaron Siri

NYTIMES dot-com profile

Friday 12/13/24

a lawyer assisting RFK, Jr. pick federal

health officials for the incoming Trump-

Vance administration 

He has petitioned the government to 

revoke its approval of the

polio vaccine,

Hepatitis B vaccine, 

13 other vaccines until

their makers disclose 

details about aluminum

nytimes.com/2024/12/13/health/

aaron-siri-rfk-jr-vaccines.html

Kirchenkampf

The German word

Kirchenkampf

refers to the situation of

the Christian churches in

Germany from Hitler's rise

to power in 1933 to the 

end of World War II in 1945

The Church and the Jewish Question (1933 writing by D. Bonhoeffer)

The professional Theologian / academic philosopher took in

this writing a public stand against the new regime (NAZISM)

Michael P. DeJonge -- Bonhoeffer on Resistance (2018)

subtitled: The Word against the Wheel

There are three possibilities for action

that the church can take vis a vis the state 

First, questioning the state as to the legiti-

mate state character of its actions, making

the state responsible for what it does.

Second, service to the victims of the

state's actions.  The church has an

unconditional obligation toward the victims

of any social order, even if they do not

belong to the Christian community 

("Let us work for the good of all");

these are both ways in which the church,

in its freedom, conducts itself in the 

interest of a free state.  In times when

the laws are changing, the church may

under no circumstances neglect either

of these duties.

Third possibility is not just to bind up

the wounds of the victims beneath the

wheel but to seize the wheel itself

Volume 12 DBWE page 365

German phrase is _dem Rad selbst

in die Speichen zu fallen

alternate translations:

to jam a spoke in the wheel

itself and to seize the wheel

itself footnote 2, page 5

DeJonge Bonhoeffer on Resistance

Jan. 20, 2017 (told by Fred Trump III)

in his memoir of "The Trumps and how we got this way"

(2024, publisher Gallery Books)

As nephew of the President-elect, Fred and Lisa Trump

were seated close with other members of the family, near

Senator John McCain. . .

Donald was sworn in at noon, as is the custom . .  

Just as my uncle began his inaugural address, 

the slate-gray sky of the Capitol opened up 

and a light rain began to fall.  As many com-

mentators pointed out later, it was a 

fairly dark speech, berating the D.C. 

elites of both parties for ignoring the 

needs of the American people and allowing 

the nation's cities to be overrun with "crime & 

gangs & drugs. . .The American carnage stops 

right here and stops right now. From this day 

forward, a new vision will govern our land.  

From this moment on, 

it's going to be America First." (p. 293, Chapter 20) 

Massad Boulos, truck and heavy machine dealer in Nigeria, Africa

The Presidential Middle East adviser is

Massad Boulos,

father-in-law to Tiffany (Trump)

His company last year had a net profit of $66,000,

corporate filings show.

a Christian from Northern Lebanon who emigrated to

Texas as a teenager;

he is not an attorney but has a B.A. in Business Administration

None of the 215 Democrats will support Mike Johnson

Current Speaker of the House Mike Johnson should

expect none of the 215 votes of the Democratic Party

when he is seeking to get at least 218 votes for a 50%

plus one majority of the 435 member Constitutional

body.  Between now and the Jan. 3, 2025 vote to elect

a speaker of the House, the Louisiana back-bencher

of only 8-years experience as a Representative

who only ascended to leadership in 2023; he has been

lambasted by arch-conservatives who want to 

stymie any efforts at bipartisanship as recently as 

May 2023 (the R. vote against him was 10 "radicals)

and future "Votes to Recall" may be forthcoming.

Among the 220 Reprs. (GOP) elected the number fell

to 219 when Matt Gaetz of FL resigned due to

Ethic complaints and the possible release of 

details of that multi-year investigation.

SOURCE Hakeem Jeffries -- the hill.com online

coverage 12/11/2024 (who hopes to hold on to all

215 votes for himself)

The Amazing Kreskin

NY TIMES Obituary says he was

born George Joseph Kresge, Jr.

Jan. 12, 1935

and died December 10, 2024

at an assisted living center, Wayne, NJ

an entertainer who used to dazzle audiences

as he rose to fame on late-night TV shows

of the 1970s

11 a.m. Wed. til 1 p.m. Thursday (opening Day in Jones, MI)

 Winter Weather Advisory

in effect those 13 hours --

high winds 35 - 40 MPH and

2 - 4 inches of blowing snow

Dec. 11 and 12, 2024

ON Thursday 12/12

the SW Michigan Ski resort

Swiss Valley will open for

the winter season 2024-25

Beethoven Day

Charles Schulz, cartoonist

featured a part of arts & culture when his

piano-playing character, Schroeder,

observed Ludwig Beethoven's birthday

(Dec. 16 annually from 1953-1960).

In the musical YOU're A GOOD MAN,

CHARLIE BROWN -- that same character

has a featured song "Beethoven Day" !

A3446 - legislation to "ban" BOOK BANS (New Jersey) Dec. 2024

NPR.org

New Jersey has a new law that limits 

the BANNING OF BOOKS in

School Libraries and Public Libraries:

the state law directs that 

FREEDOM TO READ ACT 2024 

ensures generations of children will

be able access diverse and inclusive,

age-appropriate materials and boards

"cannot ban books solely on the basis

of the Origin,

Background, or

Views contained within the text

or

Because an individual finds it

offensive . . ."

whyy.org/articles/new-jersey-book-

banning-school-libraries.html

Ang Lee, to receive DGA Lifetime Achievement Award Feb. 2025

apnews.com/article/ang-lee-dga

On Feb. 8, 2025, noted and honored director

Ang Lee, age 70,

will receive the Directors Guild of America's

Lifetime Achievement award for his body of work:

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Sense & Sensibility

The Ice Storm

Life of Pi

Brokeback Mountain

Feb. 8, 2025 at their annual

awards (the 77th)

77 Nobel Prize Laureates -- letter opposing RFK, Jr. for HHS Secy. (Trump cabinet)

The seventy-seven Laureates/recipients of Nobel Prizes

are in the fields of 

MEDICINE, CHEMISTRY, PHYSICS, ECONOMICS

Victor Ambros & Gary Ruvkun (2024)

Daren Acemoglu & Simon Johnson

(this year Economics on Global inequality)

Dr. Harold Varmus

Richard Roberts

List at

NYTIMES.com/2024/12/09/

health/kennedy-hhs-nobel-laureates.html

2025 Award Season begins Jan. 5

Eligible films / TV series / specials / technical

awards and lifetime awards for Ted Danson &

Viola Davis

Golden Globes

Gabbard (Trump-Vance nominee for DNI) visited Syria 2017

The 4-term Hawaii congresswoman declared upon her

return from Damascus that "Bashar al-Assad was not

an enemy of the U.S." and endorsed many of Russian

President V. Putin's

actions to invade and brutally attack Ukraine's citizens

and infrastructure. . .

details at the hill.com/home news/house/5029519-tulsi

gabbard-capitol-hill-syria

Tulsi meets the week of Dec. 9 - 13 in D.C. officially with 

Senators she hopes will back her nomination to the 

Cabinet level after the inauguration of #DJT and #Vance

Jan. 20, 2024.

Insurgents break in to set free political prisoners (authors, civilians)

Sunday Dec. 8, 2024

was a new day dawning for 100s of long-term prisoners

of Assad's Saydnaya "human slaughterhouse",

just north of Damascus, Syria

apnews.com/articles/syria-assad-prisons-human-rights

detainees-saydnaya online article (Monday 12/9/2024)

Cold Moon 2024

Watch at 4 a.m. Sunday December 15, 2024

for the December maximum FULL

Moon, a.k.a. "Cold Moon"

almanac.com (Old Farmer's Almanac online)

ALSO -- on Dec. 30 or 31

there will be a "New Moon" called

BLACK MOON 2024

Two PEARL HARBOR survivors return

The combat Navy veterans, ages 102 and 104,

returned Dec. 7, 2024 to the Hawaii location

of the Japanese air attack to honor those who died

and were injured 83 years ago.

coverage at POLITICO.com/  

Trump Legal scandals [Wm McGinley replaced as White House Counsel]

Judge Juan Marchan held that Trump's bid to have his 34 felony

convictions overturned has failed -- he will enter the White House

as the only POTUS with felon as his status on criminal charges

found guilty by a jury of his peers.

nytimes.com/2024/12/16/nyregion/trump-immunity-criminal-case.html

The Trump/Vance pick for 

WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL will not be William McGinley

but instead a different top lawyer for the Campaign

David Warrington.

McGinley's aide BORIS

EPSHTEYN has been accused

of "shaking down" potential

appointees for tens of thousands

of dollars.

nytimes.com/2024/12/02/us/politics/trump-replaces-

white-house-counsel.html

Jared Isaacman - billionaire nominee of #DJT

CNN online article (Dec. 6, 2024)

The 42-year-old nominee of Trump-Vance administration

to head the NASA (govt. sector Space program) is a 

CEO of Shift4Payments, the company he founded as

a 16-year-old entrepreneur teenager.

An experienced jet pilot -- owner of $27.5 million worth

of stock of SpaceX . . .

cnn.com/science/nasa-pick-jared-isaacman.html

Aleppo's Christian citizens

Over 14 years of civil war, Aleppo (Syria ancient city and 

larger population center) has had its Christian population

shrink from ~300,000 to 25,000, as many have left the country

for better opportunities and a life free of the threat of violence.

washingtpost.com/ online article

Kash Patel "Enemies List" he published 2023

Representative Liz Cheney

Dr. Anthony Fauci

Jack Smith, outgoing sp. counsel

Adam Schiff (lead House prosecutor for 

first Trump Impeachment)

Olivia Troye

General Mark Milley, retired Chairman

of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Letitia James, Atty. general New York

Justice Arthur Engoron

Police officers who defended the Capitol (6 Jan. 2021)

Mark Zuckerberg

John Bolton

William Barr, former Atty. General

Mark Esper, former Defense secretary

Pat Cippolone, former White House counsel

Gina Haspel, former CIA director

& Christopher Wray, current FBI Director. 

S. Korea -- off the itinerary for Biden's Secy. of Defense Lloyd Austin

2 p.m. Thursday 12/5/2024

Reuters Exclusive: U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin

will NOT travel to S. Korea following President Yoon Suk

Yeol's botched attempt this week to declare martial law

reuters.com/world/pentagon-halts-planning

defense-secretarys-south-korea-visit-officials-say

Sunday Dec. 8 -- (aired on CBS two weeks later)

at Kennedy Center for the Arts (Washington, D.C.)

Queen Latifah will host the annual

celebration of the achievements of people and 1 place:

F. Coppola, 

the Grateful Dead, 

BonnieRaitt, 

Arturo Sandoval,

The Apollo Theater (Harlem, New York City).

Its chairman is David Rubenstein (appointed by

George W. Bush) -- Trustees will at Jan. 2025

be 18 appointed by #DJT and 18 by #POTUS 

Biden; notable ones are Pam Bondi & Mike 

Huckabee.

Psalm 121

to be chanted 3 times ahead of the rite of the opening of

the doors of Notre-Dame-de-Paris Cathedral

Dec. 7, late in the afternoon

(first Saturday, Dec. 2024)

How joyful it was when 

they said to me

'Let us go to the House of the Lord'!

Now our feet are standing within 

your gates, O Jerusalem! 

Jerusalem, built as a city, 

that is bound firmly together.

World Leaders 7 December 2024 re-opening of Notre-Dame de Paris

800-year old cathedral at heart of Paris, France will

be re-opened with a ceremony presided over by

French President Emanuel Macron, Paris mayor

Anne Hidalgo, Paris Archbishop Laurent Ulrich.

NOT attending -- Pope Francis (press office)

Guests to include:

Heads of State: Ukraine President Zelenskyy;

President A. Buda of Poland; Prince Albert II of Monaco;

FLOTUS Dr. Jill Biden (representing the Biden-Harris

administration and the U.S. government);

#DJT; his Plus-one Elon Musk;

+40 world leaders (Prince William); Italian PM

Giorgia Meloni, former Secy. of State John Kerry.

December 7 (Saturday) is NOT the same as Dec. 8

re-dedication inaugural MASS led by the Archbishop of

Paris with the President of the Republic also

in attendance -- see 

notredamedeparis.fr/en/re-opening/december7-8/

Chad Chronister

Sheriff of Florida county that includes Tampa;

he was named by #DJT to head the D.E.A. but has

withdrawn his name from the nomination (needed

Senate approval) three days after he was tapped.

nytimes.com/live/12/03/us/trump-biden-news

Source of the Acrostic (I CH TH HU S)

from Constantine & Christendom 

edited and translated by Mark Edwards

Transl. Texts from Historians (2003)

vol. 39 Liverpool University Press

"Now the Erythraean Sibyl,

saying that she was born in the

sixth generation after the flood,

was a priestess of Apollo,

wearing a diadem on equal terms

with the God whom she worshipped,

in charge of the tripod round which

the snake was coiled. . . she foretold

in words what was to happen with 

respect to God, plainly revealing

by the prefixing of the initial

letters, which is called an acrostic, 

the history of Jesus' descent"

(page 41)

The acrostic spells the words

Iesous Christos Theou Huios

Soter Stauros (Jesus Christ,

Son of God, Saviour, Cross).

I CH TH U S

ACROSTIC

for "fish" (Greek)

also code for "Christ"

part of poem (4th Century) - by

Emperor Constantine

In sign of coming judgment

    earth shall sweat;

CHaff now and earth shall

    all the world become;

THen shall all people wail

    and gnash their teeth;

HUge sorrow then shall fall

     on humankind;

Savior immortal, King 

     who died for us.

pages 42-3 [Constantine &

Christendom ] 2007 reprint 

by Mark Edwards, editor/transl.

Spade-toothed Whale discovered off NZ

a 5-meter (16-foot) male washed up dead on a beach

at New Zealand -- only 6 ever before found

apnews.com/article/rarest-whale-zealand-spade-toothed-

dissection-d71aad4ce6e47feq1056a10cf5b8610e

Winter Storm Warning -- revised

For Berrien and Cass Counties in Michigan

Heavy lake snow expected - possible 5 - 8 inches

High Winds

midweek Dec. 4 5 p.m. - until Friday 12/6/2024 1 a.m.

Oxford Dictionary "Word of the Year 2024"

 Brain rot

earliest use was 1854 - H.D. Thoreau

"While England endeavors to cure the

potato-rot, will not any endeavor to 

cure the brain-rot, which prevails 

so much more widely and fatally?"

nytimes.com/2024/12/01/arts/brain-rot-

oxford-word.html

When POTUS 46 visits Angola this week (Dec. 2024)

When Joe Biden visit Luanda the week of Dec. 1

he is scheduled to visit the national Slavery Museum

near Luanda (the capital) to highlight the bond

between the two nations that was born out of slavery.

A vast majority of African Americans have Angolan

ancesty . . .that gives the United States an ability to 

draw cultural and historical ties to the country that its

rival, China, cannot.

Online article mentions Wanda Tucker, part of Biden's

delegation and present Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin III

who has said : "Four centuries ago, slavers from far away 

put the men and women and children into shackles --

people who looked just like you and me."

Moshe Yaalon

1 December 2024

Former Israeli defense minister, Moshe Yaalon, has accused

Israel of committing war crimes and ethnic cleansing in

Gaza Strip, a rare critique from a member of the security

establishment at a time of war

nytimes.com/2024/12/01/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-yaalon.html

"The path they're dragging us down is 

to occupy, annex, and ethnically cleanse --

look at the northern strip"; Israel was being 

pulled in the direction of building settlements

in Gaza . . .

Mr. Yaalon is a former member of the Likud Party.

December 2024 (last 31 days out of Leap Year)

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