Thomas Alan Gray's Blog

Posted by Thomas Alan Gray

I usually don’t pass along this kind of stuff. But it’s interesting reading, and wonderfully creative, so here it is.

“There is one Christmas Carol that has always baffled me. What in the world do leaping lords, French hens, swimming swans, and especially the partridge who won't come out of the pear tree have to do with Christmas? This week, I found out.

From 1558 until 1829, Roman Catholics in England were not permitted to practice their faith openly. Someone during that era wrote this carol as a catechism song for young Catholics.

It has two levels of meaning: the surface meaning as a love song plus a hidden meaning known only to members of their church. Each element in the carol has a code word for a religious reality which the children could remember.

• The partridge in a pear tree was Jesus Chris -Two turtle doves were the Old and New Testaments.
• Three French hens stood for faith, hope and love.
• The four calling birds were the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke & John.
• The five golden rings recalled the Torah or Law, the first five books of the Old Testament.
• The six geese a-laying stood for the six days of creation.
• Seven swans a-swimming represented the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit--Prophesy, Serving, Teaching, Exhortation, Contribution, Leadership, and Mercy.
• The eight maids a-milking were the eight beatitudes.
• Nine ladies dancing were the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit--Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self Control
• The ten lords a-leaping were the ten commandments.
• The eleven pipers piping stodd for the eleven faithful disciples.
• The twelve drummers drumming symbolized the twelve points of belief in the Apostles' Creed.

So there is your history for today. This knowledge was shared with me and I found it interesting and enlightening and now I know how that strange song became a Christmas Carol...so pass it on if you wish. Merry (Twelve Days of) Christmas Everyone “

Now, did you believe a word of that? Oh, I certainly hope not. People can be so gullible about "information" they receive from family and friends. For a history and detailed analysis, see http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/music/12days.asp.

So there is your [totally phony] history for today. This [so-called] knowledge was shared with me and I found it interesting and enlightening [in other words, the forwarder swallowed it whole-hog without thinking] and now I know how that strange song became a Christmas Carol...so pass it on if you wish.

Posted by Thomas Alan Gray

Becky, one of our daughters-in-law, has expressed an interest in learning how to do stuffing for a turkey. This is a nice sign, because it means that after cooking Christmas dinner at our house for the last 30-some years, one of the kid couples is getting ready to do a Christmas on their own.

Which means, I hope, that for the first time in thirty years, we'll be invited somewhere else for Christmas, and be cooked for.

That complicates matters even more, because now we have Christmas chez nous every two years. On alternate years, the kids go to their inlaws. So now will the kids take turns cooking and invite us and the inlaws? And/or all their brothers and sisters-in-law?

That would be nice, because I remember the huge family Christmas dinners of my childhood. Dad was one of 11, and there were 50 some cousins, plus great-uncles and aunts and so forth.

We kids usually occupied the top floor of Aunt Pearl's little two-story house (the attic was opened just for the occasion, too!) where we played games and rough-housed. But we all took turns pumping the player piano while the adults sang carols.

Back then, houses weren't as huge, and I think we were all cosily packed into some 900 square feet or so. Sit where you can find room, balancing your plate on your knees, or stand and put the plate on whatever surface was available.

Enough nostalgia. For your Christmas season, try one of these recipes. They're not traditional, but hey, start a new tradition.

• Apple-Walnut Hashbrowns - Serve 'em for Christmas Dinner. Well, why not. They go great with turkey. Okay, you're sticking with the mashed for Christmas? Fine, serve Apple-Walnut Hash Browns with a hot turkey sandwich in the after-days.
• Pomegranate Glazed Chicken for Two - an interesting dish for romantic holiday dining. Serve them by candle light. (See this blog post to know why)
• Empañadas de Picadillo - Good hors d'oeuvres (did I spell that right?) and tasty at a Christmas buffet
• How to Buy, Store, and Eat a Pomegranate (not a recipe, but helpful information)

Maybe I'm way off the mark here, but take a look anyway:

• Moroccan-Style Beef Brochettes
• Lean Beef Recipe – Beef Thai Salad
• Tagine-Style Beef and Rice
• Asian Beef Bites with Speedy Slaw

Posted by Thomas Alan Gray

Posted by Thomas Alan Gray

Here's the latest piece of stuff to hit my in-box. Another appeal to the gullible. I've printed it below, stripped of its dramatic bold lettering. Jump down and skim it, then check my comments at the bottom.

Why just skim it? Because IMO it's not really worth a read, and you'll see why when you get to the bottom.

==============================

This piece is very disturbing, but please read it to educate yourself !! As I see it, the enemy we are dealing with is perfectly willing and able to put these plans into effect, so lets not keep kidding ourselves that our Governments have terrorism "under control"! It is a trifle long, but well worth the read. Just do it! AN ABSOLUTE MUST READ FOR EVERY AMERICAN & CANADIAN!

READ AND JUST PASS IT ON.

Juval Aviv was the Israeli Agent upon whom the movie ' Munich ' was based. He was Golda Meir's bodyguard -- she appointed him to track down and bring to justice the Palestinian terrorists who took the Israeli athletes hostage and killed them during the Munich Olympic Games.

• In a lecture in New York City a few weeks ago, he shared information that EVERY American needs to know -- but that our government has not yet shared with us.
• He predicted the London subway bombing on the Bill O'Reilly show on Fox News stating publicly that it would happen within a week. At the time, O'Reilly laughed and mocked him saying that in a week he wanted him back on the show. But, unfortunately, within a week the terrorist attack had occurred.
• Juval Aviv gave intelligence (via what he had gathered in Israel and the Middle East ) to the Bush Administration about 9/11 a month before it occurred. His report specifically said they would use planes as bombs and target high profile buildings and monuments. Congress has since hired him as a security consultant.

Now for his future predictions.

• He predicts the next terrorist attack on the U.S. Will occur within the next few months.

Forget hijacking airplanes, because he says terrorists will NEVER try and hijack a plane again as they know the people onboard will never go down quietly again. Aviv believes our airport security is a joke -- that we have been reactionary rather than proactive in developing strategies that are truly effective.

For example:

1) Our airport technology is outdated. We look for metal, and the new explosives are made of plastic.

2) He talked about how some idiot tried to light his shoe on fire. Because of that, now everyone has to take off their shoes. A group of idiots tried to bring aboard liquid explosives.. Now we can't bring liquids on board. He says he's waiting for some suicidal maniac to pour liquid explosive on his underwear; at which point, security will have us all traveling naked! Every strategy we have is reactionary.

3) We only focus on security when people are heading to the gates.

Aviv says that if a terrorist attack targets airports in the future, they will target busy times on the front end of the airport when/where people are checking in. It would be easy for someone to take two suitcases of explosives, walk up to a busy check-in line, ask a person next to them to watch their bags for a minute while they run to the restroom or get a Drink, and then detonate the bags BEFORE security even gets involved.

In Israel , security checks bags BEFORE people can even ENTER the airport.

Aviv says the next terrorist attack here in America is imminent and will involve suicide bombers and non-suicide bombers in places where large groups of people congregate. (I. E., Disneyland, Las Vegas casinos, big cities ( New York , San Francisco , Chicago , etc...) and that it will also include shopping malls, subways in rush hour, train stations, etc., as well as rural America this time Wyoming , Montana ,

etc.).

• The attack will be characterized by simultaneous detonations around the country (terrorists like big impact), involving at least 5-8 cities, including rural areas.

Aviv says terrorists won't need to use suicide bombers in many of the larger cities, because at places like the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, they can simply valet park a car loaded with explosives and walk away.

Aviv says all of the above is well known in intelligence circles, but that our U. S. Government does not want to 'alarm American citizens' with the facts. The world is quickly going to become 'a different place', and issues like 'global warming' and political correctness will become totally irrelevant.

On an encouraging note, he says that Americans don't have to be concerned about being nuked. Aviv says the terrorists who want to destroy America will not use sophisticated weapons. They like to use suicide as a front-line approach. It's cheap, it's easy, it's effective; and they have an infinite abundance of young militants more than willing to 'meet their destiny'.

• He also says the next level of terrorists, over which America should be most concerned, will not be coming from abroad but will be, instead, 'homegrown' -- having attended and been educated in our own schools and universities right here in the U.. S.

He says to look for 'students' who frequently travel back and forth to the Middle East . These young terrorists will be most dangerous because they will know our language and will fully understand the habits of Americans; but that we Americans won't know/understand a thing about them.

Aviv says that, as a people, Americans are unaware and uneducated about the terrorist threats we will, inevitably, face. America still has only have a handful of Arabic and Farsi speaking people in our intelligence networks, and Aviv says it is critical that we change that fact SOON.

So, what can America do to protect itself? From an intelligence perspective, Aviv says the U.S. needs to stop relying on satellites and technology for intelligence. We need to, instead, follow Israel 's, Ireland 's and England 's hands-on examples of human intelligence, both from an infiltration perspective as well as to trust 'aware' citizens to help. We need to engage and educate ourselves as citizens; however, our U. S. government continues to treat us, its citizens, 'like babies'. Our government thinks we 'can't handle the truth' and are concerned that we'll panic if we understand the realities of terrorism. Aviv says this is a deadly mistake.

Aviv recently created/executed a security test for our Congress, by placing an empty briefcase in five well-traveled spots in five major cities. The results? Not one person called 911 or sought a policeman to check it out. In fact, in Chicago , someone tried to steal the briefcase!

In comparison, Aviv says that citizens of Israel are so well 'trained' that an unattended bag or package would be reported in seconds by citizen(s) who know to publicly shout, 'Unattended Bag!' The area would be quickly & calmly cleared by the citizens themselves. But, unfortunately, America hasn't been yet 'hurt enough' by terrorism for their government to fully understand the need to educate its citizens or for the government to understand that it's their citizens who are, inevitably, the best first-line of defense against terrorism.

Aviv also was concerned about the high number of children here in America who were in preschool and kindergarten after 9/11, who were 'lost' without parents being able to pick them up, and about our schools that had no plan in place to best care for the students until parents could get there. (In New York City , this was days, in some cases!)

He stresses the importance of having a plan, that's agreed upon within your family, to respond to in the event of a terrorist emergency. He urges parents to contact their children's schools and demand that the schools, too, develop plans of actions, as they do in Israel .

Does your family know what to do if you can't contact one another by phone? Where would you gather in an emergency? He says we should all have a plan that is easy enough for even our youngest children to remember and follow..

• Aviv says that the U. S. government has in force a plan that, in the event of another terrorist attack, will immediately cut-off EVERYONE's ability to use cell phones, blackberries, etc., as this is the preferred communication source used by terrorists and is often the way that their bombs are detonated...

How will you communicate with your loved ones in the event you cannot speak? You need to have a plan...

If you believe what you have just read, then you must feel compelled to send to every concerned parent or guardian, grandparents, uncles, aunts, whatever and whomever.

Nothing will happen if you choose not to do so, but in the event it does happen, this particular email will haunt you...."I should have sent this to..... ", but I didn't believe it and just deleted it as so much trash from old Bill Jones!!!

AN ABSOLUTE MUST READ FOR EVERY AMERICAN & CANADIAN!

READ AND JUST PASS IT ON.

==============

Okay. Impressive, right? NOT!

Given that it predicts terrorist attacks on "at least 5-8 cities" in the United States "within the next few months," probably the most important thing you need to know about this message is that it dates back to 2005, and has already proven itself false.

The second thing you need to know is that while Juval Aviv is a bona fide corporate security consultant operating out of New York, his credentials as an intelligence expert have been questioned by both journalists and government sources. A 2006 article in The Guardian reported that "Aviv never served in Mossad, or any Israeli intelligence organisation," and "his nearest approximation to [security] work was as a lowly gate guard for the airline El Al in New York in the early '70s."

A letter written to the U.S. President’s Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism in 1990 by Israeli counterterrorism adviser Yigal Carmon makes the same allegations, further claiming that Aviv is known to have been involved in "various acts of fraud and impersonation."

The above is by David Emery at http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/errata/a/juval_aviv_2.htm. For further debunking of this long-outdated and obviously disproven email, see http://www.snopes.com/rumors/soapbox/juvalaviv.asp. At both of these sites, you need to read (or skim past) various versions of the email to find the analysis at the end.

Even though you may think that the email contains some material that makes sense, “It goes without saying that one shouldn't rely on forwarded emails for critical advice on terrorist attacks and emergency preparedness,” says Emery, who recommends the Department of Homeland Security's Ready.gov instead.

Scattered throughout this comment are links to original sources; I suggest that you check them out.

Enjoy the emails that come your way but please read critically. And please don't forward the crap.

Posted by Thomas Alan Gray

I've commented before how astonished I am that people believe those stupid emails that float by every now and then, and simply forward them to all and sundry.

According to a note in "Uncle John's Monumental Bathroom Reader", Americans really are that gullible. Research done by Dimassino & Goldstein Advertising showed that "Americans will believe anything, as long as it comes from a friend or neighbor."

The ad company recruited 200 people to share misinformation with their friends, then polled the friends a week later to see if the lies had been accepted. Sample results:

• 27% repeated the lie that "Just Do It!" was the slogan of Ex-Lax (it belongs to Nike)
• 22% believed that milk was "The other white meat" (it's pork)
• 23% accepted that Amazon.com was started as a fashion web site for large women (hey, that makes sense!)
• 29% agreed that Kenneth Starr was the president of Starbucks (again, makes sense even if you know of his role in the special prosecution of Clinton. Hey, they guy could be in business on the side.)

While the flip side is that over 70% of Americans knew enough not to be swayed, it's kind of scary that about one in four bought the bunkum.

And it's that 25% who forward me email garbage.

What the heck, keep it coming - it's fun, and I enjoy doing the research.

In the meantime, Christmas is coming and if you're a Walmart shopper here are some tips for the kids:

• Walmart Picks Best Toys for Girls
• Walmart Picks Best Toys for Boys
• Air Hogs Best Indoor Flying Toys for Christmas
• Best RC Flying Toys at Walmart for Christmas

If you're into home wine making, you've probably got the Christmas batch at least into secondary fermentation now. It's no too late to start a 4-week wine kit and have it bottled by New Years Day. Or start thinking ahead to that special batch for a romantic Valentine Day gift.

• Best Homemade Red Wine Valentine Gift Basket
• Best Homemade Blush Wine Valentine Gift Basket
• Best Homemade White Wine Valentine Gift Basket