Welcome to the Year of the Snake

I designed this gif to show the thrill of celebrating the New Year (Kathryn Dydecka)

.

The lunar Year of the Snake explained

Why are Chinese so keen on serpents and dragons? They are viewed as good in China.

.

Goodbye, Year of the Dragon! Welcome, Snake! 

ABC News (Australia) Jan. 28, 2025: For the next two weeks, we say goodbye to the Year of the Dragon and welcome the Year of the Snake. What does the Year of the Snake mean astrologically in accordance with the ancient Chinese zodiac? What is the significance of the "snake" (smart little dragon) in Chinese culture and history, and how do people in Asian countries celebrate this giant festival? #ABCNewsAustralia

• It's that time again for the Tet Fest of OC, except this year because OC supervisor claims disgraced predecessor spent money for Tet Festival before she took office (KTLA)

How to prepare for lunar New Year

(NBC Bay Area) How to prepare for Lunar New Year

Lunar New Year fireworks LIVE: Vietnam welcomes the Year of the Snake

We are all in this together. Happy 2025!

(Associated Press) Streamed live on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025: Watch fireworks celebrations live in various parts of Vietnam. Asian communities across America and the world will begin ringing in the Lunar New Year on Jan. 29th, with 2025 designated as the "Year of the Snake" in the Chinese zodiac. The magical Year of the [fire breathing] Dragon comes to an end, and we take up with another clever reptile. #lunarnewyear #live #vietnam

The US Empire runs from New York to Hawaii (or Puerto Rico to Guam)

(Island News) Lunar New Year 2025 in Oahu in Hawaii's big Chinatown

Year of the Dragon ends in smoke

2025 is the Year of the Golden Snake

We spent New Year's Eve on the fringes of burnt-out Pasadena at Doctor O's house, chanting and meditating in the Tibetan (Vajrayana) and Indian (aarti) traditions, banging gongs, ringing bells, singing kirtan to the harmonium then snacking on exotic Chinese snacks and gluten free French baguettes as good as the original wheat product. Fruit and friendship before the changing of the zodiac and the year to come is a wise way to spend the day, getting zapped by a Lifestream Generator, talking with our guest, the Japanese abbot of a Nichirin temple in Boyle Heights with Old O'Connor on the bongos. What one does, my former Chinese-Vietnamese girlfriend warned me, on New Years, one will be doing the rest of the year. So it's a good day to visit the temple. Hsi Lai ("Going West" monastery) in Hacienda Heights, the largest Chinese monastic complex in the Western hemisphere, is always a good destination to see the nuns and a few monks wandering about. Chinese Americans come to celebrate the Sinosphere and burn incense, donate, cultivate luck, and have their fortune read.

• CC Liu, Crystal Quintero, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Karma of LUCK, Chinese New Year

Chinese dance tidbits: The dragon serpent dances of China (Fordney Foundation)

Gong xi fa cai and Xin nian kuai le are both good say. - Really? Now I can speak Chinese!

.

If the dragon is happy, we're all happy.

Chinese New Year, perhaps the most widely celebrated holiday in the world, typically takes place in January or February, after the Gregorian New Year on January 1st.

Whether spending it in Chinatown or in China, knowing how to wish people a happy new year in the local tongue is a nice touch. Feliz ano nuevo is the way it is said in Los Angeles, where Latin Americans surround Chinatown in all directions.

Come the big day, families and friends will be feasting, partaking in centuries-old superstitions, and spending time together to celebrate the Chinese Lunar New Year (the Spring Festival).

Orange County Supervisor Nguyen blasts Do

With vibrant celebrations taking place from Sydney to San Francisco, there are plenty of opportunities to pay respects and well wishes to the Chinese, especially with customary greetings.

• Ex-Supervisor Andrew Do left no money for Orange County's Vietnamese Tet Festival this year (OC Register)

About Chinese New Year

Asian look is in: Chinese. Japanese, Singaporean

Chinese New Year is a massive, international celebration. With people scattered around the planet observing the Lunar New Year, there are sure to be fireworks, parades, and street fairs in nearly every major city.

Although the first few days are the most observed, Chinese New Year actually runs for 15 consecutive days and ends with the Lantern Festival. Preparations take place for weeks in advance to ensure that this period is filled with luck and prosperity (two things the Chinese value immensely).

Karma, not chance, causes luck?

• 

  Hello, venerable sir, I'm a lucky dragon.

  What is the cause of "luck," Buddha? - It is karma as the great arbitrator and distributor of what is wished for, welcome, and experienced as pleasant. - But which karma (deeds, intentional actions)? - Keeping the Five Precepts and engaging in the Ten Courses of Wholesome Conduct. - And what is the cause of doing these skillful actions? - It is confidence (faith, saddha) or right view or direct knowledge of things. (We may not have right view, but we can go for guidance (not refuge like everyone mistranslates it) to Three Resources that do: the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the (Noble) Sangha. - Is there more to being lucky? - Giving (dana), sharing, letting go, benefitting others, these things do a person great good. - How much good, Buddha? - If beings knew, as I know, the power of giving, they would not eat a meal without first sharing if there were anyone with whom to share it. Such is the power of giving and benefitting others.

• 

  Start with just these three things.

  I said to the monks at the Sri Lankan Buddhist temple, "I need good karma. What is the best way of making skillful karma?" They acted like they had never heard this question before but finally answered with two slogans, dana, sila, bhavana ("generosity, virtue, meditation") for laypeople and sila, samadhi, panna ("virtue, stillness, and wisdom") for more serious and intensive practitioners willing to do it. Notice that both share sila or virtue in common as a vital ingredient.

This is a time for family and lots of food. Firecrackers are thrown in abundance to frighten away unlucky spirits, and red is worn, even red underwear, because of its symbolic meaning.

Children receive small gifts and money in red envelopes called lai see, and various historical figures are honored.

• "Chinese" is not really a language because there is official Mandarin and the older Cantonese, which is closer to Japanese than it is to Chinese, our Chinese professor astounded us by revealing. Could it be true? If someone is speaking Cantonese or Japanese, they will soon get a sense of what the other is saying, but the Mandarin speaker remains in the dark.

"Happy New Year" in Mandarin

Prosperity breeds prosperity, so get lucky.

Unlike Western New Year's Eve celebrations, which tend to be about short-lived resolutions [ending tend days in on QUITTERS DAY] to improve ourselves, the primary goal of Chinese New Year traditions is to usher in good luck and prosperity in the new year.

With such vast variations in Chinese culture and ethnic groups around the world, there are many ways to say "happy new year" in Chinese. Most of them are rooted in luck and financial success.

• Gong xi fa cai is pronounced "gong zee fah tsai," where gong xi means "congratulations" and is also a way to wish one joy. Fa cai is "to become rich or make money." In essence, one is wishing one joy and prosperity to another for the new year. Business owners and workmates use gong xi fa cai as the usual way to say "happy new year" in Chinese.
• Xin nian kuai le is pronounced "sheen neean kwai luh," kuai le means "happy" or "joyous," and xin nian means "new year." Xin nian kuai le is a great way to say happy new year in Chinese to friends without referencing money.

"Happy New Year" in Cantonese

Are good and bad luck mere superstitions?

Cantonese is the language primarily spoken by the people of [business-minded, former imperial British colony] Hong Kong.

• The Cantonese "happy new year" greeting differs slightly from the Mandarin version, even though both are actually written the same way.
• Gong hey fat choy is the Cantonese pronunciation of Mandarin's gong xi fa cai, simply meaning "congratulations and prosperity."

• Greg Rodgers, thoughtco.com, How to Say Happy New Year in Chinese; CC Liu, Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Time to ban bi TikTok? (Last Week Tonight)

TikTok Ban: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

(LastWeekTonight) Nov. 21, 2024: John Oliver discusses the looming TikTok ban in the U.S., what some potential motivations behind it could be and, most importantly, the fact that you ARE bisexual. Yeah, you. [Are you a fan of Ryan Seacrest? Gay, completely gay, and if a female, at least bi or LGBTQIA+.]

Connect with Last Week Tonight online...on YouTube for more almost news as it almost happens, on Facebook like your mom would, on Twitter for news about jokes and jokes about news, or visit the official site for all that other stuff at once: hbo.com/lastweektonight

Fauci grilled by MTG and GOP in Congress

I did it under my Commander-in-Chief and with my own private for-profit interests.

The Real Anthony Fauci (RFK Jr.)

How can we spin this report on Dr. Fauci to protect his image? - I know! Let's make it all about disrespectful whack job MTG! Who? You know, the bad built bleach jobbed butch bod! Oh, you mean Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, AOC's nemesis! Her and Rep. Jasmine Crockett's nemesis. Many Republicans are laying into this criminal. It's just that MTG is vulgar and vocal, lacking the finesse others have worked so hard on to be able to shine in public.

Fauci defiant in the face of partisan attacks in House hearing over COVID controversies

The Wuhan Cover-Up: And the Terrifying Bio-
weapons Arms Race (RFK Jr., Bruce Wagner)

(We Are Iowa Local 5 News) June 4, 2024: Big Pharma darling and possible gavone Tony Fauci testified in public and on camera for the first time since he bailed out under pressure after more than five decades of government misinformation and mayhem, first with AIDS and HIV then with COVID-19, the gain-of-function coronavirus pandemic he took from animal species (Chinese crate snake venom, bat, pangolin) to humans, testing how to make it more virulent, robust, and deadly, presumably to save the world from overpopulation or the elderly and infirm like an old-timey eugenicist.

• Dallas Buyers Club feat. Matthew McConaughey has a real-life bad guy: Deadly Dr. Fauci, who is not a practicing doctor who ever treated COVID patients but told actual clinicians what they could and couldn't do in terms of medical decisions with people's own MDs
• MTG on PBS; Jimmy Dore (The Jimmy Dore Show); Local 5 News, Iowa, June 4, 2024; Pfc. Sandoval, Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Scientists unveil REAL 'Chinese dragon' fossils

Lucinda Cameron, The Independent, 2/22/24; CC Liu, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Dinocephalosaurus orientalis, Guizhou province, China (Nat'l Museums Scotland/PA Wire)

.

We remember you, O Dragon, so please spare us.

More details of a long-necked sea creature compared to a Chinese dragon have been revealed for the first time following new research.

The Dinocephalosaurus orientalis fossils were discovered in Guizhou province, southern China.

With 32 separate neck vertebrae, it had an extraordinarily long neck, researchers say, and its flippered limbs and well-preserved fish in its stomach region indicated it was very well adapted to an oceanic lifestyle.

Naga: sea creature, reptilian dinosaur

But they lived on to battle humans.

The reptile was originally identified in 2003, but the discovery of additional, more complete specimens since then has enabled an international team of scientists to depict the creature in full [which is particularly fitting to reveal at the beginning of the Year of the Dragon].

Nick Fraser, keeper of natural sciences at National Museums Scotland, was one of those involved. He said:

Long neck easy to support in water, chasing fish

“This discovery allows us to see this remarkable long-necked animal in full for the very first time. “It is yet one more example of the weird and wonderful world of the Triassic that continues to baffle palaeontologists. “We are certain that it will capture imaginations across the globe due to its striking appearance, reminiscent of the long and snake-like mythical Chinese dragon.” More:

• VIDEO: Paleontologists unveil secrets of 240-million-year-old fossilized ‘Chinese dragon,’ a creature adapted to water

Naga News: Sea monster skull found (BBC)

BBC News, 12/10/23; Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Majestic, behemoth pliosaur skull discovered on UK's Jurassic Coast (satorinews.com)

This is cryptozoology taken seriously, forbidden paleontology, the unearthing of an enormous sea monster or aquatic creature, like a serpent or crocodile but a dinosaur of behemoth proportions. What has lived in the sea would boggle the mind, particularly the earth's long history of reptilians (nāgas) of various kinds -- humanoids, amphibians, shapeshifters, monsters, and "mighty beings," which is what naga means in its broadest Buddhist sense.

Colossal sea monster unearthed in UK (BBC News)

(BBC News) The BBC is a British public broadcast service. The skull of a colossal sea monster has been extracted from the cliffs of the Jurassic Coast in Dorset, UK. It belongs to a pliosaur, a ferocious marine reptile that terrorized the oceans about 150 million years ago. The six foot (2 meter) long fossil is one of the most complete specimens of its type ever discovered and is giving new insights into this ancient predator. The skull will be featured in a special David Attenborough program on BBC One on New Year's Day, 2024.

Subscribe: bit.ly/1rbfUog. For more news, analysis, and features, visit: bbc.com/news #Palaeontology #SeaCreatures #BBCNews

Cocaine in Coca-Cola? Drunk History (video)

Drunk History, Comedy Central (cc.com), Aug. 15, 2019; Eds., Wisdom Quarterly

Sugar is more addictive than cocaine. It shortens life and ruins health. We give it to kids.

.

Coca-Cola was invented using cocaine (featuring SNL actor Bill Hader and drunk historian-for-a-day Jenny Slate)

(Comedy Central) John Pemberton invented Coca-Cola while trying to create a patent medicine -- but it had something a little extra in it. Cocaine from coca leaves and caffeine from kola nuts!

AI drew Ukraine's Zelensky snorting coke

ABOUT: Drunk History is based on the popular web series. It is liquored-up historical narration of our nation's history. Host Derek Waters, along with an ever-changing cast of actors and comedians, travels across the country to present the rich tales that every city in this land has to offer. Booze helps bring out the truth. It's just that sometimes the truth is a little incoherent.

Subscribe to Comedy Central: @comedycentral. Watch more Comedy Central: comedycentral. Follow Drunk History on Twitter: twitter.com/DrunkHistory.

"Chasing the Phallus," Bhutan (2022 doc)

Ananda (Dharma B Meditation), Ashley Wells, CC Liu, Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Chasing the Phallus || Bhutan documentary

(Norter) March 21, 2022. Why would the people in the last Himalayan Buddhist kingdom, now turned over by the king to a people's democracy, still continue the old custom of venerating penises or Shiva's lingam? The male member is a potent symbol of fertility, but even allegedly celibate monastics get in on the worship. Do they masturbate? Do they take on tantrikas (female assistants in sexual tantric yoga)? Do they just imagine and obsess on what they now no longer use? Is it just symbolic for virile (viriya) power?

Why do some Buddhists worship penises and wear them as a charm on a necklace?

(The Ultimate Learning Tricks) June 19, 2019. The "God of Fertility" is a phallus in Buddhist Bhutan and Thailand.

COMMENTS:

• (Don Karara) Shivling (Shiva's lingam or phallus symbol) is the same concept with a few variations.
• (Tashi Wangchuk) I heard Lama Drukpa Kinley was kind of a rebel master who went against the rigid and set Vajrayana monastic establishment, in which the Buddha's teachings seemed to be inaccessible to lay people. He shocked everyone by these types of teaching or something like that.
• (I.P. Freely) Are y'all serious? I can't imagine talking about my Willy in polite company or graffitiing it on my house or temple. This is wild, man.

Ajahn Chah: When we don’t want anything

Ajahn Chah (ajahnchah.org) via Ven. Sujato, Ellie Askew, Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

But I'm a spiritual consumer. I need experiences!

Mental activity is like a deadly venomous cobra. If we interfere not with a cobra, it simply goes its own way.

Even though it may be extremely venomous, we are not affected by it. We neither go near it nor take hold of it, so it doesn't bite us. The cobra does what's natural for a cobra to do. That's the way it is.

If we are wise, we'll leave it alone. Likewise, we let be that which is not good: We let it be according to it's own nature.

We also let be that which is good. We don't grasp at and grab on to liking and disliking, just as we wouldn't interfere with a cobra.

Relax. It's okay. Nothing is under control.

One who is wise will have this kind of attitude towards the various moods that arise in the mind/heart.

When goodness arises, we let it be good. We understand its nature. In the same way, we let be the not-good. We let it be according to its nature.

We don't take hold of it because we don't want anything. We don't want evil. We don't want good. We neither want heaviness nor lightness, happiness nor suffering.

When our wanting is at an end, peace is firmly established.

Christian hypocrite meets Inside Edition (video)

Lisa Guerrero, Inside Edition, 5/20/19; Seth Auberon, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Preacher Copeland defends his lavish lifestyle

Has a "devil" (unclean spirit, a mara or demon, naga or reptilian, asura or titan, preta or hungry ghost) possessed multi-millionaire Christian Preacher Kenneth Copeland?

Televangelist Copeland enjoys a lavish life of extreme luxury. He has his own airport next to his mansion in Newark, Texas, where he keeps his private jets.

So when Inside Edition’s Chief Investigative Correspondent Lisa Guerrero catches up with him in Branson, Missouri, he goes off, seemingly shape-shifting, speaking at length about his prosperity doctrine and lifestyle and why he says his jets are important to his ministry.

Cold, pitiless, mesmerizing serpentine eyes, spewing venom, pointing, denouncing

Many devils are alive and well

He had previously said that flying commercial is like being in “a tube with a bunch of demons.” He regrets that comment and now tries to explain it away with mesmerizing predator eyes and facile biblical references.

 

“If I flew commercial, I’d have to stop 65% of what I’m doing," he says. Guerrero asks him about that previous comment, saying he doesn’t fly commercial because he doesn’t “want to get into a tube with a bunch of demons.”

When she prods him, “Do you really believe that human beings are demons?” his inner-demon comes out.

He menaces her by pointing and shouting: “No, I do not. And don’t you ever say I did!”

• WATCH: Guerrero’s full interview and investigation