Bonfire Night 2021: Remember Remember the 5th of November, and Where January 6 Might End

Our cultural cousins in the UK are celebrating Bonfire Night this day, which is their version of the 4th in terms of fireworks, revelry, and drunkenness. To them, it's in honor of the successful intervention against the Gunpowder Plot and the capture of Guy Fawkes, a key plotter responsible for the explosives packed under Parliament that could have well killed all of the British Government during the early years of James I(IV)'s reign.

Y'all remember Guy Fawkes.

(beat)

The Guy responsible for the V For Vendetta / Anonymous Masks.

 Yeah, that Guy.

It's where we get the term "Guy" in the first place. Well, maybe. The word origin dictionaries would clear that up. ANYWAYS I DIGRESS.

The way things happened in British cultural history, Guy Fawkes evolved from an outright villain - he was going to blow up the King AND Parliament to overthrow Protestant rule! - into a somewhat noble anti-villain due to a grudging respect for his dedication (he held out against torture with a coolness that impressed James himself) and zeal in the face of a grey-and-gray moral world (the running joke that Fawkes was "the last man to enter Parliament with honest intentions" in spite of the fact his intent was to KILL A BUNCH OF OTHER GUYS).

And so as our cousins across the pond celebrate with beer and fireworks and "Penny for the Guy," we need to watch how a modern holiday evolved from an insurrectionist plot set in motion more than 300 years ago.

Remember, remember
The fifth of November
The Gunpowder treason and plot;

I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot...

Because our nation just went through a bit of an insurrection as well just this past January.

In the months since, our legal system has been chasing after, arresting, and pleading out hundreds of trumpian rioters to answer for the damage and deaths caused that day. So far, other than screwing with the defendants' dietary needs, the accused haven't been put on the rack under the King's supervision for torturous confessions (something about the 8th Amendment it seems), and it doesn't look right now that many of the rioters are going to see the same fate that Guy and his co-conspirators received for their plot. So they got that going for them, which is nice.

However, we are cursed with the reality that a number of the rioters were colorful, crazy-ass morans who already inspired a number of memes and jokes. Especially this guy (sadly not named Guy, and sonofabitch he has a Wikipedia page before I did):

Do you think 300 years from now Americans are gonna be honoring the January 6th Insurrection with Bonfire nights and "Penny For Angeli"??? What rhymes with QAnon, for God's sake???

Remember Remember
The Sixth of Janu... dammit it won't even rhyme now!!!

/cries

NaNoWriMo 2017: Day One

Start writing a novel, people.

50,000 words.

You know you need to.

I'm Trying Not to Pay Attention But Attention Must Be Paid

Getting deeper into the weeds with my NaNoWriMo challenge, and yet I can't ignore the current state of affairs in the political arena.

And so, without much comment, I present links to other news and blog articles of particular interest that I wanna share to the seven blog readers I'd like to keep maintaining an interest in this place.

Debate news: in the "finally happening" category, the next GOP debate THIS SATURDAY has weeded down two more names off the main stage - Huckabee and Christie - to the kids' table, and kicked off two other names - Graham and Pataki - from the debates altogether (which is weird because Graham has actually been scoring well in the prelim debate rounds and his polling isn't any worse than the other survivors).

Also: more attention getting paid to the down-ticket woes Democrats are suffering at the state elections level via Blog for Arizona.

Also wik: Pinku-Sensei came up with a debate drink for Lawrence Lessig just as Lessig dropped out of the Democratic primaries because he never had an invite to the debates in the first place.  Ah, well, it's a drink order peoples!

Considering how the Kentucky state election results turned out, Rude Pundit needs those drink orders from Pinku-Sensei...

Gerrymandering in Florida: The state legislature failed YET ANOTHER special session - costing taxpayers another hefty fee for NOTHING - to consider a new district map for the Florida Senate this 2016.  Senators refused to make appropriate changes because not enough of them were willing to relocate their "safe" seats into more challenging open districts. Straight up, Florida: these politicians' refusal to abide by YOUR state amendments for Fair Districts should disqualify ALL of them from any re-election effort. They are not doing ANYTHING to EARN those jobs.

And finally: WHAT THE HELL IS BEN CARSON DOING TALKING ABOUT THE ANCIENT PYRAMIDS?!  I mean, seriously, any X-Phile would tell you ALIENS, bro, ALIENS...

Now, I need to reach 15,000 words by Sunday afternoon or we are all DOOMED!  Well, that and I need to finish editing that superhero novella for pre-Christmas release and this short story for the writers group anthology and...

When Next I Blog I Will Be Writing A Novel

Well, not on the blog itself, but I will be doing my NaNoWriMo novel attempt again this year.

If I do blog here during the month, it better be after I've earned by word count for the day - 1667 words a day equaling 50,000 words for the month - so you won't be seeing a lot of blogging this month anyway.  I am focused elsewhere.

With luck, this WILL be a novel I can finish all the way to publication, to join the ranks of self-published short stories and anthology collections that have published my works.

I will at least offer a warm Turkey Pagan Sacrifice Day greetings to all when the time is appropriate.