Meme Scholar with Madness (PhD)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Sept. 29th: Michaelmas, Feast of St. Michael the Archangel and All Angels. "Supreme Commander of the Heavenly Hosts."

Michaelmas also known as the Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, the Feast of the Archangels, or the Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels) is a Christian festival observed in many Western Christian liturgical calendars on 29 September, and on 8 November in the Eastern Christian traditions. Michaelmas has been one of the four quarter days of the English and Irish financial, judicial, and academic year.

The name Michaelmas comes from a shortening of "Michael's Mass", in the same style as Christmas (Christ's Mass) and Candlemas (Candle Mass, the Mass where traditionally the candles to be used throughout the year would be blessed).



Up until the mid eighteenth century, Britain used the old Julian calendar, first introduced by Julius Caesar. Over the centuries, Britain became seriously out of touch with reality, err the status quo, whereas the Gregorian calendar was used by the rest of Europe. Consequently, in September 1752, when the change to the new calendar occurred, twelve days were simply wiped out. Tough luck if one of them was your birthday! More to the point, the New Year now started on January 1st, instead of 25th March as it had for centuries. So, all the old holidays and festivals were re-assigned new dates, confusing the hell out of everyone. Sounds like big brother today.

In some parishes (Isle of Skye) they had a procession on this day and baked a cake, called St. Michael's bannock. One of the few flowers left around at this time of year is the Michaelmas daisy (also known as asters). As flowering plants die down in Autumn, one of the few flowers left around at this time of year is the Michaelmas daisy. Hence this rhyme: “The Michaelmas daisies, among dead weeds, Bloom for St Michael’s valorous deeds ...”

Another old rhyme attempts to forecast the unpredictable British weather: “If ducks do slide at Michaelmas, At Christmas they will swim; If ducks do swim at Michaelmas At Christmas they will slide.” In other words, an early freeze means a mild and wet Christmas, and vice versa!

Michaelmas is the bookend to September feasts that celebrate the intersection of theology & the harvest season. The completion of the agricultural year, Michaelmas marked the end of one and beginning of another husbandman’s year1 - the turning point of the farming cycle, as harvest reaches its peak. Rents & debts were paid, new leases taken, positions filled. As an agrarian society prepared their larders & land for a winter of unknowns, they looked to the stories of archangels defeating darkness & dragons to accompany them.

This is the time of year when I feel the autumnal equivalent of “spring cleaning” - a need to take stock, simplify, store, preserve, & refresh for the coming season. I can really see how these ancestors saw the turning of a new year in Michaelmas; we can sense a threshold here if we settle ourselves enough to see it.

To celebrate this angelic harvest feast, a bannock (unleavened quick-bread) hailing from the Scottish Highlands symbolizes the fruit of the field that is (hopefully) so prolific at this time: the Struan Micheil. Baked with a mixture of grains - especially oats, barley, & rye - this cake represents the culmination of the growing season’s abundance.2

Though its ingredients vary, it often included

    “blackberries, bilberries, cranberries, caraway seeds, and wild honey. It was baked on a fire of oak, rowan, bramble, and other woods considered blessed.”3

Traditionally baked by the eldest daughter of a family, a short prayer accompanied her baking:

    Progeny and prosperity of family,
    Mystery of Michael, protection of Trinity.4

These cakes were enjoyed by families, and more were baked in memory of departed loved ones and also gifted to the poor.

If you bake a Struan this year, maybe consider baking some extras to memorialize loved ones; if you have a food bank locally, maybe they’d enjoy this bannock as well, or a donation of flour, oats, etc?

According to legend, St. Michael cast Lucifer out of heaven on Michaelmas (originally, this legend was attached to Old Michaelmas – which was on October 10th or 11th5). Lucifer landed in a blackberry bramble, and being so angered by the prickles, he spat on them – so, it became unlucky to pick blackberries after Michaelmas, since they would be spoiled.

    “On Michaelmas Day, the devil puts his foot on blackberries.”

    Irish proverb

Because of this association, blackberry desserts are a popular tradition for Michaelmas – whether blackberry pie or cobbler, it’s considered the last time of the season to use these late berries.

The Michaelmas Daisy among dead weeds / Blooms for St. Michael’s valourous deeds


Folklore in the British Isles suggests that Michaelmas day is the last day that blackberries can be picked. It is said that when St. Michael expelled the devil, Lucifer, from heaven, he fell from the skies and landed in a prickly blackberry bush. Satan cursed the fruit, scorched them with his fiery breath, stamped, spat, and urinated on them, so that they would be unfit for eating. As it is considered ill-advised to eat them after 11 October (Old Michaelmas Day according to the Julian Calendar), a Michaelmas pie is made from the last of the season. In Ireland, the soiling of blackberries is also attributed to púca, a Celtic creature of Channel Islands folklore. Considered to be bringers both of good and bad fortune.


Sept 29, 1850: Congress banned flogging in the U.S. Navy. The movement to ban the practice had been greatly advanced by the publication of the novel WHITE-JACKET by Herman Melville, first published in London, 1850 followed by publisher Harper & Brothers in NY the same year. Melville included a graphic description of flogging based on his own experiences as a sailor serving on the frigate USS United States for 14 months. The following year his greatest work ever was published, Moby-Dick.


During Melville's time on the USS United States from 1843–1844, the ship log records 163 floggings, including some on his first and second days (18 and 19 August 1843) aboard the frigate at Honolulu, Oahu. Damn! That's only on ONE ship back in those salty burnin days. As one Melville scholar has stressed, "Melville rarely invents..." and "the ship's records bear him out."

Melville described one such brutal scene in chapter 33: "A Flogging"



Judging by the frequency of Navy mishaps & incompetence these days, maybe it's due for a comeback. We desperately need a leader that's not afraid to crack the whip where it's needed.

You can read the pages at Internet Archive or Project Gutenberg or LibriVox Audio Book

At the urging of New Hampshire Senator John P. Hale, whose daughter, Lucy, would later become the fiancée of John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln, the United States Congress banned flogging on all U.S. ships. Note that back at the time, Harper & Brothers made sure the book got into the hands of every member of Congress.



Sept 29, 1907: The cornerstone is laid at the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul (better known as Washington National Cathedral) in Washington, D.C. with Pres Theodore Roosevelt attending. It wasn't completed till 1990 when the final "finial" was placed in the presence of Pres George H. W. Bush. Designed in a Neo-Gothic architectural style, it stands as the second-largest church building in the United States, and the third-tallest building in Washington, D.C.



The cathedral was damaged in August 2011 during the Virginia earthquake. Finial stones on several pinnacles broke off, and several pinnacles twisted out of alignment or collapsed entirely. Some gargoyles and other carvings were damaged along with various cracks. 13 years later and restoration work is still ongoing.

Due to cancel culture nonsense, on Sept 23, 2023 the Now and Forever Windows were unveiled...replacing confederate Generals.



September 29, 1947: The highly acclaimed historian Sir Richard J. Evans was born in London. He’s one of the world’s leading experts on the rise and fall of Nazi Germany. He’s also well known for his often highly critical, but never dull, book reviews. He's also the latest member of the upside down book club.


Historian Richard J Evans: ‘I’m planning to write a book about pandemics next. I’ve had enough of Nazis’  | Understanding the Rise of Fascism



September 29, 1954: After the usual lengthy British procrastinating, the convention establishing CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research), was signed. CERN was originally devoted to the study of atomic nuclei, but was soon applied to higher-energy physics, and the study of interactions between subatomic particles. For the past 30 years they been attempting to make contact with extra-dimensional entities on the other side. As of circa 2020 they seemed to have been successful or as some have speculated, the gateway to unimaginable horror has been breached.



CERN purpose has three themes:

The CERN Community; A Mechanism for Effective Global Collaboration?

If you want to read the PDF paper, click here.



History of hadrontherapy

John H. Lawrence received the Enrico Fermi Award in 1983 from the United States Department of Energy for his work in nuclear medicine. I always cringe whenever I see those two words 'nuclear' & 'medicine' used together. Like oil & water or milk in tea. I mean it just doesn't sound/taste right. Meh, who am I to judge. Moving on...

Taking biomedical research at CERN to the next level


Sept 29, 1967: "I am not a number! I am a free man!" Patrick McGoohan in The Prisoner arrived in the UK for the first time in selected ITV regions. Somehow Canada had it first...on Sept 5, 1967. A series which is probably more relevant today than ever, it continues to spark debate. The greatest and most thought-provoking TV series ever made?


The Unmutual website dedicated to the cult TV series The Prisoner, its star Patrick McGoohan, and the village of Portmeirion.


September 29, 1972: The 1st episode of the ITV series The Protectors was broadcast in the UK. It featured 3 private investigators who protect innocent victims. There were 52 episodes, all 30 minutes long, until 15 March 1974.


As memorable opening themes go, it's difficult to beat The Protectors!



Here's a Youtube Playlist of all 52 episodes.


September 29, 1979: "The weird world of Dr Tom .." Tom Baker interviewed in the Daily Mirror.




R.I.P. Kris Kristofferson -- June 22, 1936 - Sept 28, 2024. Country singer, songwriter, actor, Army Ranger chopper pilot, Rhodes scholar.

May 6, 1985: The Highwaymen - Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson - released their debut album, Highwayman.

Highwayman (American Outlaws: Live at Nassau Coliseum, 1990):



“Money, capital has a life of its own...it’s a force of nature, like gravity, like the oceans it flows where it wants to flow.” ~ Maxwell Emory in Rollover 1981; Kris Kristofferson & Hanoi Jane.