Eideard

Click photo to enlarge.

One of the delights of living in high desert country is the frequency of beautiful sunsets and sunrises. This was this morning.

From this morning’s first walk.

For all of you, our readers, who may celebrate one or another moment grounded in reflection and family in this mid-winter time, I reproduce an image and a blog post from widely separated portions of the northern hemisphere.

The month of December is full of holidays and celebrations across religions and diverse cultures. St. Nicholas Day, Kwanzaa, Bodhi Day, Hanukah, Las Posadas, Al Hijra, St. Lucia Day, Christmas, and Boxing Day pack December with joyful festivities and cultural ceremonies. For me, the magic crescendos on the Winter Solstice (this year the day falls on December 21st) as it echoes the earthy rhythm of changing seasons. Whether felt as an astronomical, spiritual, religious, or personal event, the day visibly marks a turning point in our 365-day cycle. On this shortest day of light, ancient and modern cultures hold solstice ceremonies to bring them closer to the skies as the giver of life and bounty. At the root of many ancient rituals was the fear that the dwindling light would not return without human intervention, creating the need for generous offerings and lavish celebrations to keep the gods and goddesses happy.

The Winter Solstice has greatest significance to those that live closest to the earth, and whose lives are intimately tied to changing seasons and harvest cycles. Tuning in to celestial events was an especially important cosmic science for ancient societies who created meaningful fertility rites; fire festivals and offerings to their deities in hopes of procuring a bountiful harvest. While not widely known, many of these rituals are part of our modern traditions. Candles, evergreens, mistletoe, lavish feasts, and the giving and receiving of gifts are rooted in ceremonies performed thousands of years ago…

Sith gun robh so.

Flaming rocks will soon begin hurtling toward the Earth with the arrival of the annual Geminid meteor shower, one of the biggest of the year.

The peak of the week-long shower will come just before dawn on Tuesday, but the shooting stars will also be visible across the world late in the weekend, says Rebecca Johnson, editor of StarDate magazine from the McDonald Observatory near Fort Davis, Texas.

Where skies are clear, the viewing will be best “before dawn on Tuesday. It starts to get light an hour before sunrise, so any time before that is going to be a good time to look,” she says…

Meteors of course aren’t falling stars. In the case of the Geminid shower, they’re tiny pieces of debris breaking off an asteroid called 3200 Phaethon as it orbits the sun. Although the shower was first seen in the 1860s, the asteroid wasn’t discovered until 1983…

But what’s producing the meteor showers hardly matters considering how lovely they are. For those who can’t make it out Tuesday morning, the meteors will be visible for two days before the peak and a day or two afterwards, just not as plentiful.

It’s “a great shower that many people never see” because they come during cold weather, says NASA’s Bill Cooke. “The Perseids get all the press. It’s much nicer to be out on a warm August night then to be freezing your rear in December.”

Uh, yes.

Although we get up well before dawn – and it’s worth stumbling around outside to see what we can see.

Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

December was the first month since the beginning of the Iraq war in which there were no U.S. combat deaths, the U.S. military reported…

“That is a very significant milestone for us as we continue to move forward, and I think that also speaks to the level of violence and how it has decreased over time,” said Army Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq.

Since the beginning of the war more than six years ago, 4,373 U.S. military members have died — 3,477 from hostilities and 898 in non-combat incidents…

Combat fatalities have decreased significantly since June, when the United States started withdrawing troops from Baghdad, Iraq’s capital, and other urban areas. The United States also started a troop drawdown in 2009 from about 160,000 to the current level of around 110,000…

Casualties also have decreased among Iraqis, with Interior Ministry officials reporting in late November that the civilian death toll fell that month to its lowest level since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion…

In December, the ministry said, 306 Iraqi civilians were killed and 1,137 were wounded; 13 Iraqi soldiers were killed and 32 were wounded. Also in December, 48 Iraqi police were killed and 119 were wounded.

President Obama has said he plans to withdraw all U.S. combat forces from Iraq by August 2010 and all remaining troops by December 2011. Britain, the United States’ major ally in Iraq, ended combat operations in April.

It will take decades for the people of Iraq, the citizens of the Middle East, the rest of the world to begin to think kindly of a nation that led us all into the 21st Century – by invading another, much smaller nation out of greed and avarice, supporting the whole process on lies clearly recognized by most of the educated world.

It has always been so. No reason to think times have changed. Or that the citizens of this imperial land have learned much of anything from the process.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will become the second mass-market retail chain to start selling Apple’s iPhone, with two store representatives saying the world’s largest retailer will carry two models of the Web-surfing handset this month.

Employees in the cell-phone departments at five California stores, contacted by phone today, said Wal-Mart will offer iPhones by the end of December. Employees are currently being trained on how to sell the device, all five said.

Analysts say Apple may offer a discontinued 4-gigabyte version through Bentonville, Arkansas-based Wal-Mart and sell it for $99. Apple currently sells two models at $199 and $299.

“A $99, Apple-branded cell phone is inevitable,” said Shaw Wu, an analyst for Kaufman Brothers in San Francisco. “One of the key things Apple needs to do to drive broader iPhone adoption is to build a more complete product line” with low- end, mid-range and high-end products, Wu said in a Dec. 5 note.

Jobs told analysts in October that Apple has sold 10 million iPhones this year, meeting his forecast to capture a 1 percent share of the worldwide mobile-phone market.

The Wal-Mart employees Bloomberg spoke to gave start-up dates ranging from the 15th to the 28th of December. None confirmed a $99 – 4GB model; in fact, referencing the 8GB and 16GB versions already in the marketplace.