The web continues to be jolted by the recent fall out in the stockmarket. Among the servers curtailing services is Lycos.com which has announced that effective it will abandon free internet access. Previously Lycos closed TheDoghouse.com and HotBot.com and prohibited linking images from Angelfire.com to sites on other servers.

President Bubba Bill Clinton will simply not fade into the sunset. Holy Hillery is expected to set up a rival white house in Georgetown to receive the dis-empowered democrats. While Senators may object to search procedures on Capital Hill instituted as soon as Hill joined the Senate Club, Hill revealed plans to open the Federal Styled Georgetown mansion to displaced leftists.

And money is no problem. Hill just received an $8M advance on her next book.

Holy Hillery!"

Recently at the request of Dr James W. Rowe, Lord and Mentor of the Society, the Rockaway Park Philosophical Society commented on holiday depression: That the solstice, with its early sunsets, might be a source of depression may have been known to the ancients. To the ancients, depression didn't stop the party.

Today we celebrate a hectic time between Christmas and the New Year, holidays which have assumed Christian and secular importance.

Yet the change from autumn to winter was marked by partying even in pagan times, perhaps as a cure to the problem of seasonal depression. Thus holiday depression may have preceded the birth of Christ for whom Christians say they party.

The ancients were smart enough not to let such a depressing time also mark the New Year. It's bad enough to be depressed by the early sunset. Pagans were too practical to conduct personal re-appraisal and reproach at a bleak and barren time. Pagans celebrated the New Year in the spring, the rebirth of life. Thus we have the cluster of spring holidays that cluster from St. Pat's day through Easter which remind us that they are pagan holidays glaring at us in Christian or Secular form. Did the Christians move the New Year's whoop-te-doo to desolute January, as many writers assume, just to engage in their pointless self mortification?

Probably not correct. Until the reformation in England, Lady's Day in March marked the New Year. That is the presumed onset of gestation of the Christ child, a variant of the visitation ?

In the reformation Mary lost out with the Protestants as much as her worship increased in Catholic countries like Poland, Hungary and Ireland on the border between the Reformation and the Catholic resurgence. As Mary lost her important position in Christianity, the New Year was shifted by King Henry from budding March to bleak January and Mary was dismissed from the pantheon.

If New Years arrived at January first by accident, how did Christmas join it in the moribund weeks of late sunrises and early sunsets.

The solstice was celebrated by the ancients, particularly among the Celts who believed that it marked the battle between the God of Light and the Goddess of Darkness, with the latter winning. The barbarous Saxon assumed various Celtic holidays in different forms: the burning of the young girl in Scandinavia and Germany, the big beer blast in England are relies of the Celtic festival. And of course in pagan times it was a festival of light: bonfires, worship of the evergreen tree, etc., to represent the coming of light: longer days ahead.

Many of the code words of Christianity bent the existing phraseology "coming of light", battle between "light and darkness," and even "light of the world" to a Christian purpose. How did that happen?

No one knows when Christ was born or even exactly when: Christians say in a manger and therefore a stable; Muslims who know the Koran say that means under a palm tree at an oasis. Considering the climate, the latter might be more likely, although within the last five years it snowed in Jerusalem. Arabs and Israelis put aside their Uzi's and Thompson's to go out and throw snowballs at each other (note: neither side seems to like the M16. How unfortunate!). Whether under a palm or in the stable, was December the month?

Some scholars say that Christians took up Christmas the year Emperor Diocletian, the most efficient of their Roman persecutors, required all religions to worship at the solstice. From that occasion onward, Christians subsumed the phraseology common among pagans and twisted it to their own use, much as the pagans throughout the Christian era molded Christian catch phrases and figurines into a pagan meaning. That the Christmas tradition began with a clever Christian mockery of pagans did not escape the attention of the Reformers who would have abolished Christmas altogether.

19th century commercialism resuscitated the feast. Even in New England, the Puritan homeland, Christmas gained a foothold. Where the pilgrims punished those who would have celebrated Christmas, gaudy lights have reappeared. Yes, Virginia, There is Christmas in Massachusetts.

Why then the depression? The pagans light a bonfire and said that's what lights are supposed to cure. Many we could simplify life by resuming simpler ways.

1. Poems By Monique Nicole Fox "Foxxy"

   mnfoxx@aol.com 1110 Fidler Lane, SS, MD 20910 USA

   And there's no better way to cure the Holiday blues than soothing poetry from a rising bard.

   Fox' Foxxy Poems

   Nicole Foxx says of herself in her Brief Bio: "I am a 31 year old single woman with no kids. I am an Accountant (by profession), Poet (by heart), ethnic (by design), sweet (by nature), and pretty (by hereditary). My favorite color is red. My favorite foods are soul food and caribbean food. My favorite music is reggae, soca, and calypso. I have a BBA in Finance from UDC. I have 1 year of graduate course work under my belt @ UMUC (MGA in MIS).

2. Don Grant Deman: The Canadian O'Henry

   Canada's nationally recognis[z]ed Inditer dot com Press, Grant Deman continues to grace the art of O'Henry with a Canadian accent. Read Grant's Cracker Barrel at Inditer dot com.

   With typical modesty Don Grant Deman replies: To be the Canadian Chocolate bar or to just have the muchies!

3. Lisa Marie Brennan

   Lisa Marie Brennan lisa@saber.net.reports that in the wake of the success of her her song "Down by the Water, she has formed a news letter entitled Lisa News. Contact lisa lisa@saber.net for further details. The single Down by the Water continues to climb the chart.

4. Loeppky v US

   Bill Loeppkey of Inditer dot com has news of the Clintons' legacy in Canada: the continuing public health crisis caused by the sale of corrupted blood to the Canadian Red Cross.

   visit The Inditer.com