Tropical winter: Thailand, snow in Vietnam

Wisdom Quarterly; P. Gosselin (No Tricks Zone, Dec. 20, 2013), The Daily Sheeple

Donkeys freezing to death where they stand in Turkey during cold anomaly 2013

 

Climate extremes: saving Death Valley

A flurry of Middle Eastern and Asian news sites are reporting an “unusual” cold sweeping across vast areas of Asia and the Middle East.
 
The Thai online Pattaya Mail reports “Hundreds of thousands of residents of northern and northeastern Thailand are suffering from the current cold snap, with many areas having been declared disaster zones....

It's sunny in  80s in wicked Hollywood

“Some 100,000 people are suffering from the cold and in need of winter clothing. ”
 
The German language Thailand-tip.com reports that the “Meteorological Institute forecasts temperatures in the north to fall another 4-7°C by Thursday.”
 
Snow in Vietnam
The Asian Correspondent reports that residents in North Vietnam “were treated to a rare sight Monday: snow,” writing that “the white stuff” is a “rare sight in this part of the world.”
 
Not only is Southeast Asia being hard hit by unusually bitter cold, but also vast areas of Central Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa. Some of these regions are typically famous for very warm temperatures. More
 

Asia to remain gripped by bitter cold. Forecast anomaly for next seven days (wxmaps.org)

• Where to take out-of-town visitors in LA: 15 mini-trips for tourists 
• Lorde's Asian boyfriend upends stereotypes: Internet responds  
• VIDEO: Ingo Swann and Superhuman Sensitivities 
• Don't celebrate Xmas? 7 things to do that don't involve holiday
• Man suspected of Friday shooting rampage suffered from PTSD
• Torrance teacher charged with molesting 13 boys
• Police recover heroin packets stamped "Obamacare"
• Los Angeles finally bans extremely polluting plastic bags 
• Las Marthas: Mexican-American debutantes, coming-of-age industry
• Abhidharma explains the 31 Planes of Existence
• VIDEO: Christians agree, Xmas is "false doctrine"
• Defending herself, Lindsay Lohan shrugs legal woes
• Like other planets, our moon has a mythic NAME
• VIDEO: THE MUSHROOM MOVIE
• VIDEO: Jaguars consume DMT from yage/ayahuasca vine
• VIDEO: Santa the Magic Mushroom
• VIDEO: Best movie? "Blue is the Warmest Color"
• Buddhism in Europe (Buddhist Broadcasting Network)
• VIDEO: Hunting radioactive beasts in Chernobyl
• FOX News angry about pro-Palestine of Jewish boycott
• Nine-year-old US boy climbs Aconcagua peak in Argentina (BBC)
• PHOTOS: San Gabriel Mountains of Los Angeles (360cities.net)
• HIKING: Mt. Waterman, L.A. (hikespeak.com)
• Extraterrestrials? 15 Signs that Alien Life Exists
• The Bodhisatta's past lives (Buddhist Birth Stories)
• The bigger, badder NDAA of 2014 on its way to signing
• PHOTOS: 40 famous Jewish women under 40 (RantLifestyle)
• Crazy Internet humor (ebaumsworld)

COMEDY: "Saturnalia" by Jimmy Dore (audio)

Wisdom Quarterly; Jimmy Dore (jimmydorecomedy.com), Wikipedia edit

Greco-Roman: Ruins of Temple of Saturn (eight columns to the far right), with three columns from the Temple of Vespasian and Titus (left) and the Arch of Septimius Severus (center)

• AUDIO: The Jimmy Dore Show (12-27-13)
• True origins of Xmas: Pagan  "Saturnalia"  orgy

In Roman mythology, Saturn was an agricultural deity who was said to have reigned over the world in the Golden Age, when humans enjoyed the spontaneous bounty of the earth without labor in a state of social egalitarianism. 

 

The sexual revelries of Saturnalia (held around the winter solstice and the famous date of Dec. 25th) were supposed to reflect the conditions of the lost mythical age, not all of them desirable. The Greek equivalent was the Kronia, an Athenian festival held in honor of Cronus (Greek Kronos. More

 

In the most classic and well known version of Greek mythology, Cronus or Kronos (Greek Κρόνος) -- not to be confused with Chronos (the personification of time) -- was the leader and the youngest of the first generation of Titans (Buddhist asuras), divine (deva) descendants of Gaia (Mother Earth or Bhūmi), and Uranus, the sky (space). He overthrew his father and ruled during the mythological Golden Age, until he was overthrown by his own son Zeus and imprisoned in Tartarus.