Learning, Fall/Winter Celebrations, and Cults; Louis Harris Jr. by Van Stone vspfoundation@yahoo.com (610) 931-8810

Learning, Fall/Winter Celebrations, and Cults; Louis Harris Jr. by Van Stone vspfoundation@yahoo.com (610) 931-8810



A woman lights kinara candles on a table decorated with the symbols of Kwanzaa. Learn more about Fall/Winter Holiday type celebrations by visiting your local Philadelphia Library or other libraries nearest you. Plan some family fun before and after December 25, by researching what celebration has the oldest dated beginning. Compare many annual gift giving celebrations like weddings, memorials, even annual enrollment in grade schools and see how silly it can be to publish materials frowning on some else's type of celebration all the while circulating invitations to your own. Free your mind and enjoy.

Please allow me to say with much due respect to all, many happy fall and winter celebrations. And have a Happy New Year too. As a former member of Jehovah’s Witness, a cult, today inviting children and adults to tell about any fall and winter mornings, afternoons and evenings they celebrate is so refreshing. I say this because any day can be a holiday. What activity children do with their families is none of your business – or mine. But if anyone is intrigued and chooses to make it their own business they should simply learn all they can about holiday celebrations of the fall/winter and be very sure of the empowering facts about them. Yet, don’t allow a cult of celebration watchers to insert what they say to you about holiday celebrations as true just because your favorite part of a holiday bothers them. Interestingly, cults question to the extreme do children eat special meals, give gifts, or put up decorations during the celebration?

Meanwhile, a cult is an imitation. And they also ignore one very important fact - as many of you might be participants in, - about fall/winter celebrations throughout the world. These are celebrations of great antiquity. Cult members are not true students of antiquities but are students of an organization that uses fear tactics forbidding members to do independent studies. But the following fall/winter celebrations have authentic history of celebration of self and history depending on which type of calendar is used to connect them: Christmas, a festival of children happiness & peaceable mankind, celebrates the Christian History of the birth of Jesus. Many Christian families decorate a tree, give gifts, and go to church. Diwali, a festival of lights, celebrates the Hindu New Year. People celebrate by lighting dipas, or oil lamps, and wearing colorful clothing. Las Posadas is a Mexican-American celebration of the birth of Jesus. There is a nighttime parade in which people go from house to house looking for shelter, symbolizing Mary and Joseph’s journey. Hanukkah, a festival of lights, celebrates the Jewish Freedom. People light candles on a menorah and play a game called dreidel. Id al-Fitr or Ei ul-Fitr, a festival of breaking the fast, celebrates the Muslim strengthening their ties with relatives and friends of their community. Families have a special feast of rice, meat, and sweets. They dress up, and sometimes pay visits. Kwanzaa, a festival of self-history, celebrates the Black American Pride of African Heritage. People light candles on a kinara, tell stories, play music, and prohibit negative responses.

Speaking of negative responses....

I rarely look to see if I got any negative responses to my column. But 2 weeks ago I see that the editor ran a Louis Harris Jr. view/opinion to my words about newly elected State Rep Vanessa Brown - representing West/Southwest/North Philly - and him. Harris Jr.’s comments were nothing more than a personal political agenda in disguise calling my words “false.” Nowhere in my article did I mention that he considered Rep. Brown to be a terrible person. And I have never written one article using false words in it to make a point about anyone. Ever! In fact, Rep Brown would most likely say, who cares about what Harris Jr. thinks? Rep Brown did not ask Harris Jr. to mention her name in anything without speaking to her people first. It is foolish of Harris Jr. to brown-nose.

The moment that Rep Brown does anything positively stabilizing for Philly communities I can write about that even if I don’t write it at SCOOP. Louis Harris Jr. saying that he has not set his eyes on Van Stone for over a year has no bearing on what the accountability of Rep Brown will be toward her deeply struggling district. And no one from Rep Brown’s office contacted Harris Jr. asking him to write a “defend Rep. Brown piece.” If I’m false about that, I expect Harris Jr. to send in another correction note. That’s not gonna happen. I do positive writings about politicians. Because of that very same article, I would have expected Harris Jr. to say something pleasant about long-time politician Councilwoman Blackwell. I never worked for Blackwell’s office. He did.

But many of my readers know I write concrete examples of Blackwell’s excellence. As far as I am concerned there is nothing greater that can be said about Blackwell except for more pleasant things about such a wonderful woman-political-leader. So if Harris Jr. is gonna praise Rep Brown long before he can comprehend what I wrote I’ll be waiting for his praises about Mrs. Blackwell. We have a lot of room for it in SCOOP. And for real, Bah! – Harris Jr. using SCOOP for his own personal goals? It’s not gonna happen. Ever!