I am writing this just a few days before the supposed Mayan Apocalypse on Friday, December 21, 2012. The belief that the "end times" are here is nothing new. This LINK will take you to a page that lists over 200 dates where experts and religious leaders said the end of the world was coming. They all have one thing in common: none of them have worked out as their promoters stated. And I will hereby fearlessly predict that the so-called Mayan Apocalypse will also turn out to be a dud. Some Mayans in Guatemala are denouncing the way the government is turning this into a "folklore for profit" giant party, with an expected 90,000 money-bringing suckers believers coming for the show. NASA has

Ever since I was young I've had a "thing" about religion and spirituality. Although I often found myself disagreeing with various religious beliefs, or with ideas being presented as supposedly representative of various religions, I still had respect for the underlying concepts. Sometimes, I found that people would create religions not to help others, but to help themselves—generally to power, money, and/or sex. I didn't like what they were doing. I felt they were harming others by mocking religions or spiritual paths. I still feel this way. And that brings me to Xmas. When I was old enough to understand that Xmas was an abbreviation for Christmas, I felt there was something wrong

Some people like money as a gift. While there's a part of me that thinks, "Good! Money! I can do something with this," there's also another part of me that thinks, "They sure didn't think much about this gift!" I prefer receiving something that someone has actually spent time considering. "What is Don like? What does he need? What does he want? What will he use?" That's the type of gift I prefer to give, too. For me, spending time considering what someone needs, will like and will use is a pleasure for me. It can also be challenging if I don't have in mind a variety of things to choose from that might appeal to a person. There's a surprisingly different problem when selecting a gift,

My favorite anarchic comedians are the Marx brothers. Of all their movies, I liked 1933's Duck Soup, the crazed, anti-war political satire, the best. All of their movies were really excuses to present comic bits. Some of the bits were recreations of movie skits created by Buster Keaton; he even helped them, without credit, perform them well. Other bits seem to have been taken from vaudeville scenes. A year earlier, in 1932, the Marx madness was seen in Horse Feathers, the studio's (Paramount) highest-grossing film of the year. In the film there is a scene set at the door to a speakeasy. From 1920–1933, it was illegal to manufacture or sell alcohol in the U.S. During this time, known