Introduction
Hey readers,
Happy New Year.
I hope you all had a good time bringing in the new year.
A new month means a new theme, and that theme is “New Year.”
Also, we will start to include links to books that we think you can add to your Amazon order for a few extra dollars.
Thanks for reading.
Book Deal
This link isn’t an actual book. But for eight bucks, you can get a pretty sweet calendar. Sure, there are no prayers in here or women, but the paintings are lovely to look at. I figured that I wrote about calendars so much during this piece that a link to one would fit nicely.
January Has No Good Theme – Op-Ed Piece
On this blog, we have been doing something related to themes over the past few months of the year 2020, Also known as the year, everyone couldn’t stop complaining about how bad it was. (I get it COVID is spreading, and places are getting showdown, but after a while, people complained about 2020 for the hell of it). Maybe you have noticed this trend of consistency of themes on this blog. Maybe you haven’t, and this is the first time you realize that yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, and this blog has organization. It’s organized like how your cluttered closet is, in that you know where everything is, but a stranger would not have a clue where to find anything. These themes are some of my favorite parts of the blog. Some of you readers think so also, from the feedback we got about a few of them. (thanks for that, by the way) But let’s face it, let’s call a spade a spade and cut the crap; the past three months, we have been spoiled here, writing about the evil of Halloween, then the love of family for Thanksgiving, and then happiness at Christmas. Is there really a theme that can come after the most wonderful time of the year? I don’t know. Can we put up Halloween stories again?
Then there is January. The first month of the new year, and the only time any of us put this month first. The month that everyone opens up when we have our yearly calendar, from the calendars with the Catholic prayers and the church’s scenes to the swimsuit model calendars where women seem not to wear any swimsuits. January is the first image we see, and for some reason, it never has the best image in it as compared to December, which always has the best image. I am talking about my experience with the Catholic prayer calendars here, obviously. You bet your ass they are saving John 3:16 or Psalm 23 for the winter month when Christ was born.
Half of the time, we think that January is actually the month of last year. We all write in our new notebooks, on our new laptops, and on our newly created excel sheets the wrong date for January. Some of us who think we are clever even point out our mistake to anyone who will listen. “You know I can never remember to put the right year down in the first week of January.” That is January for you. The wrong month; the appetizer month. It doesn’t give us the best line from the Bible or the hottest chick of the spread, and why? Because it is January.
(Oh, and if you are one of those people who point out your trouble with the fourth numeral of the year, you should probably stop. No one finds that interesting to talk about. You might as well talk about what shoe you put on first, your left or right, or whether you put the toilet roll facing up or down; Talking of your misprint is on that level of conversation. In other words, boring. Isn’t there a show you watched that you want to spoil for me? Or a book that you read that you wish to discuss its jaded plot? Don’t you follow the crooked politics, or the rigged sports, or something? You know something more interesting than a number change you made this morning?)
If January was a city, it would be Cleveland.
It’s there on the map. It is definitely a real thing, and when I pull up my GPS, I can even drive to it, if for some reason, I lose my mind. But it’s existence is the best part about it. Go to other cities like L.A. with its fake celebrities and hot weather or New York with its mad pedestrians and crowded streets, or Houston with its big hats and bigger guns; if you really want to be apart of something people care about. (Sorry to all my Cleveland readers out there. All three of you)
Don’t believe me here? Do you think I am making this all up? Well, let’s go through the major holidays in January that would be a worthy theme. MLK Day. That’s it. Yeah, it’s a shortlist.
We don’t even get another American for the rest of the month. George Washington and Abe Lincoln’s birthdays are in February. So all we have is MLK. No, I am not including New Year Day here. So we go from the best holiday of the year, the time where we all love to listen to the festive music, put ornaments on trees, and give each other presents, to one great dead American. Hey, I am not saying I don’t like or respect the three guys. I do. Each is a major force in American history.
Washington was the first president and laid down the rules the others would go by for years to come. He is why the president is called Mr. President, and he warned that America’s failure would come from within and not from an invading enemy. And from the looks of it, we all better heed his advice there and understand that we all may be different. L.A. may not like New York. New York may not like anyone. Houston may think it should be its own country. And the three of them may all mock Cleveland, but we all must understand that the flag we wave, and the freedom we believe in, is larger than any minor bickering or problems we face. If we don’t realize this, then Washington will be a prophet as much as a president.
Lincoln helped keep us all together. When the nation had brothers killing brothers, families killing families, towns killing towns, it was Lincoln that held us together. Cause he believed what Washington believed in. This country isn’t perfect, but it is worth saving. Somehow Lincoln did it, and through the deadliest war fought on American soil, showed that the American spirit can win out even when the battlefield is filled with bodies of fellow Americans. Fun fact about Lincoln; he does not have a statue outside of America. We Americans view him differently than the rest of the world. We put him next to Washington, for we see the Civil War as a significant conflict in our nation’s history, but the rest of the world doesn’t see that. To all my foreign readers out there, all three of you, do yourself a favor and understand why Americans idolize Lincoln as much as Washington. Until then, don’t tell me how stupid I am or American centric I am, cause frankly, that accent of yours is just strange.
Martin Luther King Jr., possibly the most important American of his lifetime, helped us begin to resolve a problem that America still faces today; Segregation. He had a dream that all of us would be equal, for he saw the system that America participated in for hundreds of years. America, like other nations of the time, took advantage of slaves in order to prosper. Europe got materials. Africa got guns. America got slaves. It’s called the Triangle Trade people. It was bad, and the worst part of it all, everyone was in on it. Martin Luther King Jr. called the Founding Fathers out on a problem that they didn’t know how to solve, and neither did Lincoln. Washington knew slavery was bad, so did Lincoln, but neither had any idea of changing a corrupt system that literally controlled the world. You think that is easy? Talk to me about the slavery going on in the Middle East and China today. Sex slaves are rapid in parts of the world, and no one wants to rock the boat because everyone but the slaves gets something out of it. Slavery was awful and still is, not only because of its inhuman repulsive treatment but because of the systematic control it had over those who wanted to change it. To put it in a more American-centric way, imagine what it would take to change the college sports system where college athletes’ manipulation is integral to schools. The college athletes get paid on the side. The school doesn’t say anything. The coaches keep their mouths shut. Everyone is in on it. Because sports pay for everything, so no one complains. Yeah, slavery was worse than that. Luckily America had great men like Martin Luther King Jr. to answer the call to show us all that non-violence and peace is the answer. Don’t fight the police. Be their brothers. If you show them that you are equal, then they will come to see you like that. Like the other two, he believed that America wasn’t perfect, but it was worth saving. We are Americans first, more than whites, more than blacks; more than New Yorkers; more than Clevelanders. If we can see that our common belief in freedom is what Washington fought for and Lincoln died for, then maybe Martin Luther King’s dream can come true one day.
As I write all of this, to show you the respect that I have for those men, I still enjoy learning of them and reading up on their successes and failures; I have to admit that MLK doesn’t hold a candle to Christmas, the red and green holiday, Santa’s time to shine, the birth of Jesus Christ.
I was sitting at my laptop drinking another cup of coffee, Hazelnut flavor for those who care, thinking of possible themes for January, when it came to me like Gabriel to Mary, January has no good theme.
Sorry MLK, you can’t compete with my boy Jesus. After all, he kind of did what MLK did, before MLK, with the crazy idea that you should not only love your friends and family but your enemies too. MLK understood this, and for that, I admire him because that is not an easy stand to make. Many want to fight our enemy, not befriend them. It religiously makes sense, see that enemy may be your enemy, but he is not God’s enemy. It may be hard for you to grasp, but God loves that enemy that you hate so much. (That is some deep stuff right there)
What am I going to write about all month? MLK every freaking day? (That is a long-ass dream) That is a lot of short stories for one guy. After the third story of the theme, you would start to question whether this is a political site or a literary one. We did politics already, and I don’t want to do it again. Thank God elections are only once every four years.
Honestly, I still have a few Christmas stories in me that I can write here, and I could probably write more on Halloween too, but it is not that time of year now. No, the presents are unwrapped, and the candy is eaten, and I am stuck with writing about a theme that is inferior to the others.
So… what do I write about to entertain your already entertained minds? What can be written that can intrigue you as much as a story of evil or turkeys gobbling? Ugh…. I don’t know; new year stuff? You know, like new beginnings and new starts and new things, and other things that are new. Do you see why I said that January is a bad time of the year?
We ate all the candy bars, had all the turkey, and drank all the eggnog, and now we have to talk about starting over again! That is a good time of year. Why start over? It seems all we really have to do is restock the candy, make more turkey and refill my glass cause that stuff is fun. New beginnings? New starts? New things? That’s not fun, especially when the stuff I was just doing was already fun.
Sorry readers, but you are stuck with “new year” as the theme for the month. Hey, I didn’t make the calendar. If I did, January would have a better quote and a hotter chick on it, and most importantly, a holiday that is actually good.
You know I never thought I would say this in all my time writing, but I can’t wait to write about love for February. Love is fun to write about, unlike some other themes!
Ending
Hey readers,
I hope that you found this entertaining as much as I did while writing. It was all in good fun.
Thanks for reading.
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About The Blogger
Greg Luti is an editor and blogger on pensandwords.com. He likes calendars. He likes MLK. He doesn't care much for Cleveland. He has never been to Houston.
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