Today is the Autumnal Equinox. From now until the Winter Solstice the days will be shorter than the nights and getting shorter all the time. In pre-electricity cultures this is harvest time. It is also the time when a scapegoat was chosen to bear the burdens of sin accumulated by the entire community. The scapegoat was sacrificed as thanks for the harvest and to keep TPTB happy. In some cultures that scapegoat was human. Usually a convicted criminal or a stranger who had the misfortune to pass through town at the wrong time.

This is the origin of King for a Day. Some guy gets picked to be The Dude. He gets whatever he wants for 24 hours and then he dies.

The rest of the year is relatively sacrifice free. In the winter people are too busy trying to keep warm. In the spring everyone is planting seeds and in the summer everyone is partying in the sunshine.

This is an old old pattern. My point in all this? This is the season of the scapegoat. Keep your heads down and your eyes open boys and girls. Let someone else be King for a Day.

-- R (riversoma@aol.com), September 23, 1999

Answers

Agree, we IckaBode Cranes are going public ostrich. Let the headless horsemen ride into the night!

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), September 23, 1999.

Stores are full of Halloween candy and costumes...watch as Daylight Savings Time ends on...HALLOWEEN!!

It won't be long now!!

-- K. Stevens (kstevens@ It's ALL going away in January.com), September 24, 1999.

Aye, take iron to bed with ye, on Samhain's night. Be ye not caught afoot after sunset except near hallowed ground or astride aught but the swiftest and most fearless of steeds. When the Wild Hunt sounds their call, no soul is safe...

Whoa! sometimes I even scare myself! A good thing I don't believe in all those nasty old Irish and Celtic legends. I aint afraid of no ghosts...

-- chairborne commando (what-me-worry@armageddon.com), September 24, 1999.

Rather be in a neighborhood of ghosts come New Year's Evil.

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), September 24, 1999.

Also today is one of the days of the year that it is easy to stand an egg on its rounded end. Really try it today only.

-- The Count of Meijer Crisco (40@cansof.course), September 24, 1999.