Beggars' Night Is Not Halloween

Halloween (aka All Hallows' Eve or All Saints' Eve) is celebrated on October 31.  It is the Eve of November 1, All Hallows' or All Saints' Day. This is a time in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead, particularly saints and martyrs.  It is not a movable holiday.  

Christianity is not the only religion to hold the date sacred. This is not a movable holiday for the Pagans, either.  Samhain is the end of summer and the beginning of winter, a sign of death and rebirth.  As my sister is wont to say "The veil is thinning" at this time of year.  What veil?  The veil between worlds. Thus all the ghosts and things.

There is currently a movement afoot to move Halloween to, I believe, the last Saturday of October.  They want to move a religious holiday for the sake, frankly, of profit and convenience.  And they don't even know what they are talking about.  

These people are talking about Beggars' Night, not about Halloween.  Many of the trappings of a secular Halloween are tied into Celtic and Gaelic harvest festivals and Beggars' Night (aka Trick or Treat) is one of those things.  This movement is rather akin to moving Christmas to make caroling more convenient and profitable.

All the local communities in my area already move Beggars' Night to the weekend.  Trick-or-treaters can hit one town on Friday and another on Saturday.  Spend Sunday with a belly ache... but I digress.  Since I don't hold the date sacred, I move my totally secular Halloween party in the same manner.  But for those who hold the holiday sacred, those for whom it is a holy day, Halloween cannot be moved. 

Why, if we're already moving around what they think is Halloween, are they calling for a law to do so?   In this age of diversity training, is Big Candy really this ignorant of the religious meaning of October 31?   

Mermaids

Oh, dear god, y'all!  First things first, not everyone objecting to the casting of the live-action Ariel are doing it for racist reasons.  At least, not that they're aware of.  Some people just don't like change and would be complaining if ANYONE but a blue eyed ginger got the role.  (Personally, I'm just upset that Divine can't play Ursula.) Put on your thinking caps, y'all, we're going in.

POINT: In the original tale, the mermaid is described as having skin "like a rose leaf".  So she was green? The mermaid also dies at the end, so there's that....

POINT: Disney named their mermaid after a male character in Shakespeare's The Tempest.  They gave her red hair for artistic reasons - something about wanting not-a-blond and brunette being hard to animate underwater, if I recall correctly.    There's also something about her being the only redhead in her family, but I'm not sure what version of the tale this came from.  Disney changed the ending.  Ariel is not, and never was, the original.

POINT: In historical sightings - and yes, I have a book here to back me up - merfolk have been described as follows:  Roaring. Scaled even in the human section. Having green hair.  Long green hair. Having purple blood. Mossy hair. Black or tawny skin. Different colors on belly and back. Gray.

I've listed only the descriptions that differ from the European-based archetype.  One description even says they are "frequently taken for Indian women bathing" until the tail is seen. 

POINT:  We're talking about nearly universal folklore.  Cultures all over the world have mermaids, sirens, lorelei, naiads, ri...  I could go on but you get the idea.  Merfolk come in all the same colors as humans.  And a few others if you believe the reported sightings.

POINT: Ariel is a Disney character and they can change her up any way they want. 

I personally won't be seeing the live action movie.  I just don't care for live action versions of classic cartoons.  The only live action Disney remake I've seen was Beauty and the Beast.  I only watched it because I wanted to see how it was possible to make it any more obvious Lefou was in love with Gaston.