Meme Scholar with Madness (PhD)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Dec 15, 1923: Gabrielle Casartelli (1910-1990) plays the ethereal Will o’ the Wisp in a London pantomime show, "Where the Rainbow Ends" at the Holborn Empire theatre.


On December 23, 1937, 11-year-old Princess Elizabeth was taken by Queen Elizabeth to see a performance of Where the Rainbow Ends at The Holborn Empire, London.


Carol of the Bells - a song we all know that became a symbol of Christmas all over the world is based on the Ukrainian New Year celebration song "Shchedryk", a New Year celebration song, known in English as "The Little Swallow". The song tells a story of a swallow flying into a household at new year to sing of the wealth that will come with the following spring. English-language lyrics were written in 1936 by the American composer of Ukrainian origin, Peter Wilhousky.



The song was written in Pokrovsk by Ukrainian composer Mykola Leontovych, who was kіlled by a Russian agent. As of December 2025, the city is under Russian occupation.

But despite the fascination with these Ukranian songs, the Western leaders did not recognize Ukraine's independence. In 1921, Ukraine was occupied by Bolshevik Russia and the punitive Soviet authorities immediately began purging the Ukrainian intelligentsia. Mykola Leontovych was also targeted by a VChH (All-Russian Extraordinary Commission) agent. On Jan 23, 1921 he was killed in his parents house in Vinnytsia region by Soviet state security agent Afanasy Hrishchenko.

Shortly after their arrival in the USA, the choir recorded several songs, including Shchedryk, with the New York record company Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company. It became a huge hit in Ivy League Universities.



This Mykola Leontovych composition Shchedryk (aka Carol of the Bells) was originally written for 3 part vocal harmony. This song gained worldwide popularity in 1922 after the Ukrainian National Chorus (under the direction of composer Oleksander Koshets) sang this in Carnegie Hall, where Peter Willhousky heard it and published it with the english text. BTW - the English text is not a translation of the original Ukrainian. This is a recording made in New York City in October of 1922 on the Brunswick label.






Ukrainian site in English on Carol of the Bells.



Dec 15, 1960: Richard Paul Pavlick, 73, a retired postal worker from New Hampshire is arrested for plotting to assassinate President-Elect John F. Kennedy in Palm Beach, Florida with a suicide dynamite bomb. He believed JFK stole the election from Nixon. He delayed the attempt because Kennedy was with his wife Jacqueline and their two young children. He was arrested before he was able to stage another attempt. Ruled mentally ill, released in December 1966; died Nov 11, 1975 in a VA hospital in New Hampshire at age 88.



A Would-be Assassin Tracks Down JFK to his Holiday Home (3 min Smithsonian clip)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MH51WmdG1VU


December 15, 1991: Vasily Zaytsev, Soviet sniper named “Hero of the Soviet Union” (Order of Lenin and the Gold Star Medal) died in Kiev, at the age of 76, just 10 days before the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Between September 22, 1942 and October 19, 1942, he killed 40 enemy soldiers. Between 10 October 1942 and December 17, 1942, during the Battle of Stalingrad, he killed 225 enemy soldiers.


In the film, Enemy at the Gates (2001), starring Jude Law as Zaitsev, was based on part of William Craig's book Enemy at the Gates: The Battle for Stalingrad (1973), which includes a "snipers duel" between Zaitsev and a Wehrmacht sniper school director, Major Erwin König.



Trump just had to get his last words in. Meanwhile, Trump launches a new crusade on WMDs.


https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/2000671104004682113

I can't help but wonder if Rob Reiner went so off the rails with the politics as a way to channel the stress and grief his son was causing the family.

LordBuckly gives the background on Rob Reiner & his son Nick that you won't hear in the media > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPOCbggi8ME


Dire Monday blues in the papers...






Have you heard about Germans working on weaponized Madagascar hissing cockroaches for spies...


Cockroaches, fitted with tiny backpacks, could be part of the future of spycraft, search-and-rescue missions

I thought this story sounded familiar...Yep "BioBot" Madagascar hissing cockroaches Could Save Lives With Tiny Backpacks | National Geographic Video from 2015.


Monday words...


2025 Word of the Year: Slop