Tuesday, December 31, 2024

ME! ME!! LOOK AT ME!!!!!

In a post on Truth Social, Trump reshared a screenshot of a report that Shark Tank co-host and Canadian Kevin O'Leary — not Prime Minister Justin Trudeau or any other Canadian leaders — would discuss the merger of the two countries.
Because that’s how it’s done. 🤦‍♂️ 
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Not With A Bang, But A Whimper

 John Roberts, in his end-of-year report, on the criticism of Judge Aileen Cannon:

The sentence reads: “Within the past year we also have seen the need for state and federal bar associations to come to the defense of a federal district judge whose decisions in a high-profile case prompted an elected official to call for her impeachment.”
Also, too, as well:
Attempts to intimidate judges for their rulings in cases are inappropriate and should be vigorously opposed. Public officials certainly have a right to criticize the work of the judiciary, but they should be mindful that intemperance in their statements when it comes to judges may prompt dangerous reactions by others.
"Intimidate" is a very loaded word in that context. I remember Judge Wayne Justice, the federal judge who applied Brown v Board to the Tyler Independent School District in 1970 and desegregated the schools. He lived in Tyler and, for a time, had protection against death threats.

I’m not saying that wasn’t wrong. I am saying the Chief Justice doesn’t like his bubble being pierced. The John Birch Society could teach the Chief Justice a few things about “intimidation” and criticism by calling for impeachment.

Forgive me if I’m not weeping for the CJ’s delicate fee-fees.

John Roberts: peaceful protests targeting me are bad. 
Also John Roberts: If the President wants to sic violent protests on a co-equal branch of government, that's totally cool.
Roberts wants everybody to respect his authoritah! No matter what he does.
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“Guns Aren’t Lawful;/Nooses Give;/Gas Smells Awful…”

 


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Don’t Be A MAGAnoner

 

 For those of you whose only knowledge of criminal investigations is movies and TeeVee (where the crime, the investigation, the trial AND conviction all occur in 90 minutes or less), here is your corrective.

After being sworn in as attorney general in March 2021, Merrick B. Garland gathered his closest aides to discuss a topic too sensitive to broach in bigger groups: the possibility that evidence from the far-ranging Jan. 6 investigation could quickly lead to former President Donald J. Trump and his inner circle. 
At the time, some in the Justice Department were pushing for the chance to look at ties between pro-Trump rioters who assaulted the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, his allies who had camped out at the Willard Hotel, and possibly Mr. Trump himself. 
Mr. Garland said he would place no restrictions on their work, even if the “evidence leads to Trump,” according to people with knowledge of several conversations held over his first months in office. 
“Follow the connective tissue upward,” said Mr. Garland, adding a directive that would eventually lead to a dead end: “Follow the money.”
Another example:
That 2021 focus is inconsistent with other conspiracy theories people are floating, too: None of this started until Jack Smith was appointed (or that Jack Smith gave it new life), they say. Nothing happened for two years, they say. 
As far as I know, every phone that went into the indictment and immunity brief (which added information from Boris Ephsteyn and Mike Roman’s phone) was seized before Smith’s appointment. The onerous 10-month process of obtaining Executive Privilege waivers for testimony from Trump’s top aides, without which you couldn’t prove that Trump held the murder weapon — the phone used to send a tweet targeting Mike Pence during the riot — started on June 15, 2022, five months before Smith’s appointment. Jack Smith looks prolific to those who don’t know those details, because 10 months of hard work finally came to fruition in the months after he was appointed. 
The claim nothing happened for two years? The only major investigative step that happened after the two-year anniversary of Merrick Garland’s confirmation was Mike Pence’s testimony.
ew points out the first seven responses to her post are predictable:
So far 7 of the people who've responded to this post have simply bragged that they don't care about actual facts, they have their belief and they're going to stick with it. This is why I call them MGAnoners. Classical conspiracy thinking.
Her thesis is that the real villain is John Roberts. She’s right.
What I care about is that at a time when we need to start establishing means of accountability for a second Trump term, much of the Democratic world has chosen instead to wallow in false claims about the Trump investigation in order to make Garland a scapegoat, rather than the guy directly responsible, John Roberts. It’s classical conspiracy thinking. Something really bad happened (Trump got elected), it’s not entirely clear why (because almost no one bothers to learn the details I’ve laid out here, to say nothing of considering the political work that didn’t happen to make Trump own this), and so people simply invent explanations. Every time those explanations get debunked, people double down on the theory — it’s Garland’s fault — rather than reconsidering their chosen explanation. 
And those explanations have the effect of distracting attention from Roberts. Rather than talking about how six partisan Justices rewrote the Constitution to give the leader of the GOP a pass on egregious crimes, Democrats are choosing to blame a guy who encouraged prosecutors to follow the money in March 2021. 
It’s a choice. And it’s a choice that guarantees maximal impotence. It’s a choice that eschews actual facts (and therefore the means to actually learn what happened). It’s a choice that embraces irrational conspiracy thinking (which makes people weak and ripe for manipulation by authoritarians). It’s a choice that distracts from Roberts’ role.
Watch the 🍩, not the 🐇   🕳️.

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New Year's Eve 2024



Time is told by death, who doubts it? But time is always halved--for all we know, it is halved--by the eye-blink, the synapse, the immeasurable moment of the present. Time is only the past and maybe the future; the present moment, dividing and connecting them, is eternal. The time of the past is there, somewhat, but only somewhat, to be remembered and examined. We believe that the future is there too, for it keeps arriving, though we know nothing about it. But try to stop the present for your patient scrutiny, or to measure its length with your most advanced chronometer. It exists, so far as I can tell, only as a leak in time, through which, if we are quiet enough, eternity falls upon us and makes its claim. And here I am, an old man, traveling as a child among the dead.

We measure time by its deaths, yes, and by its births. For time is told also by life. As some depart, others come. The hand opened in farewell remains open in welcome. I, who once had grandparents and parents, now have children and grandchildren. Like the flowing river that is yet always present, time that is always going is always coming. And time that is told by death and birth is held and redeemed by love, which is always present. Time, then, is told by love's losses, and by the coming of love, and by love continuing in gratitude for what is lost. It is folded and enfolded and unfolded forever and ever, the love by which the dead are alive and the unborn welcomed into the womb. The great question for the old and the dying, I think, is not if they have loved and been loved enough, but if they have been grateful enough for love received and given, however much. No one who has gratitude is the onliest one. Let us pray to be grateful to the last.
--Wendell Berry, Andy Catlett: Early Travels
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Sixth Day Of Christmas 2024


Consider what is said to you:  Love God.  If you say to me:  Show me who I am to love, what shall I say if not what Saint John says:  No one has seen God!  But in case you should think that you are completely cut off from the sight of God, he says:  God is love, and he who remains in love remains in God.  Love your neighbor, then, and see within yourself the power by which you love your neighbor; there you will see God, as far as you are able.

Begin, then, to love your neighbor. Break your bread to feed the hungry, and bring into your home the homeless poor; if you see someone naked, clothe him, and do not look down on your own flesh and blood.

 What will you gain by doing this?  Your light will then burst forth like the dawn.  Your light is your God; he is your dawn, for he will come to you when the night is over.  He does not rise or set but remains forever.

In loving and caring for your neighbor you are on a journey.  Where are you traveling if not to the Lord God, to him whom we should love with our whole heart, our whole soul, our whole mind?  We have not yet reached his presence, but we have our neighbor at our side.  Support, then, this companion of your pilgrimage if you want to come into the presence of the one with whom you desire to remain forever.

Augustine
Fourth century
Office of Readings
Roman Rite
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Monday, December 30, 2024

White South African Apartheid Racists Say What?

Mackenzie Scott has given over $19 billion “to nonprofits focused on issues such as racial equity, social justice, immigration protections, and LGBTQ+ rights.”
"'Super rich ex-wives who hate their former spouse' should filed be listed among 'Reasons that Western Civilization died,'" Musk said in a now-deleted X post in March.
And the ultimate irony: The only racists are the people who are NOK.
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Court Legitimacy Is Real

 

Professor Vladeck:
As noted below, there are two basic problems with the brief. The first is that it’s asking the Court to do something that the Court … has no power to do. Without at least some view as to the constitutionality of the statute, there’s no basis for the Court to do anything to prevent the statute’s operative provisions from going into effect on January 19. The second is that the brief is, both in that ask and elsewhere, relying on political considerations wholly divorced from law—an ominous harbinger not just from the incoming President, but from his nominee to represent the United States (and not just Trump) before the Supreme Court. I’ve written before about the extent to which at least some of the Court’s legal analysis is necessarily suffused with—if not influenced by—high politics. But this isn’t that; it’s pure politics, all the way down. And the ridiculous puffery aside, that’s quite an opening salvo for the Court to receive from the President-Elect and Solicitor General-designate.
Yes, tout le monde (or the internet, at least), thinks 5 Supreme Court justices would side with Trump and “suspend” the Tik Tok statute for the President-elect to…do something. My go-to here has become the ST:NG episode where “Q” has lost his magical powers, but is nonetheless called on to offer a solution to a problem of impending doom. His solution is to “change the gravitational constant of the universe,” something he can no longer do. If the Supremes were to grant Trump’s request, it would be like changing the gravitational constant of the universe. They can’t do it; and even to suggest it, would finally be the Constitutional crisis we’ve all been threatened with for all these years.

Courts have no authority to change laws just because some judge doesn’t like them. Nor can they suspend laws “just because.” Yes, it sometimes looks like they do so anyway (and I wouldn’t say they don’t), but at a minimum there must be some recognizable basis for the action. Trump doesn’t present one here. Oh, he presents something. The brief:
… leads with the claim that “President Trump alone possesses the consummate dealmaking expertise, the electoral mandate, and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national security concerns expressed by the Government.” And building on that theme, it urges the Court, repeatedly, to “stay” the statute’s January 19 effective date—presumably to buy time for the incoming President to do … something … to make the underlying dispute go away (the brief is rather coy about what, exactly, that something might be—or when it would happen). 
Critically, although the brief alludes to both First Amendment and Article II problems with the TikTok statute, it does not actually argue that the statute is unconstitutional (hence the nominal designation of the brief as being in support of “neither party”). It just argues that the questions are significant enough to warrant a temporary (although, it should be noted, entirely open-ended) pause in the statute’s operation.
That may almost sound like a legal argument. It’s not. It’s gibberish. It’s like teaching a dog to talk. An astounding accomplishment, that someone would present this to the highest Court in the land. But it’s still meaningless.

There’s nothing Trump can do to obviate this statute except to get Congress to repeal it. He’s not asking, in other words, for relief the Court can grant. Yes, the Court gave itself the authority to invent new Presidential powers, on largely the same argument it eviscerated in overruling Roe (irony alert!), so the legitimacy of the Roberts Court is already on thin ice. But the CJ reportedly was quite shocked the country didn’t reward him with accolades for penning Trump v US, and was surprised that decision was so roundly criticized by both legal experts and laypeople. Sort of like Roe was received (irony alert!) Granting Trump’s request in this brief would dispose of both the legitimacy of this Court, but also any claim to being a co-equal branch of government. Granting Trump’s ask would set the courts up (what’s true for one is true for all) as a super-legislature, with the final word on ALL laws, not just those arguably unconstitutional.

Per Article III, Congress still holds the whip hand, and they would whip that hand very hard, indeed in response. You want to piss off even this incoming Congress? Have the Court tell them: “We”ll decide from now on which laws take effect, and which don’t, purely on the basis of how 5 unelected people feel.”

Trump’s already a lame duck. How much lamer does he want to be?

The Court, IOW, doesn’t have the authority Trump is asking them to exercise, and doesn’t want it. The entire “co-equal” argument is bafflegab based on not examining the foundations it rests on. The Court is not really co-equal because its legitimacy rests on its inferior power status. It is an arbitrator, a mediator, a judge within the limits of the law and common law traditions. Even Marbury gave the Court limited authority, which it exercised only over federal law until the 14th Amendment. If the Roberts Court were to decide: “Well, it’s Trump, and we’re the Supreme Court, bitchez!,” it would be the end of the Roberts Court and the collapse of the U.S. Judiciary. I mean, how could it be considered “legitimate” ever again?

The Constitution, after all, establishes a “Supreme Court” in name and position only. Congress has full authority to set the jurisdiction of that Court, and to trim its authority, up to and including a Constitutional amendment to overrule Marbury. I still think such an amendment is possible, even likely, to overturn Trump v US. But if the Court throws away all claims to legitimacy on the altar of Trump, any response is possible.

The 14th Amendment, after all, was a response to Dred Scott. And the 16th overruled Pollock v Farmers Loan and Trust. It’s happened before, IOW.


N.B. Professor Vladeck’s analysis is a bit more closely reasoned than mine, partly because I’m addressing a slightly different issue:
Trump’s argument is that the Court should “stay” the January 19 effective date because the statute raises constitutional questions—questions that might be mooted by the notably non-specific political solution the brief suggests Trump would pursue. And therein lies the rub: The Court has no authority to block the statute solely because something that might happen on some un-specific future date could moot the constitutional questions it presents. Its authority depends upon at least an interim determination that the statute is unconstitutional. To argue for a pause without any constitutional determination is not merely to inject politics into a legal dispute; it’s to ask for the law to take a backseat to the politics altogether.
The relief Trump is asking for (parties before the court must ask for “relief.” It’s a legal term with certain restraints on what the court can do.). As the Professor points out, the court can’t act on what damages (another legal term closely tied to the legal concept of “relief”) the statute might cause the party in the future.(I have to add here, Trump isn’t even claiming damages. What he’s asking for is more like injunctive relief, but as Professor Vladeck points out, Trump isn’t even being that specific.) The conclusion, however, is not so different from mine: to take this action the court would effectively establish itself as the final decider of whether or not Congressional laws take effect, based solely on how five justices (at least) think they might work. That really can’t be the court’s job.

I know everyone wants to jump whenever Trump says “FROG!,” but we’ve really got to realize that just because Trump says it, doesn’t make it legitimate; or a legitimate concern.

Adding: This, for example:
The second is that the brief is, both in that ask and elsewhere, relying on political considerations wholly divorced from law—an ominous harbinger not just from the incoming President, but from his nominee to represent the United States (and not just Trump) before the Supreme Court. I’ve written before about the extent to which at least some of the Court’s legal analysis is necessarily suffused with—if not influenced by—high politics.
I understand how this is an “ominous harbinger,” but I think it presages Trump’s complete incompetence before the Court for at least the next four years. Yes, Roberts freaked out over the criminal prosecution of a former president; but making arguments like this on behalf of the U.S. government via the Solicitor General is not making arguments on behalf of a former President. And that will make all the difference.
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Remembering Mr. Jimmy

Catherine Rampell, Blue Sky 
"when his church refused to integrate, he left to help found a new one that welcomed everyone" https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/29/opinion/jimmy-carter-death-respect.html?smid=bs-share many lovely factoids I didn't know about Carter, in this eulogy from @nickkristof.bsky.social
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“I AM NEVER RESPONSIBLE!”

"Unless I want to be!”

Let’s see: new Congress starts Wednesday, and has to elect a new Speaker so the House can approve the election results on January 6th. And Trump is inaugurated on January 20.

The House barely agreed on a budget CR, and wouldn’t have if the Democrats didn’t want to shut down the government. In fact, Trump made this same argument then, and nobody paid attention. Trump even wanted the government shutdown to happen so Biden would be blamed. But the Democrats had the deciding votes; and still do.

I just really don’t think anybody’s listening to him, and that’s not going to change soon.

😈
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Fifth Day Of Christmas 2024 John The Apostle, and John The Mystic


It was John who taught us all Greek: "En archain hain ho logos: In the beginning, was the Word." Not the language, but the concept: the idea of Christ as word, as Logos, as organizing principle of creation. He meant it, in his gospel, to be a shattering of order, the presence of this ordering principle. But it was another John who led us, through words, to a shattering vision of the Nativity:

And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven 8eads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born. And she hrought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days. And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time. And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child. And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent. And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

Revelation 12.

Not something often connected with the Nativity; but it is as natal as the first words of the gospel of John. The poet Ted Hughes used it to great effect for his "Minstrel's Song." A reminder that the 12 days of Christmas, for Christians, is about shattering change and the establishment of a new order; not one to come, as many seem to believe, but one that has already come, a kingdom that is already here. We do not hasten this vision by exerting our power over human life. We hasten away from this vision, when we fail to recognize it describes what has already happened.
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Fifth Day of Christmas 2024 Minstrel's Song


I've just had an astonishing dream as I lay in the straw.
I dreamed a star fell on to the straw beside me
And lay blazing. Then when I looked up
I saw a bull come flying through a sky of fire
And on its shoulders a huge silver woman
Holding the moon. And afterwards there came
A donkey flying through that same burning heaven
And on its shoulders a colossal man
Holding the sun. Suddenly I awoke
And saw a bull and a donkey kneeling in the straw,
and the great moving shadows of a man and a woman---
I say they were a man and a woman but
I dare not say what I think they were. I did not dare to look.
I ran out here into the freezing world
Because I dared not look. Inside that shed.

A star is coming this way along the road.
If I were not standing upright, this would be a dream.
A star the shape of a sword of fire, point-downward,
Is floating along the road. And now it rises.
It is shaking fire on to the roofs and the gardens.
And now it rises above the animal shed
Where I slept till the dream woke me. And now
The star is standing over the animal shed.

--Ted Hughes
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Sunday, December 29, 2024

The Greenland Problem

"Well, the latest is Greenland is a highway from the Arctic all the way to North America to the United States," O'Brien opined. "Now, the kingdom of Denmark owns Greenland, and they've got an obligation to defend Greenland."
This guy’s a former National Security Advisor. And he’s the victim of a Mercator map:


Greenland is not bigger than Africa. A “highway from the Arctic…to the United States”? It’s nothing of the sort. Greenland is less than 1 million square miles; Africa is 11.6 million square miles.
 "The Mercator projection creates increasing distortions of size as you move away from the equator. As you get closer to the poles the distortion becomes severe. Cartographers refer to the inability to compare size on a Mercator projection as "the Greenland Problem." Greenland appears to be the same size as Africa, yet Africa's land mass is actually fourteen times larger (see figure below right). Because the Mercator distorts size so much at the poles it is common to crop Antarctica off the map. This practice results in the Northern Hemisphere appearing much larger than it really is. Typically, the cropping technique results in a map showing the equator about 60% of the way down the map, diminishing the size and importance of the developing countries. This was convenient, psychologically and practically, through the eras of colonial domination when most of the world powers were European. It suited them to maintain an image of the world with Europe at the center and looking much larger than it really was. Was this conscious or deliberate? Probably not, as most map users probably never realized the Eurocentric bias inherent in their world view. When there are so many other projections to chose from, why is it that today the Mercator projection is still such a widely recognized image used to represent the globe? The answer may be simply convention or habit. The inertia of habit is a powerful force.
So is stupidity. But it gets worse:
"I mean, the native people in Greenland are very closely related to the people of Alaska, and we'll make it a part of Alaska," he claimed. "So we're going to either buy it, or they're going to defend it, or they can pay us to defend it."
Part of Alaska? Does he not know where Greenland is? Or does he not know where Alaska is?

We have a military base in Greenland, for missile defense and early warning for space debris, etc. (Aliens, I guess.) I don’t see Russia making a ground assault over the pole anytime soon (with the army that can’t even invade Ukraine?). Do we really need to buy an island Denmark doesn’t want to sell?

Well, of course we do:
Agreeing with O'Brien, Chaffetz complained that "the people of Tennessee have to pay for everybody's defense around the world, whether it's the Panama Canal or Greenland."
The stupid, it burns.
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😿

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“Of Course You Know, This Means War!”

(Third of three.) JMM says there is no “civil war” in MAGA. But some people want it to be. Whatever it is, it’s pretty damned ugly. Of course Bannon and Loomer are only looking out for Bannon and Loomer. And Homan continues to be a useless idiot who needs to be giving Senators reasons to vote for him, but clearly has no idea how to do that. (Pushing jus sanguinus is not really helping him.) Still, this is the chaos Trump is supposed to love.

So why does it seem like Trump doesn’t love it?
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No Room In The Inn

(This has stirred up such a tempest in a teapot it’s going to take three posts to cover it. This is the second of those three.) JMM:
Funny part of this, tho not really the point, is that Trump is almost certainly talking abt h2b visas. That’s not for engineers and ai programmers but I want someone from Bulgaria to run the soda machine at my country club and not give me any lip.

 Yeah, probably not:

The H-2B nonimmigrant program permits employers to temporarily hire nonimmigrants to perform nonagricultural labor or services in the United States. The employment must be of a temporary nature for a limited period of time such as a one-time occurrence, seasonal need, peakload need or intermittent need. The H-2B program requires the employer to attest to the Department of Labor that it will offer a wage that equals or exceeds the highest of the prevailing wage, applicable Federal minimum wage, the State minimum wage, or local minimum wage to the H-2B nonimmigrant worker for the occupation in the area of intended employment during the entire period of the approved H-2B labor certification. The H-2B program also establishes certain recruitment and displacement standards in order to protect similarly employed U.S. workers. 
The Wage and Hour Division has been delegated enforcement responsibility by the Department of Homeland Security effective January 18, 2009, to ensure H-2B workers are employed in compliance with H-2B labor certification requirements. The Wage and Hour Division may impose administrative remedies such as wage payments and civil money penalties against employers who violate certain H-2B provisions.
Much more likely Trump just doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about.
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H1-B For Me, But Not For Thee?

Now what? Oh, wait a minute:

 Sure he does:

An H-1B visa allows an individual to temporarily work in a specialty occupation in the United States. 
The regulations define a specialty occupation as requiring theoretical and practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge in a field of human endeavor, including but not limited to biotechnology, chemistry, computing, architecture, engineering, statistics, physical sciences, journalism, medicine and health (doctors, dentists, nurses, physiotherapists, etc.), economics, education, research, law, accounting, business specialties, technical writing, theology, and the arts, and requiring the attainment of a bachelor's degree or its equivalent as a minimum (with the exception of fashion models, who must be "of distinguished merit and ability"). Likewise, the foreign worker must possess at least a bachelor's degree or equivalent and state licensure, if required to practice in that field. H-1B work authorization is strictly limited to employment by the sponsoring employer.
Lot of call for those kinds of “specialty occupations” at golf courses and MAL, right? And Trump likes those visas except when he doesn’t:
“I’ve always liked the visas, I have always been in favor of the visas. That’s why we have them,” Trump said by phone, referring to the H-1B program, which permits companies to hire foreign workers in specialty occupations. 
“I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I’ve been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It’s a great program,” added Trump, who restricted access to foreign worker visas in his first administration and has been critical of the program in the past.
He really doesn’t have any fucking idea what he’s talking about. So what else is new? OMFG! White South African kettle complains about color of pot!  Well, you knew that was coming. So maybe it’s not new after all. Elmo likes H1B’s because he can get ICE to deport any employee who doesn’t work 80 hours a week. Trump likes H1B’s because he has no idea what they are.
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“Who Do You Say That I Am?”

 

And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years and in divine and human favor.
The really last words of Luke’s story of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth before the adult Jesus starts his career as an itinerant preacher. That's the part we never think about.  We’re more inclined toward the Greek idea expressed in The Cherry Tree Carol, where Jesus not only commands the cherry tree from Mary’s womb, but converses with Joseph, as well. Jesus is God, right? How can God be a child, or need formation? The kind of formation children go through? And yet Luke makes it clear Jesus is fully human; an idea the non-canonical gospels run with in telling stories of Jesus’, and the mischief he creates with his power to perform miracles.

That’s the separating factor in Luke, too. Matthew focuses on Joseph in his nativity: the husband, the patriarch. Mary is silent, the infant almost invisible. Luke’s narrative foregrounds Elizabeth after the embarrassment of Zechariah, and focuses on Mary. Joseph is the silent, almost invisible, one. The angels direct the shepherds to the child in the feeding trough, wrapped in the rags of a poor person’s child. And then they take the baby to the temple, and finally we see him teaching the elders. Luke has marked the baby as God from conception; he proves it by showing him teaching about scriptures he can’t himself have learned yet. (For Mark Jesus’ baptism by John is the point where he becomes the Christ, the Anointed One. For John, Jesus exists in the beginning with God. His incarnation is just another of God’s semeia, or signs.) The most human thing Jesus does in John’s gospel is weep over the news of Lazarus’ death. In Luke’s gospel he sweats blood in the garden of Gethsemane. In the infancy gospels, he behaves as a child with god-like powers would behave. In that way he increases in wisdom and, at least, human favor.

The gospels each, in their own way, are at pains to make Jesus human, but also something more. Again, this is not a theological argument or apologia. It’s more a literary analysis; I’m just looking at the texts and how each gospel handles the issue. Humanity and divinity are pretty much oil and water. In the Hebrew Scriptures, the very presence of God in creation leads to theophany: Moses in Sinai in a thunderstorm; or the appearance of God to Elijah. It isn’t referenced in Luke, but when the priest entered the inner sanctum of the temple, where God might be directly encountered, he did so with a rope tied to his ankle, so the corpse could be safely removed. Moses came down from Sinai with his face shining, having stood so long in the glory of God (a glory that obscures God from human sight in Isaiah’s vision of the throne room of God). Zechariah comes out unable to speak; so the people know something big has happened.

God is not, in other words, human. God is wholly Other. So what is Jesus?

Mark identifies Jesus with God at the Transfiguration, a private event (only three disciples see it) which is the public revelation of Jesus as divine, a divinity that seems to come to him at his baptism, where he publicly acknowledges his earthly ministry and all that will involve. That’s actually pushing it backwards into Jesus’ life, since Paul places Jesus’ divinity in the resurrection. Matthew pushes it back to birth; Luke to pre-birth (it predates the conception of his cousin, John), and John’s gospel takes it all the way back to “in the beginning.”

But the Greek idea of humanity and divinity is basically jerks with superpowers. Which is kind of the lane explored by the infancy gospels. Jesus has to learn to be human, while at the same time being God. Luke says that happened easily. The infancy gospels say: let’s think about that a minute. Which is not to say they get something fundamentally right; but they do raise an interesting issue.
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Fourth Day of Christmas 2024 The Cultivation of Christmas Trees


There are several attitudes towards Christmas,
Some of which we may disregard:
The social, the torpid, the patently commercial,
The rowdy (the pubs being open till midnight),
And the childish – which is not that of the child
For whom the candle is a star, and the gilded angel
Spreading its wings at the summit of the tree
Is not only a decoration, but an angel.
The child wonders at the Christmas Tree:
Let him continue in the spirit of wonder
At the Feast as an event not accepted as a pretext;
So that the glittering rapture, the amazement
Of the first-remembered Christmas Tree,
So that the surprises, delight in new possessions
(Each one with its peculiar and exciting smell),
The expectation of the goose or turkey
And the expected awe on its appearance,
So that the reverence and the gaiety
May not be forgotten in later experience,
In the bored habituation, the fatigue, the tedium,
The awareness of death, the consciousness of failure,
Or the piety of the convert
Which may be tainted with a self-conceit
Displeasing to God and disrespectful to the children
(And here I remember also with gratitude
St. Lucy, her carol, and her crown of fire):
So that before the end, the eightieth Christmas
(By “eightieth” meaning whichever is the last)
The accumulated memories of annual emotion
May be concentrated into a great joy
Which shall be also a great fear, as on the occasion
When fear came upon every soul:
Because the beginning shall remind us of the end
And the first coming of the second coming.

--T.S. Eliot


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Saturday, December 28, 2024

“Those Who Are Not Against Us, Are With Us”

Chip Roy brings the same old-same old:
If we were to go through and just put in restraints on the use of food stamps to feed our people sugar, for example…we can save hundreds of billions of dollars,” Roy, a conservative member of the House Freedom Caucus, told the host. He added other examples such as repealing the Inflation Reduction Act and a “return to non-defense to pre-Covid era explosion in spending” to also help reduce spending.  
“We can do a lot of savings right out of the gate to reverse the Biden damage, get the economy going, reduce regulations – but not touch benefits that our seniors rely on – yes, we need to address Medicare and Social Security in the long haul, no question, but right now we should reverse Biden damage, get spending restraint on Medicaid, reforms that need to be put in place [and] tax policy that matches all of that.” 
The MAGA lawmaker added that members of Congress also have to “do our job to constrain the bureaucracy cutting non-defense discretionary." 
"That would only be a 13 percent cut, you and I can find 13 percent of waste, and I think the DOGE guys too and that would be fiscally responsible and the American people would cheer President Trump and Republicans if we do that.”
Cutting spending on people (“Defense contractors are people, too, my friend!”) is fine as long as those people are NOK. And the American people who don’t cheer are not “real” Americans, so they don’t count.

Roy could cut funding for ice cream studies and claim: A) that was a real thing, and B) it was 13% of the budget, and who would be the wiser? After all, Reagan was the greatest president ever (!), and he didn’t cut the budget one whit, despite putting David Stockman in charge of the OMB. Bill Clinton balanced the budget and lowered the national debt, but nobody holds that to his credit. The budget and the national debt are just talking points. That’s all they are good for. And the basic premise is always that people are too damned expensive. Which cruelty is always the point. And as American as cherry pie.

Chip Roy is not exactly breaking ground, here. Note the tone of Puritanism, too: “If we were to go through and just put in restraints on the use of food stamps to feed our people sugar, for example…” Because poor people don’t deserve any pleasure in life. If they’re poor, it means God has rejected them. Or at least that they don’t deserve any pleasures. Poor people are just undeserving, donchaknow? It’s all their fault they’re poor, after all. And I’m sure the cost of sugar on SNAP (it hasn’t been “food stamps” since Reagan’s administration) will turn out to be 13% of the budget.

So he’s not on the side of the rebel Jesus, either. I doubt that keeps him up nights.

But it should.
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The General Is Playing With Paper Dolls

Well, I guess... I’ve given up seeing strategy in what Trump does. He’s just an incompetent boob. That scares people because he’s the President again; or because he gets what he wants and got where he is despite his clear infirmities. We think people should succeed on ability, not happenstance; happenstance like being born white and rich and arrogant. But ask Elon Musk; that’s really all it takes. 

Besides, what’s Trump paying attention to today?
Taking to his Truth Social platform, Trump, who rarely provides context for his rage-postings, wrote, "Are the Democrats allowed to pay $11,000,000, $2,000,000, and $500,000 to get the ENDORSEMENT of Beyoncé, Oprah, and Reverend Al? I don’t think so!" 
"Beyoncé didn’t sing, Oprah didn’t do much of anything (she called it 'expenses'), and Al is just a third rate Con Man," he wrote of the three Black Americans, before asking, "So what is going on here??? Totally against the law, and I have heard there are many others!!!"

Our mistake is thinking wealth is proof of value, if not merit. It’s a bedrock belief we hate to let go of. But Trump really has no merit except the happenstance of birth.

Stop looking for what isn’t there because you think it will disorder society itself. Learn the lesson of “Citizen Kane.” Or Howard Hughes. And the lesson of the gospels, about what real merit is.
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Popcorn And Fingernails

What that "war" looks like: And it’s mostly over H1-B visas which, you know, have a down side:
… Bannon: “This whole thing from Musk about ‘Oh, they’re only geniuses - H1B Visas’, that’s not what it’s about. It’s about taking American jobs and bringing over essentially what have become indentured servants at lower wages. The thing’s a SCAM by the oligarchs in Silicon Valley to basically take jobs from American citizens and give them to what become indentured servants from foreign countries, and pay them less.” 
… Ann Coulter: “American workers can leave a company. Imported H1B workers can’t. Tech wants indentured servants, not ‘high-skilled’ workers.” 
… I feel like I need a shower after agreeing with Steve Bannon and Ann Coulter.
"Indentured servants” is a bit severe but, yeah, lose your job and you have a short window to losing your visa. And Elmo the slasher of Twitter jobs is hardly a friend to labor (how many of them had visas?). One more reason Twitter has lost 80% of its value since Elmo bought it.

But Twitter is the weapon he has. Which is what he’s going to war with. From the 9th floor of the Desert Inn.

🍿 
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Don We Now Our Gay Apparel

Just a reminder:

 Suddenly:


Christmas is just generally really, really gay. The glitter! The pretty lights! The sweaters! The bickering with family! The fancy ornaments! The drama! Fairies on trees! Champagne at 9am! The drunken snogs at parties! It’s all camp as tits. Most wonderful time of the year.
That Unicorn Nutcracker says both “don we now our gay apparel” and “Have a really medieval Xmas” all at once. 

Word is these are at Target. 🎯 


This was a hot topic this time last year.

And I did get a unicorn nutcracker.  It still makes me laugh.
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Third Day of Christmas Comites Christi

The days after Christmas honor the Comites Christi, the companions of Christ. They are honored with feast days following Christmas, especially Stephen and the Holy Innocents. But those are particulars, and we want the category.  There is no better introduction to the Comites Christi than the words of St. Augustine: 

Consider what is said to you: Love God. If you say to me: Show me whom I am to love, what shall I say if not what Saint John says: No one has ever seen God! But in case you should think that you are completely cut off from the sight of God, he says: God is love, and he who remains in love remains in God. Love your neighbor, then, and see within yourself the power by which you love your neighbor; there you will see God, as far as you are able. 

Begin, then, to love your neighbor. Break your bread to feed the hungry, and bring into your home the homeless poor; if you see someone naked, clothe him, and do not look down on your own flesh and blood. 

What will you gain by doing this? Your light will then burst forth like the dawn. Your light is your God; he is your dawn, for he will come to you when the night of time is over. He does not rise or set but remains for ever. 

In loving and caring for your neighbor you are on a journey. Where are you traveling if not to the Lord God, to him whom we should love with our whole heart, our whole soul, our whole mind? We have not yet reached his presence, but we have our neighbor at our side. Support, then, this companion of your pilgrimage if you want to come into the presence of the one with whom you desire to remain for ever.

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Friday, December 27, 2024

Ebenezer Scrooge Wants You To Know…

...you should be at work that much earlier and work all the harder since you took the whole day off on December 25th.

And more of you should be engineers because Silicon Valley Tech Bros can’t get rich without exploiting your labor! So get to it, America! Turn off those TeeVees that turn you into consumerist drones and get to work making stuff consumerist drones will buy so Musk and Vivek and their Bros can stay rich…and not have to work.

You know…like Trump!
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“What Would Putin Do?”

CNN as data mule:
"Donald Trump's fixation this week over wanting to take control over the Panama Canal, as well as the revival of his desire to purchase Greenland, a Danish territory, is really part of a larger negotiating tactic, I'm told," Treene said. "One Trump adviser told me his interpretation of what Donald Trump has been saying this week is really that he wants to force foreign leaders to the negotiating table to bolster United States trade, but also to try and curb both Russia and China's larger influence over the global region."
Yeah; that interpretation is doing a lot of heavy lifting, as the kids say.

Trump is not playing 4-dimensional chess. He’s eating the pieces and shitting on the chessboard. As usual. Next, he’ll declare himself the winner and stalk out of the room. And yes, that’s my interpretation of what he’s doing.

We’ll see which interpretation hews closer to reality. 
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American Christmastide



One of my favorite Christmas movies (yeah, let’s argue about the definition of a “Christmas movie”) is “Trading Places.” If you haven’t seen it, it’s set in Philadelphia, starting before Thanksgiving and ending after New Year’s. Dan Ackroyd plays a wealthy commodities broker working for the obscenely wealthy Duke Brothers. Eddie Murphy is the poor (but street wise) black man who “trades places” with Ackroyd’s character.

You’ve seen it, right? But you probably don’t watch it at least once every December, so I’m guessing you don’t recall all the details. What I’ve told you are the only ones that matter here. That and the plaque on the club the Dukes and Ackroyd belong to. It’s a tiny detail and easy to forget if you haven’t seen it lately. The sign shows up briefly, setting the tone for the places being traded with this last, small brick in the wall before the action ensues. Blink, in other words, and you miss it.

The sign reads:

The Heritage Club 
Founded 1776 
"with liberty and justice for all" 
members only

The club members are all rich, white men. The only blacks in the club are servants. In fact, the staff are exclusively black. “Heritage,” right?

The movie’s 40 years old. But the sentiment on the sign, meant to be ironic, is still relevant. Because the incoming administration wants to enforce that “members only” addition to our pledge of allegiance to to our flag.*

Besides, watching it, with its portrayal of life in these United States from the bottom to the top, you wonder when history in these United States started for JMM:
A unique time in American history? Has JMM read Dos Passos? Or even Fitzgerald? Or, for that matter, Veblen? The closest we got to true revolution against the rich (like the Vanderbilts, the Rockefellers, the people who weren’t all that bothered by the stock market crash) was the Great Depression. And you’d only know that if you were an historian. Twain labeled the era of his adulthood the “Gilded Age” as an insult; but by now it’s usually treated as descriptive and even appropriate. America has always had its dissenters, but Americans have always respected, if not outright worshipped, money. Why do you think so many people think Elon Musk is “smart”?

American history always wobbles between some form of populism aimed at controlling the monied interests, and worshipping unashamedly at the altar of Mammon. The current Texas Constitution was written in the late 19th century during a period of progressive reaction to extraordinary wealth in the hands of the few. The Texas Railroad Commission was actually created in that Constitution to control the railroads, the great economic powers of the day. The Railroad Commission was later tasked to oversee the oil industry in Texas, and provided the blueprint for OPEC to control the world oil market in the’70’s (not coincidentally because Texas was OPEC back in the day).

The Texas Constitution is an absolute mess which was written to return power to the people from the people with money. It serves the opposite role, now. Several decades ago there were feeble efforts to overhaul the document, but the monied interests it was supposed to control opposed changing the status quo by returning the constitution to its original intent. The sentiment of the business interests was stated quite bluntly: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Obviously, there was no populist groundswell to fix it, because nothing happened. And I don’t see the catalyst for that kind of fervor coming anytime soon. It’s not like this is a unique time in American history. Times were much more unique after the’60’s, when liberals even in Texas were able to get consumer protection laws passed (all long since reformed into toothlessness), and to raise ideas of a convention to rewrite the mess that is the Texas Constitution. Yeah, that sentiment didn’t last.

And Elon Musk and Trump and some Silicon Valley has-beens (yeah, they’re rich. But influential? At best they run newspapers!) are going to cause America to rise up and follow Bernie Sanders and AOC to the Promised Land?

Sure. It’s a unique time in American history, after all. Just ask John Dos Passos.

It’s times like this I remember the Art and Sausages Party in student government at UT-Austin in the late  ‘70’s. The main building there (the big white tower atop which the shootings in the early ‘60’s occurred) bears an inscription from the gospel of John: “You Shall Know The Truth And The Truth Shall Set You Free.” The Art and Sausages campaign knew better, and proposed the legend be changed to the more truthful: “Money Talks.”

Never forget the ending of “Trading Places.” This is America. It’s always all about the money.💸 


*which, doubly ironically, has nothing to do with Philadelphia or the Constitution, and was written by a socialist. 😈
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So Trump Is A Monarch Now?

And judge, jury, and executioner? Or is he just the Queen of Hearts?
`Why, there they are!' said the King triumphantly, pointing to the tarts on the table. `Nothing can be clearer than that. Then again--"Before she had this fit--" you never had fits, my dear, I think?' he said to the Queen. 
`Never!' said the Queen furiously, throwing an inkstand at the Lizard as she spoke. (The unfortunate little Bill had left off writing on his slate with one finger, as he found it made no mark; but he now hastily began again, using the ink, that was trickling down his face, as long as it lasted.) 
`Then the words don't fit you,' said the King, looking round the court with a smile. There was a dead silence. 
`It's a pun!' the King added in an offended tone, and everybody laughed, `Let the jury consider their verdict,' the King said, for about the twentieth time that day. 
`No, no!' said the Queen. `Sentence first--verdict afterwards.'
Except Trump is more pasteboard than the Queen of Hearts. He would forego even the appearance of a trial.

He’s not dangerous. He’s just a pitiful joke. 

Herod would eat him for a snack.
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The Holy Innocents Second Day of Christmas 2024



Santa Claus is for children, and Christmas Day is for children; but the whole story of Christmas is not.

When Herod realized he had been duped by the astrologers, he was outraged. He then issued a death warrant for all the male children in Bethlehem and surrounding region two years old and younger. this corresponded to the time [of the star] that he had learned from the astrologers. With this event the prediction made by Jeremiah the prophet came true:
'In Ramah the sound of mourning
and bitter grieving was heard:
Rachel weeping for her children.
She refused to be consoled:
They were no more.' " (Matthew 2: 16-18, SV)
Advent and Christmas are seasons steeped in mystery and the whole of the human story, from joy to misery, from peace to pain. We shield our children from these truths, so we can shield ourselves. We pretend God is only about love and peace and our happiness, and complain that the God of Israel is a god of blood and thunder, while the God of Jesus is a god of babies and rainbows. Neither simplicity is true, and the simplicity of the Christmas story, that it begins with the Annunciation to Mary and ends with the angels singing Gloria to the shepherds, is too simple to be true, also. Luke tells one story of the birth, where the power of the state forces the Holy Family to Bethlehem but that power merely fulfills the expectation that the redeemer of the line of David will come from the ancestral home of David. Matthew tells the other story; the story of Herod's fear and insecurity. This is the part of Christmas the world doesn't celebrate. This is the part of Christmas we ignore, for the sake of the children, we tell ourselves; but it's really for our sake. Just as we don't want Advent blighted with the deaths of the innocent, we don't want Christmas spent remembering the Holy Innocents.

Everybody knows the Magi story; but few pay attention to its aftermath:

Jesus was born in Bethlehem, in Judea, when Herod was king. Astrologers from the East showed up in Jerusalem just then.  "Tell us," they said, "where the newborn king of the Judeans is.  We have observed his star in the east and have come to pay him homage."

It's worth noting that births were important to the Egyptians, because they considered Pharoahs to be born gods and rulers.  It was several centuries after the creation of the Church before the Church itself would acknowledge the importance of the birth day of the Christ, and that first recognition came in Alexandria. I interrupt this partially familiar account from Matthew to make us stop and pay attention to what's being said.  The astrologers (Magi) are not children of Abraham, and are not following a star (yet).  They have seen a new star and interpret that as the birth of a king, in Judea.  Which is a political statement threatening Herod and, ultimately, Rome (well, Roman power over Judea.  Herod is a Roman satrap, not a sovereign monarch.)

When this news reached King Herod, he was visibly shaken, and all Jerusalem along with him.

When the King sneezes, the kingdom catches cold.  Well, the capital, in this case.  Matthew is also setting Jesus against Jerusalem, because his life will end there, demanded by the crowd.

He called together all the ranking priests and local experts, and pressed them for information:  "Where is the Anointed supposed to be born?

They replied: 'At Bethelem in Judea." This is how it is put by the prophet:

And you, Bethlehem, in the province of Judah,
you are by now means the least among the leaders of Judah.
Out of you will come a leader
who will shepherd my people, Israel.

Then Herod called the astrologers together secretly and ascertained from them the preicse time the star became visible.  Then he sent them to Bethlehem with this instructions:  "Go make a careful search for the child. When you find where he is, report to me so I can come and pay him homage."

They listened to what the king had to say and continued on their way.

Matthew has already cited scripture several times to place Jesus in Hebraic history and in the scriptures, as well.  Here he uses the ranking priests to confirm his readings of those scriptures.  And here we get the first hint that these events take place sometime after the birth of the Christchild.  We'll soon find out how long after.
And there guiding them on was the star they had observed in the East; it led them forward until it came to a standstill above where the child lay. Once they saw the star, there were beside themselves with joy.  And they arrived at the house and saw the child with his mother Mary. They fell down and paid him homage.  Then they opened their treasure chests and presented him with gifts--gold and incense and myrrh. And because they had been alered in a dream not to return to Herod, they journeyed back to their own country by a different route.
Which is where the story usually stops.  But Matthew isn't finished yet:

After the astrologers had departed, a messenger of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph, saying "Get ready, take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt,  Stay there until I give you instructions. You see, Herod is determined to hunt the child down and destroy him."

So Joseph got ready and took the child and his mother under cover of night and set out for Egypt. There they remained until Herod's death.  This happened so the Lord's predictions spoken by the prophet would come true: "Out of Egypt I have called my son."

When Herod realized....

And we're back where the started this. It is also why we guess the age of Jesus at this time to be no older than 2 years old (for the purposes of Matthew's story, I mean). The Epiphany (the revelation to the Gentiles) comes long after the night of the birth story in Luke. But isn't it interesting how much of the birth story events take place in darkness?  Except for the Massacre of the Innocents; but we relegate that one to darkness, the better to ignore it.

This is truly the Church's portion of Christmas. Appropriate to the interests of the church, Walter Brueggeman would call Herod's concerns the theology of scarcity, and point out it's a very old game, even in Biblical history. It is a game we blame on God; but it is one entirely of our making, and it ties the story of the Holy Innocents to our secular observation of Christmas, and our cri de couer for someone to tell us what Christmas is all about. This story, is what it is all about. And the Coventry Carol captures it in one song:

Lully, lullay, thou little tiny child,
bye, bye, lully lullay.

O sisters too, how may we do,
for to preserve this day,
this poor youngling for whom we sing,
bye, bye lully lullay.

Herod the king in his raging,
charged he hath this day,
his men of night, in his own sight,
all young children to slay.

Then woe is me, poor child, for thee!
And every morn and day,
for thy parting not say nor sing
bye, bye, lully lullay.

Lully, lullay, thou little tiny child,
bye, bye, lully lullay.

It is the only remnant of the story that still makes it into our Advent and Christmas music, though we may not always recognize the story and the reason it is a "Christmas carol." In another medieval play, “The Play of Herod,” they take the story even more seriously. To portray the story from Matthew, an angel is sent from God to console Rachel, but she refuses even the aid of God. She refuses all comfort. Of course she does; she is a grieving mother, her children are gone. What comfort can be offered to her? This is real; this has happened. What else could be felt, except bottomless grief, except the sucking, horrible pain of loss?

This is not Matthew reaching for yet another scriptural reference to support his nativity story. This is not Matthew trying to shore up his tale with yet another appeal to authority. This is Matthew telling us he has no words for this horror, and he must borrow words just to be sure we feel it as it was felt by those grieving mothers and fathers. This is not Matthew telling us this is true, because scriptures predicted it. This is Matthew telling us someone else, someone earlier, described it, caught the horror of it, knew what it felt like. This is Matthew telling us this is real. This is Matthew telling us to believe this birth occurred, because the world is not kind to saviors, even when they are babies. The world does not seek salvation, but its own contentment; and it does not react well to mystery.

So Rachel cannot be comforted, but that is not where "The Play of Herod" ends the story. That mystery play ends where it should: in holy mystery.
For there is a Te Deum sung: 'We praise you, God, we confess you as Lord.' The greatest chant of praise. This is sung by Mary and Joseph, processing through the audience, but they are joined in their song and procession by the animals and the angels, by the shepherds, by the lamenting Rachel and the parents of Bethlehem, and they are joined by the soldiers and their victims and by Herod. Knowing that (Hopkins again)

we are wound
With mercy round and round. . . .

they all, incarnate God and all creation, even death, tyrants and martyrs, all process and all sing praise. And we sing too, and find ourselves in the procession.

Today we can't imagine it. We take our Christmas with lots of sugar. And take it in a day. Though we've been baptized into his death, we have little time for or patience with how that death is told at Christmas, a death that confuses lament and praise forever. And no wonder we are careful to keep Christmas at an arm's length. What is Herod in these times?--Gabe Huck
Or, to return to Luke:

Lord, let your servant 
die in peace
for you kept your promise.
With my own eyes
I see the salvation
you prepared for all peoples;
a light of revelation for the Gentiles
and glory to your people Israel.
 
I like that translation for this context, because it emphasizes Simeon's wish:  he can die now, God's promise to him has been kept. But that's not the end of Luke's nativity, because Simeon turns back to Mary:

And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against;

(Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also,) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.
Even in Luke's more beautiful, more popular version, we cannot escape it: the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God, and the penetrating mystery at the heart of the season, just as the year begins again.

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Thursday, December 26, 2024

The Ghost Of Increase Mather Still Stalks The Land


Meet the New Puritans, same as the old Puritans.
Today is Christmas Day, a connection to some of the most ancient of all known northern European shamanic traditions. Like people living in the north for millennia, we continue to embrace them with regional, national, and religious tweaks. 
It occurs during the week of the shortest day and longest night of the year in the northern hemisphere, when ancient holy men and women lit “yule logs” to push back the darkness and implore the gods or nature to bring back the light of summer.
When I was a teenager, I had a pair of leather sandals with a leather peace sign prominently displayed on them.

Yeah. That one. No one knew in the ‘70’s that it was a symbol designed for a British anti-nukes group in the ‘50’s, so rumors abounded that it was Satanic. I still remember the mother of a girl I knew warning me I was trafficking with Satan just by wearing comfortable footwear. I realized then and there that she thought the symbol had magical, or demonic, powers. I knew even then a symbol is what you want it to be, even as that symbol no longer conjures up opposition to nuclear weapons, but more generally to conflict itself (or maybe it just conjures up hippies).  In any case, the origin of the symbol means nothing anymore. It’s what we associate it with that matters.

Thom Hartman associates Christmas with “ancient holy men and women” lighting ‘yule logs,’ which is a new one on me.I’d always understood the custom came from the Nordic countries and simply involved keeping the fire going through the long, dark winter. Or barons in England filling baronial fireplaces with massive logs. Never heard of it being part of any religious practice.

But that’s the legacy of Increase Mather. Anything he didn’t like was European and, if it needed to be worse, it was Roman Catholic and/or pagan, two conditions which, to Mather, were completely alike. His Puritans came to America to “purify” themselves from all three strands of tradition. So, to this day, in America, the annual observance of Christmas is accompanied by the annual ritual of “Everything about Christmas is PAGAN!” Which would please Increase Mather no end.

It’s utter bullshit.

Let’s start with the Yule Log, since this article is behind a paywall and these two paragraphs are all I’ve got. The closest any Christmas celebration today comes to a Yule log is a Buche de Noel. Most of us don’t even have chimneys for Santa to slide down, much less fireplaces below them large enough to hold Yule Logs. I don’t even care if Yule logs were burned by Druids or shamans to chase away the darkness gods and sympathetically return the Sun to the sky (that’s parody anthropology, by the way, about one step removed from James George Frazer, whose work is parodic in modern terms). Today they refer to a delicious chocolate cake with marzipan or meringue mushrooms. The term refers to a seasonal dessert, nothing more.

As for that “week of the shortest day and longest night of the year”, that’s not because the Church started celebrating the Christ Mass in order to stamp out the pagan winter solstice. That coincidence is the result of Pope Gregory XIII replacing the Julian calendar… in the late 16th century. That would be a full millennia, plus about 200 years, after the first celebration of the Christ Mass. Attentive readers may remember that St. Lucy’s Day fell on the day of the solstice on the Julian calendar, which is part of the reason she was associated with light, and young girls in the Nordic countries wore a wreath of candles to celebrate the saint, and the return (slowly) of sunlight. Now St. Lucy’s Day is December 12. And Christmas used to be on January 6th, which is why in the “Cherry Tree Carol” the unborn Jesus tells Joseph “on the 6th day of January my birthday will be.” As it was, until 1582.

If anything was supposed to supplant pagan solstice observations, that would have been St. Lucy’s Day. But Mather preferred to focus on the holiday he didn’t want imported to America. Saints days were extraneous, just another problem with the Roman church. Christmas Day was the big fish Increase wanted to fry.

Now, of course, the date of the solstice remained close to the date of Christmas no matter whether the calendar was Julian or Gregorian. But the proximity to the solstice is as coincidental as the proximity of All Saints’ Day to Samhain. That date was chosen by the Pope in Rome . There’s little indication Ireland was foremost in his mind. Pope Gregory III fixed the date in the early 8th century. Patrick converted Ireland in the 5th century, but it’s hard to tell how the importance of the westernmost reach of the Church so influenced Rome. There’s more coincidence than connection.

And if there was a connection, what would it matter? What’s the connection between Hallowe’en and Samhain? I spent my childhood blissfully unaware of the latter while annually enjoying the former. And what I know about the latter now still doesn’t explain begging for candy or wearing a costume or getting to walk the streets with your friends after dark and ring strangers’ doorbells.

So, are our Christmas traditions pagan? Most of our December customs have nothing to do with the church. How much of Advent is celebrated outside the liturgical church? Do you associate the penitential roots of Advent with anything observed in December? Have you ever heard of Gaudete Sunday? Who are you more familiar with? Zacharias or Simeon? Or Scrooge and Marley? Apart from a reference to a church service on Christmas Day, what part of Dickens’ “Carol” involves the “reason for the season,” except in the words of Tiny Tim, told to us by his father?

Santa Claus is supposedly based on St. Nicholas, but did he drive a sleigh pulled by reindeer? In Turkey? Was he familiar with chimneys? Cookies? Milk?  The Christmas meal is a remnant of medieval England, when food freshly harvested had to be eaten before it rotted.  Christmas celebrations also have their roots in medieval Europe, when the knights and barons and dukes hosted parties over days, largely because the harvest was in and hunting passed the winter days (all you have to do is read “Gawain and the Green Knight”). We just have our parties in December, so we can go back to work on December 26th, another remnant of our Puritan heritage.  In medieval times the rich spent 12 days, from December 25th to January 6th, celebrating. We have a few parties, and the day off on Christmas. Gift giving? Again, more to do with Henry VIII than anything else.

Every way you look at it: Advantage: medieval Europe.

There is precious little that we do know that doesn’t have roots in history, though most of that history for our December traditions dates back only to the 19th century. Xmas trees go back to the 16th century in Germany, where the Paradeisbaum of Adam and Eve (their feast day was/is on December 24th) became a German Xmas decoration, a decoration that didn’t reach England until the 19th century. And it was more widespread in America before it was in England. So the pagan roots of those traditions are much more conjectural than actual.

And who cares, anyway? Most of our American Christmas customs started with Clement Moore, far more than started with pagans in pre-Christian Europe. And most of our Christmas traditions and celebrations have little or nothing to do with the traditions and celebrations of the church. You can celebrate one; you can celebrate the other; you can do both and a little bit of neither. It can be for you according to your faith, whether you have faith in God or just your own reason. 

But there’s no reason to celebrate the lack of reason that pseudo-anthropology rests on. Especially just to make yourself feel clever.

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