No News Good News

Having pretty much abandoned any hope of landing another job in teaching, and finding myself still too compos mentis to devote my non-napping hours to cribbage at the Senior Center, I figure I ought to strive, at least when the weather is crappy, to PRODUCE something that would, you know, "help others" and at the same time funnel additional revenue into my personal coffers. So I'm thinking seriously about founding a new religion.

While there may be no actual NEED for such a product, I don't see why that tiresome little detail should stand in my way.  After all, needs can be manufactured (think about stainless steel wipes and feminine hygiene sprays).  America is still the land of opportunity, isn't it?  And of P.T. Barnum.

Yet needless to say, before I start marketing pre-orders and/or digging for golden plates in my back yard, I suppose I'll have to do a little planning (at least as much as Joseph Smith and Saul of Tarsus did).  I mean, I want to be sure that I can properly translate anything that the Angel Moroni (who presumably speaks only Moronic *sorry*) reveals to me, right?  Then, too, I don't want to waste my time founding a religion that no one will want to join and support with exceedingly generous contributions and egregiously rabid fanaticism.

So, let's begin by analyzing the "successful" existing religions--those which, in Tom Lehrer's words, are best at "selling their product."  Surely if I can distill the essential ingredients that all these lucrative movements share, I will eventually obtain a rich concentrate of tenets that I can recycle as the basis for my "nouvelle fusion" spiritual stew. Not that these commonalities will suffice in and of themselves. After all, if that were the case, then no NEW NEED could be created for MY personal version of Good News Gumbo.

Nonetheless, it's undoubtedly a good idea to include in my Credo at least some of the tried and true ingredients--before I attempt to tart them up with minty-fresh additives that the credulous good folks "out there" will find so desirable that they will simply be unable to resist sending me a sizable free-will offering in return for a laminated membership/recipe card (or a magic pair of polyester underpants--I haven't yet decided which).

What, then, are the common denominators of the current best-selling religions?  Hmmm.  Suppose we start by making a (non-exhaustive) list of "stuff people like to believe":

people who suffer are being punished by God
people who suffer will surely go to heaven
people who suffer should get over it
people who exploit others are serving God
people who exploit others are evil
money is bad
money is good
sex is bad
sex is good
bad sex is good
good sex is bad
good food is bad
pork is bad
beef is bad
eating is bad
eating is good only after sundown
God hates gays
God loves everyone
God hates sluts
fetuses are people
infidels aren't people
mosques should not have pictures
churches should not have statues
churches should have statues
statues should have no dicks

the best dicks are circumcised

the best dicks are not circumcised

women should keep covered so as not to tempt men, whether the latter are circumcised or uncircumcised
women should not drive, even if they're covered up
heck, we shouldn't even have cars
coffee is bad
wine is bad until you get to heaven
wine is the blood of Christ
the end of the world is coming
it's the Jews' fault

Oh, mercy!  the list is endless, isn't it?  Whatever CAN we make of it all?  Clearly, it behooves us to categorize a bit, if only to make this blog more coherent than Revelation, less mind-numbing than Leviticus.

Category 1:  suffering and exploitation.  Successful religions seem to manage, somehow, to make both sufferers and exploiters feel happy and holy.  The promise of "rewards in heaven" allows sufferers to accept their miserable earthly lot AND feel superior to their exploiters who, the sufferers assume, will ultimately be punished in some fiery bye and bye.  Meanwhile, those who exploit are reassured by Comforting Calvinism and "fat little pastors" that God rewards in THIS life those whom he has chosen as his eternal "elect."  These Chosen People--invariably rich and usually Republican--are thumpingly confident that their exploitation of inferiors is the predestined working out of God's will.

Category 2:  sex.  God cares a lot about sex.  We humans are, in fact, God's pornography.  Evidently, he watches us constantly and, like all pornography addicts, he sometimes has bouts of remorse.  Hence, in his manic phase, he tends to encourage our sexual appetites (Hindu Shiva-lingams, Wicca fertility rites, Japanese penis festivals) but, alas, in his depressive moods, he gives over to ranting about depraved queers and slutty women and blasphemous pole-dancers in the Sinai desert.

Category 3:  food.  God does not approve of most food, especially GOOD food--at least for human beings.  His tendency to forbid us mortals any pleasant form of nourishment is undoubtedly a sort of power trip.  He wants to make it perfectly clear that  he alone is in control and that he alone has the right to pig out on lobster à l'amoricaine.

Category 4:  infidels.  Truly successful faith groups (unlike flaccid Mainline Protestant denominations and mystical one-hand clapping Eastern sects) seem unanimous in denouncing all dissenters as inhuman and condemned to death, either in this life or in the hereafter.  It is therefore OK, to use CIA terminology, to "terminate with extreme prejudice" any such infidels.  Heck, God is going to kill them eventually anyway, after which he will cast their sorry-assed  souls into hell for all eternity.  So bloodletting in the service of religious causes is no big deal.

Well, that seems a sufficient distillation of the Essence of Ecumenism.  Now I can start planning my new and improved Gospel. To hell with digging around for buried tablets in the flower beds full of deer shit.  I'm just going to let the Angelic Messenger speak to me directly, in whatever language he chooses.  I am, after all, a linguist.  Hence, I should be able to "get it" at least as well as Moses or St. Paul or Mohammed or Joseph Smith or Mary Baker Eddy. Surely if I follow their edifying example, emptying my mind of any vestige of rational thought, I should have no difficulty whatsoever finding Divine Inspiration for a sort of  latter day Sermon on the Mount--a snappy spin on some of the old time favorites (see above) followed by a compelling and thoroughly irresistible new twist as a conclusion.

(Here a bolt of lightning flashes across my computer screen.  Is it Moroni?  Gabriel?  or merely Pythia, the Screen Saver Oracle? Well, no matter:  mysterious chiaroscuro stuff always happens when religions are being hatched.)

And then, much as Breaking News Bulletins gush forth from Cable TV, my über Beatitudes spring unbidden and fully formed and infallible from the depths of my internal hard drive.  Verily, verily I say unto you, "Give heed now and listen up to the breaking No News Good News of which I am the prophet":

Tenet One:  (Exploiters).  Blessed are the overpaid CEOs, for they shall create jobs by trickling down on their workers.

Tenet Two:  (Sufferers).  Blessed are the workers and the persecuted and the poor.  They shall inherit nothing (probably not even trickle-down), but neither shall they live long enough to die of Alzheimer's Disease.

Tenet Three:  (Sex).  Blessed are those whose only sexual act is masturbating in the shower, for they shall be able to keep their abomination secret (unless hair starts to grow on their palms).

Tenet Four: (Food).  Blessed are the vegans, for they shall be neither sated nor constipated.

Tenet Five:  (Infidels).  Blessed are the warmongers, the bullies and the jihadists, for the Lord loveth a good bloodbath.


And now, the NEW stuff that should absolutely clinch the deal.

Tenet Six:  (Common Sense).  Blessed are those who use their reason to disprove or discredit any or all of the preceding tenets, for theirs is the Kingdom of Man.

And they, alone, shall truly be free.

Dang, I just botched everything, didn't I?  Well, I guess I didn't really want to be a prophet anyway.  I'll miss the money, though.

Shanghaied!

Kathleen Parker and others of her journalistic tribe are simply furious that President Obama hasn't had the, er, "audacity" to join the hallelujah chorus of red-blooded patriots who regularly and reverently recite their Credo that the United States is qualitatively "exceptional" among nations.

You know:  the notion that we're just better.  Our institutions are better; our traditions are better; our values are better and, moreover, our shit don't stink.

So the rules that apply to other nations don't apply to US.

Other nations may do evil things.  But not US.

Other nations may be surpassed.  But not US.

Other nations may decline and fall.  But not US.  

We are special--having, after all, been founded by GOD Himself.  We are number ONE and we always WILL BE NUMBER ONE.  In everything.  So get used to it.

And Mr. President, you had better start memorizing this Credo and reciting it regularly.  Or else, you go bye bye in 2012, and you'll have to live out your retirement in one of those nasty socialist, communist, fascist, atheistic countries that ARE subject to the forces of history.  So what if they have fast trains.

Shoot, Barry, just take a look around.  Anyone can see how exceptional we are.  The evidence is everywhere.

Number 1:  we are the only developed country (if we exclude South Africa) to persevere nobly in guaranteeing its citizens the priceless freedom of having no universal medical insurance.

Number 2:  we own more guns and firearms than any other people anywhere--so we are certainly exceptionally well-protected.  And we can reload mighty fast.  

Number 3:  among all the developed countries, we have the greatest number of God-fearing, church-going, born-again Christians who stand up, stand up for Jesus in defiance of scientists, evolutionists, humanists, common sense and documentary evidence.

Number 4:  we may not be very good at math or history, but by golly, we know the Bible, especially Leviticus.

Number 5:  we have the greatest disparity between the rich and the poor of any developed country (and the Census Bureau says the gap is growing impressively) .  Our very rich are just really, really, really rich.  Heck, Donald Trump could probably BUY some piddly little socialist country like Denmark.

Number 6:  we are the only developed country that continues to use the time-hallowed English system of admittedly irrational but oh-so-comfy weights and measures.  (Didn't the French invent the metric system, for Chrissakes? Let's have none of that!)

Number 7:  we have more miles (or even kilometers, if you insist) of decaying roads than any other country on the face of the earth. That's a lot of crumbling concrete, dudes. Think about it.  More ruins than even ancient Rome.

Number 8:  we are fatter/more obese than the people of any other country. According to the CDC, fully 34% of us are overweight.  In other words, we're SuperSized and you don't want to mess with us.

Number 9:  per capita, we consume more of the earth's resources than the citizens of any other country.   Also more Big Macs. 

Number 10:  our armed forces have the weaponry to kill more people more efficiently than any other army on the planet.  And we have an aircraft carrier called the USS Ronald Reagan which was built for this express purpose. 

Number 11:  we have Fox News for "fair and balanced" truth-telling.

Number 12:  we have Rush Limbaugh for culture and fine art.

Clearly, then, American exceptionalism is an indisputable truth.  There is just no way that we can be compared, as Barry Obama did in a press conference, to the effete British or the pederastic Greeks. Listen to his fatuous drivel:

"I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism."

C'mon!  What in hell did the British or the Greeks ever do for anybody? What "exceptional" institutions or values or ideas originated in those pissy little countries?  Obama's waffling on this issue is simply unacceptable in an American president.  Next thing, he'll be telling us that the Chinese are going to become NUMBER ONE in 2019!

The Chinese!  How about that for audacity! I'm beginning to think that our president has been shanghaied--perhaps by the "pinhead conspiracy"--you know, those guys who keep wasting their breath trying to convince Americans that the earth is round.

Second Amendment Solutions

In my old age, I've become a rabid radical.  I just don't respect anything anymore.  Lately, for instance, I've been "disrespecting" the Constitution, particularly the Second Amendment, which seems to me to have been one of God's mistakes.

Like avocado pits.

Because, according to the vast majority of NRA true believers, the Second Amendment (unlike, perhaps, the Fourteenth), was granted to Americans, not by civil authorities drafting a social contract for a particular place and time, but by Yahweh Himself, speaking for and from All Eternity.  The Second Amendment, intone these zealots, enshrines the God-given right of each and every American to bear arms.

Rubbish.  Rubbish.  Rubbish.

The Constitution is a man-made document, establishing or affirming MAN-MADE values.  I find absolutely repulsive the notion that some "loving" God would want, indeed decree, that we should tote around lethal weapons in order to compensate for His inability to design and actualize a secure environment for His Chosen People.

No, a constitution is made by men, for men--and, most pertinently, for a specific society of humans. For as long as it works, this social contract binds a group of people to a distinct political structure and to guidelines for acceptable behavior.  Obviously, the document--both as a whole and in its various parts--is intended to ensure and advance the prosperity, security and overall well-being of that society.

It is NOT intended to negate or impede the achievement of those very goals.

The writers of our Constitution--themselves imperfect men (and NOT Yahweh)--soberly recognized their unavoidable inadequacies and, accordingly, clearly specified a means (albeit a very "prudent" one) whereby their document could be amended to suit changing circumstances or needs.

(Surely the very inclusion of an amendment procedure is proof positive that the Constitution is not in any way an expression of divinely immutable principles.  God's laws, if such exist, presumably could not be changed by anyone under any circumstances.  And yet, the Second Amendment is itself just such a "change," brought about by an act of Congress and approval of three-fourths of the states.)

In any event, it's pretty clear that the country's circumstances and needs HAVE changed since 1789 (or 1791, when the Bill of Rights became part of the Constitution).  And even more significantly, popular thinking has evolved--not always in directions foreseen by those who drafted the Second Amendment.

Even the most cursory glance at the language of the Amendment reveals that the Framers were primarily focused on providing "security" for a "free State." People should have the right to bear arms in order to organize themselves into a "well regulated militia" and thereby protect themselves against invaders or, perhaps, a tyrannical government.  In other words, it is the interests of the STATE and the COMMONWEAL that must be served (not those of particular individuals).

But precisely because the remainder of the Bill of Rights, enforced by an elaborate legal system, has worked fairly well, citizens no longer have any desperate need to use firearms to protect themselves against tyrannical government or abuses of authority. Indeed, the gun collectors and hoarders have only very rarely organized themselves into "militia" in order to defend their liberties against agents of some despot--foreign or domestic.  Instead--with the notable exception of hunters and sportsmen--they seem to regard their guns as a legitimate means of advancing their own subjective interests--a "God-given" instrument for intimidating, threatening or coercing "lesser" citizens into a certain course of action--or else.

I fear that increasingly our American definition of freedom is both simplistic and anarchic:  "Shoot any son of a bitch who doesn't agree with me or pisses me off!" (So much for the FIRST Amendment, BTW).

This, I hasten to point out, is NOT the defense of the Commonweal spoken of in the Second Amendment.  Rather, it is aggression in the service of selfish interests or private grudges--Commonweal be damned.

Let us note here that the language of the Amendment says nothing specific about employing weapons for self-defense (against a personal attack) or for hunting or sport.  I assume that the Framers, living in late 18th Century America, would have considered such practices both reasonable and proper.  And, if  "well regulated," similar gun use seems appropriate for our modern world as well .

But guns for AGGRESSION, for REVENGE, for SELF-AGGRANDIZEMENT, for EMOTIONAL RELEASE????

I very much doubt that the Framers had any such purposes in mind.  Unfortunately, their vague language has all too often been so interpreted, much to the detriment of our collective security. Statistics leave no doubt about the fearsome prevalence of gun deaths in America.  Indisputably, we own more guns than any other people--and, according to the Centers for Disease Control, we kill each other with guns at astonishing rates (14.2 per 100,000 vs., for instance 4.3 for Canada or .41 for England).

So, the Second Amendment, which was originally intended to ensure domestic security (NOT God-given rights to kill people we don't like), has, to paraphrase Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, become destructive of these very ends.  It therefore behooves us, again as Jefferson asserted, to "alter or to abolish" the offending writ.

Not by armed uprising, not by violent revolution (as advocated by Jefferson), but by the very prudent amendment procedure that established the Second Amendment itself.

I realize that this will be a very long process, especially given the pro-gun culture that now prevails in the U.S. And I am not naive:  perhaps we have grown so fond of our guns and/or so afraid of defying the NRA that we will be forever powerless to remedy our current Old West environment and restore some measure of domestic tranquility (the language of the Constitution's Preamble) to the general citizenry. Still, I continue to hope. Perhaps people of good-will and good sense will ultimately triumph.

So MY Second Amendment Solution is to trash the whole confusing and misinterpreted thing.  Replace it with a clear-cut set of rules appropriate for life in  21st Century America--rules governing the sale of weapons and permitting duly licensed/registered firearms for sport and self-defense. Period. Maybe then--sometime in the distant future, I suppose--we will begin to resemble the safer and more civilized democracies of the world--none of which (true believers please take note) seem to have the slightest yearning to share our "God-given right to bear arms."

Shit Maria in the Hen Coop!

As best I remember, my father almost never uttered the word "shit"--or, for that matter, any other vulgarism.  Fastidious and professorial, he donned a suit and tie every day and affected a language that was generally as tasteful and tailored as his outfits (except when, inexplicably and incongruously, he would let slip an ungrammatical "he don't"). But my MOTHER, imitating HER mother, was perfectly capable of employing decidedly colorful language.  Both Mom and Grandma, though they generally avoided the "Lord's name" in at least conventional deference to the Third Commandment, would quite willingly--almost gleefully--"talk shit" whenever they deemed it appropriate or, even, just fun.

In fact, for my maternal ancestors, the simple interjection "shit," sometimes prefaced by "oh," was an almost indispensable reaction to nearly all unanticipated or aggravating situations.

Not surprisingly, then, "defecatory" similes and metaphors (albeit not very original) also abounded in the diction of my progenitresses:  "I feel like shit; ha,ha, that gander sure scared the shit out of me; uffda, isn't that minister a dumb shit?"  

But now both Grandma and Mom are gone--and I find myself regretting that they departed before I ever had the chance to ask them what they meant by one of their absolute favorite excremental ejaculations:  "Shit Maria in the Hen Coop."  BTW, they always pronounced "Maria" with an affected British accent--as "Mar-eye-ah."  

What in the world was the origin of that curious exclamation?

I used to think that the name "Maria" could have referred to a kind of dimwitted poultry tender (not to be confused with a "chicken tender" of the McDonald's variety)--a peasant girl of Chardinesque mien who needed advice about where it would be appropriate for a person of her lowly status to defecate (answer: in the hen coop).

But if this expression were some kind of Dr. Phil-type admonition, why would Mom and Grandma have emitted it most typically immediately after slicing a thumb with a paring knife or dropping a freshly-baked tuna hotdish on the floor?

My grandmother's hen coop was definitely--and literally--full of shit.  Because I adored my grandparents, I used to spend entire summers living with them on their rather bleak and terribly primitive farm in northern Iowa (though for me, this dreary farm--lacking telephones and indoor plumbing--was perfectly idyllic and in every way hors pair).  To the north of the house, between the garage and the privy, lay the dilapidated chicken house--or hen coop, if you will.  Since I suffered from hay fever and, I must confess, genuine fear of pigs, my doting grandparents generally exempted me from chores in the allergen-filled barn or the roiling pig pens.  But I WAS expected to gather eggs in the chicken house.

God, what a stinky and intimidating dump!  Don't tell ME that "free-range" chickens and "organic eggs" are any more healthy than the agri-business-industrial variety.  Uffda!  Every day, sweatily clutching my basket, I ventured into that shitty hen coop to do battle with vicious hens for possession of  their daily eggs--as if, somehow, those egg belonged to THEM.  Mean, violent creatures--they pecked me and scolded me and shit on me.  Because I hated and feared them so, I never felt the least bit bad when, upon occasion, Grandma decided to seize one of them and summarily chop off her head in order to have something to serve the dumb shit minister who had unexpectedly shown up for dinner.

So what is my point?  Well, I guess it's just that NO HUMAN BEING, not even Maria-the-chicken-tender, should, under any circumstances, be obliged to shit in a hen coop. Shitting is unpleasant enough as it is (especially on a January morning in an unheated privy)--but in a hen coop?  How perfectly inhuman.  Ergo, I conclude that "Shit Maria in the hen coop" must have been my foremothers' expression of utter misery, humiliation and pain.  A fate that should happen to no-one.

Much like dropping a freshly-baked tuna hotdish on the floor just as the dumb shit minister appears at the door.  Shit Maria in the Hen Coop!

Cock and Bull

A rooster crows and immediately afterwards, the sun rises.  Therefore, the rooster crowing CAUSED the sun to rise.  This follows that, therefore this is responsible for that.  Post hoc ergo propter hoc:  one of the most popular and infamous of logical fallacies.

A French nun prays for healing to the spirit of Pope John Paul II and, subsequently, is "miraculously" cured of Parkinson's disease.  

Therefore, by time-honored post-hoc reasoning, the prayer to John Paul II actually brought about the cure from the disease.  

And therefore, also, John Paul II must be "in heaven" and, not only that, but a powerful force in heaven--i.e., a saint.  

Consequently, the current pope, Benedict XVI, is going to "beatify" his predecessor on May 1--signaling the Church's intention to put JPII on a "fast track" to sainthood.  Subito.

I don't have any problem with people wanting to honor John Paul II with another title.  Though I almost always disagreed with his theology, I admired his sincere attempts to further peace and social justice.  So, if people want to light candles to him and talk to him about stuff, I couldn't care less. (After all, I talk to my deceased mother all the time.)  No, my gripe is about the faulty logic.  Because there is simply no RATIONAL justification for concluding that Sister Whosit's intercessory prayer to JPII had any cause/effect relationship with her recovery from Parkinson's. One thing just followed the other, that's all.  Pure coincidence unless proven otherwise.

Nor, when we read the various medical reports, is there any certainty that the good nun actually suffered from Parkinson's.  But let us grant that she did.  Let us grant, even further, that the disappearance of Parkinson's was not medically explainable.  

I.e. it was an anomaly.  Something that seemed to defy the usual rules.  Something that medical science, at this point in its development, is unable to understand.

OK.  A "miracle," if you like.

Thousands, perhaps millions, of such anomalies / miracles occur daily, weekly--everywhere and in every domain of earthly experience.  But because we cannot immediately assign a natural cause to these phenomena, are we therefore justified in assuming that some sort of supernatural  intervention has occurred? 

That is indeed a leap of "faith."  

Is it not much more likely that the cause of these so-called miracles lies in some unusual (but naturally occurring) jerk, twitch or glitch in the normal patterns of the universe--an anomaly which, because of its rarity, has as yet not been recognized and cataloged scientifically?  

True believers are familiar with "explanations" involving imperfect human reason. They are, for instance, constantly telling us skeptics and doubters that all the incarnadine and seemingly senseless evils of earthly life DO, indeed, have an explanation--but an explanation available only to God--an explanation that, because of our "fallen nature," will forever lie beyond human ken.  In other words, they are suggesting that "natural" disasters have "supernatural" justifications/causes--causes we can never know or appreciate.

I, on the other hand, am suggesting that so-called "supernatural" phenomena may very likely have "natural" causes--but causes we do not YET (and may never) have the skill to ascertain. 

Of course, none of this discussion applies to the "miracles" recounted in the Bible or (I assume) other collections of mythological tales.  THESE miracles are not really anomalies.  Rather, all the evidence suggests that they are complete, albeit pious, fabrications--invented by storytellers and theologians in order to assert (or prove) the omnipotence of a particular god or his agents.  We simply do not witness any such phenomena in the real world of 2011--not even in the devoutest of convents in France.  In 2011, praying to either John Paul II or your Heavenly Father will NEVER (I can assure you), bring your dead friend back to life.  Bathing in Lourde's waters will NEVER (I can assure you) give you the power to walk on those waters.  Invoking Yahweh to make the sun stand still will NEVER (I can assure you) afford you the extra hours you need to smite your enemies and/or get a good tan.

So don't ask for the impossible when you pray.  And be careful about assuming that there's anything more than a coincidental connection between the cock's crowing and the sun's rising.  Above all, please don't give in to all the cock and bull reasoning that ascribes anomalous "miracles" (which do exist) to divine intervention (which almost certainly doesn't).

Merry eX-mas

Every year at this time, we Minnesota provincials are subjected to countless pious, cliché-ridden lamentations  about how Christmas has become too secular and commercial. The concluding exhortation of all these jeremiads is always the same:  we simply MUST put the "Christ" back in Christmas.

Or else.

Or else, what?  The apocalyptic consequence, should Americans continue to prefer Santa Claus to Jesus Christ, is unspecified--but presumably comparable to the fate that befell Sodom and Gomorrah.  (The people who fuss about saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" tend to be rather partial to Old Testament Wrath and, in fact, would probably enjoy a nice little display of Divine Displeasure.)

Generally speaking, of course, those who yearn for a more religious or spiritual holiday aren't quite so angry.  Mostly, they just sense, in some vague way, that Christmas isn't as satisfying as they would like it to be.  So they blame commercialism and reflexively (but obtusely) endeavor to "put Christ back in Christmas."

I wonder, though.  What in the world are these people actually talking about?

Because Christmas was NEVER very much about Christ, was it?  I mean, "Christ" was never really IN Christmas to begin with.  Most historians concur that the celebration of Jesus' supposed birthday is just a thin veneer pasted onto an amalgam of much older and much less "holy" festivities.  In fact, it appears that the Christian Church adopted December 25 as the date of Jesus' birth for the largely cynical (or at least pragmatic) reason that it couldn't manage to suppress all the  pagan celebrations of the Winter Solstice that already existed and were deeply loved by Romans as yet only superficially converted to Christianity. So Pope Julius I (or maybe another pope in the early 4th century) just decided that, since he couldn't make folks stop eating and drinking and carousing and buying needless stuff at the end of December, well, he would simply "join" them and label their hitherto pagan celebrations "Christian."

So it came to pass that Saturnalia was renamed--or christened--"Christmas.''  But as is so often the case in christenings, the effect of the measure was mostly a matter of semantics:  nothing much changed in actual fact.  True, a Christ-Mass would now be said at midnight--and, eventually, little creches would appear at church doors (some believe that St. Francis started this custom).  But the revelry, the feasting, the gift-exchanging, the singing and dancing (sometimes naked) in the streets continued much as before.  And, as the countries of northern Europe also converted to Christianity, the Church obligingly embraced other pagan rituals and traditions associated with the Winter Solstice:  the festival of Yule (lights, sacred logs, drinking, eating), the druidic and/or Germanic celebrations of nature and enduring life (holly, ivy, mistletoe, evergreen trees and, of course, more drinking and eating).  Fa la la la la, la la la la.

I find it amusing, therefore, that so many present-day churchgoers are surprised and upset that the desired metamorphosis from merry pagan "holiday" to solemn Christian "holy day" never really took hold.  How could it have been otherwise?  Of course, if the Church hadn't been so willing to compromise and so adamant in its desire to co-opt the nearly universal northern-hemisphere celebrations of solar rebirth, it might have insisted upon a more likely birthdate--sometime in the spring, perhaps (when shepherds might legitimately have been tending flocks at night)--or in that really dead time (rightly called "ordinary" in the Church calendar) around mid-July. Had such a scenario been adopted, the festival could have been kept essentially religious and suitably decorous, since no pre-existing and more appealing traditions would have been available to tempt people into frivolity or debauchery.

Oh well.  In any case, the Christmas story as told in Luke and Matthew is almost certainly little more than a pretty fairy tale--or, more fairly--a beautiful myth expressing the Church's belief/hope that God has somehow united himself with human beings and, in sharing our nature, allowed us also to share his.  But the theology of the Incarnation--also an idea that antedates Christianity--is probably better elaborated in the philosophical language of the first chapter of John than it is in the fanciful, albeit poetic, narratives of Luke and Matthew.

In short, I've come to the conclusion that I don't really need "Christ" in my Christmas--and I even feel, a bit perversely, perhaps?--that Christ doesn't much "belong" in this happy--but INCLUSIVE and UNIVERSAL (not narrowly parochial)-- celebration of the Sun's nadir and rebirth.  Christmas is just too big and too important to be reserved for the practitioners of a single religion.

Accordingly, for the first time in many years, I decided to celebrate this Christmas with exclusively pagan traditions, albeit those that have long been honored in my family (you will, no doubt, be disappointed to learn that we generally don't "do" naked dancing). In this eX-masing endeavor, I think I was pretty successful (with one notable exception, see below). I ate, drank, socialized, reconnected with old friends, exchanged gifts, decorated the house--in all the manners and modes customary to generations of Kellys and Kirkebys.  Except:  no church and no Jesus.

And you know what?  I didn't miss the "Christ" stuff very much, not even midnight mass.  The exception I mentioned, though, is MUSIC.  I must confess that, in this one domain, I broke my own rule and listened, almost exclusively, to Christian material.  I love Christmas music, the religious variety--the Bach, the Berlioz, the Handel, and the ancient carols in minor keys.  No "Jingle Bells" or "Rudolphs" or "White Christmases"  please!  That dreck is just too painful to my ears.

So I'm wondering:  isn't there any good Saturnalia music? If there is, please let me know.  Then, maybe--at the very least--we could put THAT back in Christmas.

Meerkat Manor

Once again today, eternally optimistic that Republicans care more about the country than about corporations, President Obama is hosting a "bipartisan" "planning" meeting of congressional "leaders" at the White House.

Or, as I've begun to call it--Meerkat Manor.

We all love those cute little Animal Planet creatures that inhabit multi-chambered burrows in remote South African deserts.  They're so remarkably photogenic:  perky, attentive, friendly, eager-to-please--and they seem to spend all of their time scurrying about from here to there without actually doing anything or going anywhere.

Just like our president and the Democrats in Washington.  Apparently, in 2008, we elected a whole colony of innocuous meerkats, who have little inclination to do anything other than chirp, peep, cock their heads coyly  and wait for something to happen.

Well, they'd best get ready for some changes in the zoo.

Obama, Geithner, Holder, Napolitano, Axelrod, Reid, Baucus, Hoyer--God, such sweet little meerkats. Quick, take a picture!  And today, most of them are meeting with the likes of Boehner, Cantor, Kyl and McConnell--all of whom are great, lumbering war elephants, perfectly prepared--indeed eager--to stomp out the entire meerkat population--and in so doing turn Meerkat Manor into an inelegant dust wallow for addlepated and malevolent pachyderms.

Yet, the peeping and chirping and head-bobbing continue.

It seems pretty hopeless, doesn't it?  Galumph!

And, in the unlikely event that some of the meerkats survive the war elephant stampede, there is another critter stalking about nearby (well, actually in sight of Russia--but still dangerously "near"), waiting for a tasty little snack:  a hella mean mama grizzly bear.


So it looks a lot like the Washington Zoo will soon be dominated by BIG and NASTY varmints. Not exactly cuddly or (poor) people-friendly.  Take your pictures while you still can, folks.