Wheat & Weeds

Newt Has Peaked

2012-01-26T09:12:00.000-05:00

I'm going out on a limb to say that even if he wins FL, Newt has peaked. I like the guy well enough. He fights, and I contemn the unlovely partisan habit of seeking purity and saviors in politicians. You evaluate the strengths and weaknesses and go with that; it's not necessary to make your guy god and everyone else a traitorous bastard.

I think he's good for the GOP and Conservatives in that he sharpens arguments and knows how to take the fight to the dual opponents: the Dems and the media. The other candidates can learn some tricks from him and I'm not eager to get him off the debate stage. If I'm wrong and he's the nominee, I won't scruple to vote for him.

BUT.

However smart and engaging he can be, however good at marshaling forces for battles, he's mostly hat with few cattle. He can move audiences, but not policy, and has never shown capacity to finish what he starts (marriages or speakerships or what have you), and I think I see the signs already of his melting down.

Gingrich has been saying he's a visionary who, Reagan-like, saw the fall of communism. Elliott Abrams reminds us that's not quite the way it was. Now who's the bad historian?

He doesn't do his homework. He casually remarked one day that John Bolton would be his Sec. of State, and about two seconds later Bolton endorsed Romney. This week he forced the trying-to-be-neutral Marco Rubio to slap him down not once but twice. How dumb do you have to be not to drop names before you're sure those names aren't going to repudiate you? Is that the way he'll relate to other nations, too -- without the necessary prepwork?

And now he's promising us the moon, literally. How are we supposed to take this man seriously with respect to controlling government spending when in this climate he's already ballooned a debate criticism of Obama's misuse of NASA into a concrete permanent base on the moon?

I think that jumps the shark, although it may take a little while for voters to see it.

Grade Inflation

2012-01-25T18:03:00.001-05:00

For years I've been complaining that Obama's speeches sound like they were written by high school sophomores. More like eighth graders, actually.

A Smart Politics study of the 70 orally delivered State of the Union Addresses since 1934 finds the text of Obama's 2012 speech to have tallied the third lowest score on the Flesch-Kincaid readability test, at an 8.4 grade level.
Obama also delivered the second lowest scoring address in 2011 (at an 8.1 grade level) and the sixth lowest in 2010 (at an 8.8 grade level)
The Flesch-Kincaid test is designed to assess the readability level of written text, with a formula that translates the score to a U.S. grade level.

My analysis isn't based on syllables an sentence complexity, it's based on inept metaphors, glittering generalities and the number of rainbows and unicorns invoked.

A Disgraceful Performance

2012-01-25T08:22:00.000-05:00

The President wanted SOTU to cheer us up this year, and it did me in the sense that he looked weak and defeatable.

But it was an even worse speech qua speech than last year's (though it was almost the same speech, but we'll get to that). No premise, no argument, no supporting evidence, no sustaining theme, no narrative arc, no memorable lines: just a list of assertions and promises. A loooong list of assertions and promises.

It's not even worth portion by portion analysis. I'll just make four points.

1. He did not so much as mention the deficit and run-away spending, THE crisis looming over our heads. Imagine if Roosevelt had given a SOTU without mentioning the war. WEAK.

2.This man is King Canute without the self-awareness. Canute "commanded" the tides to illustrate the limits of power, but Obama thinks the world will change if he just pronounces things earnestly and encouragingly enough. He plans to solve teen truancy by making it illegal. (which reminds me of nothing so much as the website #thereIfixedit) He plans to stabilize the economy by cheerleading:
Tonight, my message to business leaders is simple:

Ask yourselves what you can do to bring jobs back to your country, and your country will do everything we can to help you succeed.

Except, you know, change any policies. By "your country" he means "I," and by "everything we can" he means "cheerleading:" those jobs'll come back because I said so.

Or my favorite line of the night:

We can do this!

As Mary Katherine Ham tweeted, apparently "Yes we can!" is going to keep getting more and more emphatic. Note to President: this is not what is meant by "fake it til you make it."

3. Lies. He credits his immigration program and not the bad economy with the slowing of illegal immigration. The man had the gall to invoke Lincoln to the effect that Government should do for people only what they can't do better by themselves as his guiding principle in a speech that did nothing but invent new regulations and federal programs as the solution to everything. Because federal jobs training makes jobs, not employers wealthy enough to hire people; the Lord knows adding a new government teacher training program every year is making public education better and better. He proposed more regulations to regulate the regulations we already have and called it "getting government out of the way." And a federal truancy law for the love of all that is holy!

4. This was actually creepy. At the open and close, the President praised the military, citing unit cohesion as an example for civilian life.

These achievements are a testament to the courage, selflessness, and teamwork of America’s Armed Forces. At a time when too many of our institutions have let us down, they exceed all expectations. They’re not consumed with personal ambition. They don’t obsess over their differences. They focus on the mission at hand. They work together.

Imagine what we could accomplish if we followed their example.

That's just Obama wishing he could command civilians the way he does the military. Life would be so easy for him if we'd just do as he says. It's chilling, actually. As Bill Kristol asks,

Is martial virtue the highest stage of progressivism?

Behind all sophomoric appeal to "coming together" and "putting aside our differences" (great speech, Mr. Valedictorian) lies a complete refusal to face reality. Kristol nails it here too:

What Obama doesn’t say is this: It’s not just that you look out for the person next to you, or the mission fails. It’s also that you endure tough and demanding training, or the mission fails. You subordinate your own wishes, or the mission fails. You wash out many of those who wish to serve, or the mission fails. You insist on fitness and discipline and good character, or the mission fails. You do away with any sense of entitlement, or the mission fails. But Obama isn’t interested in the truth about why a mission succeeds or fails. He’s interested in using the prestige of the military to justify the nanny state.

It's heartening, though, that when the leader of the free world is about to become Greece, President Obama has our backs with a national truancy law. It means he is completely and utterly weak and will be soon defeated.

(Unless the feckless GOP chooses his opponent.)

Finally: I didn't like this speech the first time I heard it. During Last year's SOTU:
He didn't mention entitlement spending last year, either. And all he changed this year was swapping out high speed rail for federal truancy. Oh, and publicly jonesing for us all to be under his command.

Why People Don't Trust Psychiatry

2012-01-24T16:08:00.000-05:00

...and further evidence of Fox News' continuing collaboration in the pornification of America. One Dr. Keith Ablow, a psychiatrist and life coach, argues that not only should we overlook Gingrich's two marriages, but they actually give him a character advantage as President.

After all, three women have wanted to spend their lives with him. He can connect with many voters.

And he's had to be the bearer of bad news to two wives, so he'll be able to tell Congress things it doesn't want to hear, too.

Two women—Mr. Gingrich’s first two wives—have sat down with him while he delivered to them incredibly painful truths: that he no longer loved them as he did before, that he had fallen in love with other women and that he needed to follow his heart, despite the great price he would pay financially and the risk he would be taking with his reputation.

Conclusion: I can only hope Mr. Gingrich will be as direct and unsparing with the Congress, the American people and our allies. If this nation must now move with conviction in the direction of its heart, Newt Gingrich is obviously no stranger to that journey.

Hey, maybe divorce should be a pre-requisite for the presidency from now on.

This is why, except for Brett Baier, I hate Fox News.

Sebelius Against the Catholics...And the Rule of Law

2012-01-23T18:28:00.003-05:00

Not to pat myself on the back or nuthin', but Michael Greve (curtsy The Corner) has noticed what I've been arguing for two years: that when the HHS Secretary has complete discretion over to whom the rule of law applies, there is in fact no rule of law.

He adds the new wrinkle that it's a bit rich for the HHS Secretary to refuse to grant waivers to religious institutions to not cover abortifacient drugs and elective sterilizations for reasons of conscience, when she has granted hundreds of waivers to businesses of all kinds from having to comply at all.

“This ‘process’ has been playing out while Mrs. Sebelius’s office has issued hundreds of waivers for employer health plans that fail to comply with the ACA’s and HHS’s exalted standards, such as “mini-med” plans used by McDonald’s. Without those waivers, the ranks of the uninsured would swell. Hiding the ACA’s inanity is sufficient reason to suspend the legal requirements; First Amendment objections apparently aren’t.”

Greve adds:

“[T]he entire Affordable Care Act, from coverage mandates to health exchanges to tax penalties, is being implemented by waiver and interim regulations. It can’t be implemented any other way: the insurance markets would collapse, and we’d still be noticing and commenting in 2020. A statute that compels the systematic corruption of the rule of law has no place in the U.S. Code.”

Quite. Or as I put it: "there is no law, there is only the whim of the Sec. of HHS."

What Do You Mean By "Choice"?

2012-01-22T14:32:00.001-05:00

It's NARAL's "blog for choice" day, and therefore a good day to ask 'em what they mean by "choice."

Is this the choice they mean, for example? Pro-life demonstrators outside a clinic in Birmingham, AL today watched as not one, but two, ambulances carried out women whose abortions had been botched. The clinic had no emergency access and the women had to be carried out in people's arms. It might surprise most people to know that abortion clinics in most states are not regulated or subject to health inspections in the way any other ambulatory clinic would be -- this in spite of the fact that sepsis, uterine perforation and other life-threatening complications are common. Sound like support for women and profound care for their lives to you?

Or maybe this is what they mean? Get a load of how this organization suggests women pay for abortions. Lying, cheating, exploiting your church and friends....not to mention volunteering for medical experiments. Why don't the clinics lower the price -- they're not paying huge overheads for rents in toney neighborhoods or regulation? Why don't "choice" activists demand price controls on the procedure if its for the poor and needy....and not for exploiting them.

Or maybe they mean the repeated refusal to report under-age pregnancies, thereby coddling abusers and statutory rapists? Does that seem like protecting the girl's "choice" to you?

Or how about the administration's insistence this week that not only are abortifactients legal, but Catholic institutions MUST buy them? Where is the choice in that?

This is the choice they mean, and it is the only "choice" permitted, women's options, preferences, well-being and health notwithstanding. Follow the link to watch Eclipse of Reason, the late Dr. Bernard Nathanson's (co-founder of NARAL but later one of the most articulate foes of abortion) film of a typical D&E abortion procedure. (Naturally it is extremely graphic).

Two Dawgs of Verona

2012-01-22T09:00:00.000-05:00

Girl Weed & I braved the ice to see the Shakespeare Theater's production of Two Gents last night. It's good -- solidly acted-- but odd.

By his own testimony director P. J. Paparelli wanted to leave the periodicity (if that's a word) of Shakespeare intact, but somehow capture the energy of teenagers. I'd say he manages that effectively. Two Gents is a difficult play to stage thanks to frequent scene changes that cut up the action. Not only do the changes take time that can make things drag, but then over and over you, the audience, have the burden of figuring out where you are now. It can make a light play feel long.

Paparelli solves this problem in two ways: one basic set serves as backdrop for every location; only a few simple set pieces change. He also uses opera-style captioning to tell us where everyone is and in what condition. Ingeniously, these comments are milked for comedy -- as if they were texted quips coming from the clown Launce. It really keeps things humming. The best-paced Two Gents I've ever seen.

However, Paparelli chooses to place us in a hybrid time period and style. The men wear Elizabethan doublets over jeans (sometimes in plush fabrics, but still jeans) and sneakers. The women wear full Elizabethan costume, but everyone hangs out at the Ale House, which is like a hip club of today, and contemporary pop tunes (All The Single Ladies, anyone?) pepper the action. The teen music and clothing and era-bending did give an impulsive-young-love energy to the action, but I never got to the point where I simply "accepted" the hybrid time periods. I found it distracting.

Also odd was all the product placement on the set. The opening scene takes place in a parking lot outside of a McDonald's, one quarter of the "M" of the golden arches making a significant part of the set, and ads for other products are everywhere, as if we were in an arena. An ersatz Apple logo on one wall, a Barilla pasta logo hanging in mid-air in the Duke of Milan's home in lieu of art. At first I thought maybe this was heading towards some sort of critique of consumerism discovered in the text, but no....the ads are just there. As part of teen culture, I suppose, but they didn't add anything for me. Again: distracting, as was the idea that so much should rely on old-fashioned love notes requiring servants to deliver them when the characters could just text each other.

In the end I think it didn't quite work as not every conceit does. Enjoyable nonetheless.

And the dog who plays Crab is darling!

Those Were The Days

2012-01-22T08:42:00.000-05:00

Mister, we could use a guy like Warren G. Harding again. Great column in WaPo. Mostly about turning a recession around, but with fun biographical details, such as these, the latter of which makes me like him:

when, at the 1920 National Republican Convention, the hot and exhausted delegates looked for someone who could win the presidency and unite a deadlocked party, they picked Harding. “Everyone’s second choice,” the pundits sneered.

And

“I guess you have nominated the wrong candidate, if this is the plan,” Harding told the handlers who urged him to attack the, by then, hugely unpopular incumbent, “for I will never go to the White House over the broken body of Woodrow Wilson.”

Ocean on Fire & Other Search Engine Haiku

2012-01-21T09:25:00.001-05:00

Simcha Fisher has taught me it's hilarious and sometimes disturbing and sorta poetic to see what key words people search to find your blog. Some "found" poems, then. (P.S. I very rarely consult my stats, but since I have, thanks for the frequent link-love all year from: Against the Grain, Rick @ Brutally Honest/ Wizbang, Maggie's Farm, Mulier Fortis, Ken Thomas at No Left Turns, ninme (my blogmother), and Catholic Commentary.)

i. Adult Education
Teach me how to curtsy
hippie protestors
technique of Fernando gallego
shamelessly
so much for humility

ii. People of the book
jewish girl from weeds
jews jaws
our lady of the needy
bishops signet rings
house church in western china
afghan actor in hollywood
lucky movie Q'usai
bride and groom of Iran

iii. Salvation History
jesus christ
creation rejoicing before God
divine enact

iv. Alliteration
putin poses
polish prisons
post hoc fallacy political cartoon
pedant til the end

v. Weeds Among the Wheat & Vice Versa
wheat
weeds
wheat weeds
wheat & weeds
wheat & weedddds
buckwheat weed
impeached wheat
ghana weed
cry havoc weed
wheat sith

vi. One-Stop Shopping
krugman net worth
renaissance sculptures of women
shakespeare mens costumes
painting, American colonies
shays rebellion political cartoons
meaning of pain diagram
everything explained through flow charts
subtle humor

vii. That's Bad, Right?
china's one child policy
benin bann voodoo
tunnel of oppression
ocean on fire

Steyn Joins My Club!

2012-01-21T07:42:00.000-05:00

He hates Cameron's Titanic, and for the same reason.

That's not, however, what the column is about. It's about hard times coming and whether we have the stuff to handle hard times. It's about dispensing with "women and children first." Speaking of the cowardice of the captain and crew of the Concordia, he writes:

After similar scenes on the MV Estonia a few years ago, Roger Kohen of the International Maritime Organization told Time magazine: “There is no law that says women and children first. That is something from the age of chivalry.”
If, by “the age of chivalry,” you mean our great-grandparents’ time.

And:

We are beyond social norms these days. A woman can be a soldier. A man can be a woman. A seven-year-old cross-dressing boy can join the Girl Scouts in Colorado because he “identifies” as a girl. It all adds to life’s rich tapestry, no doubt. But I can’t help wondering, when the ship hits the fan, how many of us will still be willing to identify as a man.

Concluding with an aphorism for our day:

For soft cultures in good times, dispensing with social norms is easy. In hard times, you may have need of them.

It's increasingly obvious only hard times could possibly bring them back, so I hardly know what to wish for. I have no stomach for the upheaval it would take to wake us all up.

It Begins...Again

2012-01-19T20:09:00.000-05:00

Same-sex marriage was defeated in last year's legislative session, but a new bill will be introduced in the MD Senate and House of Delegates next week, according the Maryland Catholic conference.

Gov. O'Malley has promised to shepherd it through to victory.

The Maryland Catholic Conference is sending people to marylandmarriagealliance.com for action in opposition. Find good resources for why marriage matters, practical ways to help -- including, immediately, $$ is needed for advertising, and there's a pro-marriage rally Monday, January 30 from 6-8 pm at Lawyer's Mall in Annapolis.

Archbishop O'Brien, lately of Baltimore (and still its administrator) had an excellent piece explaining why the defense of marriage is not a parochial Catholic concern last July in response to O'Malley's switch on the issue.
Here's the Catholic position:

Supporters of the measure have tried to market it to Marylanders by calling it a civil rights issue. Doing so not only ignores the rights of children, but also is an affront to many African-Americans and to others who lived and labored during this country’s Civil Rights Era. In all likelihood, each of us knows and loves homosexual persons and believes they should be treated with the same dignity and respect as anyone else. We not only do not dispute this, we most vehemently demand it. As Catholics, it is ingrained in our very nature to love and respect all persons, and it is perhaps this impulse that many Catholics confuse as a rationale for accepting same-sex marriage. But there are other avenues for granting certain rights and benefits to couples who are not married. Maryland has already taken this step by passing recent legislation granting to domestic partnerships such rights as medical decision-making, hospital visitation and exemptions from real estate transfer and inheritance taxes.
There are many ways of protecting basic human rights; sacrificing marriage isn’t one of them. And those who believe as much should not be bullied into silence for fear of being branded bigots. Treating heterosexual and same-sex relationships differently does not equate to unjust discrimination. Upholding the truth of marriage furthers the rights and equal dignity of all human persons by promoting a social fabric where children can benefit from the unique gifts of a mother and a father.
In his frequent references to religious exemptions, it is clear the governor and others are hoping to gain votes for the bill by quelling the voices of religious leaders and others who rightfully believe such legislation tramples religious freedoms. Despite the limited measures some states have taken to protect religious institutions, none have recognized the religious freedom of individuals. Specifically, they should be protected against having to violate their moral beliefs about marriage. It is hard to believe that any measure can avoid the inevitable collision that redefining marriage will bring between government and people of faith. The slippery slope has already become an impending avalanche and who can seriously guarantee that efforts to promote “religious exemptions” will survive future judicial or legislative reversals.

But more than private interests are at stake:

More importantly, our fundamental concern about redefining marriage does not rest on a concern simply to protect our own interests, but to protect the interests of our whole society. And these interests need protecting at the state and national levels, as President Obama has also apparently changed his public position on this issue given his recent decision to support a bill that would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as between a man and a woman.

And we need to be equal to bullies who shout us down:

What our nation and this state need is the kind of leadership on display during this past legislative session when legislator after legislator in Maryland’s General Assembly brought the courage of their convictions to the public square. In rejecting legislation to redefine marriage, those legislators stood tall amidst the barrage of back door arm-twisting and deal-making to put what is best for Maryland, best for society ahead of political interests. Such convictions are formed at home, at school and at church, and are what help to raise issues as grave as these above partisan politics and special interest efforts. Those pressures will greatly intensify this year, and it is imperative that we match them with our own unabated voices and unceasing prayers.

Please go to marylandmarriagealliance.com and get involved. This is not an inevitable loss for our side...unless we give in to what sociologists call the spiral of silence.

So Much For Humility

2012-01-19T16:55:00.003-05:00

The President rose to power in part on the promise of a less arrogant United States, not throwing its weight around. I don't happen to share that interpretation of the war in Iraq, but it is definitely true that over the years the U.S. and the UN-Brussels axis of Europe has been extraordinarily arrogant in shoving its children-are-a-burden-abortion-is-a-blessing culture down the rest of the world's throat by tying aid and development programs to policies we like in that regard. Freedom's just another word for behaving like a trollop.

Two gentlemen from El Salvador describe how the US "respects" national sovereignty and local culture in their nation in this morning's WaTi.

The Obama administration, through its Ambassador Mari Carmen Aponte, has been pushing “LGBT” (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) rights in our country, demeaning our culture and insulting our values. We do not appreciate the implication made by Mrs. Aponte that because we do not support the homosexual agenda, we are guilty of “homophobia,” “brutal hostility,” “hatred” or “prejudice.”
We support the legitimate human rights of all our citizens. We do not, however, support made-up “homosexual rights,” nor do we appreciate an ambassador from another country coming in and preaching to us. We intend to defend our moral values and preserve our families.

They want the Senate not to confirm Mrs. Aponte, who was a recess appointment. But it's not her policy, it's the President's, as evidenced by Secretary of State Clinton's address to a UN body on International Human Rights day last month. Pushing for gay marriage in other countries is the official foreign policy of the United States.

Objects of Desire

2012-01-17T19:54:00.000-05:00

I listened to last night's GOP debate today. We could talk politics (Go Santorum!), or we could indulge in a little retail therapy:

Polar bear ice cube molds.

Or how about these guys?

Combat lawn gnomes.

Second Hungarian Uprising

2012-01-15T08:43:00.002-05:00

Hungary's new constitution proclaims:

"we have an eminent need of spiritual and intellectual renewal;"
"Our Basic Law is the foundation of our legal system; it is a contract between Hungarians past, present and future."
defends life from the moment of conception,
defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman
enumerates Communist crimes and lifts the statute of limitations on Communist atrocities

Naturally, Brussels and Washington are against it.

I've a friend in Poland who says in spite of these good features the new constitution is a disaster and will just put a bunch of cronies in a feckless Parliament. I have no idea, and my friend's somewhat nuts.(Not Liberal nuts: actually nuts). I choose to be cautiously heartened.

Yo, Swedish Peeps

2012-01-14T08:21:00.002-05:00

This is shamelessly pinched from ninme, and dedicated to my friends in Scandinavia (all three of them) and my aunt, who speaks Swedish, and loves the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

We Win One, For Once

2012-01-11T15:26:00.003-05:00

A unanimous decision in Hosanna-Tabor Church v. EEOC. This was the case in which the Obama administration argued that it was more qualified than a Lutheran school to determine whether a Church minister was teaching in accordance with Church teaching.

This case matters for many reasons, but especially because it reminds us all that the separation of church and state — when it is properly understood — is an important mechanism for protecting the religious liberty of all — believers and nonbelievers alike. Church-state separation is often misunderstood and seen as an anti-religious program, or as requiring that “religion” stay out of politics or public life. But this is not the point of church-state separation at all. The idea is to constrain government regulation, not religious expression and practice. Separation is an arrangement that protects religious authorities, institutions, and communities from unjustified interference by governments.

On the significance of the unanimous decision:

This last point is worth emphasizing: The administration’s lawyers had pressed an extreme view — one that no other court, and few scholars and experts, had embraced — and they convinced no one.

Double Jeopardy

2012-01-10T21:26:00.001-05:00

Shamelessly pinched from here via CMR.

Well, That Explains ...Everything

2012-01-10T07:59:00.000-05:00

Hollywood, liturgy, fashion, politics:

We no longer dare to believe in beauty and we make of it a mere appearance in order the more easily to dispose of it. Our situation today shows that beauty demands for itself at least as much courage and decision as do truth and goodness, and she will not allow herself to be separated and banned from her two sisters without taking them along with herself in an act of mysterious vengeance. We can be sure that whoever sneers at her name as if she were the ornament of a bourgeois past – whether he admits it or not – can no longer pray and soon will no longer be able to love.

~Hans Urs von Balthasar

Merry Christmas! (Day 12)

2012-01-05T09:00:00.000-05:00

Nativity, Ortolano Ferrarese

Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
Wherein our Savior's birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long;
And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad,
The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike,
No fairy takes nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallowed and so gracious is the time.

-- --Marcellus, Hamlet. Act One Scene 1

Merry Christmas! (Day 11)

2012-01-04T09:00:00.000-05:00

Russian icon, shamelessly pinched from here.

At last the anchor was up, the sails were set, and off we glided. It was a short, cold Christmas; and as the short northern day merged into night, we found ourselves almost broad upon the wintry ocean, whose freezing spray cased us in ice, as in polished armor. The long rows of teeth on the bulwarks glistened in the moonlight; and like the white ivory tusks of some huge elephant, vast curving icicles depended from the bows.
Lank Bildad, as pilot, headed the first watch, and ever and anon, as the old craft deep dived into the green seas, and sent the shivering frost all over her, and the winds howled, and the cordage rang, his steady notes were heard,-
     "Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood,
       Stand dressed in living green.
      So to the Jews old Canaan stood,
       While Jordan rolled between."
Never did those sweet words sound more sweetly to me than then. They were full of hope and fruition. Spite of this frigid winter night in the boisterous Atlantic, spite of my wet feet and wetter jacket, there was yet, it then seemed to me, many a pleasant haven in store; and meads and glades so eternally vernal, that the grass shot up by the spring, untrodden, unwilted, remains at midsummer.

--from "Merry Christmas," Chapter 22 of Moby Dick

Merry Christmas! (Day 10)

2012-01-03T09:00:00.000-05:00

Joseph Paelinck, The Holy Family

In Pearl Buck's "Christmas Day in the Morning," 15-year-old Rob is ashamed of the meager 10-cent tie he's gotten his hard-working father for Christmas, and decides if the first Christmas gift came from a stable, his best gift would come from there too:

He must have waked twenty times, scratching a match to look each time to look at his old watch -- midnight, and half past one, and then two o'clock.

At a quarter to three he got up and put on his clothes. He crept downstairs, careful of the creaky boards, and let himself out. The cows looked at him, sleepy and surprised. It was early for them, too.

He had never milked all alone before, but it seemed almost easy. He kept thinking about his father's surprise. His father would come in and get him, saying that he would get things started while Rob was getting dressed. He'd go to the barn, open the door, and then he'd go get the two big empty milk cans. But they wouldn't be waiting or empty, they'd be standing in the milk-house, filled.

"What the--," he could hear his father exclaiming.

He smiled and milked steadily, two strong streams rushing into the pail, frothing and fragrant.

The task went more easily than he had ever known it to go before. Milking for once was not a chore. It was something else, a gift to his father who loved him. He finished, the two milk cans were full, and he covered them and closed the milk-house door carefully, making sure of the latch.

Back in his room he had only a minute to pull off his clothes in the darkness and jump into bed, for he heard his father up. He put the covers over his head to silence his quick breathing. The door opened.

"Rob!" His father called. "We have to get up, son, even if it is Christmas."

"Aw-right," he said sleepily.

The door closed and he lay still, laughing to himself. In just a few minutes his father would know. His dancing heart was ready to jump from his body.

...

"The best Christmas gift I ever had, and I'll remember it, son every year on Christmas morning, so long as I live."

They had both remembered it, and now that his father was dead, he remembered it alone: that blessed Christmas dawn when, alone with the cows in the barn, he had made his first gift of true love.

Merry Christmas! (Day 9)

2012-01-02T09:00:00.000-05:00

Rubens, The Holy Family with St. Elizabeth, 1614

Here is a Christmas version of Tolstoy's short story, "Where God Is, Love Is." I prefer the original, but Papa Panov's Special Christmas is also nice, and sticks with my Christmas theme.

It was Christmas Eve and although it was still afternoon, lights had begun to appear in the shops and houses of the little Russian village, for the short winter day was nearly over. Excited children scurried indoors and now only muffled sounds of chatter and laughter escaped from closed shutters.

Old Papa Panov, the village shoemaker, stepped outside his shop to take one last look around. The sounds of happiness, the bright lights and the faint but delicious smells of Christmas cooking reminded him of past Christmas times when his wife had still been alive and his own children little. Now they had gone. His usually cheerful face, with the little laughter wrinkles behind the round steel spectacles, looked sad now. But he went back indoors with a firm step, put up the shutters and set a pot of coffee to heat on the charcoal stove. Then, with a sigh, he settled in his big armchair.

Papa Panov did not often read, but tonight he pulled down the big old family Bible and, slowly tracing the lines with one forefinger, he read again the Christmas story. He read how Mary and Joseph, tired by their journey to Bethlehem, found no room for them at the inn, so that Mary's little baby was born in the cowshed.

"Oh, dear, oh, dear!" exclaimed Papa Panov, "if only they had come here! I would have given them my bed and I could have covered the baby with my patchwork quilt to keep him warm."

He read on about the wise men who had come to see the baby Jesus, bringing him splendid gifts. Papa Panov's face fell. "I have no gift that I could give him," he thought sadly.

Then his face brightened. He put down the Bible, got up and stretched his long arms t the shelf high up in his little room. He took down a small, dusty box and opened it. Inside was a perfect pair of tiny leather shoes. Papa Panov smiled with satisfaction. Yes, they were as good as he had remembered- the best shoes he had ever made. "I should give him those," he decided, as he gently put them away and sat down again.

...and therein lies a tale.

Merry Christmas! (Day 8)

2012-01-01T09:00:00.000-05:00

Coptic Nativity, Budur Latif and Youssef Nassif

Christmas creeps into a soul in mourning:

The chapel is small, and in this smallness, holding Charlotte in my arms, with Lena leaning against me, I began to move into Christmas. The Sisters sang Solemn Vespers for Christmas Eve, and their high, clear voices, moving antiphonally back and forth across the chapel, contained for me the same reality I felt in the strong words of the Kaddish. Then we all gathered around the creche, the children on tiptoe to see the shepherds, the animals, Mary and Joseph and the infant in the crib, the helpless thing containing the brilliance of the galaxies and the shadow of the cross.
It was impossible, but for the moment I was the White Queen, and the loving and beautiful bodies of my grand-daughters made it possible for me to believe: they have not been created to be discarded like dross; the baby lying between the ox and the ass affirms the ultimate value of all life.

This is the irrational season
When love blooms bright and wild.
had Mary been filled with reason
There’d have been no room for the child.

--The Irrational Season, Madeleine L'Engle

Books Read, 2011

2011-12-31T19:24:00.001-05:00

Nothing to see here, move right along. This is purely for external hard drive purposes, not to make points. I think actually posting this Jan 3rd makes it safe from most eyes, and therefore slightly less self-indulgent.

Scripture
Psalms, Proverbs, The Gospels, Pauline Epistles

Ratzingers
Jesus of Nazareth 2
Light of the World

Devotional & Professional
Charles de Foucauld
In Tune with the World
Living the Catholic Faith
Lost Art of Disciple Making
Lying (well...to be honest, not quite finished yet, but mostly)
Morality The Catholic View
Weeds Among the Wheat

Women in the Days of the Cathedrals

Book Club
A Right to Be Merry
No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
My Antonia
The Privilege of Being A Woman
Vanity Fair (well...2/3 of it; couldn't bear it, ought to count double)

Just Felt Like It
1776
The Appalling Strangeness of the Mercy of God
At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances
John Adams
The Code of the Woosters
The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs
The Full Cupboard of Life
The Kalahari Typing School For Men
La's Orchestra Saves the World
Morality for Beautiful Girls

Portuguese Irregular Verbs
Tears of the Giraffe

With the Kids
Harry Potter, vols 1-7
Much Ado About Nothing

Merry Christmas! (Day 7)

2011-12-31T09:00:00.000-05:00

Franz Ittenbach, The Holy Family

Christmas in Baltimore, 1867

Christmas festivities had begun; every ten minutes or oftener a gun or a squib was fired off, giving one the idea that the war had not ended yet at Ellicott's Mills. Christmas is not properly observed unless you brew "egg-nog" for all comers; everybody calls upon everybody else; and each call is celebrated by a solemn egg-nogging. Egg-nog is made in this wise: our egg-nog was made so, and was decided after a good deal of nogging around, to be the brew in Ellicott's Mills: "Beat up the yolks of twelve eggs with powdered sugar, then beat up with them a pint of brandy, a quart of cream, and a quart of milk; lastly beat up the whites of your twelve eggs, and add them as a head and crown to your syllabub." It is made cold, and is drunk cold, and is to be commended. We had brought a store of sugar-plums, as the children all expect presents at this time. They hang up their stockings on Christmas Eve, and in the morning find them filled with goodies. At New York this is done by Criskindle (Christ kinde) and at Baltimore by Santa Claus (San Nicolas).

Henry Latham, Black & White: A Journal of Three Months' Tour in the United States