A Maoy Christmas

I belatedly discovered that the artsy genius who decorated the "Holiday Tree" inside the White House included balls that carried not only the image of a drag queen and of Obama as the fourth president on Mt. Rushmore, but of Chairman Mao.

On the tree. In the White House. At Christmas.

I quote Mark Steyn by way of comment:

If you say, “Chairman Mao? Wasn’t he the wacko who offed 70 million Chinks?”, you’ll be hounded from public life for saying the word “Chinks.” But, if you commend the murderer of those 70 million as a role model in almost any school room in the country from kindergarten to the Ivy League, it’s so entirely routine that only a crazy like Glenn Beck would be boorish enough to point it out.

Which is odd, don’t you think? Because it suggests that our present age of politically correct hypersensitivity is not just morally unserious but profoundly decadent.

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Enlightened despots

It has been puzzling to me to see the role that fabulously wealthy Westerners play in the dissolution of the West via progressive politics. Ted Turner and George Soros come to mind right away, along with all the rich of Hollywood. Why do these people, who have so benefited from Western capitalism and freedom, take such a contemptuous attitude toward it? They are far more likely to have an open ear for and use their influence to support people like Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez and movements like Hamas and the whole panoply of murderous Muslim jihadis than they are to even have a civil dialogue with their own countrymen on the right.

I am no expert on the French Revolution, but it seems to me that there are historical precedents for this in the salons of Paris which fostered the ideas of the Enlightenment. Were not many of these people aristocrats? And when the French Enlightenment issued in the French Revolution, how many of them were swept away by it?

As well, several very powerful rulers of the time --Catherine of Russia, Franz Josef of Austria, to name two-- combined an affection for the liberationist and anti-traditional writings of the philosophes with a completely traditional and monarchical devotion to their own power. "Enlightened despots" is what they are called. Mouthing the slogans of freedom, they did what tyrants always do, amassed power and wealth.

So maybe our current cultural and political masters, including the superrich, do have a historical precedent.


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What is that?

Whilst having my morning coffee and a slice of pannetone, I realize that my stomach is tight. I am not sure why.

Is it reading about the endlessly feckless and hapless response of the West to the Jihad? Is it that my guy is away for a few days and I miss him? Is it that I am likely going to be carless? Is it the attendant loss of mobility and money? Is it the work meeting coming up this morning, about which I am pretty well out of good ideas? Is it the sense of fragility and dependence that a lot of these things bring up in me?

Dunno, but the tightness is definitely there.

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Highmindedness

In the wake of the recent attempt by a Nigerian Muslim to blow up 300 of us, I hear on the news that the TSA affirms that it rejects any form of ethnic or religious profiling.

Why, pray?

PS. Ann Coulter puts it bluntly, as usual.

and PPS. Why do we not take a cue from the Israelis, who have a lot of experience with this stuff?



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Theodicy again

An old theologian friend of mine said that the question of God was not really about His existence. He felt that the existence of God was practically self-evident. The real question, he said, was this: Is He friendly?

Results so far are mixed.

I have been, and am, grateful, very, to have a chance to build a relationship with The Boyo. A major reason to decide for "friendly."

Sed contra, as Thomas Aquinas would say, there's my carma. I have terrible luck with cars. In the last 11-12 years that I have owned cars, they have been involved in a lot of accidents. Two of them were while moving, but I was neither driving nor in the car at the time. My ex was.

All the other mishaps, break-ins, thefts entire, and, most often, body damage came while the cars were sitting, parked on a local street, absent a driver.

Latest thrill. A drunk driver sideswiped my latest parked vehicle, bought used 2 years ago to replace the other one that was stolen and stripped. He also ran away from the scene. While I was waiting for the police report so I could report that to the insurance company, the battery gave out. I took it to a local garage and they had to do some extra work on the breaks and electricals to the tune of $540.

Today the insurance adjuster looked at my just-repaired vehicle's body damage and told me it was likely going to be written off as a total loss.

So I will likely lose my car, one I just threw money at, and get a check small enough to make buying another one unlikely.

A major effing inconvenience which I ascribe to the Deity, along with all my carkarma, and so here He's rates an "unfriendly."

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Only whites can be racist

or not.

One more self-destructive pattern among African-Americans.

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Unexpected laughter

I fell asleep on the couch and woke to a hagiographical TV bio of Louisa May Alcott, of Little Women fame. Feisty dame, apparently.

After she became famous and wealthy --much deserved for the incredible amount of work she did, even if not for the quality of it-- she sometimes took part in dramatic presentations for fun. They enacted her doing a piece I found laugh-out-loud funny. As I say, I was waking up from a nap and so I quote from memory and surely inaccurately. Opening the show, she declaims:

I have the honor to present the evil Lord Billious Mudd, nemesis to our heroine, Lady Bodica Battle-ax, who will achieve fame in the one occupation throughout history that has always been been open, without qualification, to women: martyrdom.

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Christmas Kitchen, before and after

The eternal struggle between chaos and order, Dionysian and Apollonian, cooking and cleaning up, played out on the mundane Christmas plane.

We had spicy shrimp, sauteed duck liver with lemon, and creamy Gorgonzola on Italian bread slices, followed by roast duckling with orange sauce, baked potatoes and yams, broccolini, along with two kinds of champagne, followed up by homemade-from-scratch Nonna's Italian Christmas cookies and Klondike bars. Oh, and a shot of Stronachi 12-year single-malt, for health.

Last night

This morning*

*Buying that portable dish washer was one of the most lifestyle enhancing things I ever did!


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Christmas Eve

Word become flesh, dwelling among us.

Puer natus est nobis
et filius datus est nobis
cujus imperium super humerum ejus
et vocabitur nomen ejus
magni consilii angelus.

A child is born for us
and a son is given to us
whose rule is upon his shoulder
and his name shall be called
angel of great counsel.

Isaiah 9.6

Acceptance, or not

A note from a friend reminded me that, back in 2007, for some reason, my mother decided that I was not homosexual.

I was incredulous. I have changed my mind, my attitudes and my behavior about a lot of things, but one thing that seems bedrock true of me is that where sex is concerned, men are concerned.
She refused to give reasons or discuss her pronouncement and I was left to wonder, "What the hell is she thinking?"

Well, it appears that things are back to how they used to be. When I was at home last month, she prefaced a comment about something else with the phrase, "As you know, I am not thrilled about your lifestyle.."

Unless she means impecunity, about which I am also not thrilled, I guess, with The Boyo so clearly in the picture, she's remembered how things are.

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