Want to stay alive? Don’t pull a gun on a cop. That’s about as straightforward as it gets.
Edtor’s note:
Once again as in years past, I’ve found my inbox filled with messages from longtime readers who wonder if I’m going to be re-posting “A Bithead’s Christmas”, and begging me to do so.
As I believe I’ve told you in previous years, I get more email about this one single post, these 2900 or so words, then I have about anything else written here. And it happens every single year. Either this one post is particularly good, or the rest of it is comparatively bad. You’ll forgive me if in my vanity, I believe the former. I take that they’re using Email, instead of simply leaving comments, to mean that I’ve struck a very personal and private nerve. Touching people in that fashion is a very rare thing, and one I take very seriously, so the answer to the question is “Yes, of course I’ll run it again”.
Understand going in, it may not be politically correct. I seek no absolution, no forgiveness, for it’s being overtly Christian in nature, any more than I seek absolution or forgiveness for anything else that I put into these spaces. It is what it is, because Christmas is what it is, and because I speak my mind on the topic at hand, whatever that is.
Christmas, and thereby, Christianity itself, has been going on for a little over 2000 years, in spite of all the naysayers, protesters and government regulations that history has managed to toss up in those 2000- plus years. It does so, because at the core of it all, is a message…….. a message that all the naysayers, protesters and government hacks will never understand, much less conquer. It is a message that will survive the ravages of time, government, and liberals, fascists, and anything and everything else, long after you and I are no longer even a memory in this world. The Christmas message, you see, is eternal, and ever green.
(Evergreen. I am suddenly struck with the symbolism here)
There is something of a journalistic precedent for this as well. . . I do not pretend to hold myself quite so high in the world as these media outlets who have such traditions as “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus”… but they’ve been getting away with such things for well over 100 years, so I suppose I can get away with it, here.
One of the things that man has always found fascinating about the Christmas story, is that you can reread it all your life, and every time you reread it, you find a new truth buried within it, so perhaps that’s WHY we get away with repeating such stories. It’s perhaps where such traditions come from.
So with all this in mind, and with the hope of helping you find new meaning in this season… and peace… a personal peace… in these troubled times, I will offer once again this year:
A Bithead’s Christmas
I find myself wanting to take more seriously, the challenge of writing to the subject of Christmas, today, than I have in years past. It’s not clear in my mind as to why, but this isn’t unusual… I never really do have a firm grip on why I want to attack a subject in these spaces. In fact, the writing of a coulmn for me has becomes more an effort of exploring a subject; the codification of random thoughts. The act of putting those thoughts into words on a screen allows me to think about, and RE-think about the subject at hand. My thoughts on a given subject often do not fully take shape until such time as I’ve re-written them twice. Often, indeed… usually, the ideas are already there, waiting to be cast into words, but not fully defined until the act of sitting down and typing them out. I suppose this subject is no exception.
To this effort, some blogs, this time of year will quote the great Gospels of Christ’s arrival, and expound on that. And that’s worthy, and right. Some others will take the secular angle of the holiday and go off on that. That too, is fine, though frankly it’s always for me missed the core of the topic, a little.
But not me, for either of those tacks. Not this year. I’m going to go off the beaten path, for this post, at least in context of this blog, given it’s Christmas, and off the beaten path in terms of the Liturgical calendar, given it’s me. I’m going to stick with the meaning of Christmas, but to point it up, I’m going to turn to something a little later… about 30 years later… for my subject. I trust you’ll see why when I’m done.
This story is in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. We’ll use Luke’s version for the purpose.
In Luke 18 it reads:
15 Now they were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them; and when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. 16 But Jesus called them to him, saying, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God. 17 Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”
Now, all three versions add a little something to the story, and I suggest you read them yourself to get it all.
Most times that Christians hear this text or read it, a child is being baptized. The apparently intended thrust of reading it in those situations is to make a loose connection with the Children being accepted by Christ. And, that’s a valid angle for the story. But, think about the story line, here, so you can get the flavor of what I’m going to describe to you. There’s a far bigger angle that many miss.
See, Christ has been playing “superstar” for a while, now. He’s been attracting flat out huge crowds wherever he goes. The disciples are starting to become concerned for the (human) well being of Christ. Children are, then as now, a source of some stress to adults already under stress, so the disciples decide, wordlessly to give the Lord a break. But Jesus says.. “Hey… No.. Let ’em come… It’s OK. ” Apparently, seeing some remaining resistance in their eyes, he reinforces the command with a statement that must have shaken them badly. “It’s to the likes of these as belongs the Kingdom of God.”
Now, It’s not hard for us to imagine what’s going on in the minds of the disciples…. They must have felt a little put back… While not saying so, they must have figured they had an inside track to Heaven. (Shrug) It’s human nature.
The passages don’t record if they said anything, but you just know what they’re thinking, here… “Comon, Jesus… We’re tryin’ to give you a break here! And you elevate these lowest of low, mere children, into the ownership of heaven? You raise a polite nothing to a path to heaven and eternity? What’s THAT about?”
And you know, Jesus knows it too. He knows full well what they’re thinking, because watch what he comes back with: “I’ll tell you the truth;”, he says, “Unless you change… Unless you transform, and accept the kingdom of heaven like a child, you’ll never enter it.”
But what does he mean, here? He’s talking, I’m afraid, about how you lose touch with happiness and the sense of wonder, as you become an adult. That loss prevents us from seeing the Kingdom of heaven as it is.
For most of us, the happiest times of our lives was when we were children. When we’re younger, we have less in the way of cares, and troubles. Let’s admit, too, that as we get older, we become aware of, and allow more and more sadness into our lives.
It’s true; It’s a hard world out there, and being adults we’ve come to understand this, in a way of understanding that only long exposure and experience… and lots of scar tissue, can bring.
It seems that every year we have more worries and concerns.
Oh, yeah, do we EVER worry. We worry about our health, and those concerns increase with advancing age. We worry about our jobs, about our investments, our savings, about the future in general. Retirement is a concern. Will we have enough? We’re too fat, we’re too skinny. We’re too tall, we’re too short, our once wavy hair is still waving… Only, it’s waving bye-bye. We worry about the future our kids will have and the normal growing up problems, but we also worry about the future that we’ve left our kids. We look at the news, and we wonder what kind of a world have we left them? We even worry if we worry too much.
We’ve seen marriages and relationships we thought would pass the test of time, pass away, instead. Things we had hoped would come to pass, didn’t, and those we’d not dreamed, in our wildest nightmares would happen, did. We see loved ones die. Jobs disappear. Hearts get broken.
And friends, those are just the hum-drum... The everyday worries that every generation has had, since Cain bopped his brother’s bean with a rock. Then you get into the problems particular to us and our times; AIDS, oil shortages, cancer, drugs, the way our own technology seems to be spiraling out of our control…
And Islamofacists.
Ah, yes, there’s nothing at all, to my mind, like the specter of 3000 plus people dying on national television, in Washington, NY and Pennsylvania… while we watch, to remind us that we’re not in control.
And yes…. it’s all about control, if you think on it for long. All these things I’ve listed are worries about things we cannot control, try as we might.
The list of these reverses, these scars, gets longer as the years progress, and it starts eventually, to break down the positive outlook in every one of us… Each according to their ability to resist. Each step, each worry, each bit of emotional scar tissue, if you will, moves us farther away from the relative joy of our comparatively carefree childhood.
By now the sharper among you will notice where I’m going with this; This is where Christmas comes in. This is why Christmas holds a special place in our hearts, and our traditions.
You see, even for the not-so-religious, it is a time of renewal of our fragile human spirit. All of the hurts, small and large, become less pronounced, and fade under the soft glow of the lights, the candles, the fireplace, and the smile of the children.
Have you ever noticed that it’s the children, in fact, that do us the most healing? Christmas, it’s said, is for the children. Presidential speechwriter and WSJ columnist Peggy Noonan noted recently about some of the qualities of children:
“They are susceptible to wonder. A child can look at a red toy car in the red-green glow of Christmas tree lights and imagine an entire lifetime. A child can play with a new doll and smell good things being cooked and hear sweet music and it can make that child imagine that life is good, which gives her a template for good, a category for good; it helps her know good exists. This knowledge comes in handy in life; those who do not receive it, one way or another, are sadder than those who do.”
Of course, we move away from that ability as we grow older. Our long experience has hardened us to the realities of the world around us, and perhaps jaded our point of view. But here comes Christmas, which gives us, individually and collectively, the chance of looking at the world through the wonder-filled eyes of a child once again… Becoming childlike ourselves in the process, and becoming healed and renewed.
The experience is a far deeper one for those who have accepted the Christmas promise, and it’s meaning. Reacting to that promise includes allowing someone else to run the controls of our lives. Remember I said it was all about control? Well, I want you to think about the features of being a child. It was Randall Jarrell, I think, who once quipped:
“One of the most obvious facts about grownups to a child is that they have forgotten what it is like to be a child.”
Well, let’s remember.
You’re NOT in control of much of anything. Someone who knows better, and is by far more powerful than we, is running things. And looking back, I’m sure most of us would conclude that having that situation back would be of comfort to us. Haven’t we all wished to resign from the world of adulthood at times?
I guess this would be a good place to slip in a parallel story.
Consider the fictional person of Ebeneezer Scrooge. Think about how the story develops; He’s had some serious emotional setbacks in early life… and those have become a self-feeding, never ending circle by the time we meet him, 7 years after his best friend’s death.
All these setbacks have made him cold, and hard, and for all outward appearances, non-feeling. He’s covered with emotional scar tissue. Being hard, is his way of dealing with what he cannot control. Only after his overnight experience do all these cares get swept away, along with his anger of not being able to control his situation…. The realization comes to him that he never really WAS in control in the first place, so stop fretting about it all… Think about what are essentially the first words out of his mouth as he realizes that the weight of his worries.. Not unlike worries you and I have had, are gone; “I’m as light as a feather….” The weight of that scar tissue… And all the concerns they represent having been lifted off his shoulders…
“…and as giddy as a Schoolboy!”
Like.
A.
Child.
“I’ll tell you the truth”, he said, “Unless you change.. Unless you transform, and accept the kingdom of heaven like a child, you’ll never enter it.”
Amazing parallels, aren’t they?
I’m reliably informed that Charles Dickens was not as a rule what one would call very religious. Yet, in looking at the parallels in these two story lines, I must wonder in all honesty if he didn’t have some help with “A Christmas Carol”.
Now, you’ll notice I took some liberty with the way the Biblical text was quoted. Some liberty, I say, but not very much, really, since it’s long been pointed out by Bible scholars that the word that earlier versions of the text had as ‘change’ were really translated from the ancient Greek word for “transform”. This is a major point, because it demonstrates what the first step is, and whose it is… yours.
And no, change and transformation are not the same thing. The best description I’ve ever thought of to explain the difference between the two, runs along these lines:
If I take a rock, and in the other h
and I take a large hammer, and I hit the rock with the hammer, and break it, I’ve changed that rock. If I take that same rock, and take a small hammer and chisel, and very carefully, perhaps over a period of decades, sculpt that rock into a flower, I’ve still merely changed that rock.
Transformation, on the other hand, is when the rock itself, as a matter of responding to it’s own will, becomes a flower. And of course that’s beyond the normal power of the rock, by any standard we know.
What Christ therefore is saying is, that we must become children, as of a matter of our own will. Which is, as I say, impossible by any standard we know…. Which in turn leads us to the source of all things, who teaches us how, and gives us the power to do it.
You see, the externalities I mentioned, the lights, the fire, the children…and that which Dickens writes of… the giving, the being open to what joys are around us, and so on, helps toward the goal of understanding the Christmas promise, but it’s not the whole deal.
At the core of it all… (and this is a connection that, alas, many people never make…) is that the one whose birth is being celebrated every December the 25th, is the one who takes over that long list of worries. But understand, here…THAT’S WHY WE CELEBRATE!!
With those worries removed, lives get changed, hearts mended, child-like perspectives restored in a way that the lights, carols and greenery can never do on their own. And the newly remade Children find that t
he authority and responsibility and all the ponderous weight connected with them, are taken away by the one who said “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me”.
Now, I must warn you; There are those who will resist being told all of this… to the point of removing such joy as they find, wherever they may find it, often using the power of governments, and force of arms to have it removed from town squares and schools, mocking, persecuting and yes, even killing those responsible for the spreading of the news of this miracle.
It’s a sad truth, that a world used to darkness, you see, will continually fight to see the darkness continued. That warning given, however, I will say to you also, that it’s no accident, Christmas being called the season of light, and that Christ is called the light of the world.
If I have one wish for this Christmas, it is that you will be open to the light…. With the wondering eyes of a child.
Exposing the lie based protest movement, Heather Mac Donald, City Journal:
The Big Lie of the Anti-Cop Left Turns Lethal
The real story behind the murder of two NYPD officers
Since last summer, a lie has overtaken significant parts of the country, resulting in growing mass hysteria. That lie holds that the police pose a mortal threat to black Americans—indeed that the police are the greatest threat facing black Americans today.
The ilk of Al Sharpton, Eric Holder, Bill de Blasio and Barack Obama are telling lies and now as result we have two dead police officers. More people have died as result of the regime’s lies, than did from any so-called CIA torture.
Is anyone surprised by this, at all? They’re not worried about racism, they’re looking for justification and acceptance of their criminal behavior. At the end of the day that’s what it boils down to.
I have several resolutions for the New Year. Treat myself better, is one thing. I’ve been awfully hard on my body these last couple of years on the road. And it’s time I think that I started treating myself better. I like the life that I lead, and I’d like to live in a little longer, if you please.
I’ve also resolved to start paying more attention to this website. It is absolutely shameful how long I’ve let it linger while I deal with life.
In all honesty, a lot of it is because I have been unsure what direction to take the website. I’ve decided so that it doesn’t really need a conscious choice. What it needs is input. Writing. I generally don’t have a lot of time in the day to do that, but what there is of it I will spend on this project again.
In looking back at life, I find myself attending the hackneyed old line about regrets are mostly about things that we haven’t done. That is certainly true, but in fairness it should be noted that it would be true regardless of what we did, because there isn’t time or the mechanisms to do all that we would.
I have been worried that the site and my writings in this new environment that I find myself in would not be up to the standards I have set so far. But I am reminded of a phrase that I heard a few decades ago. Don’t try to be a great man, it goes, just be a man let history decide how great you were.
So perhaps the answer here, is to just simply start writing about what I see around me and comment on some of it.
Until I get a new mechanism to input to the site, the links that I toss up aren’t going to be as copious. But maybe linking to other people’s work isn’t what I should be doing anyway. If you were looking for somebody else is writing you’d be looking at somebody else’s site.
I should note that David has been doing yeoman’s work here. I hope he understands how much I appreciate his work on this project. He’s got a berth here as long as he likes.
But it’s time I started getting the editor going a little more often.
Nork.net is down. Who knew the Norks had a working internet? From Amy Miller, Legal Insurrection:
Could it be that the United States has finally hit back against North Korea’s cyberaggression?
All 1,024 of North Korea’s Internet protocol addresses have gone dark, and internet monitors are calling the outage one of the worst network failures in years.
Aside from the possible loss of Kim Jon-dung’s child porn connection, I don’t see how this effects the Norks at all. Taking down Nork.net would be almost as pointless as taking out the Amish internet.
If this was a deliberate act of sabotage on the part of the United States, it is perfect, a man made act indistinguishable from natural causes. On the other hand, if this were meant to intimidate the Norks, it was pointless for the same reason.
Snark of the Day from Kate, Small Dead Animals:
#AlSharpton is the Fred Phelps of the Democratic Party. Which is quite an accomplishment, considering Fred Phelps was also a Democrat.
OF course, the Reverend Phelps was not employed by minor media network and serve as a white house adviser Then the Reverend Phelps specialized in poor taste. Whereas the Reverend Sharpton is a criminal, without indictment.
The Sony Hack. What to do?
Hat tip video: by William A. Jacobson, Legal Insurrection.
Dim Won and his regime has threatened a “proportional” response to the suspected North Korean, b/k/a Nork hack attack against Sony. How do you respond to a country so primitive that they have yet to invent the light bulb? Attack the Norks with a weapon so stupid that even a Nork can understand it. Send in Team America. Show Team America at the White House and in embassy. Hit the Norts with the weapon to which have have neither a defense, or a response, mockery.
H/T Iowahawa via Powerline
Barack Hussien Obama was for censorship before he was against censorship, the Snark of the Day:
“We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship here in the US.”
Hat tip: David Burge b/k/a Iowahawk via Scott Johnson, Powerline.
Snark of the Day from Greg Gutfeld:
If Obama Goes to Cuba For Golf, He Should Bring Back Cop Killer Joanne Chesimard
Hat tip: Katie Pavlich, Townhall
Is Carly Fiorina preparing to throw her bonnet into the presidential ring? From Tim Alberta, National Journal:
Carly Fiorina is laying the groundwork for what one ally says is an “imminent” presidential campaign—one that could launch as early as next month.
The former Hewlett-Packard CEO, who raised her political profile with a failed run against Sen. Barbara Boxer of California in 2010, has frequently been mentioned as a long-shot contender to seek the Republican presidential nomination. The speculation is driven by equal parts novelty and activity: Fiorina, who paid several high-profile visits to early-nominating states in 2014, acknowledged that she would likely be the only woman in the GOP field.
Granted, Fiorina has better hair and a better resume, both political and business, than Donald Trump. Unlike Trump, Fiorina knows how stay out of bankruptcy. Moreover, if Fiorina would emerge from the primaries with the nomination, which is highly unlikely, she would swamp any democrat female, be it Mr. Clinton or Ms Warren, by having a record of business success and being able to answer a direct question without throwing a cat like hissy fit.
However a winning nominee should be able to deliver her own state. Remember, if Al Gore had but carried his home state of Tennessee, what ever had happened, or not, in Florida would not have mattered. Sorry Carly.
However, I would pay cash money to see a Carly Simon – Donald Trump debate.
The Breakfast Scramble is back, for now.
Jeb Bush: Ok Jeb is in Common Core and Amnesty are not the way to the White House. Then neither is, I am not a Bush. If Donald Trump wants to be President, he needs to explain way chronic bankruptcy some how serves as a presidential qualification. As for Rand Paul, Jeb has a whole lot less explaining to set him apart from Forty One and Forty Three than Jeb has do to set him apart from his nutcase father, Ron Paul.
Junior Cuomo: Junior intends to ban fracking. Evidently he afraid that somebody in New York’s Southern Tier might get a job. Pennsylvania welcomes fracking and I don’t see a flock of refuges from PA’s Northern Tier flocking to frack free New York. Do you?
More Junior: Junior has announced four new casino in New York. They sure are doing well in Atlantic City.
Camile Cosby: Mrs. William Cosby is being asked question about her husbands alleged sexual misdeeds. Will this new standard be extended to presidential pretenders? Don’t bet on it.
Maybe, Kazuo Hirai, the CEO of Sony can explain to his share holders why he spent forty-four million dollars of share holders dollars on a movie he will not release, from Ace, Ace of Spades:
With the Guardians of Peace (aka North Korea) Now Threatening 9/11 Style Attacks on Theaters that Exhibit “The Interview,” Five Theater Chains Cancel The Film’s Showings
Is it now Hirai’s policy to give the Nork’s, and tin pot dictators, production control over his company?
Like John Forbes Kerry, Mrs. William Clinton was for extraordinary rendition before she was opposed to it.from Daily Mail (UK):
Hillary Rodham Clinton said the U.S. should never be involved in torture anywhere in the world – and also slipped an anti-police protester’s motto into her speech.
The potential presidential candidate said on Tuesday at a star-studded gala in her honor that she’s proud to have been part of an administration that ‘banned illegal renditions and brutal interrogations.’
Rendition was the practice begun under the Clinton administration, American Civil Liberties Union:
Beginning in the early 1990s and continuing to this day, the Central Intelligence Agency, together with other U.S. government agencies, has utilized an intelligence-gathering program involving the transfer of foreign nationals suspected of involvement in terrorism to detention and interrogation in countries where — in the CIA’s view — federal and international legal safeguards do not apply. Suspects are detained and interrogated either by U.S. personnel at U.S.-run detention facilities outside U.S. sovereign territory or, alternatively, are handed over to the custody of foreign agents for interrogation. In both instances, interrogation methods are employed that do not comport with federal and internationally recognized standards. This program is commonly known as “extraordinary rendition.”
The current policy traces its roots to the administration of former President Bill Clinton.
Mrs. Clinton wants to run on both her husband’s record of extraordinary rendition and the Obama regime’s termination of the Clinton program. Cute! Mrs. Clinton was for torture, if done on foreign soil by foreign nations. Now she is for torture, when done to her political logic, or lack thereof same.
Faux rape had now migrated from Duke to the University of Virginia, from Neha Gupta Westside Story:
The fraternity gang rape case happened at the University of Virginia arises a key issue, what is it, is it a culture of rape or is it a culture of responsibility? Calling the hideous crime as a culture of rape would be frightening as well as unjustified. It is a false belief system without any support from any of the groups in society. Even honest feminists will deny the existence of such a system. Accepting it as a culture implies a system that approves rape as an end in itself in the nation.
There are several social and cultural problems in the society that are responsible for putting the females in the miserable condition. It especially stands true in college campuses. However, it doesn’t justify the culture of rape. It would be more apt to call it as a culture of irresponsibility, and it can be even supported by many reasons.
Earth to Gupta, come in please. The University of Virginia fraternity gang rape story is a hoax, journalist fraud. from Glen Harlen Reynolds, Useless Toady:
Americans have been living through an enormously sensationalized college rape hoax, but as the evidence accumulates it’s becoming clear that the entire thing was just a bunch of media hype and political opportunism.
No, I’m not talking about the Rolling Stone‘s lurid and now-exploded fraternity gang-rape story. Whatever the truth behind that story, it’s now clear that basically nothing that Rolling Stone reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely told us happened, actually happened. But the hoax is much bigger than one overwrought and perhaps entirely fictional tale of campus goings-on
Nothing that Erdely reported as happened on the University of Virginia campus actually happened. There was no crime, no rape culture and no narrative. Get over it and move on.
