Nether Lands

Between the past and the future lie the Nether Lands.


My best wishes to all for a good year and many more after.
Fetch more...

Stop That Noise!

An Appreciation

So here we are at the end of another year. Yeah, Captain Obvious, that's me. But I want to take this time as I do just about every year to say thank you to the people in my life who have made this a good year in a lot of respects, all things considered.

I made it through with my health and sanity relatively unscathed, and I have my immediate family all in good condition and spirits, and we all got through 2010 with few complaints. I realize how blessed I am to have both of my parents to guide and inspire me, my brothers and sister to remind me of the oneness of family, and extended family to share joy and sorrow with.

I still have a place to work and good people and friends to work with, doing good things for the hundreds of thousands of students and teachers in Miami-Dade County Public Schools. The last couple of years have been tough for all of us with cutbacks in the budget and added responsibilities for all of us. But we made it through in good stead and I'm happy and humbled to be a part of the effort. We have had our own shares of testing times -- new software takes getting used to, as does new office space -- but we made it through, and so to all of my colleagues and friends, thanks for everything. See you Monday.

This coming August will mark the tenth anniversary of my return to Miami. It hardly seems possible, but this is the longest I've stayed in one place since I graduated from high school, surpassing the eight years I lived in Colorado. Of course, helping me feel back at home has been the friendship and companionship of Bob and the Old Professor, who are still enjoying their retirements and the joys of volunteer work. Our regular Friday nights out to dinner and the wonderful meals on occasion are a great part of my life, not to mention joy that Bob and I get out of using the OP as our straight man, so to speak. Never was there a better role model since George Burns or Margaret Dumont. And without Bob, my enthusiasm for cars and great humor would be sorely diminished.

There also the big wide world of the blogosphere out there that provides endless insight as well as maddening inanity. But it's all a part of the mix. Bark Bark Woof Woof marked seven years back in November, which, according to one commenter, makes it a paleo-blog in terms of the internet life span. This year was the most prolific (if not insightful) with over 2,100 posts; some of them even worth reading. I owe so much to so many people who have linked and promoted this little bit of the blogosphere, especially Rick at SFDB, and those who have included me in their effort: Melissa McEwan at Shakesville, Michael at The Reaction, and Kenneth Quinnell at FPC. I have become a lot better at this largely because of them.

And then, of course, there's you, dear Reader. Believe it or not, I don't do this just because I love to write. Well, I do love to write, but it would seem to be a hollow effort if I didn't think there was someone out there to read it and certainly keep me on my toes. I know the commenting system leaves something to be desired; in the two years we've been in this new format, it still has a few bugs in the system. Be that as it may, you have made this blog a joy to write, and I am always thinking of you when I sit down here in the early morning to look at the world with dry bemusement and try not to bump into the furniture on my way to the coffee maker.

So here we go into 2011. What's next?
Fetch more...

Stop That Noise!

Looking Back/Looking Forward

It's time for my annual crystal ball gazing and retrospective. A year ago I made some predictions, so let's see how I did.

On December 31, 2009, I wrote:

- Healthcare reform passes after some wrangling and compromises that make it slightly palatable to both the left and moderates; a milquetoast version of the public option will be added somehow. The Republicans are out of the picture on it except for their plan to run in the mid-year elections on a platform of repealing it, which, as Steve Benen notes, hands the Democrats their own platform: "A vote for a Republican is a vote to let insurance companies screw over American families. Know those new protections that just became law? Republicans will take them away unless you vote Democratic." The president will shift the focus back to the economy just in time to ride the inevitable upturn in the economy which will show growth by the end of the second quarter and at last a noticeable drop in the unemployment figures. That will be just in time for the mid-term election campaigns to go into full speed, and prevent more than the usual number of losses for the majority party that come in the first mid-term election of a new president. The House will stay Democratic but just barely, and the Senate will probably go 55-45 for the Democrats, making Senate rules reform, i.e. changing the filibuster rules a priority ... and a non-starter.

I'll give myself a B on that; right on healthcare passing except for the public option part, not quite right on the economy (more wishful thinking than economic wonkery) and half-right on the mid-terms outcomes, although I am pleasantly surprised that I was right about the Senate staying Democratic.

More below the fold.

- In Florida, the GOP primary race for the open U.S. Senate seat between Gov. Charlie Crist and former state House Speaker Marco Rubio will get really nasty; you can expect to see some ads put out by the teabaggers about Mr. Crist's private life coming out of the, uh, closet. I predict that Mr. Crist will narrowly win the primary and it will make the general election race close between him and Rep. Kendrick Meek with Crist narrowly winning. Alex Sink (D) will beat Bill McCollum (R) for the governor's race. I'm basing that purely on style and wishful thinking; Mr. McCollum is truly the tale from the dork side.

Okay, I blew that one completely. Wrong on the Senate race; Mr. Crist bailed on the GOP before it got nasty, turning it into a three-way, and Kendrick Meek never got off the launch pad. As for the governor's race, I don't think anyone thought Rick Scott would have a chance no matter how much money he spent. It just goes to show you that if all politics is local, it's also much more volatile at that level. It's like the difference between a flash flood and a glacier; they both change the landscape, but at different rates.

- Don't Ask Don't Tell will be repealed, not because the president pushes for it but because the Congress finally gets around to it. Marriage equality will still be an issue as the sex-obsessed homophobes and Jesus-shouters try to force it onto the ballot in other states that haven't already dealt with it. This battle will be fought in the courts; Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the federal case filed in California by Theodore Olson and David Boies on behalf of same-sex marriage, is scheduled to go to trial on January 11, 2010. No matter the outcome there, it will inevitably get to the Supreme Court, where there will probably be at least one more appointment to the court by President Obama by the time the case gets there. Meanwhile, the glacial process will go on.

Nailed it. Slam. Dunk. Yip-yah.

- It's still a scary world out there. The war in Afghanistan and the president's steps to wage it are giving me flashbacks to 1967, and, as I said earlier this year, not in a Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band way. We are, like in Vietnam, butting into a civil war in a country with a weak and corrupt government and a population that doesn't really care about abstract ideas like democracy and free elections; they want food, shelter, and peace in their valley. I hope that a year from now, the president will have the insight to get out. Terrorism will arise from every corner; this year it's Yemen, next year it's Colombia or Venezuela or North Korea or Alabama. Trying to preemptively stop terrorism is like trying to keep squirrels out of the bird feeder: no matter how well you plan or think you've got all the food safe, they still find a way to sneak in. You don't stop feeding the birds, though; you just try to keep ahead of the squirrels.

We have ended combat operations in Iraq and we're supposed to be getting out of Afghanistan starting in July. I hope so, but it doesn't look any better for the people there than it did a year ago.

- The Tigers will go all the way this year. (I say that every year.)

- There will be the usual silly distractions in the manner of balloon boys, ditzy pageant queens, celebrity melt-downs, hypocritical bluenose politicians getting busted for screwing around, and the usual hand-wringing over how technology is taking over the world and leaving no one with any privacy. That last missive will be twittered, by the way.

- I won't get all ghoulish about predicting who will leave us this year; it was tough enough to see people like Ted Kennedy, Walter Cronkite, and Robert Anderson go. I just hope we remember to cherish and honor them while they're still with us.

The Tigers broke exactly even, winning as many games as they lost. Every year brings the distractions and the ditzes out of the woodwork, and an election year brings them out as if they were on crack; everything from vuvuzelas to witchcraft, Snooki to fixing the votes on Dancing With the Stars. It's hard to go wrong on that forecast.

- Personal predictions: I will finish that novel that I've been working on since I put Small Town Boys on hiatus. Can't Live Without You will get another production, this time in a bigger theatre. It's going to be another interesting year at work but things are looking up as the SAP rises. This year will be my 20th trip to the William Inge Theatre Festival in April, and this year will be the best yet...until next year. I will not get an iPhone, a Twitter account, or even text messaging on my cell phone. I will still be driving the same car this time next year, and the Pontiac will still be in the garage, an orphan but still loved.

I am, if nothing else, predictable myself. I'm still writing that Great American Novel, and I'm still sending out Can't Live Without You to anyone who hints that they'll read it. Work has been interesting; we moved to a new office, said goodbye to some friends and made some new ones, and found out how temperamental a certain brand of software can be. I will be back at the Inge Festival in April to honor Marsha Norman. I do not have an iPhone, Twitter, or texting. I am still driving my Mustang, and the Pontiac is still in the garage. Some things never change.

And now, to boldy go into 2011, splitting infinitives all the way.

- If you thought 2010 was the year of gridlock, Hell No You Can't, and strange pronouncements from political characters and punditry, that was only the curtain raiser. With the House in the hands of the far-right and the Tea Party unmoved and unimpressed with reality, we're going to be constantly entertained, horrified, disgusted, and gob-smacked. Speaker of the House John Boehner will be dealing with a group of people who resemble a classroom full of sugared-up eight-year-olds. All the attempts to repeal every bill passed by a Democratic president since 1960 will energize the base only to have them ground to a fine powder and blown away by the Senate or a veto pen. There will be heroic, if not Pyrrhic, attempts to cut spending and bring down the deficit, but the crazies are driving the bus and as long as they do, it's going to look more like a pie fight than civil discourse. The DREAM Act will not pass; Republicans need someone to beat up on, and immigrants, like Muslims, are easy pickings since they know that they'll never vote for the GOP. Meanwhile, they'll keep up the kinderspiel of doing things like reading the Constitution while constantly trying to subvert it and re-write it, especially when they get to the part about "equal rights under the law." Of course they believe in that... as long as you're white, straight, and Christian. There will be hundreds of subpoenas issued by House committees to investigate everything in the Obama White House, up to and including the bidding process for the swing set built for the Obama children. If you want to make a fortune in this economy, graduate law school in January, pass the bar exam, and move to Washington.

- The economy will continue to improve, albeit slowly. That's how they do it; they go in cycles, and especially after this last Great Recession, there will be a lot of changes, just as there was after every economic downturn. A year from now the unemployment number will be around 8%, which is still high, but on the track to be lower by the time the 2012 election comes around.

- Of course Sarah Palin will announce she's running for president. We've known that since the day after the 2008 election. Her competition will include Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, and just for the fun of it, John Bolton. A year from now, we'll be weeks away from the Iowa caucuses. President Obama will not have a serious primary challenger. The "professional left" is a pale shadow of a threat compared to the hard-core on the right; when they form a circular firing squad, they usually end up winging it.

- We're going to see more progress on gay equality, but at about the same pace as this year. Court cases challenging the Defense of Marriage Act will make it to the federal level, and Perry vs. Schwarzenegger will be appealed to the Supreme Court no matter the outcome of the current appeal, and it should land on the steps in Washington in time for the 2012 term. By then, perhaps, Antonin Scalia will be retired and living in Sicily. Based on the make-up of the House and Senate, you can forget about passing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA).

- Florida politics will be fun to watch. Gov. Rick Scott will get a lot of stuff through the legislature since they're all Republicans, but it will be interesting to see what he does with the economy since it's the only thing bigger than his personal wealth. At some point even he and the legislature will figure out that cutting taxes and services will hit the wall, and even Republicans send their kids to public schools and take prescription medicines. I give it until June before some kind of scandal about cronyism and questionable dealings hits the state; it's in their DNA. And in Miami-Dade politics, it would be an event if there wasn't a scandal, threats of recalls, and some people doing the Miranda macarena.

- Another perennial favorite: This will be the year that Cuba will see some big changes, through the passing of one or more of the Castro brothers and the de facto relaxation of the U.S. embargo to the point that by next year, Cuba will be like Vietnam; nominally Communist but practically capitalist. (I've been saying that privately since 1989, though.)

- As for the distractions and trendy trends, who knows? Who could have predicted the oil spill -- well, actually, it was kind of inevitable -- or the Chilean miners, or whatever fads came and went so quickly that you're left wondering "why did we even care?" But each year is made up of thousands of fifteen minutes, and Andy Warhol was right, everyone gets theirs.

- Personal predictions... the same, I hope, as last year: I will keep writing, I will continue to go to Inge and to Stratford, I'll still be driving the Mustang, the Pontiac will still be in the garage. If I upgrade my technology, it will be to get a Samsung 42" flat screen HDTV, assuming I can come up with the money for it.

- And of course, the usual prediction: One year from now I'll write a post just like this one, look back at this one, and think, "Gee, that was dumb." Or not.
Fetch more...

Stop That Noise!

Short Takes

A secret mission secured two bombs' worth of nuclear material from the Ukraine.

The West and Midwest are getting pounded by snow, wind, and rain again.

Today's Number: 90. That's the number of games UConn's womens' basketball team won in a row before losing last night to Stanford.

A huge part of Australia is a flood zone.

Finally: Lisa Murkowski has been certified as the winner in the Alaska senate race.

Miami-Dade police hope no one gets all fired up for New Year's.
Fetch more...

Stop That Noise!

Friday Blogaround

The last blogaround for 2010. Get'em while they're hot.

- A Blog Around The Clock promotes a guest post at SciAm: habitable planets.
- All Facts and Opinions: happy holidays!
- archy knows where Santa comes from.
- Bark Bark Woof Woof wonders why there is such a thing as a gay conservative.
- Bloggg: Happy H-Ollie days.
- Dohiyi Mir: Sam's real first Christmas.
- Echidne Of The Snakes: suspended sentence for the Scott sisters...with a price.
- Florida Progressive Coalition Blog with the week's political posts from around the state.
- The Invisible Library: die or evolve.
- Left Is Right: bits of the week.
- Pen-Elayne on the Web used the blizzard to catch up on some reading.
- Rook's Rant goes for the rescue.
- rubber hose: iraq says getthehellout.
- Scrutiny Hooligans on Glenn Greenwald vs. the press.
- The Yellow Something Something: it had to be moonglow.
- WTF Is It Now?? - holiday cookies!

Here's to auld lang syne.
Fetch more...

Stop That Noise!

Friday Catblogging Classic

Happy New Year's Eve.

"As soon as that little bird pops out, I'm pouncing."
Fetch more...

Stop That Noise!

A Little Night Music

Kodachrome film passed into history today.


Fetch more...

Stop That Noise!

Reading The Numbers

If you pay attention to such things as TV ratings, they're in for 2010 and the cable networks. As Fox will be quick to tell you, they did very well.

But there's a little more to it than just Fox drawing more viewers than CNN and MSNBC combined. It's who was watching them.

MSNBC beat CNN for the second straight year among viewers 25-54, and for the first time beat CNN among total primetime viewers as well. The numbers for CNN are truly abysmal, not only compared to Fox and MSNBC, but compared to its own numbers of a year ago. Total primetime viewers of CNN fell by 34 percent compared to 2009.

However, Fox viewership fell as well, declining 7 percent in primetime and 8 percent among primetime viewers in the 25-54 demographic. And to put things in some perspective, "The O'Reilly Factor" drew an average of 3.2 million viewers a night. That makes him the king of cable news talk, but well behind network news shows. With roughly 1 percent of America watching, his numbers also put him well behind cable competitors such as his show's spiritual cousin, World Wrestling Entertainment, and Spongebob Squarepants on Nickelodeon, both of which often pull 5 million or more viewers.

In addition, "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart and "The Colbert Report" with Stephen Colbert both regularly outdraw O'Reilly among the younger demographic sought by advertisers. In fact, it's striking how old the O'Reilly audience skews (3.2 million average audience, just 781,000 of them between 25 and 54.)

It's the last paragraph that should get the attention of the people both at the networks and at the ad agencies. Drawing an older audience is not what they're looking for in the cold cruel world of Mad Men. The money is in the 18-24 and especially in the 25-54 age groups. That's the group that is starting to earn a living -- assuming they have a job -- and buy cars, houses, baby stuff, kid stuff, lots of groceries for growing households, and once you break off the family demographics and get into the young singles with influence on the market trends, you really want to sell them everything from cars to Chivas Regal. The O'Reilly crowd still has money, but they're not spending their paychecks on luxuries; they're thinking health care and related items (i.e. Viagra) and saving money, not spending it on iTunes or PlayStation.

Related to that is the trend where covering the news and talking about politics is becoming interesting to a younger audience thanks to shows like Real Time with Bill Maher and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. And as Guy Adams in The Independent notes, that is beginning to make itself known.

It's difficult to say whether Stewart now has as much clout on the left of America's political spectrum as polemicists such as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck boast on the right. But he certainly reaches a sexier demographic. While the average viewer of Fox News is in his seventh decade, fans of Comedy Central, The Daily Show's cable channel, are mostly under 40.

Online, viewers are younger still. And that's where Stewart comes into his own: his rapier wit and command of high and low culture might have been custom-designed for the internet. So he gets a relatively modest 1.3 million viewers, in a nation of over 300 million, on TV, but internet viewers magnify his reach exponentially.

Not only is Stewart's left-leaning take on current affairs easily digested into YouTube-length clips, it is also perfect fodder for influential websites such as Gawker and the Huffington Post, which stream those clips almost daily. In effect, this has made him the Crown Prince of gotcha journalism, 2.0.

Mr. Stewart's impact was felt with his "Rally to Restore Sanity" in Washington in October, and most recently for his work in helping to get the James Zadorga Act, a bill to provide healthcare for 9/11 first responders, passed by Congress. Through his show, including his December 16th episode that devoted the full broadcast to the subject, he pointed out the hypocrisy of the Republicans who had claimed the events of September 11, 2001 as their own and labeled anyone who dared question the patriotism of the brave men and women who risked their lives as traitors, only to have them filibuster the bill to pay for the healthcare of the first responders who are now suffering long-term and, in many cases, terminal illnesses from their work at the site.

So where does this leave Stewart? In the short term, it gives him a minor PR problem, since he has always maintained, against all available evidence, that he has no political clout, and should not therefore be described as a journalist. He even told the placard-wielding hordes at his rally in October that it was "not a political event in any way, shape or form".

Now, of course, Stewart's influence has been laid bare for all to see. After almost 11 years at The Daily Show, he must face the consequences of exerting that influence, good and bad. He may be a professional funnyman but he also now carries a burden of responsibility.

"Jon Stewart isn't just a comedian. Even though he styles himself as such, and keeps telling everyone 'I'm not a politician', he's overtly political in a lot of what he does," says James Rainey, a media commentator for The Los Angeles Times. "It's now obvious to everybody that he has a lot of power and some very bright people behind him."

I think that's giving Mr. Stewart more credit than he himself would accept. The 9/11 bill was not controversial. It should have passed both houses of Congress unanimously, and in any other political climate, it would have done so within a day of its introduction. The amount of the bill's cost is a rounding error in the entire U.S. budget, and it was fully paid for. However, we're dealing with the current GOP who is in the thrall of the Tea Party, and therefore it takes on all the sanity of the characters of Wonderland where Yes is No and Up is Down and heroes of the worst terrorist attack in American history become leeches looking for a government hand-out. That is what inspired Jon Stewart to take up the cause: were not for people dying, it would be hilarious, and it was the Republicans who fought it that made it so. They asked for this and Mr. Stewart, ever the gentleman, accommodated their wishes. Had the Democrats engaged in such stupidity, he would have done the same to them. Indeed, he's been as rough on the Obama administration as he has on the Republicans. It may just seem like he's gone light on them, but that's just because when it comes to making complete jackasses of themselves, the numbers don't lie: The Republicans and their associates such as the Tea Party and Glenn Beck have done far better at that than anyone else.

HT to Steve Benen and CLW.
Fetch more...

Stop That Noise!

Jon Swift Memorial Roundup 2010

The blogging community lost a good friend and brilliant writer in 2010; Al Weisel, who wrote as Jon Swift, died suddenly last spring. One of his legacies, though, was his championing of smaller blogs such as this little effort, and he and skippy also promoted Blogroll Amnesty Day where he would go out of his way to promote blogs that didn't get 10,000 hits a day.

To honor his memory and to keep up his tradition of promoting other bloggers, Batocchio of Vagabond Scholar sent out a request for those of us who had participated in Jon's work to send in links to what we thought were our best posts of the year. He has now posted that list, and when you look down it, you'll find some of the best writing out there by some of the best bloggers in the business. For some strange reason, he included my selection as well.

Thank you, Batocchio, for keeping Al's memory and good works alive.
Fetch more...

Stop That Noise!

More Tales from the Culture of Victimhood

Gary Bauer, who even when he's happy comes across as a whiny brat, has a piece entitled "If Christians Were Treated Like Muslims", and then details how all the liberal elites -- which apparently is anyone who doesn't agree with his views of morality and sanctimony -- treat Christians as if they were second class citizens and let Muslims get away with everything.

If Christianity were treated like Islam, if an evangelical Christian committed an evil act in the name of his faith, he would be portrayed in the media as a deviation from, not a personification of, the Gospel message. Meanwhile, our political and media elites would hasten to assure the public that evangelical Christianity is a religion of peace and that the vast majority of evangelical Christians do not support terrorism.

If Christianity were treated like Islam in America, our president, a professed Christian, would proudly attend Christian-themed dinners and events while skipping Ramadan dinners, not vice versa. And Muslim politicians would go out of their way to assure people that their faith would not affect their policy-making.

If Christianity were treated like Islam, Christmas and Easter would be publicly celebrated for what they are — the signature events of Christianity, marking the birth and the death and Resurrection of Christ — not stripped of all their theological meaning and transformed into secular holidays devoted to crass consumerism.

[...]

Sadly, Christians will never be treated like Muslims by America's elites. Why? Because Christianity can be attacked without fear of retribution. The Christian response to insult and attack -- "to turn the other cheek" -- contradicts the knee-jerk call to violence of many Islamists.

It's also because left-wing elites and radical Islamists are united in the common cause of upending the Judeo-Christian culture and roots of American society.

You can almost hear him stamping his feet and holding his breath until he turns blue.

If, as Mr. Bauer contends, the Muslims were truly treated with kid gloves here in America, no one would object to building a community center near Ground Zero or even notice it. They wouldn't be harassed for wearing their clothing the way they see fit any more than the Amish would about their hats or the Jewish men their yarmulkes. A Muslim could get on an airplane and read his Koran without getting any more attention than the little old lady from Miami who runs through her rosary before take-off. And if Christians were treated like Muslims, bigots would get on Fox News and demand that building permits for the next evangelical megachurch be banned until we're sure that not all the members are planning to blow up the nearby Planned Parenthood Office or get assurances from the membership and clergy that they're not going to demonstrate at a soldier's funeral with signs that read "God Hates Fags."

Mr. Bauer does not represent all Christians by any stretch of his imagination. There are plenty of Christians who find his brand of holier-than-thou religion to be just as elitist and radical as the people he claims are out to destroy Christianity in America. Those Christians are out to call bullshit on him and his band of ignorant tight-asses who profess their faith by shaming and scorning others, and he has no more right to claim to speak for the Christians in America than I claim to speak for the Quakers or the agnostics or the Pastafarians.

Mr. Bauer and his gang have done far more damage to Christianity in America than all the left-wing elites and radical Islamists ever could.

HT to Rick at SFDB for the picture.
Fetch more...

Stop That Noise!

Cousin Fred

Alfred Kahn, who was the man who oversaw the deregulation of the airlines in the 1970's and served as an adviser to President Jimmy Carter, died earlier this week at his home in Ithaca, New York. He was 93.

He was also family; his wife, Mary, who survives him, is my father's cousin. In April 1979, I used that connection to get an interview with Fred, as he was known, when I was invited to the White House on one of those out-of-town news director jaunts that the Carter administration did. I spent the morning in briefings in the Old Executive Office Building, then at lunch I was escorted up to his office where I was introduced to him for the first time.

He greeted me as if he'd known me all my life. He asked about my father and our family and related stories about other family members, including my grandparents and my Aunt Emily, who was the family's most outspoken liberal (at the time). Me, the eager and awed news director from a tiny station in northern lower Michigan, got out my Realistic cassette deck and taped an interview with the Carter administration's leading advocate for deregulation and inflation fighting, asking tame questions and getting energetic responses. In no time, it seemed, I had run out of questions, and turned off the tape recorder. That's when he started to ask me about how life was in the rural parts of Michigan, where the economic downturn and inflation were really hitting. I told him that we were hanging on, and I remember him shaking his head and saying that just hanging on wasn't good enough.

We then turned the conversation to my studies in theatre. He was pleased to learn that I had a degree in playwriting and asked if I'd written anything he'd heard of. He also told me of his love of Gilbert and Sullivan and that he'd appeared in several productions. I confessed that 19th century British comic operetta was not something I knew a lot about, and he teased me about that: how could someone with an advanced degree in theatre not be able to recite all the words to "I am the very model of a modern major general"?

Alfred Kahn may be remembered by a lot of people as the man who changed the airline industry for good or for ill; to this day there are those who believe that deregulation was a ticket to corporate excess and a detriment to the traveling public, and those who saw it was an example of free enterprise long overdue, like the breakup of the phone company. But he was also a man who cared deeply about getting the nation back on its feet at a tough time, and a warm and generous family man. I hold him and his family in my thoughts.
Fetch more...

Stop That Noise!

Feds Probe Christine O'Donnell's Campaign Spending

Via the Washington Post:

Failed U.S. Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell denied Thursday that she had inappropriately used any campaign funds, defending herself a day after the disclosure of a criminal investigation into her spending.

The Delaware Republican appeared on several network morning shows after it was revealed that federal authorities have launched the probe to determine whether she broke the law by using campaign money to pay personal expenses.

"There's been no impermissible use of campaign funds whatsover, O'Donnell told ABC's "Good Morning America."

O'Donnell, the tea party favorite who scored a surprise primary victory this year only to lose badly in the November general election, suggested the accusations were being driven by her political opponents on the right and left, including Vice President Joe Biden.

"You have to look at this whole thug politic tactic for what it is," she said Thursday.

Well, at least she didn't call it a "witch hunt." [rimshot]
Fetch more...

Stop That Noise!

Short Takes

A roadside bomb has killed at least ten civilians in Afghanistan.

Terror suspects appeared in court in Denmark to face charges on plotting to attack the offices of a newspaper that published satirical cartoons.

As the East Coast recovers from the big blizzard, the West is getting slammed with rain and snow.

Moshe Katsav, the former president of Israel has been convicted of rape.

R.I.P. Dr. Billy Taylor, 89, jazz legend and entertainer.

What if they held a meeting in Miami to schedule a recall election and no one showed up?
Fetch more...

Stop That Noise!

Out and Out

Contrary to the stereotype of conservatives all being a collection of cranky white people reeking of patriarchy and privilege, they do come in all shapes and strains. There are African-American conservatives, Hispanic conservatives, conservative women who consider themselves to be feminists, and even young hipsters who listen to the latest hip-hop and are cool with the idea of tax cuts for the rich. But there's apparently one place where they draw the line: you can't be gay and be conservative.

Two of the nation's premier moral issues organizations, the Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America, are refusing to attend the Conservative Political Action Conference in February because a homosexual activist group, GOProud, has been invited.

"We've been very involved in CPAC for over a decade and have managed a couple of popular sessions. However, we will no longer be involved with CPAC because of the organization's financial mismanagement and movement away from conservative principles," said Tom McClusky, senior vice president for FRCAction.

As Steve Benen notes, perhaps they're afraid of gay cooties and that's why they're acting like a middle-school clique. But what I find more interesting is why there is such a thing as a group of gay people who are conservative in the first place.

Not all conservatives are anti-gay, of course; many of them supported the end of Don't Ask Don't Tell and there are a number of them, Theodore Olson most notably, who support the idea of marriage equality. But they are in the minority, and, ironically, it is those who are the most ardent followers of a philosophy that preaches "love thy neighbor" and "let all come unto me" who are the most vitriolic in their hatred.

Of course, people have a right to follow whatever political conviction they believe in regardless of their sexual orientation. But given the history of gay rights in this country and that it is the conservatives who have done everything they possibly can to demonize, criminalize, and even propose that people should be designated as unworthy of citizenship because of their sexual orientation, it boggles the mind that anyone who is openly gay would align themselves with the conservative movement. Lower taxes doesn't really mean a whole lot when your taxes go to pay for things you can't participate in such as filing joint returns or, as is the case in Florida, supporting the adoption of children by gays or lesbians. "Smaller government and more freedom" rings hollow when you're talking about banning gay teachers from the classroom or taking your movement to Uganda where just being gay would become a crime punishable by death.

It says something about the odd priorities of those who would put their political beliefs ahead of their own rights as full participants in citizenship. To turn the Groucho Marx quote on its head, why would anyone want to belong to a group that doesn't want to have you as a member?
Fetch more...

Stop That Noise!

They'll Take Manhattan

According to the right-wing media, in addition to the fact that Barack Obama is a secret Muslim intent on turning this country into a shariah-bound Islamic holy land, he's going to use his status as an honorary member of the Crow tribe to give America "back to the Indians." (Not, as my friend Vikram is quick to point out, the Indians from India, but the people we call "Indians" who were here when the Europeans arrived.)

The outrage began after the President announced on December 16 that the U.S. would reverse course and support the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. The Declaration was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 2007, but the U.S., under President Bush, opposed it.

"The aspirations it affirms -- including the respect for the institutions and rich cultures of Native peoples -- are ones we must always seek to fulfill," the President said of the Declaration at White House Tribal Nations Conference where he announced the reversal. He went on to describe efforts to improve health care, education, and unemployment rates in tribal areas.

"While the declaration is not legally binding, it carries considerable moral and political force," the State Department wrote of the Declaration, "and complements the President's ongoing efforts to address historical inequities faced by indigenous communities in the United States."

Of course the righties took umbrage at this symbolic move that carries no weight of law.

Last week, the "Director of Issues Analysis" for the Christian conservative American Family Association, Brian Fischer [sic], wrote a blog post claiming that "President Obama wants to give the entire land mass of the United States of America back to the Indians. He wants Indian tribes to be our new overlords."

Mr. Fischer is referring to the language in the declaration that says that "Indigenous peoples have the right to the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired," and "States shall give legal recognition and protection to these lands, territories and resources. Such recognition shall be conducted with due respect to the customs, traditions and land tenure systems of the indigenous peoples concerned." In other words, the declaration suggests that we live up to the treaties we signed with numerous native American tribes and communities and then tore up while the ink was still wet. But since it has no force of law, it's just another photo op in the Oval Office and therefore just another reason for the right wingers to send out a fund-raising letter.

Well, if the righties want to get all worked up, they're going to have to go back in time some 86 years and take it out on another president who started all this sucking up to the native Americans in the first place. That would be Calvin Coolidge, who signed the Indian Citizenship Act in 1924 that granted them full citizenship in America, filling in a loophole in the Fourteenth Amendment, and also maintained their rights to tribal property and treaties. In honor of the occasion, Mr. Coolidge donned a war bonnet (see picture).

By the way, if the American Family Association wants to make sure that there is no chance that we turn the country back to the First Nations, perhaps we ought to rid ourselves of any remnants of native influence. We could start by renaming all the states and locations that have native-connected names, like Massachusetts, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Mississippi, Michigan, Ohio...
Fetch more...

Stop That Noise!

Short Takes

Still stuck: airports and airlines are still dealing with the aftermath of the big blizzard.

A warehouse fire in New Orleans killed eight people.

It was exploding bullets, not hairspray, that caused a bomb scare at Miami International Airport.

A ski lift accident injured eight people in Maine.

A judge in Alaska has cleared the way to put an end to the Senate race.

Hugo Chavez dares the U.S. to cut ties with Venezuela.
Fetch more...

Stop That Noise!

Buy The Book?

Alex Pareene at Salon explores the mystery of why George W. Bush's book Decision Points is selling so well.

According to Crown Publishing Group, George W. Bush's lightly plagiarized memoir "Decision Points" has already sold more than 2 million copies -- counting e-books -- since it went on sale in November. That's a lot! As Glynnis MacNicol points out, that's almost as much as Bill Clinton's book has sold since it was released six years ago.

But ... why? Clinton left office with good approval ratings and was largely remembered fondly, especially as the Bush years dragged to their depressing end. Bill's also smart and articulate, and his administration's scandals tended to be more personal in nature than Bush's. In addition to being an awful communicator, Bush is famously reticent to reflect on his decisions, and in his book he's obviously relying on other people's written accounts of his presidency, which is ... a bit odd, to say the least.

Well, there could be any number of reasons, including everything from the publisher exaggerating sales, bulk orders by conservative groups to give away as prizes at indoctrination sessions rallies, gag gifts from conservatives for their liberal friends ("Oh, you shouldn't have..."), to people really wanting to know what the hell was going on inside the mastermind of the worst presidency since Warren G. Harding.

Actually, I think it's because with every purchase you get a free box of Crayolas for added coloring fun.
Fetch more...

Stop That Noise!

Snowfall

Via my friend Petoskey John:

December 2010 Blizzard Timelapse from Michael Black on Vimeo.

This is what it was like when I lived in northern lower Michigan. There, six inches of snow was considered a heavy frost.
Fetch more...

Stop That Noise!

Random Irony

I was standing in the movie line yesterday behind someone who looked as if they had spent a great deal of money on their appearance to look young: hair, face, skin, and so on... and yet they bought a discounted senior citizen's ticket.
Fetch more...

Stop That Noise!

All Wet

Despite the fact that the majority of just about everybody thinks that the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell is a good thing, there is still a small group of people who are so freaked out by the idea of gay and straight men showering together. Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness is one of them.

Showers are "huge issue," Donnelly said. "To pretend that throwing up a few shower curtains solves the problem is tantamount, again, to saying, well women should share close quarters with men, we'll throw up a few shower curtains and that will take care of it."

"I don't know about the gyms where you go or most people go, but the gyms that I've seen have a sign inside the door, and the door says inside the women's locker room 'no boys of any age are allowed.' Now there's a reason for that," Donnelley said. "It in no way is a negative reflection on anybody, it is just a sign of respect for modesty in sexual manners."

"Knowingly, you don't expose yourself to somebody who might be sexually attracted to you. Does it happen unknowingly? Sure," Donnelly said. "It's something that again, when you introduce an element of sexuality in an environment that previously did not have that, that is problematic. There will be consequences from that, because people are normal, they're humans, they're sensitive to that."

Ms. Donnelly is clearly someone who has issues far beyond military readiness; her ideas of what goes on in communal showers comes right out of Starship Troopers. She's also not impressed with the argument put forth by Rep. Barney Frank, but it's not because he's right -- gay and straight men have been showering together in the military for as long as there have been militaries and showers. She attacks him for something else entirely, proving that if you can't refute the argument, go for the "Squirrel!"

What is really repellent about groups like CMR isn't just their homophobia; you have to take that as a given. It's that they think soldiers can be trained to fight a war but might not be able to control themselves in a shower. That's not exactly what I'd call supporting the troops.
Fetch more...

Stop That Noise!

Film Review -- The King's Speech

I won't keep you in suspense. The King's Speech is one of the best films I've seen in a very long time. Colin Firth as Bertie, the stammering Duke of York who became King George VI and overcame his speech impediment, is heartbreakingly good, as is Geoffrey Rush who plays Lionel Logue, his speech therapist who is unimpressed with his royal patient's pedigree but clearly fond and supportive of his friend. Helena Bonham Carter is delightful and charming as the young Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mother) who reaches out to find Mr. Logue to help her husband overcome his disability.

There is much more, though, to this story than just a man learning how to speak in public. The family dynamics of an overbearing father who also happens to be King George V (Michael Gambon) and a feckless older brother (Guy Pearce) who treats his duties as the heir to the throne as a way to get laid all play out like all good dramas involving families and the clash of personalities and ambition. It's clear that Bertie's stammer is a result of growing up terrified by his father, bullied by his brother, and dismissed by his mother (Claire Bloom), damaged and intimidated to the point that he cannot bear to hear himself speak. The therapy that Lionel Logue gives him isn't the physical and vocal techniques that help him speak; it's the simple act of friendship and trust.
Fetch more...

Stop That Noise!

Short Takes

The snow may have stopped, but there's still the travel delays in the Northeast.

It's still cold this morning in Florida, too.

Fourteen people were killed in another bombing in Iraq.

The richest man in Russia has been convicted of embezzlement.

Iran has executed an alleged Israeli spy.

The U.S. embassy in London was on arrested terror suspects' hit list.
Fetch more...

Stop That Noise!

Stepping Outside of the Box

The New York Times wonders...

Did the bill pledging federal funds for the health care of 9/11 responders become law in the waning hours of the 111th Congress only because a comedian took it up as a personal cause?

And does that make that comedian, Jon Stewart — despite all his protestations that what he does has nothing to do with journalism — the modern-day equivalent of Edward R. Murrow?

It's interesting that since Mr. Stewart is not alone in being a media personality with an agenda -- vide Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh -- it was Mr. Stewart who was able to at least make some headway with getting the 9/11 First Responders bill passed, as opposed to the others who carried on against the other bills that got passed such as healthcare, the stimulus, Wall Street reform, Don't Ask Don't Tell, and a lot of other causes.

Mr. Stewart would be the last person to compare himself to the man who helped bring an end to the reign of Joseph McCarthy. Comedians and journalists have roles in our society and they're not supposed to step over the line. Comics can mock us, but they can't take up a cause. Journalists can report, but they must be objective. Granted, Mr. Murrow had a lot more to lose than Mr. Stewart; supporting the 9/11 bill and shaming the people who were holding it up was not a controversial stand as opposed to coming out against a demagogue at the height of his power in 1954. But the one thing both men have in common is that they took up a cause on behalf of the weak against the powerful. That is essentially the role of both comedy and investigative journalism: to make us aware of the injustices and exploitations of the powerful.

Edward R. Murrow once said that television can illuminate and educate, but unless the people watching it are willing to learn from what they see, it is merely "wires and lights in a box." And in his own way, Jon Stewart is saying the same thing.
Fetch more...

Stop That Noise!

Good Works

Via Balloon Juice, former President Jimmy Carter is still hard at work for good causes.

News came this week that he is on the verge of eradicating the horrible Guinea Worm disease. This is a parasite driven disease where water fleas—carrying guinea worm larvae—enter the body in contaminated drinking water. The larvae penetrate the walls of the small intestine and breed. The male dies and the pregnant female grows to a 3 foot worm that travels through the body to emerge out of a boil on the legs or arms. Once the boil comes in contact with water thousands of new larvae are released, the worm dies and the cycle begins anew.

Or at least it used to begin anew until Jimmy Carter decided to take the worm out.

Back in 1950 more than 50 million cases of the disease were reported each year. This was not a hard disease to prevent as straining water through a simple cloth filter keeps the parasites out of the drinking water. The key is to educate people about how to protect themselves and their drinking water.

When Jimmy Carter began his effort to take out this disease back in 1986 education efforts had reduced the number of reported cases down to 3.5 million. These were in the 20 Countries where education efforts were difficult to do because of remoteness, poverty and war. By 2009 Carter had reduced the list down to 3,200 cases in 4 Countries. And it looks like in 2010 the number will be below 1,700 cases in Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali and Sudan.

Jimmy Carter hopes to live to see the day when this horrible disease is basically eradicated through education and hard work.

It used to be that when a president finished his term, he basically vanished from sight to live out the rest of his life in quiet retirement, and with few exceptions -- notably Herbert Hoover who helped President Truman rebuild Europe after World War II -- they were never heard from again. But Mr. Carter's work since he left the White House nearly thirty years ago has been remarkable in the areas of peace, human rights, and ending suffering in war-torn areas. In some ways, he has accomplished more after his presidency than he did when he was in office. And he's also set the standard for what a president can do once he leaves office.
Fetch more...

Stop That Noise!

Talk About Courage

I won't spoil your post-holiday torpor by pointing out in detail that Ross Douthat lectures Democrats and Republicans about being courageous in the coming year and thinks that passing the 9/11 First Responders healthcare bill and repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell during the lame-duck session of Congress was "conspicuously yellow-bellied" because true bipartisanship will only be achieved when Democrats and Republicans make tough choices about the economy. Then we will "return to normalcy." ("Normalcy" is one of those words that got into the language the same way "refudiate" did; it was a malapropism by President Warren G. Harding, a noted incompetent. It is both fitting and ironic that it has become a watchword for conservatives.)

Here's an idea for a holiday party: let's lock Mr. Douthat in a small room with a group of gay soldiers who just got their equality back and let them explain it to him what being a "yellow-belly" is. And then let the 9/11 first responders come to his rescue.
Fetch more...

Stop That Noise!

Short Takes

Oh, the weather outside is frightful... The Northeast is getting slammed by a blizzard, and it's cold in South Florida, too.

If you're in Florida and planning to fly somewhere else, check with your airline.

Joe Miller won't challenge the certification of Sen. Lisa Murkowski's re-election in Alaska.

New York Times: "A deadly group of Taliban fighters in Afghanistan has not conducted a complex large-scale attack in Kabul for seven months, as American-led commandos have escalated raids."

A Cuban spy in prison in the U.S. acknowledges that Cuba shot down American planes in international airspace.

Call it even: FIU beat Toledo in the Pizza Bowl while the Detroit Lions beat the Dolphins.
Fetch more...

Stop That Noise!

Sunday Reading

The Middle Class on the Silver Screen -- New York Times film critic A.O. Scott looks at how the economy is reflected in what we see at the cineplex.

The characters in, let’s say, a typical romantic comedy or family drama are blander, better-looking reflections of what the members of the audience are imagined to imagine themselves to be: hard workers and eager shoppers, neither greedy nor needy. Those airbrushed mirror images draw from a common well of (reasonable) aspirations and (mild) anxieties. The people on screen are ambitious but not obsessively so, educated but not snobbish about it. Mostly they want to be happy, and we want them to be happy because we want to be happy too.

Right at the moment, though, we may be feeling a little grumpy, and otherwise inoffensive movies (“How do You Know,” for instance, or “Love and Other Drugs”) can look more clueless than playful in their genial assumptions of material comfort and financial security. More than that, the cheery, harmonious universalism that Hollywood has promoted and relied upon for so long seems out of tune with the surrounding cacophony. And lo and behold, the screen suddenly bristles with something that looks like class consciousness.

Mark Zuckerberg in “The Social Network” takes on the ultra-privileged Winklevoss twins. The real-life Micky Ward in “The Fighter” takes on the world and his own family, just like the fictitious protagonists of “Winter’s Bone” and “The Town.” Denzel Washington, a heroic working stiff in “Unstoppable,” takes on a mighty train (and the corporate fat cats more concerned with the bottom line than with public safety). A howl of anti-Wall Street rage sounds through Charles Ferguson’s documentary “Inside Job” and, more bombastically if less coherently, through Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.” To the barricades!

But — if I may sloganize further — which side are you on? There is no doubt that in the past year, through seasons of economic malaise and political anger, there has seemed to be a lot more division than consensus in American life. And this friction is often articulated and analyzed in what sounds like the language of class. Not in the old European (or, God forbid, socialist) sense of the word. The history of the world might be, as Karl Marx said, the history of class struggle but the history of American exceptionalism insists otherwise. So we have instead, at this moment in history, a culture war, a battle between populism and elitism, a sectional conflict between the coasts and the heartland and ideological dispute between liberals and conservatives.

More below the fold.

Goodbye, Charlie -- The one term of Florida governor Charlie Crist comes to an end next week with a sigh.

He rode a wave of optimism into office four years ago, but Gov. Charlie Crist leaves behind a very different Florida when his term expires next week.

Crist himself has changed, too. Long stripped of his once-sky high popularity and no longer a Republican, he departs as a failed United States Senate candidate with his political career finished for now, his future uncertain.

As Florida's 44th governor, Crist goes down in history as the first who could have sought reelection and didn't, an option since 1968 when the constitution was amended to allow a second term.

He chose instead to pursue ambition over a long-term policy agenda, with devastating personal consequences. As a result, his record has an unfinished feel.

Crist cites the economic downturn that steadily worsened during his four years in office as the defining moment.

''It was a very difficult time to govern,'' Crist said as he flew over North Florida on the state aircraft recently. ''But it's also a great joy to try to steer the ship of state in turbulent water. It was bouncy. It was rough.''

It's still rough.

Foreclosures and bank failures still plague the state, and the economic impact of the Gulf oil spill is not yet fully realized.

The unemployment rate of nearly 12 percent is more than three times as high as it was when Crist took office, and above the national average. Crist will soon join the ranks of the jobless, but with extensive connections and a law degree, he won't be out of work long.

No single accomplishment of Crist's shines above others.

The self-styled ``people's governor'' will largely be remembered for style more than substance, for making the capital a more civil place and for treating others with respect and dignity, except for the insurance and power companies that Crist bashed regularly with populist abandon.

Radio Waves -- Joe Cardona remembers the life and times of Neil Rogers, a legendary Miami broadcaster.

In the spring of the bicentennial year (1976, for the history challenged), a radio host from Rochester, N.Y., hit the Miami airwaves on WKAT-AM and not only went on to set the radio dial on fire. More important, he branded South Florida humor and political discourse over the ensuing 30 years. While the myth of Howard Stern was spreading through syndication, Neil Rogers berated, shamed and entertained a brigade of ''Neilies'' (as his loyal listeners were known) to become the most significant talk radio icon this town has ever seen.

Neil Rogers' long-standing reign over Miami's radio ratings war ended the summer of 2009 as he left WQAM, where he had spent the last 12 years of his career. Recently, ''Uncle Neil,'' as he was affectionately known by his fans, returned to South Florida after suffering a stroke and heart attack in Toronto, where he was living. The news from a statement prepared by his attorney and friend, Norm Kent, was that Neil was suffering from ``progressive vascular dementia.''

Rogers died Friday morning at Florida Medical Center in Broward County of congestive heart failure, Kent said.

In an ironic sense, given that Rogers so often put his agnostic schtick on gleeful display, this is an appropriate time to celebrate one of radio's most biting, irreverent, insightful minds.

I discovered Rogers some time in the mid-1980s while in college. What immediately caught my attention was his clever irreverence. His quips were razor sharp, and his dramatic pauses while reacting to a disagreeable caller revealed unique comedic timing.

As prickly as Neil was when I first heard him, he had an uncanny way of making his show accessible to a cross-section of people. Young or old, white or black, Latino or not, Neil was going to ridicule you and yet at the same time make you feel like a part of the milieu -- an accomplice to his tirades. While most hosts desperately tried to mask their shortcomings with phony, dulcet, broadcaster voices, Neil was belching, coughing and eating on the air. It was honest and sincere. He was self-deprecating and shamelessly insecure. and by openly discussing and exposing his neuroses, he made us all feel like we weren't completely out of our minds.

Doonesbury -- Prithee hark, milord.
Fetch more...

Stop That Noise!

Merry Christmas

Let there be peace on earth
And let it begin with me
Let there be peace on earth
The peace that was meant to be

From my family to yours...

(From 1953 - I'm the kid sitting on my grandmother's lap.)

And from my house to yours.


Fetch more...

Stop That Noise!

A Quaker Christmas Story

Candles in the Window
by Chuck Fager

Abram Woodhouse was late, and he knew it. But even so, as the daylight faded he climbed the path up Castleberg hill on the north edge of Settle. From the hilltop, on a bright clear day, he could see from Settle southwest to Pendle Hill, where George Fox had his vision of a great people to be gathered; and to the westward rose the whitewashed limestone crags of Pen-y-Ghent. He wanted to look down and see the village all lit up.

But the sun was down and a cold winter fog was rolling in dark and low over the slopes of the Yorkshire Dales. By the time Abram reached the top, huffing and puffing, snow had begun to fall, and about all he could see were the tops of some leafless trees and the mist made by his rapid breathing.

He stopped there for a moment to catch his breath. Looking north, he couldn't see the sheep he knew were out there on the rock-strewn hillsides, huddling against the cold under their thick, matted coats of fleece. Peering over the rocky ledge down toward the village, he thought he could make out a faint flicker here and there, but it could have been just his imagination.

Too bad, he thought. He had hoped to see Settle sparkling in the dark like the queen's necklace on a black velvet cushion, with candles in practically every window. Every window, that is, but the ones in the Woodhouse bakery and pastry Shop, and at their house on Lancaster Street.

The Bakery! The thought reminded Abram that he was late. He snatched up his pie basket and scrambled quickly down the path, back to the village and a long evening's work.

Christmas Eve, so called by the world's people, was always a frantically busy time at the bakery. While the Woodhouse family, being Quakers, did not observe Christmas as a special day, almost all their customers did. That meant orders for dozens more pies than usual, plus hundreds of tarts and ginger cakes, and scores of extra loaves of their rich, thick bread.

So all the week before, the whole Woodhouse family were in the shop almost round the clock, mixing dough, sprinkling sugar and cinnamon, spooning out the cherry preserves, and tending the fire under the big brick ovens.

Abram did all of this, and more: he was often sent out with a basket full of pies or tarts for delivery to the better customers: beef and mincemeat pies to old Tilbury at the Golden Lion Pub beyond the square; or down the cobbles of South Street, through the narrow passage of the Ginnett and past the sturdy old Meetinghouse, with scones for the Blackburns and buns for the widow Kilburn. Sometimes he crossed the river Ribble to Giggleswick, where the vicar doted on Mother's ginger cakes.

This evening he had been sent to the pub, where Tilbury wanted three more pies for his last round of customers, and it was from there that he had turned to climb the hill.

Abram wouldn't have thought of it, especially in the cold, except for the candles--two in a window in every house and shop.

"What are they for, this time?" he had asked Father that morning.

"It's a double illumination," Father said, "for victories past and victories prayed for. George Cockburn's troops burning Washington, DC is the victory past, and Wellington beating Napoleon before the end of 1815 is what they're praying for."

"That's a fine thing to pray for, in what's supposed to be a Christian country," his grandmother had snorted. Laying down her rolling pin, Gran had wiped sweat from her brow. "All it means is more dead soldiers, penniless widows and hungry orphans, from Paris to New York. Love thine enemies, indeed. A terrible, sinful waste."

She sighed and picked up her rolling pin. With swift, expert strokes she flattened a thick lump of dough into delicate pie crusts.

"In Philadelphia," she went on, hefting the rolling pin for emphasis, "there were dozens of pitiful beggars, one-legged and one-eyed, left over from their glorious revolution, twenty- five years later. Saw 'em with my own eyes, y'know. No need for it, I say. War is a sin, I say. And not just I, but the blessed--"

The bell over the door had tinkled just then, and Mrs. Lamb entered, seeking some bread. Gran had stopped in midsentence at its jingle. This was Quaker talk, and not for customers' ears, especially not this year.

But such talk had always interested Abram; and he never tired of hearing about Gran's travels in the ministry to America. It seemed as if she had seen everything there, from William Penn's great Quaker city to the terrible slavemarkets of Baltimore and Richmond. And she had gone there all alone, back in 1805.

To be sure, a woman traveling all that way unaccompanied had been somewhat irregular, even for Friends. But when Sarah Haygarth, who was to go with her, came down with smallpox a week before their ship sailed, Gran told the elders straight out that she still felt called to go. They had given her a traveling certificate, she insisted, and she was not going to return it until it had the signatures of Friends in America on it.

And that had been that. Gran was not someone to be trifled with. Not then, and not now.

In fact, it was Gran's gruffness which was about to come in very handy for Abram. Hurrying around a corner of the square, he ran smack into a larger boy running the other direction, looking back as he came.

Abram, his broadbrimmed hat and his basket all went sprawling. The larger boy recoiled, then seemed to recognize Abram. "Bloody Quaker!" he shouted, and kicked Abram as he tried to regain his footing. "Cowards, all of you! Bet you'd like to see Napoleon and Andy Jackson killing British soldiers, wouldn't ya?"

Abram dodged the next kick and managed to get up. "Who's thee?" he asked, backing away. "What does thee want?"

"I want all traitors and Quakers out of England!" the boy cried. He threw a rock at Abram, which missed. "Go to Philadelphia, or someplace where your sort is welcome. We hate cowards and traitors, and we hate you!"

The boy raised his fists and stepped menacingly toward Abram, who was backed up against the wall of a house. There's no place to run, he thought, so I may as well stand my ground. "Who's thee calling a coward?" he said, and raised his fists.

But then a hooded figure carrying a long stick loomed around the corner. "Here, now, what's this?" a voice said curtly.

Abram recognized Gran's commanding, husky tones. But the other boy, eyeing her staff cautiously, edged away from him, right up under a window in which two candles were burning. In their glow Abram got a good look at him: curly red hair and a freckled face, with one front tooth missing. His chin was wrapped in a gray muffler; his coat was ragged and patched.

"Go along now," Gran commanded him. She tapped her staff significantly on the stone walk.

The boy turned and ran. "Bloody Quakers!" he spat again over his shoulder. "All your windows will be broken tonight! You'll see!"

Gran watched him disappear around a corner, and then said, more quietly, "Is thee hurt, lad?" Abram shook his head, and picked up his basket and hat. He was a little ashamed that she had discovered him preparing to fight. One leg ached where it had been kicked. But it would get better.

"Well, then," Gran said, "let's get on to 'shop now. Thy father was worryin' about thee."

Abram limped a little as they walked through the square and he explained about his detour up the hill. Gran understood that; Castleberg was one of her favorite places too. But Abram was bothered by the boy's words. "Gran," he said anxiously, "hadn't we better tell Father, so he can get the shutters closed? We don't want anymore broken windows."

Gran nodded. "We'll tell him," she said. "But I've a feeling we may be a bit too late."

And so they were. At the shop, Father was sweeping up shards of glass from the walk in front. Behind him, inside the shop, mother and his sister Sarah were brushing off the display shelf. No one seemed very upset. Abram was not much surprised either; after all, they were used to it, in a way. The nights of illumination were called to celebrate British battle victories. If your window didn't have a candle in it on such nights, you risked having it broken by ragamuffins.

Even so, the elders of Settle Meeting had made it clear: the Quaker Peace Testimony forbade joining in illuminations or any other celebrations of carnal warfare, come what may. And the Woodhouse family kept to the testimony as best they could.

"Did thee see who did it?" Abram asked.

"Caught a glimpse of him running off," Father said. "Redheaded lad. Ragged. No one I knew."

Of course, thought Abram. The boy who kicked me! Anger flashed over him. Next time I see him, he told himself grimly, I will thrash him good, Peace Testimony or no.

Mother was shaking her head at Gran. "Well," she said, "I expect it's a good thing we've a standing order with Cobbold's glaziers. They'll be here day after tomorrow with a new window. I think we Friends have been keeping Cobbold in business through this war."

"How many does this make?" Gran asked. "Five times, or is it six?"

"Six," Father answered through the empty window frame. "It's been a long war." He clumped the big shutters closed over the opening and came through the door to bolt them from inside. "We'll just have to leave them shut til Barney gets here." He surveyed the shop and his family. "I think that's about cleaned up," he said. "So we better get back to work, eh?"

Mother nodded, and put away the brooms. Then she and Sarah returned to their tarts. Abram was sent to bring in a big sack of flour, then feed the fire and stoke it with air from the bellows, to be ready for Gran's next batch of pies. Well-stoked, the oven fire kept them all warm despite the broken window.

Coming back from the wood bin with another armload of logs, he heard Gran whispering to Mother. "Did thee notice, Martha, there was a black bow on the candles in Margaret Newhouse's window? It must be her boy Jack. He was off to New Orleans with the Yorkshire dragoons."

Mother shook her head. "The poor lad." she murmured. "God have mercy on his soul."

"And hers, too," Gran added, more loudly. "What'll she do now, I wonder, with four other children and her husband gone too?" Then more softly, almost to herself, she said, "another one for my pie list, I reckon."

Abram added the logs to the fire, and pumped the bellows. Then he wrapped up some orders for delivery that night. The vicar was laying in a double batch of ginger cakes, to get him through the holiday. Abram put the parcel on the counter by the back door, next to a stack of pies.

The pile of goodies made him feel envious of the lavish worldly celebrations of which they were to be part. Candy, gifts, parties, bright decorations--he had seen all these, if only for moments at a time, when making his deliveries.

Of course, the holiday would not go completely unnoticed by the Woodhouse family. The shop would be closed--there was no business that day anyway--and they always had a big dinner, with special desserts. Then father would read the Nativity story from his big old Bible, wire spectacles balanced shakily on his nose. But that would be about all. "For Friends," Gran had explained to him and his sister long ago, "Christ lives within, y'know, and Christmas should be every day."

Abram could see her point, but he still yearned for some of the gaiety and gifts other households had. For that matter, it seemed that Gran herself did not keep entirely to this stern plain testimony. For each year since he had been old enough to work in the shop, Abram had noticed her preparing special parcels of pies and tarts and bread, which she set aside from the other orders. And when he awoke on Christmas morning, she was always gone, never appearing until almost dinnertime, then coming in red-faced from the chill. She never explained where she had been; but next day at the shop, the special parcels would be gone.

Staring at the stack of well-wrapped pies, Abram suddenly understood where Gran had been all those Christmas mornings: Her parcels must be meant for some of the poor families of Settle. And as soon as he realized this, he felt a strong urge, almost a need, to join her on her rounds tomorrow. He turned toward her, bent over a counter flecked with flour.

Listening to his request, Gran looked up thoughfully from the dough she was kneading. "If thee really wants to, Abram, thee may come," she said quietly. "But think about it awhile before thee decides. I start well before dawn, and thee needn't spoil thy rest on a quiet morning. Tell me before thee turns in tonight."

Abram nodded, but he already knew what he would say. If he had to get up early, he would just go to bed sooner, that's all.

It did not turn out to be quite that simple, though. The Woodhouse home was built of solid stone, and all its windows were covered by strong shutters, pulled tight against rocks and bricks on nights of illumination. Even so, Abram was jerked awake twice by the sound of bottles crashing against the outer wall, accompanied by muffled curses.

After the second time, he lay awake, blinking in the darkness, for a long time. He remembered the redheaded boy, wondered if it was him, and felt again his anger at the attacks. He wasn't sure, when he heard Gran's quiet knock at his door, whether he had been back to sleep at all.

She saw him yawning, and whispered, "Thee still needn't come. Stay and go back to bed." He shook his head, and shrugged his way into his warmest clothes.

Heavily muffled, they slipped out into the darkness of Lancaster Street, each carrying a large basket laden with their treasure. Gran led the way, and even using her walking staff, she seemed to glide down the streets, sure-footed, as if hardly touching the ground. Abram, more than half a century younger, was hard-pressed to keep up with her.

The work was simple enough. On High Street Gran stopped at a doorway, and leaned a parcel against it at an angle, so it would stay put. She worked as silently as a thief. Around the next corner, another doorway. By the time they had worked their way to Tilbury Close, around the corner from the shop, their baskets were almost empty. Producing a key from her heavy skirts, Gran let them into the bakery, where in the dim glow from the banked coals beneath the oven Abram could make out another stack of parcels beside the door.

As they loaded up, Abram whispered a question that had been nagging at his mind: "Gran, how does thee know where to go?"

She shrugged, and whispered back. "Women know," she said. "The Women's Meeting keeps track, we hear things in the shop. And," she paused significantly, "I just remember which windows have black ribbons. Come along now." She pulled the door shut behind them.

There were some windows where candles still burned, flickering in low misshapen stumps of wax, but mostly Settle was dark. As they crossed the empty square, with its row of shops in the Shambles, Abram glanced up and saw that the sky had cleared. He could make out a sprinkle of stars between the dark shapes of the buildings.

They were headed up the steep side streets beyond the square now, where the houses were smaller and becoming shabby. It seemed that Gran was laying parcels more often here, and soon their baskets were almost empty again. Then she stopped by an alley, and gestured to Abram.

"Here," she said, handing him a big parcel, "thee can take this one. Past the third house on the left there's a gate, and a tiny cottage set back a few yards. Step quietly now."

Abram eagerly took the parcel, and she followed him down the alley. He found the gate, but stumbled on a cobblestone as he reached for it. The gate creaked as he pushed it back. He couldn't see the cottage at first, then spotted a glow. Moving toward it, he tripped over a milkpail and almost lost his balance as the metal rolled and clattered.

Frightened at the noise, Abram straightened up and took a few more paces toward the cottage. He was almost at the door, stooping to lay the parcel, when it was jerked open abruptly.

"Who's there?" a frightened voice demanded. A figure stood in the doorway holding a lantern in one hand and a club raised in the other.

At the rush of light and sound, Abram stumbled backward, and tripped again over the milk pail, which had rolled up behind him. Losing his balance, he flailed his arms out to keep from falling, flinging away his heavy parcel. The figure in the doorway, equally startled, reflexively dropped the club and caught the package one-handed.

Thoroughly rattled now, Abram rolled to his feet and darted to the gate. There he glanced back toward the cottage, then started to run again--right into Gran's muffled form.

She caught hold of him and held him a moment, until he got over his panic. As he clung to her he suddenly realized she was stifling giggles.

"My heavens, lad," she said, "don't thee remember what the saviour said? 'When thou givest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand is doing.' I'm afraid thee needs some practice in that, Abram. Come along now."

Back out of the alley, Gran turned away from the village, up the steep street again, then plunged suddenly through a low gate onto what Abram knew was the path up the side of Castleberg. "Is there someone up here too?'' he whispered, but she shook her head and kept climbing. She knew this path as well as the rest of the town, even in the dark, and kept ahead of him despite her age.

At the crest of the hill she stepped to the ledge where the village lay visible below. The predawn air was clear now. Settle's few remaining lights blinked up at them, and a glimmer wavered on the slow current of the Ribble.

The night sky was a much more impressive display, moonless and glittering with stars from horizon to horizon. Behind him Abram heard the faint baaing of sheep, somewhere on the dales. It was cold up here, but beautiful. He realized that he had hardly felt the cold til now.

Gran broke into his thoughts. "Did thee recognize anyone at the cottage, Abram?" she asked.

He thought back. It all happened so fast. But wait--in the lamplight, just for a split-second, he thought he had seen a face--he drew in his breath sharply. "Gran!" he exclaimed. "It was the boy who kicked me. His hair, his tooth--they were the same."

He felt rather than saw her nod. "Aye," she said, "and he recognized thee, too. But what about the cottage, now? Did thee notice anything about it, lad?"

He thought back again. There hadn't been much light until the door opened, just a glow from--from what? Then he knew: "Candles," he said. "In the window."

"Aye," she said again. "And did thee see what was on the candlestick?"

He frowned in thought, then shook his head.

"A black ribbon," she said quietly. "It's his father. Killed in Flanders two months ago."

He considered this in silence, watching his breath turn into mist and starting to shiver, until Gran said, "We'd best get back. There's still a dozen more stops to make yet. The war has been long, lad, and in the world's eyes Christmas is short. Though I think thee knows better."

He followed her quietly down the path, through the empty streets and across the square, toward the shuttered shop. The candles will be burning again tonight, Abram thought, and the redheaded lad might be out too, looking to throw his rocks.

But perhaps not. Abram realized that his anger at the boy was gone. If he met him again, he wouldn't feel a need to fight. And he could hope that, if the lad had recognized him at the cottage, maybe some of his anger would begin to cool, too. Maybe they could have peace on earth, at least between the two of them, here in Settle, at least for now.

The elders of Settle Meeting wouldn't let him put a candle in the window even for that small victory, he thought. But when the tapers were lit at home for dinner, he would remember. That would be his Quaker illumination for this Christmas. It might not be much as the world measured such things. But it would do.
Fetch more...

Stop That Noise!

A Little Night Music

Mary and the gang work on Christmas Eve.


Fetch more...

Stop That Noise!

Question of the Day

Stockings, holly, trees, poles, latkes...

What is the one family holiday tradition you still carry on? It can be any holiday -- Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, Solstice -- that you celebrate.

For me, see below.
Fetch more...

Stop That Noise!

The Sense of Christmas

My folks sent me a lovely wreath for the front door made from cut evergreens, and every time I open the door I get a powerful sense-memory of Christmas as a child.

We had a house with tall ceilings so we always got a Christmas tree that was at least ten feet tall - maybe taller. (It could have been less, but when you're six or seven, it looks a lot taller.) We had tons of decorations from our family history; gingerbread decorations held together with fine wire, bubble lights that never seemed to work right, and hundreds of ornaments. We always had a debate about tinsel - I hated it, my sister wanted it. Guess who won that one. Every year we put the tree in a different room - one year in the living room, the next in the front parlor, and then in the bay window in the dining room.

That was not the extent of the decorating by any means. While my family was not particularly religious, we went all out for the season in the decor mode that would have made Martha Stewart get out of the business. This was a tradition carried on from both of my parent's families; my father tells how his father was a meticulous hanger of the old-fashioned lead tinsel, and my mother's family did it up to the heights of giddiness that included the tree and presents magically appearing overnight on Christmas Eve. So we had a legacy to live up to. Lights on the front porch were interwoven in the cedar roping that looped down from the eaves. There was more roping on the banister going up the front stairs, tied on with red ribbons, and roping again around the big mirror in the front hall. Candles in Christmas candelabra filled the house with the scent of candle smoke, merging with the evergreens, and on Christmas Eve, when the big roast was in the oven for the dinner with Aunt Margaret, the house was awash with homey aromas.

We had an old-fashioned hi-fi system with speakers throughout the first floor of the house, and as we put up the tree and the roping - usually the weekend before Christmas - we would dig out the Christmas LP's. The perennial was the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's Joy To the World that began with "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming." That would be followed by the Bing Crosby Merry Christmas album and anything else we had in the rack.

We had two fireplaces in the house, including one in the kitchen, so that's where we hung our stockings with care. Christmas morning would arrive and the four kids would line up, youngest first, on the back stairs, squirming with anticipation until we were let into the kitchen and a breakfast of Christmas baked treats, including a Scandanavian stollen baked by a family friend. (Never one who liked things like that, I often wished the stollen would be stolen....) Then we'd line up at the appropriate closed door behind which lay the treasure. Nearly fainting with the anticipation, the door would be flung open - a four-voiced gasp of breath, followed by pounding feet and squeals of delight. We took turns, shredding the wrapping, opening the boxes, reading the tags - "From Mom and Dad," "From Santa," "From Grammie." My mother kept a list of who got what from whom so that the thank-you notes could be written. There was always one Big Present for each kid - a bicycle, skis, a train set, a kitten - and lots of books and clothes, too. And each child was sure to give his sibling something, usually something oddly appropriate; like lavender bath beads from me to my sister.

When it was all over, the trash can was filled with the wrappings, the loot taken upstairs, and new clothes tried on. I would pore through the new books until I was nagged to get dressed to go to Christmas dinner somewhere else - with cross-town relatives or the Carranor Club - and the streets would be empty as we piled into the station wagon. We'd come home in the cold and dark, tired from all the excitement, ready to come down from the sugar-spiked high. The next day we'd pack up for our annual skiing trip to Boyne Mountain in Michigan, complete with its own set of sense memories.

These traditions were carried on as we each grew up and started our own families, adding our own touches; Allen and I merged some of each to come up with our own for fifteen years, including the tree (artificial, though - he's allergic to pine) and music. (I've got the Bing Crosby CD on as I write this.) My sister has passed it on to her children, and my younger brother, with his three kids, carries on much as we did when we were young.

So while there may not be a whole lot of religion in any of it, there's the strength of the ties of family and love that surpasses any denominational definition. It is a common thread that binds us all together whether we say "Happy Holidays," "Merry Christmas," "Felice Navidad" (which I immediately corrupted to "Fleas On Your Dad"), "Happy Hannukah," or "Good Kwanzaa." It's the sense of togetherness and hope that can be spread regardless of whether or not you celebrate the birth of the son of God, and the thankfulness that you feel that you have made it through yet another year and look forward to making the next one better.

Originally posted on December 24, 2004
Fetch more...

Stop That Noise!