More "Bah! Humbug!"

If you're with me in despising "The Little Drummer Boy" and "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," listen to Fairytale of New York.

This is the version with Katie Melua, not the Kirsty MacColl version. The latter is grittier, but the former's easier to understand.

The people in the song aren't sanctimonious, and are in need of salvation.

Honest Abe?

A whingeing pom gives another perspective on Abe Lincoln.

High-level corruption in the Land of Lincoln, and this US Attorney thinks we should be surprised at that -- and Lincoln would be shocked. Oh, sure. As Captain Renault was shocked to find there was gambling going on at Rick's Café.

I am not surprised to see yet more evidence that corruption is endemic in the Land of Lincoln. I'd call it highly appropriate. But then, I've known enough about Lincoln all my life to know that the sobriquet 'Honest Abe' was originally meant as irony. Lincoln was venal and greedy, and long before he was elected president in 1860, the people of Illinois knew it.

Fair use and all that. Read the whole thing.

Vile Christmas Music

With a few exceptions ("White Christmas", "Deck the Hall", "The Twelve Days"), I dislike secular Christmas (oops, "holiday") music.

"Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree"? Yecch.

I reserve particular odium for "The Little Drummer Boy." Cloyingly sentimental, repetitively oppressive, and this years, seemingly, played everywhere.

Most carols, on the other hand, I like. Grouchy, ain't I?

Epoxylips Now?

We hear all kinds of weird and distressing news these days:

• The world financial structure continues to teeter and disintegrate, while free marketeers shovel out subsidies--but not to any company that actually makes anything.
• GM, which used to be the pillar of our economy, is teetering on the edge, begging for a direct subsidy, as opposed to the highway program's indirect subsidy. (Remember "Engine Charlie" Wilson, Secretary of Defense, who said "What's good for GM is good for the country"?)
• Bernard Madoff turns out to have been the biggest crook in world history, to the tune of fifty billion dollars! Most of the booty was swindled from his supposedly money-smart co-religionists.
  
• The Governor of Illinois was trying to peddle a Senate appointment, on the phone, while he knew he was under investigation. Well, actually, he's a run-of-the-mill Illinois crook, a piker and a nutcase.
• The US defense establishment (and even more so, its political masters) is exposed--a report came out on the hollowing-out of the military in spite of increased expenditures, another on the incompetent effort to rebuild Iraq, and a third on Washington's deliberate encouragement of torture.
• The Tribune Co., publisher of the Chicago Tribune and the Whale (the LA Times), files a bankruptcy petition. NBC gives up on drama or comedy in the 10 o'clock hour, and instead goes for five days of Jay Leno. In short, the MSM are in the tank, too.

While this goes on, I'm reading a post-apocalyptic screed-novel, World Made By Hand, which describes a post-nuclear, post-plague world where modern technology fueled by fossil fuels and electricity, has disappeared, and people have to live and make do on a local level. The author seems to like this notion.

Are the end-times here, or has history, pace Francis Fukuyama, simply resumed?

Eyesore Central

James Kunstler is an aficionado of apocalypse*. If it wasn't Y2K then, it's "peak oil" now. He's a particular critic of suburbanization, fueled as it is by cheap fuel, which he believes will soon be gone and force us into a less global, more local, and sounder way of life.

That's a kettle of fish for a later supper, however.

Today I wish to celebrate a feature of his blog, the "Eyesore of the Month." Kunstler has pretty good taste (at least he dislikes what I do), and each month he posts a photograph of something tawdry, tacky, or pretentious. He has a particular dislike for the Euro-pretentious architect Daniel Liebeskind, whose monkey I decline to touch, no matter how Euro-hip he is.

The above picture is just one of many.

__________
*The use of "apocalypse" here to mean the end of civilization is really a misnomer, or at least a case of metonymy. Apocalypsis means "revelation," not "end times" or anything like it. It happens that St. John's revelation referred, among other things, to the end times, and so the word has acquired an additional meaning.

Grave of Fireflies

Apparently I never posted about the Japanese animated film, Grave of Fireflies, by the great Miyazaki.

I'll make it short. It's a tragic film about the aftermath of American bombing of Japan in WWII, but it's also about the great love of a brother for his sister.

Heartbreaking but beautiful.

Factoid of the Day

Turkey droppings are being used as a fuel source in electric power plants. One such plant in western Minnesota provides 55 megawatts of power using 700,000 tons of dung per year. The plant began operating in 2007. Three such plants are in operation in England.

Crazy Caroline

Caroline Glick is the Chicago-born Mme. Defarge of modern Zionism. She sits and knits, and devises schemes for crimes and disasters. She's bright enough, but radioactively dangerous. Here's her latest:

With just six weeks remaining to his tenure in office, much of what Bush will leave behind him has already been determined. But there are two things he can still do that will impact greatly both the world he leaves behind and how he is judged by history: He can take action against Iran's nuclear program, and he can embrace Israel as an ally by pardoning four men who have been persecuted for assuming the alliance exists.

On the surface, these two agenda items couldn't be more disparate. By neutralizing Iran's nuclear installations Bush would save the lives of millions of people. By pardoning Jonathan Pollard, Larry Franklin, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, he would save the lives of four people.

In short, start an aggressive war for the sake of a minor and problematic ally, and free two convicted spies and two accused ones before their trial is over.

Glick does not mean to advocate increasing diplomatic efforts to prevent the nuclear armament of Iran. She craves war:

By attacking Iran's nuclear installations - or by permitting Israel to fly over Iraq to attack Iran's nuclear installations - Bush will do two things. He will bolster the US-Israel alliance. And he will demonstrate that the stability engendered by the status quo is antithetical to US interests.

Notwithstanding this crazy bloodthirstiness, Glick's fawning admirers seem to regard her as a prophetess, and her man Netanyahu is ahead in the polls these days.

The Zionist attacks on Obama were designed to force him away from any hint of evenhandedness on Middle Eastern issues. With (obliterate Iran) Hillary headed for Foggy Bottom, Glick's attitude is not simply the nattering of a crazy extremist.

A Remarkable Victory

I certainly wouldn'ta thunk it, two years ago, when Obama launched his campaign. With a mixture of skill and luck an implausibly inexperienced son of a white anthropologist and a Kenyan expat parlayed his rhetorical talent and temperament into a historic victory.

Do I share his views? Insofar as one can figure out what they are, mostly not. Will I like his appointments. Mostly not, especially judges. Do I fear a "cult of personality"? You betcha.

I do think, though, that he's a remarkable personality and his victory is historic.

What's more, he'll be a lot more pleasant to listen to than his three immediate predecessors, especially the feckless W.

UPDATE: Corrected a typo.

Madelyn Dunham, RIP

Barack Obama's grandmother has died on the eve of what will probably be his greatest triumph.

This woman was there for young Barack when his mother, father, and stepfather were not. How many grandmothers, these days, step in when the parents fail? This is the quiet heroism that keeps our society from getting much, much worse.

May her memory be eternal.

Last Pre-election Post

Although I've been following this election more closely than it deserved, I haven't posted much about it. From a political junkie's perspective, it's fascinating. No candidates for reelection, no VPs seeking to succeed to the White House. A major-party black, the first female GOP candidate--and one who evokes a great deal of feeling on both sides. The heiress-apparent bested by an eloquent but inexperienced ringer. John McCain resurrected.

On the merits, although McCain is a smarter and more attractive man than W, the GOP has forfeited any claim on higher office. McCain forfeits his claim because he has so completely drunk the neocon interventionist Kool-aid that he is a positive danger to the country and the world ("We are all Georgians"). McCain muffed his last opportunity when he went along with the disastrous bailout plan. Had he taken a populist stand there, it might have galvanized support; like many others, he allowed himself to be spooked. Anti-tax is not a substitute for wisdom and courage on the virtual socialization of the financial sector for the benefit of the rentier class. Although Sarah Palin is no student of history, I don't share the view that she was a terrible choice. She has turned out to be a political rockstar, a heroine to her supporters and a bugbear to her detractors. Anyone whom Gloria Steinem hates, after all, can't be all bad. Palin has a future.

Obama is, like McCain, an attractive personality. To the extent he's not merely a cipher, he's far to the left of the country. The one consolation is, he knows it, and is temperamentally cautious. Obama is, however, quite wrongheaded on almost every issue of consequence. His views do not even offer a contrast to the interventionism of the GOP, except that he may employ his statism to favor the ordinary folk in a few ways, more than the super-rich. Less bellicose and more cautious though he is compared to Bush and McCain, Obama seems to have a different stylistic but not strategic vision.

It is the messianism of Obama's movement that is most troubling. It has often been said that if we get dictatorship in this country it will be in the name of tolerance and inclusion. Aside from his likely majorities in both houses of Congress, there are troubling signs of a collectivist mass movement in Obamamania, and signs among his followers of a quick trigger figure for demonization and suppression of his opponents. His own impulses, one hopes, are better than that, so that even though he stands to inherit an imperial Presidency with few checks or balances, the Republic will survive even a new burst of liberalism.

I have adopted enough pessimism and enough of the Stoic worldview that I will not be disappointed. I expect nothing.

The Best, the Worst, and Bush

Nick Kristof's Sunday column has two themes: where W stands on the lists of worst American Presidents, and his notion of what changes we need in foreign policy.

Kristof thinks it's a tie between W and James Buchanan for the worst. In fact, it's probably early to evaluate W definitively, but I don't think he's the worst of the worst. My candidate for the worst is Woodrow Wilson, whose intervention in WWI was a key link in the chain to the disasters of the murderous Twentieth Century.

The best, besides Washington? Probably Calvin Coolidge. The historians traditionally give high marks to wartime Presidents, at least in victorious wars. The ones who avoided war, avoided dangerous innovations, and presided over domestic tranquility are underrated. This is not the time to revive the whole Lincoln controversy--great man or tyrant?

Kristof's other theme is his vision of internationalism. Aside from a rather naïve reverence for international organizations, including apparently the thieving UN, Kristof, like the neocons, seems to accept the notion that this country has some kind of high moral calling in world affairs, and should meddle abroad. Kristof simply wants to be nicer to other countries and more respectful of international institutions. Why not sharply reduce foreign entanglements of all kinds? It's not a question of unilateralism vs. multilateralism, but of hubristic activism versus a cautious modesty.

Stay out of other people's business, and keep our powder dry.