Department of Book Reports: A Christmas Carol

The following is, of course, from the climax of Stave Three, as Dickens called it, when Scrooge is abandoned by the Spirit of Christmas Present. Among my English major friends, Charles Dickens is regarded as a rank sentimentalist, and, worse, a writer who achieved popularity with the reading public of his time. At the same time, I argue that he was also one of the most acute social critics of the 19th Century, and a critic that helped transform that world for the better.

The scene below contains one of the most powerful images in English Literature. And it still holds true today.

Happy Holidays from SeattleDan and Seattle Tammy!From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment. "Oh, Man, look here! Look, look, down here!" exclaimed the Ghost. They were a boy and a girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread. Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude. "Spirit, are they yours?" Scrooge could say no more. "They are Man's," said the Spirit, looking down upon them. "And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!" cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. "Slander those who tell it ye. Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. And abide the end."
"Have they no refuge or resource?" cried Scrooge.
"Are there no prisons?" said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. "Are there no workhouses?"
The bell struck twelve.

Les Standiford has a timely book out just now, The Man Who Invented Christmas: How Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol Rescued His Career and Revived Our Holiday Spirits (Crown Publishing, $19.95) NPR has an excellent excerpt in their Indie Bookseller's Round-up.

As always, lovely books can be found at your favorite independent bookstore. Book orders can be placed 24 hours a day at Jackson Street Books.

The Bush Legacy

Click here to see it full size.

Pray for Bristol and Levi

One day before Bristol Palin's due date, the grandmother (Levi's mom, not Sarah) of her little uterine goalie was arrested for six counts of possessing and manufacturing or delivering a controlled substance. I'm sure the drug in question was an American drug like meth and not crack or anything like that, so it's not as bad as it might seem. Still, it's a reminder of how hard witches are working to destroy Sarah Palin's family.

From the Miami Herald:

A 42-year-old Wasilla woman was arrested Thursday at her home by Alaska State Troopers with a search warrant in an undercover drug investigation. Sherry L. Johnston was charged with six felony counts of misconduct involving a controlled substance.

Johnston is the mother of Levi Johnston, the Wasilla 18-year-old who received international attention in September when Gov. Sarah Palin and her husband, Todd, announced their teenage daughter was pregnant and he was the father. Bristol Palin, 18, is due on Saturday, according to a recent interview with the governor's father, Chuck Heath.

Troopers served the warrant at Johnston's home at the "conclusion of an undercover narcotics investigation," said a statement issued Thursday by the troopers as part of the normal daily summary of activity around the state.

Troopers charged Johnston with second-degree misconduct involving a controlled substance -- generally manufacturing or delivering drugs -- as well as fourth-degree misconduct involving controlled substances, or possession.

A helmet tip to commenter fred c. dobbs.

Kaye's Big Night

From my hometown paper:

PROMONTORY POINTERS
Winnie Richman
Leader Correspondent

Jim and Starr Mitchell set up their Christmas tree last week and Jim put the lights on his house. Jim was also privileged to obtain a special elk tag. He bagged it. He and Starr prepared it for storage themselves. They saved some of the beef fat from their recently killed steers and added it to the pure ground elk burger for flavor and to hold the meat together during cooking.

Orson and Jeannette Poulsen attended the Thatcher-Penrose Ward Community Christmas breakfast Saturday. After a delicious meal they drove down to Brigham City to do some Christmas shopping.

On Wednesday, Kaye Draper was asked to “call” the bingo games at the Liberty Senior Center. “I enjoy bingo anyway, but calling the numbers and letters is really fun,” she says.

On the weekend Kaye attended an apartment complex Christmas party and received a new church calling on Sunday. She is now the ward Relief Society secretary.

Make my day, Elmer

Over the years, I've spent a lot of time visiting nursing homes to witness the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It's always a lot of fun because the residents are very receptive. I never get any back talk when I tell them they're going to burn in Hell. Mostly they just start crying. That moves the saving along very quickly.

One thing I've noticed during these visits is that very few of the residents are armed. I've tried to change that by running firearms drives to get each of them a gun, but that hasn't worked out so well. A ninety-year-old woman has a hard time picking up something even as light as a Glock. There's no way she could load, aim, and shoot it.

But last week, I received news that help was on the way. You see, the FDA had decided to diversify by becoming a rubber stamp for the gun industry in addition to the drug industry. Yes, the FDA approved it's first prescription firearm to be used as a "daily activity device." That means Medicare would pay for it.

Unfortunately, my excitement was quickly extinguished. Two days later, the FDA withdrew it's approval due to a little known "mockery and laughter" provision in the Code of Federal Regulations.

That's a shame because the 9mm Constitution Arms Palm Pistol is shaped to fit even the shakiest of hands and light enough to whip out in a flash when you see that bastard, Elmer, eyeing your oatmeal.

I may still buy a few to hand out at the home, because nothing would sound sweeter than this:

This is a 9mm Constitution Arms Palm Pistol, the most senior-friendly handgun in the world. A shot with the single bullet it holds would take your head clean off. 

Now you're probably wondering, was that a shot I heard earlier or is my hearing aid acting up again. Well...do you feel lucky, Elmer...do you, punk?

Have a Clean Coal Christmas

More info.

I don't really understand this...

...but these ladies sure seem to really enjoy Christmas.

A helmet tip to Hoquiam Tammy.

Chuck Norris and the Coulter Doctrine

Chuck Norris
WorldNetDaily

Dear Mr. Norris,

I bet you're as delighted as I am to hear that the US Army is finally implementing the Coulter Doctrine ("Invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity"). No doubt you've seen the television programs about the civilian missionaries the Army embedded in Afghanistan. I get chills every time I think about those brave combat missionaries handing out Bibles every time their unit secures a village.

But I have to wonder if these particular missionaries are right for the job. I expected to see a couple of kick-butt-and-convert-your-sorry-infidel-asses Christian warrior types passing out the Bibles, but these guys seemed a bit on the wimpy side to me. I doubt they command any respect, whatsoever.

I know you're busy right now defending Christmas against Jews and unbelievers, but I'm wondering if you could take some time off and get yourself embedded as an official Army missionary over there. I'm not talking long term or anything. You just need to find the Islamunistofascist kingpin's fortress and kick the sensei's ass like you did in Way of the Dragon. No, wait, Bruce Lee kicked your ass in that. Well, hell, you know what I mean.

Heterosexually yours,

Gen JC Christian, patriot

p.s. Here's one of the shows about the embedded missionaries in case you missed it:

They're back...

All you need to know about the bank bombers:



Hmmmmm. Seems familiar (from 1996).

Three men were charged today in a series of bank robberies in which gunmen linked to a white supremacist group had used pipe bombs as diversions.

"Yahweh is my defense," one defendant, Jay Merrell, told a Federal magistrate, Judge Cynthia Imbrogno. "I'll ask for nothing in bail."

[...]

The bombers left letters with markings of the Phineas Priesthood, a shadowy white supremacist organization opposed to interracial marriage, abortion and homosexuality, among other things

Oh, but they were just good social conservatives who did it for God.

Joseph Farah denies he's a homosexual

Joseph Farah
WorldNetDaily

Dear Mr. Farah,

You began your Dec. 14th column with this statement, culled from your entry in Wikipedia:

Joseph Francis Farah is an Evangelical Christian American journalist and noted homosexual of Lebanese and Syrian heritage.

Later you countered it by calling Wikipedia a "wholesale purveyor of lies and slander unlike any other the world has ever known" and "more dangerous than crack cocaine."

OK, I'd call that a fair response considering it came from one of the few men brave enough to continuously assert that Vince Foster was murdered (presumably by Hillary Clinton and her secret brother, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, in the drawing room with a very large wooden spoon) and promote that "Clinton Body Count" list.

But still, one question remains. Were you a member of the disco group, The Village People, in the seventies? You look a heck of a lot like the one named Glenn. You might consider posting photographs of your nipples so readers could examine them for piercings. I think that'd finally put an end to all this talk about any supposed inclinations you may have toward homosexuality.

Heterosexually yours,

Gen. JC Christian, patriot


A helmet tip to reader Sheila.

Update: bob the hog points out that it is much worse than we thought:

Joseph Francis Farah is an Evangelical Christian American journalist of Lebanese and Syrian heritage[1]. He is the founder of WorldNetDaily (WND), for which he writes a daily commentary. He also enjoys chowing down on babies once in a while.

The "So What" Presidency

John Hinderaker
Powerline

Dear John,

I know you felt as proud as I felt when you saw Martha Raddatz' interview Our Glorious Leader. It's always such a pleasure to witness the kind of thinking that made America what it is at this moment. Let's take a look at the transcript, once again, so we can get goosebumps together:

President Bush: ... One of the major theaters against al Qaeda turns out to have been Iraq. This is where al Qaeda said they were going to take their stand. This is where al Qaeda was hoping to take ...

Raddatz: But not until after the U.S. invaded.

Bush: Yeah, that's right. So what? The point is that al Qaeda said they're going to take a stand.

Hell, I'll admit it. My little howitzer is at full elevation right now. It's as erect as the ol' rust will allow. How about you?

Heterosexually yours,

Gen. JC Christian, patriot

Our Leader didn't abandon the flag during the shoe onslaught

Scott Johnson
Powerline

Dear Mr. Johnson,

I know your love for the Stars and Stripes rivals only the love you have for Our Glorious Leader. No doubt, you are torn between those two great loves because of the recent shoe incident in Iraq. A quick viewing of the video certainly leaves one with the impression that the Chosen One actively dodged the shoe, thereby allowing it to strike our flag, desecrating its holy cloth with the stink of islamunistofascist footwear.

Surely, there will be those who argue that Our Wise Leader should have placed his body in the path of the shoe and taken the hit for the flag. That's what we expect the Secret Service to do for Him. It isn't asking for much to expect him to do the same for our most sacred symbol.

But a closer viewing of the video leads me to believe that he did not consciously dodge the shoe at all. In fact, he tried to intercept it with his face, but in the moment before impact, he was felled by a sudden, short-lived, alcohol-induced state of unconsciousness. Please take a look at the still photo I've included and you'll see what I mean.

So you see. Our Leader did not desert the flag in the face of an enemy shoe attack. Rather, he stood tall, or at least tried too, but was felled by one too many bottles of Night Train.
Heterosexually yours,

Gen. JC Christian, patriot

A helmet tip to Bob the Hog

Shoes Disrespected

From the White House to a Whites-Only House? George W. Bush Goes Home

_{Image © Austin Cline
Click for full-sized Image
"Festung" is German for Fortress}

Everyone should have recognized that George W. Bush's "ranch" in Crawford, Texas, was just a prop — window dressing to make him seem more folksy, down-to-earth, and of course manly. Unfortunately, many took this faux ranch at face value — just as Bush assumed ignorant Republicans would — and assumed that Bush wasn't really the spoiled, privileged rich kid. Now that he's leaving elected office without any hope of ever having power again, he's already leaving the ranch. Didn't take him long, did it? How long will it be before he sells it? He only bought it when he started running for president in 1999, so it's not like there is any reason to waste time abandoning the former pig farm.

The only thing more tragic than his having successfully used that fake ranch to fool so many people is where he's moving to now. It's unlikely that many people have heard of Preston Hollows, an upscale suburb of Dallas, and that's just the way residents want it. They like their privacy. And they like their exclusivity — something that for decades meant restricting the neighborhood to whites only. The original neighborhood association's covenant from 1956 stipulated that "property shall be used and occupied by white persons except those shall not prevent occupancy by domestic servants of different race or nationality in the employ of a tenant."

This provision wasn't revoked until decades after the era of Civil Rights — it was in full force right up to the year 2000, the year Bush first took office. Do you think he would have moved in even if the original whites-only rules were still in effect? I don't know, but he should feel right at home in Preston Hollows because he used to live in Highland Park, another high-class suburb of Dallas which also used to be whites-only. It was still whites-only when George W. Bush lived there (though not by any formal rules, as far as I know) and the first black family wasn't able to move in until 2003.

Did Bush ever object to the whites-only character of Highland Park while he lived there? Did he object to the history of harassment of black people who were just traveling through the area? Did he do anything to help make Highland Park more racially integrated? Well, I think we just have to look at the color spectrum on display at GOP events like the Republican National Convention to get an idea of the leadership George W. Bush is able to provide on racial issues. Would there ever have even been desegregation had people like Bush been leading the country during the 1950s and 1960s?

To be fair to Bush — and given how bad his situation is, he needs all the help he can get — there are a lot more former "whites only" suburbs around the nation than most people realize. You may even live in one without knowing it. Some were officially whites only, with laws kicking out all non-whites once the sun set (thus the name "sundown towns"), while others simply applied unofficial harassment and inconvenience to keep out "undesirable" elements. These undesirables included non-whites first and foremost, but could also included whites who were too poor to fit in, Jews, potential communists, and anyone else who might disturb the peaceful tranquility of middle-class, white, Protestant life.

The effects of this sort of systematic racism all over the country are difficult to underestimate — and they still influence American society even today. For one thing, it was a good way to ensure that only the "right sort" of people who wanted to flee the cities could actually do so. Blacks, Asians, Jews, and others who may have had the financial means to move to the suburbs were denied the opportunity. Dave Neiwert quotes James Loewen's book Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism:

Once they get into the NIMBY mind-set, they try to keep out any problem or "problem group," pawning off their own social problems of central cities and multiracial, multiclass inner suburbs. Consider those members of society who are dramatically downward mobile — some alcoholics and drug addicts; some Downs syndrome children; many schizophrenics; elderly people whose illness and incapacity have exhausted their resources and their relatives; employees fired when an industry downsizes and no one wants their skills. Every social class — even the most affluent — generates some of these people.

Elite sundown suburbs offer no facilities to house, treat, or comfort such people — no halfway houses for the mentally ill or ex-criminals, no residential drug treatment facilities, no public housing, often not even assisted-living complexes for the elderly or persons with disabilities. This is no accident. Elite white suburbanites don't want such facilities in their neighborhoods and have the prestige, money, and knowledge to make their objections count. "Without such homes, people with mental illnesses often wind up homeless, especially in wealthy areas," according to an AP article telling how an elite white neighborhood in Greenwich, Connecticut, blocked a halfway house for years.

When sundown suburbanites do become homeless, they simply have to leave. Most sundown suburbs do not allow homeless people to spend the night on their streets, and of course they provide no shelters for them. "In suburban jurisdictions," said Nan Roman, of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, in 2000, "there is no sense that these are our people." Community leaders worry that if their suburb provides services, that will only bring more homeless people to their town because no other suburb does. The result, nationally, is that cities provide 49% of all homeless assistance programs, suburbs 19%, and rural areas 32%. Yet suburbs have more people than cities and rural areas combined. Less affluent inner suburbs and central cities must cope with the downwardly mobile people that more affluent sundown suburbs produce, as well as with their own. These social problems burden cities twice. ...

[Thomas and Mary Edsall, in Chain Reaction] point out that the principle of self-interest explains what otherwise might seem to be an ideological contradiction: sundown suburbanites usually try to minimize expenditures by the state and federal governments, but locally they favor "increased suburban and county expenditures, guaranteeing the highest possible return to themselves on their tax dollars." The Edsalls cite Gwinnett County, Georgia, as an example. Gwinnett, east of Atlanta, is "one of the fastest growing suburban jurisdictions in the nation, heavily Republican (75.5% for Bush [senior]), affluent, and white (96.6%)." Its residents "have been willing to tax and spend on their own behalf as liberally as any Democrats." Such within-county expenditures increase the inequality between white suburbs and interracial cities. They do nothing to redress or pay for the ways that Gwinnett residents use and rely upon Atlanta and its public services.

This is the world George W. Bush came from. This is the world that made him who he is today. It's the sort of world Bush sought to create for all of America because it was the only world he knew and he thought it was good. It's also the sort of world he is returning to, a favored son who did right by his wealthy white neighbors and who therefore probably expects to be welcomed back into the fortified enclave with open arms. Maybe he will be — and they can keep him as far as I'm concerned. We should just chain the doors after they shut behind him so no more of their "favored sons" are let loose on an ignorant public again.