We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
My son Jason is at a conference in Berlin. He visited Sachsenhausen concentration camp, about 20-miles from Berlin. The camp was the admin HQ for the Nazi camps, training site for SS to run the camps, and where methods of murder were experimented with before arriving at the efficiency of gas chambers. It was later used by the KGB and East German communist regime for ongoing oppression. The memorial to the crematorium:
My son is a sunny southern California boy. The 3-degree Celsius (37-degree Fahrenheit) and stiff wind was uncomfortable, and it not yet the height of winter. Imagine the suffering of inmates from the cold, hunger, torture, death labor: tens of thousands dead, including political prisoners, Soviet and then German troops.
The FBI knew the Russia thing was a Clinton opposition hoax. Sen Hawley notes that the true 2016 collusion was between the Clinton campaign and the FBI. Russians don't scare me, but the FBI does. Russia is a pathetic place.
I don't think people should have strident opinions about trivialities. Children have strident opinions about trivialities.
Men don't. Men are supposed to be wise enough to know which things are trifling, and which things deserve their concern, and express themselves accordingly.
If it's important, you say something.
If it's not important, you practice the most ancient of all manly arts, the Manly Art of Shutting the F*** Up Once in a While and Giving Your C***slappers a Rest.
The Afghanistan fiasco reads like a systematic failure of leadership. The people in charge did not know what they were doing. They did not know what victory would look like. They did not set the agenda and define the policy. As a result, every junior officer and every junior bureaucrat could project his or her own priorities.
“We are deeply concerned that so many basic and fundamental errors were made by three separate, hand-picked investigative teams; on one of the most sensitive FBI investigations; after the matter had been briefed to the highest levels within the FBI; even though the information sought through use of FISA authority related so closely to an ongoing presidential campaign; and even though those involved with the investigation knew that their actions were likely to be subjected to close scrutiny. We believe this circumstance reflects a failure not just by those who prepared the FISA applications, but also by the managers and supervisors in the [investigation’s] chain of command, including FBI senior officials who were briefed as the investigation progressed.”
I hear you asking about my other favorite contemporary novelists. OK, Mark Helprin and Cormac McCarthy, not including beach books with snappy, wacky, sociopathic dialog like Carl Hiassen.
They do not need it and they are not on food stamps, but it's fun to do. You get to see what birds are around in wintertime, and you get to try to figure out how to defeat the greedy squirrels. It adds vitality to your winter garden, same as butterfly plants do in summertime.
Lots of Saturnalian and also northern European pagan aspects to this season around this part of the world. It's a multicultural festival season.
- Cocktail parties, lots of them. Saturnalian, but on a civilized level. Time to look great and behave well. Get hair done and dig out that tux for the fancy ones. Gotta show up or people will forget that you exist.
- Excesses of foods and hors d'oevres. Saturnalian. Control oneself.
- Random reckless holiday drunken sex. Saturnalian. Sounds exciting, but I have not seen this yet around my neighborhood, so no worries.
- Decorated evergreen trees. Ain't they purty? Pagan German/Scandinavian. I do not think baby Jesus had one, though. We bought one for outdoors and one for indoors. Almost bought a fake one for indoors. It looked perfect, and had 1000 lights but I hate white lights. They look like a bank lobby and if you're not sensible, you might need to visit the bank for Christmas anyway.
- Presents? Sort-of Saturnalian (jewels for your mistresses - they can give you Viagra), sort of European with St. Nicholas. And the wise men with their perfume and stuff. You know what She wants - A Pucci scarf and ballet tickets. We guys generally want nothing other than family happiness. Presents are the worst thing about Christmas unless they are food (we like rare stinky cheeses). We go with 1/person only to keep the tradition going. Yes I know - little kids love opening gifts. Adults don't.
- Snow and cold. Not real Christmassy - northern European. Lucky for me, I like snow and cold and the only thing I love as much around here as a powerful hurricane is a beautiful blizzard that stops life in its tracks and gives us time to not be busy.
- The Messiah. It was written for Easter, for heaven's sake.
- Christmas - it was illegal to celebrate it in New England until, like, a few years ago. You could go to jail for making a savory mince-meat pie at Christmastime. They had pie-police sniffing on the streets of Boston. I have (well, had) and old-tyme Connnecticut Congregationalist pal whose family still refused to acknowledge Christmas. As a Congregationalist by ancient family tradition, I do not think of Christmas as "holy" either but there is nothing not to like about it and the hymns and carols are as good as it gets.
- As for me, any excuse for assembling family is good. I have a big one (5 sibs), and I love them all. Not certain about vice-versa... The holiday decorations are fun, and lovely. Church on Christmas Eve always brings tears to me but whether they are holy or sentimental is hard to tell. All has little to do with whether I am a Jesus-follower or not but yeah, I feel He's worth following as best one can and I take it seriously. Not a grinch, not a scrooge. Birth (Christmas), or re-birth (Easter) - all good lives of the living Spirit.
Punishable by death. The below from Ace this morning:
Good morning kids. Start of a new week and the top stories are the release of the IG Horowitz Report and the House Judiciary Committee set to charge President Trump with treason. Yes, gentle reader, you read that right: T-R-E-A-S-O-N. These people are truly sick. They are doing more than just playing games; they are playing with fire, here. If I had the ability to hold back and not slam my fist into Jerrold Nadler's gaping maw, I would certainly displace the perpetual slab of pastrami with a microphone and try to get him on record to answer the question "do you realize treason is a capital crime?" Okay, I get it. You turds are doing anything and everything you can to sabotage the President while covering up for your own crimes of sabotaging 2016 and then Trump's nascent presidency, which for the record, come within a red nether-hair's breadth of actual dictionary definition treason. Meanwhile, we still have hearings set for today, which you gave the Republicans on the committee essentially zero time to prepare for, dumping thousands of pages of evidence at the last minute. Not that that would matter since the committees are a farce of both fairness and legal precedent.
The Democrats have ensnared themselves in their own trap. For over three years, everything they have done to rig the election and then sabotage this president have failed, and spectacularly so. And since impeachment was promised even before Trump took the oath of office, impeachment is what they are going to have to deliver. But invoking treason is truly crossing a line. For argument's sake, let's say the House votes to impeach - and the jury is still out on if they even have the votes (although I suspect they do and the scuttlebutt that they don't is a head-fake), and then he is exonerated in the Senate. What then? Forget the shmoo-like bespectacled "G-d-cursed chimptato hybrid" screaming at the clouds. Will the Antifarians turn into Weathermen 2, Electric Boogaloo? I almost feel the Democrats would cheer that on, if not intentionally engaging in all of this to enable exactly that. As I said, they are playing with fire here.
3:1 In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming,
3:2 "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near."
3:3 This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.'"
3:4 Now John wore clothing of camel's hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.
3:5 Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan,
3:6 and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.
3:7 But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
3:8 Bear fruit worthy of repentance.
3:9 Do not presume to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our ancestor'; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.
3:10 Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
3:11 "I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
3:12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."
Father Mulcahey 
Image via 
Perhaps my favorite contemporary novelist, the late Walker Percy: 
Lots of Saturnalian and also northern European pagan aspects to this season around this part of the world. It's a multicultural festival season.