Maggie's Farm

The third in Bruce Kesler's Hannukah series for us:

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In light of how artificial barriers among us create unnecessary divisions:

A woman goes to the post office to buy stamps for her Chanukah cards.
She says to the clerk, "May I have 50 Chanukah stamps?"
The clerk says, "What denomination?"
The woman says, "Oh my God. Has it come to this? Give me 6 Orthodox, 12 Conservative, and 32 Reform."

My son’s Cub Scout subject for December is Holiday Lights.  In discussion with the 8-year olds, all of whom attend their church or synagogue’s training, it was a surprise to them that the Holy Temple in Jerusalem that the Maccabees freed and sanctified is the same that about 150-years later Mary and Joseph brought Jesus.  How can we defend or explain our common heritage when we either don’t understand it ourselves or make the efforts to even explain it to our children?

Photo: A Menorah in the Hoboken City Hall, 2007

Chanukah's Da Bomb:

A gloomy Steven Moore on the economy (h/t, Driscoll)

That's salmon fishing on Cain's River, New Brunswick, in October.

From Bruce Kesler:

In light of why most holiday celebrations are directed toward children:

In recent years, Christmas has become more and more commercialized. The same holds true for Chanukah, even though it is a minor holiday. It makes sense. How could we market a major holiday such as Yom Kippur? Forget about celebrating. Think observing. Come to synagogue, starve yourself for 27 hours, become one with your dehydrated soul, beat your chest, confess your sins, a guaranteed good time for you and your family. Tickets a mere $200 per person.
Better stick with Chanukah!

Purists decry the commercialization and simplification of holy days.  But, few among us have the interest or training to delve into the deeper meanings.  Religions have found that stressing a central theme or lesson accomplishes most, and making it enjoyable transmits the core meaning to children they can build upon and enlarge.  The central theme of Chanukah and of Christmas is that devotion to our faith takes courage that can overcome even hostile empires.

Regular readers know that, here at Maggie's, we hold individual freedom from the power of the State as the highest political value.

We figger that's why we had a revolution.

Other countries seem to rate other values more highly, and seem more willing to put their lives in the oily, arrogant, and mediocrity-ridden hands of the political and power classes - as plenty of Americans seem to be willing to do these days. That's fine for those other nations if that's what they want, but we are meant to be special in the freedom way - and an example for others to follow if they can. Two quotes from Freedom Imperilled at The New Criterion:

How is freedom faring in the United States today? Peter Robinson, a scholar at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, provided a melancholy précis in “The Loss of Individual Liberty,” a column that appeared in Forbes last month. Mr. Robinson recalled a dinner he shared with Milton Friedman several years ago. He complimented the venerable economist on his role in transforming the intellectual landscape, especially in fostering widespread appreciation of the inextricable connection between free markets and individual liberty. Friedman refused the compliment. “We may have won the intellectual battle,” he said, “but in practical politics, it’s difficult to see that we’ve had any effect at all.” Even a few years ago, it would have been easy to react as did Mr. Robinson at the time: to think that Friedman was responding with false modesty. After all, had not the power of the free market been demonstrated beyond cavil in America’s triumph over the Soviet Union, its unparalleled prosperity, its culture of political freedom?

and

As Hume saw, it is generally not lost all at once, but step by step: government program by government program, regulation by regulation, entitlement by entitlement, until finally, as Tocqueville put it, we find ourselves “nothing more than a herd of timid and industrious animals of which the government is the shepherd.”

There are people who strictly deprive themselves of each and every eatable, drinkable, and smokable which has in any way acquired a shady reputation. They pay this price for health. And health is all they get for it. How strange it is. It is like paying out your whole fortune for a cow that has gone dry.

Mark Twain, quoted at AVI

Those are today's temps via Surber. 

Skeptical about the warming crisis? Then sign the Big List for posterity.

Posterity will thank you.

at Dust My Broom.

Have a beer and a praline with 'em.

h/t, Right Wing Prof

Thanks to Vanderleun for linking a review of a new book on Goya by Robert Hughes. A quote from the excellent article:

(The black paintings) are the climax of Goya's work as a painter. We sense this even though we don't really know what the hell they are about. If one of the characteristics of modernism, and modernism alone, is its privacy, its lack of public address, then Goya's Pinturas Negras are just about the first paintings by any great artist to fulfil that criterion. Goya painted them for himself, and himself alone - an audience of one. If anyone outside his small family did see them, no mention of them, no commentary, survives. Here it is, one of the weirdest and scariest image-cycles in all art history, and nobody wrote a syllable about it.

The Black Paintings obey no perceptible narrative. But they sum up certain obsessional themes of his art - pilgrims on the march, dances, demonic events -but now pushed to the orgiastic limit, and rendered in terms of the broadest, quickest gestures of the brush. Sly, autistic, crazy, leering, howling, glaring . . . a world of moral chaos, evoked in radical slashes and alla prima daubs of paint.

Image is Goya's Christ on the Mount of Olives, 1819

In prior years I’ve written serious posts about the meaning of Chanukah, for Jews, for Christians, for Americans.  I thought of doing something like that for this year, or excerpts from prior columns, but instead looked for a new way to express the meaning of this holiday.

Each night we add a candle to the Hanukiah menorah.  How about some fun for each of the eight nights, and a brief note, that together convey some lessons of Chanukah.  The Chanukah lights represent the miracle of the one-day’s quantity of sanctified oil remaining in the Temple in Jerusalem -- reconquered by the Maccabees from the defiling Syrian-Greeks -- lasting for eight days, until a new quantity could be prepared.  The lights are, also, symbolic of scripture’s description of Jews as bringing light unto the world.  One of the best ways to light up the world is in humor we can all enjoy sharing.

First Night:

In light of today’s difficult economic times, a Christmas-Chanukah merger:

Continuing the current trend of large-scale mergers and acquisitions, it was announced today at a press conference that Christmas and Chanukah will merge. According to reliable industry sources, the deal has been in the works for about 1300 years, ever since the rise of the Muslim Empire.

While not all details were available at press time, it is believed that the overhead cost of having twelve days of Christmas and eight days of Chanukah was becoming prohibitive for both sides. By combining forces, reporters were told, the world will be able to enjoy consistently high quality service during the Fifteen Days of Christmukah, as the new holiday is being called.

Massive layoffs are expected, with lords a-leaping and maids a-milking being hardest hit. Under conditions of the agreement, the letters on the dreydl, currently in Hebrew, will be replaced by Latin, thus becoming unintelligible to a much wider audience. Also, instead of translating to "A great miracle happened there," the message on the dreydl will be the more generic: "Miraculous stuff happens."

Jews and Christians share a belief in miracles, that creates an openness toward discovering what is not known, which creates progress.  Another point of light:

Albert Einstein once said: "There are two ways of looking at the world: Either you see nothing as a miracle or you see everything as a miracle."

Chanukah reminds us that Judaism sees everything as a miracle. But Hellenism saw nothing as a miracle. To the Greeks, a miracle was an absurdity. To them, only what was reasonable, logical, and rational could be real. Miracles were illogical and, therefore, not possible.

The Greeks could never see the light of Chanukah, the light of miracles, because they only believed in the light of logic and reason. According to the Greeks, the world always existed, it never was created. History is an inevitable process — the present and the future are linked to the past and are the necessary outcome of the past. Nothing unusual will happen or can happen. History will march on, a consequence following consequence. Similarly, their view of G-d or gods was of super-beings detached from the world. Their gods didn't care about man. Therefore, miracles were impossible….

Judaism believes that G-d created the world, cares about us, and invites us to be His partner in making history and perfecting His creation. The Greeks assumed that the world is perfect already. Everything is as it should be. The world is eternal, the events of history are inevitable and G-d is impersonal. Therefore, don't expect any favors, don't expect any novelties, don't expect any divine interventions, don't expect miracles, and have no hope. Life is just one big Greek tragedy.

Therefore, the Greeks wanted to do away with the Jews and their commitment to Torah (religious) life….

I count myself a very fortunate person - a blessed person - to have some good friends. Why they put up with me is beyond me.

An excellent Christmas present: A Christmas card enclosing a $1000. blank check to be made out to the charity of our choice. That is a fine, joyful and welcome gift. It deserved some thought, but it will go to our church. First things first.

And more. Last night, another gift from another pal: "Let's hunt on Friday morning. Yesterday in the snow we got two Gadwalls, two Brant, 4 Mallards, and a Canada on the marsh inlet." (I suspect he got some Buffleheads too, but he knows I don't approve of shooting them.)

And, last week: "Let's go for some pheasants on the Saturday after Christmas."

Thank you, friends.

Luke 1:39-56

³⁹In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, ⁴⁰where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. ⁴¹When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit ⁴²and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. ⁴³And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? ⁴⁴For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. ⁴⁵And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” ⁴⁶And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, ⁴⁷and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, ⁴⁸for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; ⁴⁹for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. ⁵⁰His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. ⁵¹He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. ⁵²He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; ⁵³he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. ⁵⁴He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, ⁵⁵according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.” ⁵⁶And Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home.

Image: El Greco, The Visitation, 1610

We have snow in Yankeeland, and lots more on the way. It's a bloody Ice Age in the US, with temps around 20 (F) all day here. Don't try to tell me it's about "climate change."

Photo from a reader in CT yesterday:

Laugh or cry? The worst 2008 quotes from the NYT (but there's still time for more...). h/t, Right Wing Prof.

I don't know how we missed that site, TimesWatch. Gotta add them to our Media roll. So many sites, so little time.

We were long overdue for a bit of driveway repair, and finally got it done yesterday. The guys did an excellent and careful job.

But can concrete cure in the cold temps we're having in New England these days? (We have a big snow today.) No, not very well. I forgot to ask them whether they used the "antifreeze" mortar, but they seemed like they knew what they were doing.

I have always found cement and concrete to be an interesting topic. We posted about it here. For some FAQs about cement and concrete, try this.

Last minute Christmas present idea, recommended by a cigar afficionado friend: Hacker's The Ultimate Cigar Book.

In my opinion, expertise often leads to wanting things that cost too much, and damages the enjoyment of ordinary pleasures. (And thanks, friend, for the box of Montecristos.)

A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Oscar Wilde (h/t, Dr. Bob)

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