Category: Holidays

Will Percy (Walker’s cousin and guardian) was no fan of the Confederate monuments, saying they’re so pathetic, they don’t even qualify to be ridiculous:

[Y]ou will find in any Southern town a statue in memory of the Confederate dead, erected by the Daughters of something or other, and made, the townsfolk will respectfully tell you, in Italy. It is always the same: a sort of shaft or truncated obelisk, after the manner of the Washington Monument, on top of which stands a little man with a big hat holding a gun. If you are a Southerner you will not feel inclined to laugh at these efforts, so lacking in either beauty or character, to preserve the memory of their gallant and ill-advised forebears. I think the dash, endurance, and devotion of the Confederate soldier have not been greatly exaggerated in song and story: they do not deserve these chromos in stone. Sentiment driveling into sentimentality, poverty, and, I fear, lack of taste are responsible for them, but they are the only monuments which are dreadful from the point of view of æsthetics, craftsmanship, and conception that escape being ridiculous. They’re too pathetic for that.

Lanterns on the Levee: Recollections of a Planter’s Son(1941). By William Alexander Percy. 348 pp. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. $3.

Will Percy was not a BLM advocate, much less an Antifa subversive. He was “the embodiment of Southern culture, ‘defender of traditions, poet, gracious host.’” Molly Finn, First Things, May 1993.

But aesthetics are aesthetics, and he wasn’t seein’ it.

And since he was apparently gay, we kind of have to defer to him on such matters.

(That citation above, btw (not blm), is a paste from a 1941 NYT review of the book.)… Read the rest

“He rules the world with truth and grace.” —Isaac Watts ++ “I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.” —Charles Dickens ++ “The Incarnation…illuminates and orders all other phenomena, explains both our laughter and our logic, our fear of the dead and our knowledge that it is somehow good to die, and which at one stroke covers what multitudes of separate theories will hardly cover for us if this is rejected.” —C.S. Lewis ++ “Regarding not the day, let us give God thanks for the gift of His dear Son… If it be possible to honor Christ in the giving of gifts, I cannot see how while the gift, giver and recipient are all in the spirit of the world… [B]ut we have a Christ gift the entire year.” —Charles Spurgeon ++ “Holiday and Holy Day, Christmas is more than a yule log, holly or tree. It is more than natural good cheer and the giving of gifts. Christmas is even more than the feast of the home and of children, the feast of love and friendship. It is more than all of these together. Christmas is Christ, the Christ of justice and charity, of freedom and peace.” —Francis Cardinal Spellman ++ “The place that the shepherds found was not an academy or an abstract republic; it was not a place of myths allegorized or dissected or explained away. It was a place of dreams come true.” —G.K. Chesterton… Read the rest

Evelyn Waugh liked to send out satirical Christmas cards, and the apex (or nadir] of this practice was reached during the Christmas season of 1929. Waugh’s card that year consisted of extracts reprinted from unfavorable reviews of his first novel, Decline and Fall. The harshest passage of all was taken from a review by Chesterton. [Christopher Sykes, Evelyn Waugh, Boston, 1975, p. 98]… Read the rest

The first Christmas card

Tis the season . . . to get kids drunk.

The very first Christmas card showed a young child drinking mulled wine. It was 1843, the year Dickens’ Christmas Carol came out.

One of the works of art proved very popular, selling out its first edition in six days (from December 19^th to Christmas Eve).

The other work of art wasn’t quite so popular, producing such a backlash of outrage that no one even tried to produce another Christmas card for three years.

My only question is, how do they know the kid was drinking mulled wine? It looks like an ordinary glass of wine to me.

I’m guessing they just assumed it, since mulled wine is a traditional Christmas drink.

I’m not sure I’ve ever had it. I’ve been looking at recipes, though, and am thinking I’ll have to make some this holiday season. I’ve kind of been on the wagon lately for health reasons, so this might be a nice bridge into drinking this holiday season.

If anyone has recommended recipes, please email them to me.… Read the rest

“I am propelled along by my activities, for I am merely a cog in their great machinery.”

Benedict XVI, The Blessing of Christmas

Benedict has a paradoxical way of writing at times.

I guess that makes sense: all truth is ultimately paradoxical (the Divine Man, the Crucified God, the Almighty Baby), but he has a way of “bringing it home.”

In this passage, he flips around activities and motivation.

We commonly think that we undertake our activities. “I do this. I do that.”

But no, says Benedict. Our activities tell us to do this or that. We are “propelled along.”

On top off that, Benedict says our activities constitute a “great machinery.”

Odd claim, that. Gardening, golfing, small talk at the coffee shop, laundry, shopping: great machinery?

I wouldn’t think so, but Benedict is saying that, for all practical purposes, they are. We treat them like they are great: important, compelling, absorbing. And so they propel us along like they are.

Benedict encourages us to escape this great machinery during Advent.

He suggests that we treat greet Advent like we might greet an illness. During an illness, we are drawn out of the great machinery.

I am obliged to be still. I am obliged to wait. I am obliged to reflect on myself; I am obliged to bear being alone. I am obliged to bear pain, and I am obliged to accept the burden of my own self. All this is hard.

Are food prices soaring?

Ever since the 2008-2009 crisis, the thinkers, pundits, and writers who ascribe to the Austrian School of economics have assured us that massive inflation was going to start. They assiduously refused to provide a date, but they assured us nonetheless, often suggesting we hoard gold and silver.

I long ago gave up on massive inflation happening. There were just too many countervailing considerations.

Like the United States army. As long as the U.S. dollar is the reserve currency, it has value everywhere in the world. It will continue as the reserve currency as long as the U.S. army is respected everywhere in the world.

The syllogism: If you have the strongest army, your currency has value no matter what. The U.S. has the strongest army. Therefore, its currency has value no matter what.

Here’s how it works. I’m framing this as precisely as I can, while keeping it simple:

The federal government decides it needs money. It prepares a debt instrument that promises to pay $trillion.

The Federal Reserve then adds $trillion to its ledger by keying it into their ledger (literally creating the $trillion from nothing).

The Federal Reserve then gives the $trillion to the federal government in exchange for the debt instrument.

The federal government then disburses the money in various forms, such as COVID-relief packages.

American citizens then take that money (that was created out of nothing and required zero effort) to buy t-shirts, gadgets, Nike tennis shoes, and Catholic religious artifacts that are manufactured (through capital outlays and labor) in China and other countries.

As a result, instead of the $trillion staying in the United States and driving up the cost of goods (the basic law of supply and demand: the more of something you have relative to other things, the less … Read the rest