Christmas is coming

Jen's cousin Frank came today to spend Christmas with us, so I'm finally believing that Christmas is really almost here. Looking forward to it very much this year for some reason. Hope you and yours have the best one yet, and if you can give a thought to the idea that if we lived in the spirit of the Jesus who appears in the Gospels we would have a lot more peace and a lot less demand for coercion and protection from bogus threats. Merry Christmas.

The radical aspects of Christmas

It's about a week late, but nonetheless, I thought my editorial on Christmas was pretty interesting. The savior of the world born in a stable? Christianity is more radically positioned against the world as it is than most self-professed Christians ever imagine.

War opposition solid

Even though violence in Iraq seems to be subsiding (or taking a vacation), most Americans still oppose the war and want U.S. troops to begin withdrawing sooner rather than later, at least according to this CNN/Opinion Dynamics poll. That shouldn't be surprising, but perhaps it is to those who take evidence of the surge's success as reason to make an indefinite commitment to substantial numbers of troops in Iraq rather than as a reason to start winding down the commitment. Reading through this morning's Las Vegas Review-Journal, I was struck (perhaps I was prepared to be struck, this being Christmastime and all) by stories about religious leaders paying especially close attention to calls for peace in their Christmastide greetings. Christians in Baghdad were joined at Christmas-eve Mass by both Shia and Sunni clerics declaring a solidarity that hasn't been much in evidence lately.

Post-Christmas haze

Well, it's the day after Christmas, and we're in Las Vegas. Jen, Steve and Tom are back working the real estate stuff, and I'm at relatively loose ends. I'm testing the Register laptop I'm planning to take to New Hampshire, so the keyboard seems tiny, but I think I'll get used to it. Had pre-Christmas at our house Sunday with Alane and Joe, Ange and Sky and various offspring, then I worked until 2 Monday and we came up to spend Christmas with Steve and Tom. It was vaery pleasant. I now have machines to translate music from both vinyl and cassettes to MP3s or CDs in digital form, so, I guess I have an almost full-time retirement project, if such a day ever comes. Meantime I'll do a few at a time. Both Christmases very pleasant.

And maybe even an event-driven blog from time to time.