Wandering the Borderlands of Mind and Space

ProfGandalf muses about writing, the imagination, current events and sometimes the joys and woes of teaching English in a culture which gives lip service only to the Liberal Arts.

[profgandalf]

Come Read A Free SF Magazine, "The Interocitor:" https://www.theinterocitor.org/

[profgandalf]

Short SF and Fantasy stories from my keyboard.

[profgandalf]

Treating Facebook Pages Like Front Lawns: Etiquet on the Internet

I recently shared this tenant with my son, Anderson Rearick IV. concerning online politeness, I view an individual's Facebook page as his or her front lawn and porch. They may express any opinion via any sign or fly any flag they wish. If I like it, I may give a thumbs up as would if I were driving by their house, and if I don't, I do NOTHING! I treat a person's Facebook page in the same manner. It's their home, their space, and I respect the space.

When I was a boy in the sixties, I actually was taught in class how to be polite on the phone. Do any schools now teach Internet, I'm told they do but they do not appear on the TEST. Of course, such training must begin at home, but giving it more weight in our young curriculums might be an idea.

I concede that other social platforms have different dynamics. Twitter / X seems to be built on the idea of forming a comment to elicit a response. Thus there is a tendency of trends and key phrases. Turning down the heat there will involve a return to debate without attacking the moral nature of the appointment. But for this essay, there is a simple rule: remember to stay off another person's lawn.

Facebook comments I told my son are not quiet claims made over a coffee counter: they are bullhorns on a public corner. They are Public like my front porch or my flagpole. But I would never go on another's front porch and yell inside someone's home, nor pull down their flag, nor uproot a lawn sign. As public as such spaces are, they belong to that person.

If I disagree, and I often do, with what others put on their front porches, I am free to put up a sign on my own lawn or fly my own flag. And the same is true of Facebook pages.

Note: I flew the Police flag (which has an American flag pattern with a blue stripe in its middle) both on my real-life porch and on this web page when the riots occurred. My father was in Law Enforcement, and I value those who pursue that calling and honor the sacrifice they often make.

I especially knew the toll that the barrage of negative press was having on them because I saw my father suffer when the FBI came under question back in the eighties. So I flew the flag. I did not fly it on other FaceBook pages with other agendas nor did I comment on those who disagreed with me on their sites.

You are free to disagree with my choice back then but this is not an invitation to argue so do not comment on that issue here This is not a space of debate. I sometimes do invite debate. And if I do, I will say so. But I do note the difference.

When my fellow citizens express a religious or political position on their Facebook, I leave their pages alone. It's called courtesy. It is a vital attribute for us as we live together in peace in this wonderful and blessed nation even in times of dissention.

[profgandalf]

Washington and Lincoln: The Reaffirming of a President's Day Narrative

Happy Washington’s Birthday! (Or as many of us remember it “President’s Day!) In point of fact, Washington’s birthday is Feb. 22, 1732. Plus because of an interesting historical shift when the British Empire adopted the Gregorian Calander over the Julian, Washington’s own birthday—date and year— changed during his lifetime. (Here’s an interesting video put out by the Washington Museum in Mount Vernon VA about that: https://www.mountvernon.org/.../the-truth-about.../).

Meanwhile, Facebook failed to remind me that Feb. 12 was Lincoln’s Birthday which is celebrated in my home state of New York as a state holiday. So throughout my childhood in Long Island, my school calendar included both Lincon’s and Washing’s birthdays. In February all the classrooms were decorated with red hearts and at the front hung above the blackboard the portraits of Washington and Lincoln facing one another and looking down on us. Garrison Kieller remembers thinking that Washington’s prim face meant he’d never give a guy any hint on tests while Lincoln looked more benevolent and might pass on the answer: “It’s eight, Lincoln seemed to say.”

I confess that for years I mistakenly thought that the two birthday celebrations were combined to make room for Martin Luther King’s Holiday in Jan (as if the Federal Calander could only fit in so many holidays), but only Washington’s birthday is a Federal holiday. In fact, that is its official handle, Washington’s Birthday but for most of us it is just “President’s Day.”

I do not like this shift. I think it robs us of an important shared narrative. I miss the joint the celebrations in February of both the founder and the savior of our nation. These two men were extraordinary. They weren’t gods, but humans and yet each struggled through and passed onto our country great things.

When King George III was told that after taking the highest position in America, Washington would voluntarily step down and return to his farm, the former antagonistic monarch said “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.” Before him no conqueror had ever voluntarily given up power. Meanwhile Lincoln delt with the grimmest days of the Republic. Having inherited the blatant injustice of slavery which led to secession as soon as he was elected, he fiercely followed the principle laid out by Pres. Andrew Jackson (another human president) that the union was indissolvable. Preserving that union led to the great nation we are blessed to be a part of today.

These points need to be remembered and celebrated. Over and over again, in the Old Testament, monuments and special days were set to help the people remember. Humans tend to forget and a ubiquitous vague day does nothing to help jog our minds. We don't need a day to sell more cars and sheets, we need days to celebrate the great things two of our greatest past leaders did for us.

[profgandalf]

The Convergence of Romantic Passion and Religious Love in a Single Day

This past week both Valentine's Day and Ash Wednesday, the first day of the season of Lent arrived together. This rare convergence has happened four times in the last century: 1923, 1934, 1945, 2018, and will happen again in 2029 That will mark its final occurrence this century. (See the link at the bottom as well as a Catholic's perspective of this unique sharing's significance.) The two days seem profoundly at odds since most of us share chocolate and a good meal with our significant other on Valentine's Day while Ash Wednesday is typically the start of a day of self-denial as believers meditate on Jesus' journey towards the cross.

Not being Catholic this is not as much of a dilemma for me as it may be for some other fellow believers. I plan to give my beloved a card and some dark chocolate. Still, may I offer some observations concerning the correctness of this convergence? Valentine's Day has always been a day to celebrate love even in the face of pain. Thus, the symbol of a heart pierced by an arrow or a rose with its thorns.

In spite of the pagan Cupid who adorns most of our cards, St. Valentine was a Christian priest who at least according to some sources married Roman soldiers in defiance to the Emperor who wanted his army to be only engaged in making war. He was eventually arrested and executed. According to the narrative, couples whom he'd married visited him in prison and passed notes to him before he paid the ultimate price.

Romantic love is, in fact, rarely a painless operation. Questions, false starts, rejections, and compromises typify the journey many of us have made when cementing that unique bond. Furthermore, the pain of separation and death is a reality that none of us who are married can avoid.

Jesus' embracing of the cross is the ultimate act of love which endures pain. And the Valentine's symbols can be used to remind us of this. The pierced heart echoes the spear that pierced his side, and the thorns of the rose connect with the crown of thorns that Christ wore. Pain is part of love.

But it's worth it. As a minister said long ago, "It's Friday, but Sunday's Coming!" Love has always affirmed that it is worth it. Harry Potter notes that despite all the pain he'd endured in his life, he felt pity for the mad wizard who killed his parents because he knew that that man lived in a world without friendship, without love. Love brings life, among humans in children and a blessed relationship. And in Christ, love brings forgiveness and life to all who accept and believe in Him.

https://religionunplugged.com/.../valentines-day-and-ash...

[profgandalf]

Anxiety in Pleasures and Escapes

Recently I've been experiencing a strange new emotion when approaching what should be a time of pleasure--anxiety. I noticed it this year as the time drew near for the  biyearly Cubie Family Reunion. I kept it to myself from my wife and children, but I was plagued with a fear that something might develop which would dampen or even destroy the great times we had planned. I sighed with relief when the week was over and I could remember the week fondly. I recall my mother would say that her one fear around the holidays was that someone in the family would not have a "Good Christmas." 

But in me, it's not always selfless. As I approach a film or a TV show in one of my favorite franchises, I am anxious that the new writers will betray the original visions. Those who control "Star Trek," "Lord of The Rings," "Star Wars," "DC," or "Marvel" all seem to have chosen to take already established favorites and altered them to their current tastes--sometimes with disastrous outcomes. This is partly because the current group of creators seems to be bereft of any creativity and are therefore unable to come up with something worthy and new and instead choose to raid the past.  So now I approach my TV time or a movie outing with anxiety. And of course, the events of life and advancing age add to my anxieties.  I remember Charlie Brown saying years ago "Even my anxieties have anxieties." 

This is, of course, no way to live and I know it.  It creates a timid heart that never goes anywhere or does anything.  And in fact, all that I fear will or will not happen as it will.  As Shakespeare says in Hamlet: “We defy augury: there's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all: since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is't to leave betimes? Let be.“ And scripture notes: "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. (The NIV puts it this way: "has to do with punishment") He that feareth is not made perfect in love" (1 John 4:18 KJV).

[profgandalf]

In America Tolerance of World Views Must Go Both Ways

The following is the AP headline describing the June 30th Supreme Court ruling concerning the web designer: “The supreme court rules for a designer who doesn’t want to make wedding websites for gay couples“ Does anyone else see how biased and opinionated this headline is? The editors make it sound as if her personal opinion is the cause. And they strongly infer that it is a kind of prejudice. However, the headline actually reveals the bias of the authors and how much they do not understand us. 

This is not a question of an individual’s personal likes or dislikes; this has to do with fundamental world beliefs built on scripture that shape lives and it is ad odds with the state trying to coerce speech. Ms Smith has said she has no problem serving the gay community in various ways as a designer, but she cannot create art which supports claims fundamentally at odds with her world view--i.e. celebrating the union of two people of the same gender in what the state calls “a marriage” when her faith says that marriage is the union of only a man and a woman. Her belief that homosexuality is not the will of God is not a fringe position.  Not only has it been held for thousands of years by most cultures and faiths in the world, today it is still held as true by the Catholic Church, Greek Orthodox, Muslims, Orthodox Jews, and many Protestant Christian denominations.   The secular state, via a different supreme court, has declared otherwise.  Whom should a person of good faith follow?

Should her art be forced to celebrate something counter to her core beliefs? No.  An artist should not be forced to shape his or her work to fit the parameters of the culture around her.   A work of art cannot be shaped by some cultural assumption of acceptability.  Art is covered by the fundamental right of free speech.

Liberals for years told society this truth when flags were used as a means to protest or images of Christ were immersed in urine.    Many were deeply offended but the courts sided with the artist. And they were right to do so here.

Some may doubt that web design is not a work of art.  But artwork in photography and sculpture in design have all been accepted for a long time. Meanwhile others may think Ms Smith should not be making money from her art is controversial.  However "The laborer is worth his hire" (1 Tim 5:18).  Art and money are connected.  Knowing what I do about how Dickens made money with his art, or Mark Twain, both of whom did not fit into what their culture claimed was acceptable, there is no reason to seek her end of business.

If activists come after her, as they did with the baker, I will not be surprised. She may indeed lose income but that is her choice and she should not be hounded because others don't like her beliefs. Tolerance goes both ways, 

I side with the artist. Some talk about some slippery slope in which various religious orders have rules not shared by culture.  But our culture has always been able to move to accommodate.  A shop is closed on the Hebrew sabbath, goes elsewhere.  A Muslim restaurant does not serve pork, eat somewhere else or try the lamb.  if you don’t like the fundamental artistic principles of a particular artist. or craft-person, go find another to make your celebratory web design: go find another baker to bake your cake   There are plenty of others. Be what liberals were supposed to be, tolerant.

[profgandalf]

Sin and Salvation in “Robinson Crusoe”

What is the sin for which Robinson Crusoe is forgiven? It’s not being a slaveholder nor is it for believing that his worldview is undoubtedly the best. And yet these are the sins that contemporary culture would consign him to the Hell of Banished texts. It seems that in my current program with my mother, I am reading one text after another which contemporary readers tend to rail at (that is, of course, if they are among the few who crack a book older than ten years.) And Robinson Crusoe fits the list.

“Snarky-ism” aside, there is certainly certainly a lot of the old culture in Defoe’s “Robinson Crusoe” that makes modern readers squirm.  Defoe’s Crusoe is both exploitive of every resource that comes his way including humans and confident of his superiority as a representative of Western culture.  That he never changes his mind about this bothers many readers.

Dr. Nicholas Seager argues well on the web page "Church Times" that "Robinson Crusoe has been valued by literary historians, many of whom would argue that it marks the birth of the modern realist novel that constructs a plausible psychological individualism. Economic historians since Marx have interpreted it variously as an endorsement of an analysis of capitalism. And post-colonial critics and authors have revisited it to understand how empire was promoted in powerful myths.  Literary, economic, and imperial readings are valuable, but they are partial without recognition of how religion shapes all of these facets of Robinson Crusoe.”

The sin of Robinson Crusoe is that of every human, pride and reckless self-will which fits both the realistic portrayal of the human mind as well as a religious narrative. Crusoe himself makes this abundantly clear in his own memories.  He speaks about his father’s wisdom concerning the middle way of life in contrast to his own reckless pursuit for adventure. And he pursues it even in the face of his parents' love and the advice of others. In this, he echoes the prodigal son.  

As he says himself when he finds himself in a heaving sea and sick as he can be: “I had never been at sea before, I was most inexpressibly sick in body and terrified in mind. I began now seriously to reflect upon what I had done, and how justly I was overtaken by the judgment of Heaven for my wicked leaving my father's house, and abandoning my duty. All the good counsels of my parents, my father's tears and my mother's entreaties, came now fresh into my mind; and my conscience, which was not yet come to the pitch of hardness to which it has since, reproached me with the contempt of advice, and the breach of my duty to God and my father.”

But one of the major strengths of the novel is its absolutely unwavering honesty in its description of the human heart.  And Crusoe notes that he quickly forgets this advice when the sea calms down and he finds himself well on his own.  Later when he is marooned he finds some wheat not original to the island growing and at first thinks it is a miracle. But he later recalls that he, himself, shook out a bag with wheat seed in it and reprimands himself as a fool.  Still later when he recalls the incident he reconsiders it as still a miracle since the fact that the seed found good soil and being in the shade was not burned up and was well watered still seems an act of divine providence.  However, it is not until he suffers through some terrible sickness and later has a horrific dream of an avenging angel that Crusoe is shaken, and after that, while reading the Bible (he is fortunate to have several copies) he is struck by the promise in scripture to “call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me” (Psalm 50:15-16 KJV).  Thus, Crusoe illustrates that Salvation is achievable only via repentance and divine forgiveness. 

He shares his faith with his servant Friday and is successful in leading him to conversion but fails to do the same for Friday’s father.  He also saves a man who is Catholic, and prides himself on the fact that on his island the Freedom of Religion was upheld,

Despite Marx and other economic critics, Defoe does not consider economic success as a manifestation of salvation. Even while a reprobate, Crusoe is always a hard-working businessman and he prospers throughout the narrative because of his ingenuity and persistence.  

However, some seem to still wish for a worldview in Defoe that did not exist. Spark-notes writes that while Crusoe’s survival is captivating “this theme of mastery becomes more complex and less positive after Friday’s arrival, when the idea of mastery comes to apply more to unfair relationships between humans. In Chapter XXIII, Crusoe teaches Friday the word “[m]aster” even before teaching him “yes” and “no,” and indeed he lets him “know that was to be [Crusoe’s] name.” Crusoe never entertains the idea of considering Friday a friend or equal—for some reason, superiority comes instinctively to him.”  This is true but this is not Crusoe.  It is the time.  American egalitarianism did not exist and is not the state of divine grace that Defoe is portraying.  We can look at as interesting but not judge it.  When we do we maim the work and limit our own appreciation and understanding of the art of Defoe.

[profgandalf]

Huck Finn: Profoundly Anti-Racist, Not to Be Altered But Tom Is Still Sometimes Annoying

When approaching a nearly universally praised work of literature like Huckleberry Finn there is a temptation to just throw up one’s hands and say “it’s a masterpiece” and anyone who says otherwise has rot in their brains.  But this is too easy.  One must respond to the text to evaluate and incorporate it as must be done to all art.  Conversely, those who judge any work with their own parameters of social worthiness—the secular mirror of religious acceptability that once dominated so many who judged texts—are traveling into a narrowing black hole and dooming themselves to literary spaghettification. Thus one must respond to the text within its own understanding of reality.  One should not complain that a Puritan from the 16th century (like Robinson Crusoe) does not understand the concept of animal conservation any more than to fuss over the fact that the poet Homer does not acknowledge the existence of the one true Jewish Christian God.  The concepts just did not exist when the work of art was created.  What should be considered is what was the author struggling over during his or her own lifetime?

In the same way the social abhorrence to the word “Nigger” (now only spoken by black comics and referred to as the “N word” by everyone else) did not exist in Twain’s day.   Instead in 1885 it was still used often. However Mark Twain was certainly aware of the stain of slavery in America and the racism upon which it was built.  He needn’t go after slavery, the terrible war had doomed that institution, but the prejudice still needed to be addressed. The rise of the novel’s action, its regular presentment of personal folly which those who use the term while supporting slavery (people as diverse as Pap Finn and Aunt Sally) and Huck’s gradual growth to the wrongness of this position so that he declares that “he will go to Hell” if it means not helping his friend Jim escape from slavery all show an author critical of his own culture. However the fact that so many currently are encouraging the expurgation of the word “nigger” because they feel it is such a foul word, completely miss the powerful anti-slavery anti-racist elements in the novel and dilute the narrative as they do so.  

Actually I think that Twain pushes his abolitionist perspective too much in one part of the text at the cost of its artistic verisimilitude.  Huck, who is pretending to be Tom Sawyer,  tells the tender hearted religious Aunt Sally about a supposed explosion in the steamboat on his way down river.

           "Now I struck an idea [on how to explain himself], and fetched it out:

           `It warn’t the grounding—that didn’t keep us back but a little. We blowed out a cylinder-head.’

           `Good gracious! anybody hurt?’

           “No’m. Killed a nigger.”

           `Well, it’s lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt. . . .’”

This woman is pictured as a religious, affectionate, good woman whose husband has church services for the local slaves and who joyfully takes in two rambunctious boys and who is treating Jim the captured slave very well.  She would likely weep over a wounded dog and yet is then credited to such insensitivity. This indifference to a slave’s life while effective as humor and commentary seems to fail on being true. It still shows Twain’s commitment to the antiracist nature of his book—and makes its alteration in the name of inclusion all the more absurd.

If I have a complaint about the novel, which took Twain eight years to compose, it is Huck’s submission to the ascendency of Tom Sawyer’s cultural and educated superiority near the novel’s end. Huck begins the novel playing with Tom with make-believe pirate fights, pursing the role of attacking robbers against rich merchants thwarted by evil magicians (whom Huck says looked more like a Sunday School picnic defended by its teacher).  The fact that Tom answers Huck’s queries by filling his explanations with references to Don Quixote shows what a dream world Tom lives in.  That’s all well and good.

But when Huck escapes his dangerous alcoholic father and goes down river with a runaway slave, there is no more fantasy. But there is glorious spectacle and imminent danger. He sees a host of terrible and violent things (bloody feuds and murder in the streets) and shapes his decision about Jim partly in the shadow of these events. Also it is in this section that Huck describes with wonder and beauty the world of the river and the nature which surrounds it.

To have Huck then retreat into the world of Tom’s dream play at the novel’s end—until Tom is shot and Jim has to sacrifice himself to make sure the boy is cared for—is difficult for me to accept. (It’s notable that the beautiful descriptions end at this point as well.) I felt the same way about Mary Tyler Moore stepping into the spin off show Rhoda after she had been through so much. I found Mary annoying, and so do I find Tom.  But perhaps I underestimate the appeal which Twain portrays for a traumatized boy of returning to a safe place emotionally and physical after such a perilous journey.  Howsoever, the book is a masterpiece and I am glad to have read it again.

[profgandalf]

Raging at the Wind: Contemporary Censors of Texts Created by Others

In the second paragraph of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” the narrator stops to play with the idea that although the phrase “dead as a doornail” is immediately and so broadly recognized that it borders on being cliché, and that he thinks “dead as a coffin nail” would be more fresh and accurate, he finishes by observing that “the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile, and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it” (Carol 1).

Well, this is the generation of those with “unhallowed hands.”  I have written before about my dismay concerning the decision to remove various books or illustrations by Dr. Seuss. Specifically “And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street” which wonderfully portrays a child’s imagination let loose, and was told by some on this platform that it was all well and good. Now, however, I suppose most of you know that Roald Dahl’s children’s books "James and the Giant Peach," "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," "Witches," and "Charlie and the Glass Elevator" are being rewritten to remove language deemed offensive by the publisher Puffin. (Penguin, the parent company, has indicated they are going to publish uncensored versions as if that makes things better). 

Meanwhile, Alan Gribben a professor at Auburn University has an edition of Huck Finn in which he removes the N-word as well as Injun and replaced them with “slave” and “Indian.“  And now I understand that according to a new report in "The Sunday Telegraph," new editions of Ian Fleming’s original James Bond novels will omit offensive passages when released this spring by Ian Fleming Publications.  And like Dr. Seuss, it’s the people who control the text who are doing this so they can get away with it legally.  My comment to all of these second-rate unimaginative pariahs is "keep your lousy, “unhallowed hands” off other people’s art!" 

Would Dahl care?  Of course, he would!  Dahl was notorious for fighting editors over his word choices, but he’s gone now and the foundation can do what it likes.  My impotent fury on his behalf feels like raging at the wind.  Only in this age is the writer faced with the possibility that his actual text, never mind film interpretations of it, might be altered by people who no more understand the creative process nor have any ability to shape imaginative text than deep sea-lantern fish understand the nature of sunscreen. 

Publishers should NOT have the right to alter an author's intended words because they can.  Even if it is legal: It’s wrong, and if I ever become a published author I am going to include in my contract that NO such alterations can ever be made by my publishers or my offspring no matter how many generations pass.  Dickens didn’t think of this because he couldn’t imagine it.  Congrats you woke folk, you’ve created a whole new clause in contracts!

At least when the Victorians Charles and Mary Lamb rewrote the stories of Shakespeare they called it “Tales from Shakespeare: Designed for the Use of Young Persons” And perhaps one could claim that these Dahl, Twain, and Seuss books are intended to protect children who need protecting. I think that is an error and would suggest just finding an alternative author. However with the censoring of Ian Fleming’s adult spy novels, the pernicious nature of these so-called editors are revealed.  It’s almost amusing.  Rather than accept the fundamental fact that different ages have different ways of thinking (which is part of the benefit of reading literature) and that the artist’s vision is sacred, they now insist that everyone see things as they do, and if authors take is not 100% acceptable, then their works are just altered to do so.  It’s like putting a pair of briefs on Michelangelo’s “David.” 

Years ago Christians were accused of being closed-minded censors. A lot of parents got upset with the novel “The Catcher in the Rye” and a lot of liberals had a good laugh at their expense.  But no Christian parent suggested that the F word be removed from J.D. Salenger’s book while keeping his name on the cover!  Final thought: Write your own damn books and leaves those written by masters alone.  If you're so wise and clever, write your own books!

[profgandalf]

What Makes a Truly Satisfying Christmas Story?

I despise the tripe that passes as most Christmas stories. A quick search on Netflix, Prime, or Tubi will produce a massive collection from which to choose and most of them are just awful. This pains me because I love Christmas ““the whole Christmas season!” and most of the fixings that go with it.  However so many Christmas narratives are both stale, predictable and fail to connect with the central essence of Christmas.

If it’s a romantic narrative then a couple will have some sort of difficulty during the holidays and will overcome it by the end through the intervention of either an unexpected plot twist of goodness, a supernatural elf, or even a visitation by Santa himself.  Something must pull the protagonists’ bacon out of the fire at the last minute. Economic or domestic difficulties are all solved.  Meanwhile, how many times has the holiday itself been saved by one character or another? Ernest saves Christmas, Frosty saves Christmas, the Martians save Christmas (actually Santa saves Christmas from the Martians) and so it goes. One almost gets the sense that the celebration of Christ’s birth is a porcelain figure rather than our rugged religious holiday.

Part I Successes are Few

Only Charles Dickens, with The Christmas Carol in Prose, ever managed to write a non-overtly religious narrative that successfully embraces the central power of the holiday.  I would suggest the truth of this in its enduring fame and multiple renditions since it’s publication.  Furthermore, Dickens’ success seems to have eluded him in most other tries.  After 1843 Dickens composed Christmas stories multiple times which were financially so successful that his Christmas presentation became a staple in Victorian England.   However, most modern critics admit that A Cricket on the Hearth, The Chimes, The Haunted House, The Struggle for Life, and the Haunted Man do not rise to the power of Scrooge’s transformation.  In fact, most readers have never heard of these other Dickensian Christmas offerings.  (Only The Cricket ever made it as a Rankin and Bass special.)  

Furthermore this failure should not be connected with any sense of the growing cynicism within the author.  Not even the Christmas chapters from The Pickwick Papers (which predates “The Carol”) such as hearty and boisterous ““Christmas at Dingy Dell” nor the fantastic transformational story "The Goblins Who Stole a Sexton" hit the nose on the head in the same way that Scrooge’s story does. “The Carol’s strength comes from Dickens’ channeling the holiday’s spiritual center. That spiritual center comes from the original Christmas narrative and believer or not if if an author is going to write such an effective story one has to look to the original sources.   Using this as a base, I would like to suggest that the spiritual center necessary for an effective Christmas story must include the following: 

(1) it must be a narrative of wonder; 

(2) it must involve something precious, 

(3) That precious something must face real jeopardy, and finally...

(4) The solution to that challenge, the salvation depicted in the story’s conclusion, must be potentially inclusive.

Part II  Must be a Story of Wonder

To begin, the successful story of Christmas must be one of wonder.  This abounds in the primary narrative: The original shepherds found themselves in such a place.  “The glory of the Lord shone round about them: (Luke 2: 9).  As Dickens famously said In the opening of his “Carol” “There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.“ Christmas is, at its center, not an everyday event. “It is the most wonderful time of the year.” It comes, shaking up the norm. And that is part of its spiritual center. Both Hebrew and Christian understanding of the Almighty’s workings includes wonder: “Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?” (Exodus 15:11 KJV). “Remember his marvelous works that he hath done, his wonders, and the judgments of his mouth” (1 Chronicles 16:12 KJV). So Christmas stories, at their best, always include wonder.

In some ways, this is the easiest of elements to incorporate. Just set the story in a land of wonders such as Toyland in March of the Wooden Soldiers, Christmas Town in Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer or Whoville in How the Grinch Stole Christmas. The fantastic element of the place itself will instill wonder. Furthermore many might note that because of the fantastic setting, an overt reference to Christ is not always needed. And many Christmas stories avoid the overt religious quality by doing so. However, overtly avoiding the Christmas story is perilous since selfless Christian charity is the springboard of the Yule soul. Think of Fred Halloway's observation from The Christmas Carol: his wonder is based on the unique quality of charity which manifests itself at Christmas time.

“I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round -- apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that -- as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.”

 The inclusive quality will  be covered later but for now look at how unusual and unique the time is.  Again, note the element of breaking into what is normal.  What Shakespeare describes as“So hallow'd and so gracious is the time”   (Hamlet Act. 1Scene 1j  with Christmas we are in a land and time of wonder. “And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds” (Luke 2: 18)

Still, it interesting to note that C.S. Lewis and Tolkien disagreed about lands of wonder and Christmas. Tolkien, who created a whole series of Father Christmas letters and stories for his children, told Lewis it was impossible to have Christmas in Narnia since there was no Christ. Still admiring that Tolkien could allow his hobbits nothing. According to the web site Tolkien Gateway, in Middle Earth’s Shire there is Yule 

“Yule was the Northern Mannish name of the midwinter festival, observed around the Westlands. The days around Yule were the Yule-tide. n the Shire Calendar, Yule referred to two days (the last of the previous and the first of the new year)...Around them, the six-day festival of Yuletide was held, running from 29 Foreyule through 2 Afteryule.” (”Yule, Tolkien Gateway https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Yule)

As for Lewis, he apparently just shrugged and had Father Christmas appear anyway. (Ironically, Tolkien felt that Lewis’ fairy-tale was to obviously Christian, preferring his more subtle approach found in Middle Earth.) Still I think Lewis' instincts also have proved to have merit. What a powerful opening Lewis gives which is centered on Christmas: “It is winter in Narnia,” said Mr. Tumnus, “and has been forever so long. . . always winter, but never Christmas.” (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe ). The bleakness of Narnia is tangible to both young and old readers even if it is a world of wonder and when Christmas comes it signals the end of the White Witch’s power.

One might wonder where is the wonder is such a hard-boiled Christmas narrative as A Christmas Story,” in which the narrator is desperately trying to maneuver his mom and dad into buying him a Red Ryder BB Gun© (with this thing in the stock that tells time). However, the wonder is everywhere in this story. As Ralphi recalls "First nighters, packed earmuff to earmuff, jostled in wonderment before a golden tinkling display of mechanized, electronic joy!" Randy is still so young that he dances about at the Christmas Parade at seeing Mickey and the characters from The Wizard of Oz. But even Ralphie is enough of a believer in wonder that he includes Santa in his machinations.

Another hard-boiled, realistic Christmas story which at first lacks wonder is “The Gift of the Magi.” O Henry describes a young, very poor couple struggling to make ends meet in an urban New York, trying to make one another’s Christmas happy.  But he overtly ties his narrative to the wonder of the first Christmases when the wisemen arrive with gifts as well as the wonderful power of love. As the narrator writes “The magi, as you know, were wise men—wonderfully wise men—who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger” (Henry).

 Wonder is vital for a Christmas story. And the acceptance of wonder is required: “Man of the Worldly mind” says Marley’s ghost, “Do you believe in me or not?! "Seeing is believing," says the conductor in “The Polar Express.” "but sometimes the most real things in the world are the things we can't see." Christmas stories demand the embracing of wonder. Meanwhile, the depth of Wonder in a Christmas story is directly related to its next quality, the jeopardy in which something precious is placed.

For an interesting take on alternative Christmas like festivals in fantastic fiction (worlds of wonder), you might want to check out Overly Sarcastic Productions’ video “Top 12 Fictional Pseudo-Christmases “ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsv4wxPiIdw

Part III Something Precious Faces Jeopardy

The second and third qualities found in the best of Christmas Stories are intimately joined together: Such stories must involve something precious, and that precious quality must face jeopardy. And here is where many Yule narratives go off the rails. 

Too often Christmas Day itself is held up as the precious thing supposedly in peril. Relatives might not make it, the dinner could be ruined or maybe Santa can’t make his flight and all the goodies will not be delivered. But as Dr. Seuss reminds us, Christmas is not so fragile. “’Maybe Christmas,‘ he (the Grinch) thought...doesn't come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps...means a little bit more’”. In Ton Howard’s “Grinch,” the father of Cindy Lue confronts the distraught mayor ““you can’t ruin Christmas Mr. Mayor because it’s not about the presents.”  Stories that make the Christmas celebration the center point falter. The fountainhead of Christmas’ wonder is in it’s ability to transcend. Not even Death can crush it.  The central message of. Christmas is that there comes a power “born that men no more must die.”  In the shadow of his child’s death Bob Chratchet can say ““I’m very happy!”

Also, romantic love, while precious, is not neatly so important as to support a Christmas story. Now here, I might expect some pushback. There is hardly anything so enshrined in our culture than the ultimate value of romantic love. After all, in Dickens' "Carol" Scrooge's nature is revealed by his dismissal of Fred's choice to marry because of love.

“Why did you get married?” said Scrooge. “Because I fell in love.”  “Because you fell in love!” growled Scrooge, as if that were the one thing in the world more ridiculous than a merry Christmas. “Good afternoon!”

Personally, I can recall thinking that the joyful ending of "The Carol" is marred because Scrooge does not find romantic love at the end. But that is a misunderstanding. Romantic love while wonderful is precious only in its hope of becoming marital and familial love--the building blocks of our culture. Anyone who has seen more than twenty-five birthdays knows that romantic love by itself is as fleeting as a morning mist.

Romantic love is precious only in that it leads to marital and familial love. Such love may play a role in a strong Christmas story but if such fleeting affection is the centerpiece of a Yule narrative, the Christmas story flounders--a lot of sound and fury with little consequences. The bounds of marriage and children are deeply precious and the forces which put marriage and a family in jeopardy are worthy elements within a strong Christmas story. Thus, as George Bailey, in "It's a Wonderful Life," moves towards despair, it affects his marriage and family--his daughter Zuzu especially. The true tragedy that the Ghost of Christmas Past presents to Scrooge is the marriage and family he might have had.

And now Scrooge looked on more attentively than ever, when the master of the house, having his daughter leaning fondly on him, sat down with her and her mother at his own fireside; and when he thought that such another creature, quite as graceful and as full of promise, might have called him father, and been a spring-time in the haggard winter of his life, his sight grew very dim indeed. 

This last image is so wretched it causes Scrooge to physically attack the spirit to repress it.   And when, transformed, he sets forth, Scrooge finds his great joy met first at church and then among his family.

The best Christmas stories are those that center on humanity's loss and reclamation. Christmas at its center is the story of helpless humankind being hopelessly lost. The race teeters on despair and destruction. Although the wonder of Christmas can be assisted in fantastic settings, the central quality of Yule wonder is that in the midst of helplessness, help arrived. “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined” (Isaiah 9:2).

This is emphasized in multiple Christmas stories. Death and sterility being "The Carol." Marley is dead, to begin with, and so is Scrooge. The narration makes it clear that they are tied together: “Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name. There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names: It was all the same to him.” Scrooge at the beginning of the story is as dead as a coffin nail.

“Oh! but he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner!.”

The fact is that the old miser needs help, even if Scrooge himself doesn't know it:

Scrooge. . .made bold to inquire what business brought him there.  “Your welfare!” said the Ghost. Scrooge expressed himself much obliged, but could not help thinking that a night of unbroken rest would have been more conducive to that end. The Spirit must have heard him thinking, for it said immediately: “Your reclamation, then. Take heed!”

           Again, in so many of the best Christmas stories, the state of the individual is in deep peril. In Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life,” George Bailey is near self-destruction. The top angel, Franklin, says this “man will be thinking seriously of throwing away God's greatest gift”. Clarence knows exactly what he means. “Oh, dear, dear! His life!.”            More than that, in the eyes of the very Catholic Frank Capra the contemplation of suicide places George Bailey's eternal soul in jeopardy. And the film "Joyeux Noël" depicts the events surrounding the Christmas Truce of 1914 in the midst of tragic jeopardy. Such potential terrible loss is the kind of foundation upon which the best Christmas stories are built.

Part IV Inclusiveness  Good News to All

The fourth and final quality of the best Yule narratives is that like the original good news, a Christmas Story should be inclusive. “Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people'” (Luke 2:10 KJV). Christmas is for all people, no matter one's race, gender, or age. The best Christmas stories portray the inclusion of those who, for one reason or another, were outcasts.

This is important to the narrative because it is organic to the Christmas message. Contrary to the claims of many contemporary experts, Christianity has always been inclusive. As St. Paul writes “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28 KJV). That, from a man brought up in the Pharisaical tradition, is an amazing claim. St. John writes in the last book, “Whosoever will, may come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely (Rev. 22:17b KJV). As a child, I can recall gustily belting out the chorus to P. P. Bliss’ ”Whosoever Will May Come:”

   “Whosoever will, whosoever will!    Send the proclamation over vale and hill;    'Tis a loving Father calls the wanderer home.    "Whosoever will may come."

Just a side note: the American hymn writer, P. P. Bliss, from Ohio lived from 1838 to 1870 and was therefore a contemporary of Charles Dickens who lived from 1812 to 1870) 

The inclusion of the outcast, the inclusion of the enemy, is an especially vital part of Christmas stories. “God Bless Us, Everyone!” is first Tiny Tim’s  and then the narrator’s wish in the Carol.  Christmas should never involve the gleeful dancing by the hero over the fallen figure of his or her opponent. In "Joyeux Noël" that becomes literally true as soldiers from Germany, England and France face one another at Christmas during World War I.  In Adrea Bocelli's Christmas song "God Bless Us Everyone" (featured in Disney's version of “The Christmas Carol”), he provides this proms:

To the voices no one hears,

We have come to find you.

With your laughter and your tears,

Goodness, hope, and virtue.

The central nature of inclusiveness is emphasized in Rankin and Bass’ “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” when the red nosed Rudolf and Hermey, the Elf who wants to be a dentist, find places within their community (as does the terrible Abdominal--whose job becomes the one who places stars on the tops of trees ). And who can forget the joyful ending when Santa arrives to gather up and find homes to all of the inhabitants of The Island of Misfit Toys. The ending which featured this rescue was a late added scene for the second year’s broadcast because there was so much uncertainty over the fate of the toys from the show’s premier.  That is how important inclusiveness is to Christmas. Those who think “Happy Holidays” is a more inclusive term miss the point entirely.

But there is a caveat. While all are welcome in the spirit of Christmas, not everyone will come because not everyone will lay down what is killing them spiritually. Henry F. Potter from "It's a Wonderful Life" is not there in the final scene singing with the rest of his community, and it's NOT because George Bailey, his family, or his friends would have excluded him. It's because Henry F. Potter excluded himself.

The isolating sin of idolatry is alive in our age. Whatever is placed above the light of Christmas is, in fact, a deadly hindrance--what Dickens wisely portrayed as chains on Marley. Bell, Scrooge's former fiancé, identifies his economic passion as idolatry:

"Another idol has displaced me; and if it can cheer and comfort you in time to come, as I would have tried to do, I have no just cause to grieve.'' "What Idol has displaced you?'' he [Scrooge] rejoined. "A golden one.''

Dickens' audience would have immediately recognized the Biblical echo of the golden calf from the Exodus story. If he had not accepted the truth given by the Spirit of Christmas Past (a metaphor for memory) Scrooge would not have found himself at his nephew's Christmas dinner. Meanwhile, if the Grinch had not seen that there is more to Christmas than packages and bags, then he would have found himself out in the snow not enjoying his roast-beast.

Thus, whatever we hold so dear in ourselves that we will not let it go and would sacrifice all else for it, be it political affiliation, gender identification, sexual gratification, competitive economics, or national patriotism when we hold it higher than the light which Christ claimed to bring, we bare ourselves from Christmas.

Thankfully the truth of Christmas in the best of stories is revealed to be far more penetrating, far more enduring, and far more powerful than the world thinks it is. "And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not" (John 1:5 KJV). The best of Christmas stories helps us comprehend it just a little bit more than we might have.

So with all that being said, I sit here with my fingers hovering over the keyboard trying to compose in my head a Christmas yarn worthy of the title.  Glad there is no deadline on me as poor Charles was facing in 1843. Merry Christmas Everyone! Dec. 2022

[profgandalf]

Runyon and Wodehouse: Opposing Sides of the Same Narrative Coin

Recently I've been reading two authors who, at first glance, have nothing in common. One is Damon Runyon author of multiple short stories some of which were gathered together in a collection called Guys and Dolls, (and later turned into a Broadway play).  The other is P.G. Wodehouse author of the many short stories and novellas involving the flaky aristocrat Wooster and his man Jeeves. Wodehouse sets his narratives among the wealthy and aristocratic during the Jazz Age (he is very British and very erudite) while Runyon travels in his stories among the fringy, shady element of big cities such as New York, Boston, and Chicago. Runyon is very American and very much a part of the proletariat. And yet these two share some striking qualities.

First, both create worlds that are completely fictitious. This is true of any author of fiction but it is especially true of these two. There never was a group of dandies like Wodehouse's Wooster who flitted their lives in harmless absurdity with never a heartbreak. Nor was there ever a class of bookies and minor crooks like those in Runyon's narratives who somehow never hurt a soul. In fact, some social critics might easily take aim at either author for romanticizing people who are destructive to the common good.

This HAS been done to Runyon especially since the gangster-with-a-heart-of-gold so popular in film is seen as his creation. But Wodehouse could also be accused of overlooking an exploitative class of individuals who live without any sense of people who do not have servants to help them dress, pack their things or assisted their progress through life. If ever there was a fellow whom the new revolution might hate its Bertie Wooster. Likewise, Jeeves would be seen by a Socialist reader as a broken sell-out since he seems to have no desire to rise but instead looks out for the best interests of his young master. However such objections are absurd since both authors are describing settings with little connection to a realistic worldview and both authors overtly admitted this during their careers.

Second, as part of the fantastic worlds they've created, each author has—with either Broadway or Wooster—a unique narrator with a clear, recognizable voice. The reader can hear the quality of the character in the text. Wooster who tells nearly all the stories about him and Jeeves speaks with a very British aristocratic voice. As he rattles along, he only half-remembers a range of classical educational quotes (often finished or corrected by Jeeves) with a "hip hip hurrah" sort of attitude. His likeableness is revealed by his ongoing praise for his valet about whom he often wonders why Jeeves does not go out on his own to make his fortune. He is a human cork bouncing around from one adventure to another, narrating everything as it happens.

Runyon's narrator, while unnamed, has often been given the handle of “Broadway.” (Since that seems to be the local in which he usually resides) His voice is as distinct as Wooster's, so much so that there is a book out entitled How to Tawk New Yorker which draws a lot from Runyon. "Leave us not be too quick to make harsh judgments in these matters." You know either as soon as they open their mouths.

Third and finally, both are hilariously funny and humor defines their art. They write to make their readers laugh. One critic notes that in lesser hands the adventures of Jeeves and Wooster could have deteriorated into just mere social commentary through bitter satire with Jeeves looking back at the reader with a smirk. But it does not happen with Wodehouse because Jeeves honestly likes his employer. And because he does, we do.

The same could be said of Runyon who can have a well-known criminal claim: "I've gone straight, which I can prove by my thirty-three arrests and zero convictions." Each author portrays a class most readers know little of. and the elements of stories often involve the interaction of people from other parts of society. But neither Runyon nor Wodehouse chose the overt social commentary. Instead, each portrays people who are fundamentally fun to hear about and often would like to know. Sky Masterson never welches on a bet. Wooster is always there to help out a school chum (although it is Jeeves who usually figures out how).

I would also say that both describe a reality which supersedes the “realistic” tradition—something closer to what many have called Dickensian.  This is the ability to create memorable characters who exhibit humane qualities, who are at their center kind and even honorable in their own lights.  Thus, we the readers enjoy their company.

In the end, as different as these two authors are, their goals and skills bring them together and both are very good reads.

[profgandalf]

The World-View of Star Trek Can’t Handle Death

The above image is one of the ubiquitous red shirted Security Crewman who dies on so many of the Original Star Trek shows.  Ironically, the actor pictured here comes back and is featured several times later in the show as Lt. Leslie.

“What do ya mean the Star Trek worldview can’t handle death?” I hear some readers squawk.  “Which show have you watching?  People die in Star Trek all the time!” And that is certainly true.  The dangers of various adventures were often underlined by the death of some crew-person, usually anyone in STOS wearing a red security uniform and this happened so often that it became a cliche.  (See “red shirt” is listed at TV Tropes.)  But important characters, vital characters, did not die, or were not allowed to die.

The fact that the philosophical underpinning of Star Trek cannot handle death really came home to me as I finished viewing the first season of the recent Star Trek show Picard.  Now to be clear, I have been a fan of Star Trek since the sixties. And I know that they have tried to deal with death.  In fact Star Trek VI is entitled The Undiscovered Country which is a reference to the “to be or not to be” speech by Hamlet in which he mentions “The undiscover’d country, from whose bourn / No traveller returns” (Hamlet Act 3, Scene 1).  In the film they tie it into the future but in Shakespeare the unknown shore is death.  And it is notable that Nicholas Meyer who directed both Star Trek VI and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan wanted to use undiscover’d country as the title for his first Star Trek film since in that one, Kirk is dealing with getting old and possibly dying and Spock famously does die.

Fans were warned about Spock’s death before The Wrath of Khan was released and were furious about the elimination of a favored character.  Most now believe it was handled very well. But of course they need not have been so upset since with the success of the second film Spock’s return in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock was guaranteed.  However, fan displeasure is not what I am talking about.  The fact is that the humanistic world view expressed by most in the Star Trek universe has no answer for death, and so to get around it, they must--for the most important characters--cheat death.   Or as in the case of Picard they go into deep grief and denial.

The fact is that most modern materialists do not want to accept non-continuance, which is a natural conclusion to their world-view. They want the possibility of a soul. Thus the search for Spock’s kart racing in The Search for Spock. But even here the fate of Spock is bound to what people in the physical plane can accomplish. Furthermore, it seems to have no influence to the material world since in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home when McCoy attempts to chat with Spock about what he experienced after death he is told that to understand the experience, he would have to die too.

In Star Trek: Picard, the former admiral is depicted as still grieving for Data, somehow never achieving closure over the crewman’s sacrifice to save his life. Also he is informed that he himself is dying. The first season ends with him turning Data “off” at his request and transferring his own mind into a newer healthy body.  This kind of transfer is not new to SF.  Frederik Pohl in the Heechee series starting with the 1977 novel Gateway had a central character who grows old and then transfers his essence into a machine. The continuation of a mind stored in a computer also comes up in the 1993 work of Poul Anderson · Harvest of Stars. 

The fact is that even in the original Star Trek, Kirk and crew meet super beings who plan to insert their consciousness into machines. In the  "Return to Tomorrow" super beings Sargon, Thalassa and Henoch temporarily posses Kirk, Spock, and  Dr. Miranda Jones to construct android bodies--all to continue in this material plane.    Interesting in the end all of the beings reject the machine existence because of their being incapable of sensuality.   Henoch is eventually killed and Sargon and Thalassa accept their passing into oblivion after one last kiss.  They accept death but no one of the bridge crew dies. (One wonders about the android technology which never comes up again in the original show.)  Thus, we see multiple times that the only answer that most in the SF world can accept is an artificial continuance rather than accepting and embracing of death. 

The inability of Star Trek franchise to deal with death is actually lampooned in Star Trek Lower Decks.  In the second season episode “We'll Always Have Tom Paris” the young crewman Rutherford is confronted by the return of the bridge officer Lieutenant Shaxs who died saving his life in the first season “No Small Parts” Rutherford is warned by others not to ask Shaxs since it is considered impolite.  But he is consumed with curiosity even after he sees another crewman get reprimanded for bringing up the lieutenant’s return to his face.

Shax finally tells Rutherford in the privacy of the elevator lift that the only reason those who return from the dead don't tell is because, as summarized at Memory Alpha.  “they'd rather spare everyone the dark truths about scientific depravity that would haunt them for the rest of their days, and cautions that the knowledge will change Rutherford forever. Rutherford doesn't seem put off by this and asks Shaxs to tell him how he came back.”

“Shaxs [eventually] acquiesces and begins to tell him about what happens after death, which is the first step, but then asks if Rutherford knows about ‘the black mountain.’ He clarifies that it is a spiritual battleground where the soul goes and forced to fight three faceless apparitions of one's father, after which killing two, the survivor forces the soul to eat their own heart. As he gets into even further detail, Rutherford becomes more and more disturbed” (”We’ll Always Have Tom Paris” Memory Alpha).  These absurd details however are not helpful and are in no way meant to be a representation of what really happens after death in The Star Trek universe.  The Black Mountain “mombo jumbo” actually comes up in Rich and Morty as well.  It’s meant to not satisfy.  What does really tell us about death in Star Trek is this dialogue between Rutherford, Boimler and Mariner taken from the same episode:

Boimler:  bridge crew always come back.

Rutherford: Fine, but how?

Boimier: I don't know.

Mariner: We're Lower Decks. We don't get to know everything bridge crew does.

Rutherford: He saved my life. You know what? I'm gonna ask him.

Boimler: They-they don't like when people ask how they came back, man. It's probably just a transporter pattern buffer thing.

Mariner: Yeah, or a restored katra, or a mirror universe switcheroo, or the Borg rebuilt him.

Boimier: Or he could be a future son from an alternate timeline, or maybe he got Genesis Deviced, or time ribboned.

Mariner: Or he was trapped in the Nexus.

Boimier: Nexus, time ribbon, same thing. Point is, this stuff always happens, even on Voy [Voyager].

Read more at: https://tvshowtranscripts.ourboard.org/viewtopic.php?t=45739

In one piece of dialogue the writers cover all the ways from shows, to films to novels that writers for the franchise have avoided the problem of death,  And it all comes down to the point that death remains the one reality in human existence that Star Trek cannot handle. 

[profgandalf]

The Christian Bedrock of Disney’s Moralities in Film

A lot is being said right now about the infection of “woke morality” within Disney’s products and how Christians should abandon the franchise.  And this is, I believe, a legitimate concern.  Supporting individuals who are non-binary is not the same as supporting the indoctrination of children to some specific sexual morality not shared by the larger culture.  The fact that some in Disney producers have overtly admitted to slipping in “gay” material into what was meant to be children’s programing shows the awareness that those creators that they were doing something they knew was not generally accepted. One does not “slip in” what one knows is acceptable.   Am I making myself clear here? 

I support Howard Ashman the brilliant lyricist and stage director who was involved with Aladdin, Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast and am happy that he was part of the Disney team.  But I am also thankful that he did not feel the need to include his gay sexuality into the children's films he helped create.  I do not care what many in the larger society think about this position.  For example, I also think sex before marriage is wrong and would not want that in children's’ films even though many in our current culture think otherwise.  Sex training does not belong in Disney’s child entertainment fare. It belongs to the parents not teachers or film makers.  And in fact, my opinion is not so marginal: Over 60% Of Americans back Florida’s limits on K-3 lessons on sexual orientation and gender Identity.  (My opinions about gay characters in adult films and TV is quite different.)

What I have also often noticed is that Christianity is far more prevalent in Disney’s offerings than some might realize.  Now I grant that the overt manifestation of Christianity has not been seen since Snow White’s prayerful thanks for her protectors and her hope that Grumpy will come to accept her, the “Ave Marie” sequence in the original Fantasia (which is rather dull when compared with the film’s rendition of “Night on Bald Mountain” or when Prince Philip carried a cross emblazoned shield against Maleficent who says just before she transforms into a dragon that he must face her and all the forces of Hell.  Instead, Disney has given credence to just about every other mythic system out there including various versions of Native American beliefs in Pocahontas and Brother Bear, Polynesian myth in Mona and most recently Chinese ancestral worship as that depicted in Turning Red.  And yet even while doing this there is a repeated reliance of Christian assumptions.

  “10 Disney Movies with Secret Christian Messages.” 

[profgandalf]

The Old Man Vs The Machinations of Mothers Everywhere: The Affirmation of Traditional Gender Roles As They Play Out as Patterns of Power in Bob Clark's "A Christmas Story"

My wife hates it when I do this, taking apart a beloved film or story we’ve shared to find what I call some “interesting point.” It’s like the time I mentioned to her that I thought that Jiminy Cricket in Disney’s Pinocchio was the only sexually aware character in the film. (I didn’t mean anything bad, but just look how he behaves with the Blue Fairy when she offers him the job of being "a conscience," and earlier when he is watching Geppetto dance about in his workshop; Jiminy suddenly realizes that he’s laid his hand on the bum of a curvy wooden doll. He’s embarrassed and raises his hat in a blushing apology. See? Not evil; just aware. He recognizes the feminine.

However, to my beloved, this kind of thinking suggests that I am trying to find fault or some "dark secret" in what is otherwise a sweet and lovely narrative.

Her objections remind me of Tolkien’s complaint that there are some critics who cannot just enjoy a good soup. “We must be satisfied with the soup that is set before us and not desire to see the bones of the ox out of which it is boiled” (On Fairy Stories). Just enjoy the soup he said. Just enjoy the movie she says. OK, I get it. And let me state at the onset, that whatever I say about gender and power, I love the 1983 now-classic holiday film A Christmas Story. In fact, I hope to argue that part of my satisfaction with the film comes from its affirmation of what so many of us know: men see the world one way and women see it another--both are right.

There is so much in A Christmas Story which rings true to my upbringing even though I lived in the sixties not the early forties. But Warren G. Harding Elementary School looks just like John Street Elementary School in Franklin Square, Long Island of my childhood, and all of those children have echoes in my own kid memory.

Schwartz reminds me of my cousin Lee when we were both eleven and Esther Jane could be a stand-in for my eight-year-old younger sister, Debbie. One fair-faced blond boy who looks on in horror at the flag pole double-dog dare could be a clone of my childhood friend Eric Carlson. And all my family thinks I am a ringer for Ralphie (with that “dumb round face” and glasses and his world of imagination banging about inside my head). So from the start, this is a nostalgic experience. But nostalgia is good for a Currier and Ives, not for a story.

One  notable element of the film’s story is its depiction of the power struggle between genders in America—specifically during the time depicted but with broader connections to the traditions of the West.

Men rule in Ralphie's world. His dad--referred to continuously as "the old man"--commutes to work to support his family and when he returns home is catered to as the head of the house.  He is also responsible for keeping the coal furnace  heating the house functioning and repelling hounds belonging to his Hillbilly (migrant) neighbors, the Bumpises.This was true to some level in my youth although my mother had more to say about the houses workings.  Dad came home angry one night, grousing at everyone and mom told him to go drive around the block until he could be civil.  But bringing in the bacon and home repair were Dad’s domain. Mom’s assertaveness is not in Ralph’s home.  At the start of the film, Ralphie’s mom wouldn’t dare do this.  We can talk about her character arc and what she might do at the film’s end.

However Ralphie is NOT a man.  He’s a boy, a “proto-man” with all the instincts to be what a man, a father, should be and do but Ralphie is powerless.  He has none of the strengths and authority to do anything—except over his poor brother Randy.    When the boys struggle to get ready for school, Ralphie picks Randy up so he can get dressed quickly since he needs time to leave hints of his BB dreams around his parents’ bedroom.  To Randy’s complaints about it being unfair he simply says ““tough!”  His desire for a Red Ryder BB gun illustrates this.  He wants the gun not to kill animals or practice marksmanship.  He wants to PROTECT his family.

Viewers will remember that when his mother cancels his hopes with “the classic mother-BB gun block! "You'll shoot your eye out!" that Ralphi interjects that is the female parent whose ignorance of the dire possibilities requiring deadly is the problem.

Mothers know nothing about creeping marauders, burrowing through the snow towards the kitchen, where only you, and you alone, stand between your tiny, huddled family and insensate evil.

in his daydream, Ralphie sees a group of comic-book villains riding horses in an absurdly anachronistic, western style while wearing urban masks, stripped shirts and black pants 

[profgandalf]

Those Who Call Thanksgiving to be a “Day of Mourning” Show Their Historical Ignorance and Their Own Blighted Souls

It is amazing to me, that the fact that this Thanksgiving marks the four hundredth anniversary of the contract between the Pilgrims and Wampanoag people (April 1, 1621) and yet few seem to be taking note of it. Even worse, I am hearing from some within the progressive camp who claim that this day should be not a day to give thanks but a day of mourning. Do a Google search and you will find multiple sites claiming to tell the sad truth about the first thanksgiving or how some of the current Wampanoag regret helping the early Pilgrims since their arrival began the genocide of native people. That is a bunch of hooie.

It is hooie because the Pilgrims committed no genocide and they were not even the first westerners to colonize the New World since Europeans had already been to this continent multiple times. Thus, those who put this idea forward and attack a day that has historically been set aside to be thankful, rob the culture of positive practice and refuse to see the goodness of a few who met in a strange time. One quality I see missing from our current culture is an awareness of gratitude as a way to happiness. Thus this day must be preserved.

Perhaps a little history is needed: On November 1620, The Mayflower arrived in the Americas, carrying 101 English settlers, commonly known as The Pilgrims. The Pilgrims were not Puritans whatever you will find in many misinformed websites. They were nonconformists who were rebelling from the rule of the Church of England. They were strict Calvinists but profoundly different than those who would come later to found the Boston Bay Colony.

The Pilgrims fled England to Holland but found that their children were being influenced towards a more secular world view and so 101 of them sailed for the New World. I mention this because a lot of the voices demanding that Thanksgiving be given over to the national guilt campaign immediately put together what the Boston Bay Colony Puritans did with those of Pilgrims of Plymouth. Mixing the Puritan perception of Native Americans with those of the Pilgrims is like mixing a pre-civil war white Southern slaveholder to blacks with that of a white abolitionist of the same period. Plymouth is located approximately 40 miles (64 km) south of Boston, The Pilgrims of Plymouth would have barely interacted with Puritans of Boston. As is so often the case in "woke" history, their ideas lack nuance and show no understanding of context. The Pilgrims had good relations with their native neighbors, what there were of them.

The Pilgrims were actually on their way to an already established colony in Virginia and were to land in late summer where the English had already established a patent by 1607 AD but, owing to delays, they left in September 1620 AD, were blown off course by the fall weather, and wound up off the coast of Massachusetts. In a time when COVID has struck fear among so many in the American populace, it would be a good moment to consider that this day of Thanksgiving was set in the shadow of great tragedy and bravery.

According to the History Channel's web page "half of the 101 passengers on the Mayflower died that first winter from starvation, exposure, and disease." Most of these casualties were women who gave up their own food for their children. If one visits Plymouth plantation, (which I recommend) there is a Pilgrim's Progress march in which every survivor is represented by a re-enactor. One is struck by the decimation of families with only fathers and children. The colony would likely have failed without native help.

This season had not been easy for the Native Americans at that time either. Squanto: the Patuxet warrior who had been kidnapped by an Englishman, sold into slavery in Spain, and released by Spanish monks, made his way home only to find his entire village wiped out by the plague. This was not genocide, this was the tragedy that occurs when people meet and are exposed to unfamiliar viruses. Our own experience with the pandemic should make that clear and few would be so insane to claim that the Chinese people committed genocide for an illness that has decimated so many which came from their land.

It is difficult to imagine the heartbreak of Squanto or Tisquantum who having traveled from Spain to England, (where he may have met the famous Pocahontas, a Native American from Virginia, in 1616–1617), returning America in 1619 to his native village, only to find that his tribe had been wiped out by an epidemic infection; thus Tisquantum who participated in that first Thanksgiving was the last of the Patuxets. When his tribe died, he went to live with the Wampanoags.

The Mayflower landed in Cape Cod Bay in 1620, and Squanto (Tisquantum) worked to broker peaceable relations between the Pilgrims and the local Pokanokets. According to one source “On Friday, March 16, the settlers were conducting military training when Samoset "boldly came alone" into the settlement. The colonists were initially alarmed, but he immediately set their fears at ease by asking for beer in English. (As an evangelical teetotaler, this cracks me up!). He spent the day giving them intelligence of the surrounding tribes, then stayed for the night, leaving the next morning. The next day (Sunday), he returned with five men all bearing deer skins and one cat skin. The settlers entertained them but refused to trade with them because it was the Sabbath, although they encouraged them to return with more furs.

Several sources say that for Squanto—who had lost his own people—these colonists in their need touched him deeply. He dedicated himself to their survival. Meanwhile, the Pilgrims hearing about Squanto being sold into slavery, rising in education, and returning to them to give aid paralleled the Old Testament story of Joseph. God had sent them "a Joseph." Squanto would play a key role in the early meetings in March 1621, partly because he spoke English but also his dedication. He then lived with the Pilgrims for 20 months, acting as an interpreter, guide, and advisor.

The Wampanoag chief Massasoit was anxious to befriend these strangers since his own people had been so cruelly decimated by disease. According to Wikipedia “The Wampanoag suffered from an epidemic between 1616 and 1619, long thought to be smallpox introduced by contact with Europeans. However, researchers published a study in 2010 suggesting that the epidemic was leptospirosis or 7-day fever. The groups most devastated by the illness were those who had traded heavily with the French, leading to speculation that the disease was a virgin soil epidemic.” Again not the Pilgrims and certainly not genocide. Massasoit hoped these strangers would prove to be powerful allies. And do they did in several later conflicts with other tribes.

The meaning of the name Wampanoag is by the way beautiful: “People of the First Light.”

With the help of the native Wampanoag people, the Pilgrims learned to fish and farm their new lands, resulting in the famous feast of Thanksgiving attended by natives and new arrivals in 1621.

The actual day is unclear. The Pilgrims' first Thanksgiving began at some unknown date between September 21 and November 9, most likely in very early October. Harvest home was an already established holiday in England. The date of Thanksgiving was probably set by Lincoln to somewhat correlate with the anchoring of the Mayflower at Cape Cod, which occurred on November 21, 1620 (by our modern Gregorian calendar--it was November 11 to the Pilgrims who used the Julian calendar).

And so there you have it. For all involved, there had been terrible trials and yet together they created a tradition that we sorely need to remember—not of guilt and grief but of shared thankfulness and hope!

Sources

Thanksgiving 'redefined' into 'National Day of Mourning' https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/11/thanksgiving_redefined_into_national_day_of_mourning.html

This tribe helped the Pilgrims survive for their first Thanksgiving. They still regret it 400 years later. Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/11/04/thanksgiving-anniversary-wampanoag-indians-pilgrims/

What's the Difference Between Puritans and Pilgrims. History Channel: https://www.history.com/news/pilgrims-puritans-differences

Pilgrim-Wampanoag Peace Treaty World History Encyclopedia https://www.worldhistory.org/Pilgrim-Wampanoag_Peace_Treaty/

Squanto And The Story Of The First Thanksgiving. Pilgrim's Beacon: https://pilgrimsbeacon.com/squanto-story-first-thanksgiving/

Squanto Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squanto

Native America and the Mayflower: 400 years of Wampanoag history/ Mayflower 400: https://www.mayflower400uk.org/education/native-america-and-the-mayflower-400-years-of-wampanoag-history/

Squanto God Sent Him to Save the Pilgrims https://www.fggam.org/2021/11/squanto-god-sent-him-to-save-the-pilgrims/ The Pilgrim's Progress See Plymouth MA https://seeplymouth.com/listing/the-pilgrim-progress/

[profgandalf]

The Murdering of Christians Not in Rome But Here in the USA

I just watched the first of the Kingsmen spy films. I enjoyed it for the most part although I found the cursing a bit heavy especially since Colin Firth was in it whom I enjoyed so much in The King's Speech. However, there is one scene that profoundly disturbs me. Firth's character finds out that the evil mastermind, Richmond Valentine, is going to try something at what Wikipedia calls "an obscure hate group's church in Kentucky" very likely based on the Westboro Baptist Church based in Topeka, Kansas). He goes to a church meeting only to discover that the trap is set which activates an electronic signal that turns anyone near a freely handed-out Valentine cell phone into a violent psychopath.

Everyone in the congregation goes insane, but Firth, because of his spy training, brutally wipes out the entire congregation--every man, woman, and child--all depicted in delighted gory detail. Before the activation of the signal, the audience hears some of the "hate speech" of which the group is guilty.

The minister says they oppose the licentious relations celebrated in media, they oppose abortions, and they oppose gay and transgender relations. He then goes on to call Jews and other groups hateful names, but my point is up to that moment those first three positions are not hateful positions. They are, in fact, ideas supported by the Catholic Church and other mainstream denominations. And I do wonder how much of that scene was powered by internal animus in the filmmakers. One spoiler here: Firth never has to confront the mass murder he committed and so the audience never has to confront any feelings of delight they may have had.

This is a new low among the left. They have gone from just disagreeing to suggesting that righteous force is a tool that should be used. When our troops were taken out of Afghanistan, several members of the media like Michael Moore gave false equivocations, saying that "Christian Conservatives Are Like The Taliban – ‘They’re Religious Nuts’" https://thepoliticalinsider.com/michael-moore-says-christian-conservatives-are-like-the-taliban-theyre-religious-nuts/ Colbert said something similarly stupid in one of his opening monologues: "never mind the Taliban in Afghanistan, we have our own Taliban here among Trump voters. https://www.foxnews.com/media/stephen-colbert-taliban

I am not supporting the rioters who should face even-handed justice, but for them to then paint all supporters of the former president as part of a terrorist group or all Conservative Christians as like the monsters who will murder whole scale women is only a short step from feeling fine with profoundly Anit-American use of force against "enemies of the state." We don't have to look far for this--just across the border in Canada:

Rev. Artur Pawlowski and his brother Dawid Pawlowski's are in the news and maybe facing jail time. The local authorities dislike the nondenominational church partly because it opposes abortion and same-sex marriage. Their food for the hungry program was shut down because they failed to have a permit and Rev. Pawlowski was cited for making too much noise for reading the Bible out loud during the food drive The officers also confiscated their Bibles. A judge in Canada dropped most of the charges noting he saw "a clear abuse of power." However, Canada's IRS took away the church's tax-exempt status because according to the state they spend more than 10 percent of sermon time on things not considered religious. Also, he was cited for holding an outdoor Easter service when Alberta only allowed ten to be able to gather outside. But he made national news when he expelled armed officers from his sanctuary, calling them Nazis and Communists. https://www.dailywire.com/news/canadian-pastor-who-faces-4-year-jail-sentence-for-inciting-church-warns-americans-the-enemy-is-not-hiding-anymore