Tag Archives: current events

Humbug Revisited: A Brief History of Christmas

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It’s coming on Christmas
They’re cutting down trees
They’re putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
Oh I wish I had a river I could skate away on
– Joni Mitchell

I can’t get the name of Walter Vance out of my mind.  He was the 61 year old pharmacist, with a history of heart problems, who collapsed in a West Virginia Target store shortly after midnight on Black Friday.  Witnesses told MSNBC that many shoppers ignored Vance and walked around or even stepped over him as he lay on the floor.

When NPR held a call-in show to ask about listeners’s Black Friday shopping experience, one caller reported that a woman had grabbed an item out of her cart, saying, “It isn’t yours until you’ve paid for it.”  The incident mirrors a scene in a commercial that ran incessantly in the days leading up to the event.

Sales receipts were no guarantee of safety either – just ask the shooting victims in several parking lot robberies.

Exhausted after an all-night shift, one Target employee drove her car into a canal.

All of these reports emerged after the infamous pepper spray story that had the media wagging its head – the very same media that helped whip crowds into a feeding frenzy during the previous days

None of this is new.  Christmas has always been the church’s most problematic holiday.  The Hallmark version we know today was in part, carefully crafted by early 19th century merchants, in a manner not different in essence, from the effort to persuade millions of seemingly sensible people to spend Thanksgiving night in big-box stores.

Santa Claus by Thomas Nast, 1865. Would you want this guy roaming around your home late at night?

The Bible does not give a date for the birth of Jesus.  Apparently, birthdays were not a big issue back then.  Origen of Alexandria, a 3d century theologian, wrote that “only sinners like Herod and Pharaoh celebrate their birthdays.”  December 25 was not fixed as the date of Christmas until the 4th century, and the nativity was largely ignored until the 9th century reign of Charlemagne.

Through the early middle ages, Christmas was overshadowed by Epiphany, which commemorates the visit of the Magi.  It was not until the high middle ages that Christmas emerged as a popular feast day.  “Feast” is an understatement.  In 1377, Richard II’s guests consumed 28 oxen and 300 sheep.  Caroling became popular then, though chroniclers complained of lewd lyrics.  The same writers blamed pagan holidays like Saturnalia and Yule for the “drunkenness, promiscuity, and gambling,” of the celebrations.

In 1645, in an effort to rid England of decadence, Oliver Cromwell and his Puritans banished Christmas in England.  The Pilgrims on the Mayflower were even stricter.  From 1659-1681, Christmas was outlawed in Boston.  English customs were shunned after the revolution, and Christmas did not become an official American holiday until 1870.

We can read on history.com that, “The early 19th century was a period of class conflict and turmoil. During this time, unemployment was high and gang rioting by the disenchanted classes often occurred during the Christmas season.”  The New York City police force was organized in 1828 in response to a Christmas Riot.  History.com continues:   “This catalyzed certain members of the upper classes to begin to change the way Christmas was celebrated in America.”  

In the absence of television, one thing 19th century chambers of commerce used to push their version of Christmas was Washington Irving’s, The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, a series of stories of life in an English manor house.  “The sketches feature a squire who invited the peasants into his home for the holiday. In contrast to the problems faced in American society, the two groups mingled effortlessly.”  Historians now claim the book does not describe any actual customs, but ones that Irving wished for and thus invented.  

Even more important to the evolution of Christmas was Charles Dickens’s, A Christmas Carol, with its strong message that celebrating this holiday can make you a better person.  Dickens’s book meshed with the Victorian emphasis on family , as well as a new appreciation of children.

Referring to the 19th century upswing of Christmas popularity, history.com says: “Although most families quickly bought into the idea that they were celebrating Christmas how it had been done for centuries, Americans had really re-invented a holiday to fill the cultural needs of a growing nation.”

The optimism of “a growing nation” that we see in historical prints and Christmas cards seems as quaint these days as the cards themselves.  For a sense of the collective mindset this year, I look at this photo of students at the Charles W. Howard Santa School in Midland, MI.  This year the Santas are learning to gently lower children’s holiday expectations.

Photo by Fabrizio Constantini, New York Times

I wonder what Santa said to the boy who showed up with a multi-page spreadsheet, cross referencing all the toys he wanted to different stores and prices. (What was he doing on Santa’s lap to begin with)?

***

Even a little research reveals that there is no “right” way to celebrate Christmas.  This holiday has been re-invented numerous times.  If individuals and families opt out of what no longer works and try to create saner traditions, no one will ever miss them.  I’ll go ahead and lead off with a clip from my favorite Christmas movie of all time, in the scene that inspired this post, and leads me to wonder if the pre-repentant Scrooge isn’t due for re-evaluation.

Meanwhile, Be Careful Out There, and in case you were wondering, I’m off to see the new Muppet Movie today.  I’ll soon be back with a report.

Be Careful Out There: Shopping Rage

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The title of this post is taken from the sergeant who read the daily assignments on the ground-breaking, 80’s cop show, “Hill Street Blues.”  Every day he would warn his people, “Be careful out there!”

Sadly, the same caution may be needed this year by holiday shoppers, after an incident in southern California that police are calling, “competitive shopping rage.”  At 10:20 pm on Thanksgiving night, shoppers were lining up in the Porter Valley Walmart to purchase discounted Xboxes, when a woman began pepper spraying them “to gain a shopping advantage.”

Ten people were treated for pepper spray, and ten others for bumps and bruises suffered in the confusion.  The assailant got away, and it isn’t clear if she scored an Xbox.  The store is going through register receipts to see if she left a credit card trail.  The woman could face felony battery charges if apprehended.  We all should be thankful she didn’t bring a gun.

I really want to condemn something or someone for this insanity, but that would be false.  A better question would be, how am I complicit in the greed that has come to surround the birthday of the Prince of Peace?  And to reference my previous post on Andrew Weil, how happy is this kind of grasping likely to make someone on Christmas morning?

The 21st Century May Be Bad For Your Mental Health

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To appreciate this post, you need to know a little of how it came about.  Yesterday morning, in my dentist’s waiting room, I started reading an article in  the Nov. 14 Newsweek by Dr. Andrew Weil.  He and others have noted that modern affluence breeds depression.  They have also observed that the Amish, with a 19th century lifestyle centered on simplicity, have only 1/10 the amount of depression of other Americans.  Just as I hit this tantalizing statement, the dentist, who was running ahead of schedule, called me in.  After my appointment, I finished the article.  “Our brains aren’t equipped for the 21st century,” says Weil.

One of the things we are not equipped for is our 24/7, hi-tech, multi-tasking world, a point that made me chuckle as I pulled out my smart phone, photographed the pages, and emailed them to myself.  Just call me a poster boy for the legions of technically savvy neurotics.  It turns out I didn’t need to send the page to myself.  Weil’s article is available online, and I highly recommend it:  http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/10/30/andrew-weil-s-spontaneous-happiness-our-nature-deficit-disorder.html.

The article is taken from his latest book, Spontaneous Happiness, just released this month, where Weil says it’s not just technology that’s the cupric in our epidemic of depression.  Increasing numbers of psychologists and therapists identify one of our key problems as Nature Deficit Disorder.  Weil says:  

“Behaviors strongly associated with depression—reduced physical activity and human contact, overconsumption of processed food, seeking endless distraction—are the very behaviors that more and more people now can do, are even forced to do by the nature of their sedentary, indoor jobs.
………………………………………………
“Human beings evolved to thrive in natural environments and in bonded social groups. Few of us today can enjoy such a life and the emotional equilibrium it engenders, but our genetic predisposition for it has not changed.”

Weil discusses the bad news in detail, but doesn’t end there.  He is firmly in the camp of “positive psychology,” the discipline that concentrates on human wellbeing rather than pathology.  He summarizes positive measures we can take, things he discusses in greater detail in the book.

  • Find a mindfulness practice.  (I was impressed that Weil listed this as suggestion #1.  I’ll follow this up by posting some resources soon).
  • Spend as much time as possible outdoors.
  • Find some form of aerobic exercise.
  • Sleep in total darkness, if possible, and avoid very bothersome noise, even if it means wearing earphones.  Weil discusses why uninterrupted sleep, and freedom from noise pollution are important.
  • Attend to diet – he has written of this in detail in previous books.
  • Cultivate social relationships.
  • Spend some time each day unplugged from all forms of gadgetry.

Finally, Weil, like almost everyone else who writes on wellbeing, cites gratitude as a critical factor.  This morning I ran into an acquaintance who has had a number of physical problems.  He has paid a price, but also found something diamond-solid that is now at the core of his life:  three times he has been clinically dead, and he’s seen and experienced “the light,” that people in that extremity sometimes encounter.  He knows it is waiting for him, and meanwhile, shares his experience with others he thinks will benefit.  He says he intends to do so, “as long as God decides to keep me around.”

Simply encountering him put me in tune with the theme of the season, and reminded me of all I have to be thankful for.  That is my hope for everyone reading this – may you find unshakeable joy in your life just as it is, and may you be able to share it with others.

A Popular Writer Opens a Bookstore

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“I have no interest in retail; I have no interest in opening a bookstore,” said Ann Patchett, whose Parnassus bookstore opened Wednesday in Nashville.  “I also have no interest in living in a city without a bookstore,” she continued.

Author Ann Patchett welcomes customers to Parnassus Books

Nashville, once called “the Athens of the South,” lost it’s last independent bookstore and its Borders, in what one local writer called, “a civic tragedy.”  Cultural leaders held meetings in the public library, and hatched such ideas as a co-op bookstore, with individual investments of $1000 to startup.  Nothing came of those suggestions.  Then Patchett, the best selling author of Bel Canto and Truth and Beauty, began to think of opening a store.

In April, she met with Karen Hayes, who had worked with a large book wholesaler and as a sales rep for Random House.  The two  became partners and co-owners.  Patchett, whose most recent book, State of Wonder, reached number 3 on the New York Times bestseller list, put up an initial investment of $300,00.  When she went on a 15 city book tour last summer, she was bursting with questions for the owners of all the stores she visited:  How many square feet?  How many employees?  What makes this store work?

“Put the children’s section in the back of the store,” (so if they bolt, they can be stopped before they hit the street).  “If you hang signs from the ceiling, people will buy what’s advertised on them.”  “Make your store comforting and inclusive, smart but not snobby.”  These were bits of advice she gained from others in the trenches.  Like other independent bookstores, Parnassus will use Google to offer ebooks to customers.  (“Novelist Fights the Tide by Opening a Bookstore,” by Julie Bosman, The New York Times, Nov. 16, 2011, p. A1).

Stocking the children's section

In an NPR interview, Ann Patchett said she felt nervous, “like the first day of school,” but added, “I actually think this is going to go really, really well.”  http://www.npr.org/2011/11/16/142413792/ann-patchett-opens-parnassus-books-in-nashville

Patchett says Parnassus is her “gift to the city.”  Compared to the bookstores Nashville lost, Ms Patchett’s store, at 2500′, is tiny, but she says, “This is the way bookstores used to be. This is the bookstore of my childhood, and I feel fantastic being back here.”

I think maybe all of us can remember the magic of childhood bookstores and wish Ann Patchett, Karen Hayes, and the city of Nashville great success with their latest enterprise.

Another Thread in the Social Fabric Unravels

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My wife and I both come from (different) upstate New York factory towns.  My family moved to San Jose when I was nine.  Mary moved to California after high school, while her brothers stayed in Rochester and went to work for Kodak.  In the early ’70’s, that was a reasonable path to choose.  Kodak was a solid Dow Jones company and historically, one of the first to offer generous benefits to workers.

Over the last three decades, Mary and I have gone back for fun, for weddings, and funerals.  Rochester isn’t the same city.  Weeds grow in the parking lot of many silent factories.  Birds fly out of smokestacks once touted as the tallest in the country.

Kodak is a textbook example of a successful company blindsided by a “disruptive technology.”  But textbooks are the last thing on the minds of many of Kodak’s 38,000 retirees.  Late to the digital party, there is now talk of Kodak going bankrupt, and unfortunately, Kodak retiree health care is tied to the company’s fortunes.  http://www.npr.org/2011/10/12/141257737/the-picture-isnt-pretty-for-some-kodak-retirees

There are way too many stories like this in the news.  This one caught my attention because I know the town a little bit, and know people who are affected, people who played by the rules and now find themselves getting screwed.  A week from now, their story will be forgotten.

***

I found myself thinking again of the Occupy Wall Street protestors and some reactions from our “leaders” to their attempt to give people like the Kodak workers a voice.

According to Paul Krugman of the New York Times, Eric Cantor has called the protestors a “mob” and denounced them for “pitting Americans against Americans.”  Mitt Romney accused them of “waging class warfare.”  Herman Cain calls them “anti-American.”  Senator Rand Paul fears the protestors will start taking iPads from the rich, and according to the talking heads on CNBC, they are “aligned with Lenin.”  http://www.sacbee.com/2011/10/11/3973680/plutocrats-fearing-scrutiny-demonize.html

***

Hard times bring out the best in some people and the worst in others.  These days I find myself paraphrasing the Serenity Prayer – asking for “the wisdom to know the difference.”

Occupied

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I sat up and took notice the other night when a local news announcer complained that the “Occupy Sacramento” protestors “could not even say what they want.” In other words, they won’t play by the rules – you know, the unwritten rule that says when a TV station sends a van to cover your event, you need to have your sound-byte ready. How else can they work it into a one minute segment and move on? How else can you be neatly pigeonholed?

Actually, there is at least one articulate answer to the question of what the protestors want, supplied by Naomi Klein, a Canadian author and activist, at the “Occupy Wall Street” rally in New York. http://www.thenation.com/article/163844/occupy-wall-street-most-important-thing-world-now. This link comes courtesy of Genevieve’s blog, Look Who’s Blogging Now, which you can find on my blogroll. I suggest you check it out if you are interested in this latest eruption of frustration with the status quo, since Genevieve is off to check out the “Occupy Minnesota” protests, and will likely have more to say.

Occupy Wall Street protestors

Perhaps one reason I took special notice of the protests that night, was because I’d been reading of another famous entity that didn’t seem to be playing by the rules; I mean the universe we live in. If – and this is a big if – a large group of European physicists are right, and neutrinos really move faster than light, then some of our core assumptions about the nature of matter are wrong. Here’s a good article by Jason Palmer, science and Technology reporter for the BBC news: http://scienceblogs.com/startswithabang/2011/09/this_extraordinary_claim_requi.php

So this neutrino walks into a bar a moment after he’s ordered a beer…

Suddenly we’re faced with conclusions like these:

  • Twentieth century politics no longer works.
  • Twentieth century economics no longer works.
  • Twentieth century physics may need to be revised at its core.
  • As I have often discussed here, twentieth century publishing models are spluttering, and I’m sure you can think of other specialty areas where the past no longer functions as a reliable guide to the present.

Something similar happened a hundred years ago. In 1905, Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams, and Einstein published his special theory of relativity. Nineteenth century notions of human nature and the world no longer fit. The start of World War I nine years later marked the greatest failure of business-as-usual in the history of the world (up until then).

So what happens now?

Einstein said, “The mind that creates a problem is not the mind that can solve it.” In other words, we have people who are sick of the status quo, but for the moment, avoid easy answers. Analogies to the Tea Party are obvious enough that even this week’s Saturday Night Live picked up the thread. As I recall, the media was frustrated with the Tea Party in the beginning for the same reasons – no central spokesperson, no succinct Powerpoint agenda. Once they sent people to Washington, the Tea Party got buttonholed pretty fast as a one-issue-movement. “Balance the budget without raising taxes and life will be good again.” Does anyone, even a member of congress, really believe that?

Here’s an observation by a local man:

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend? Despite reasonable differences, tea partyers and “occupiers” have far more in common with each other than with the politicos they elected to represent them. Conversely, Republicans and Democrats have more in common with each other than they do with the people who voted for them.” Bruce Maiman, “Wall Street Protestors, meet the tea partners,” editorial in The Sacramento Bee, Oct. 7, 2011, p. 13

The news media, even NPR, refused to acknowledge the occupiers for more than a week, but they didn’t go away. I hope they stay out in the open long enough for people and especially politicians to really get a glimpse of the underlying disappointment, fear, and outrage that animates so many who can no longer be soothed by simplistic answers.

What do they want? For now, “None of the above,” is a valid answer!

R.I.P Steve Jobs

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Logging into my mac just now, I was very saddened to see, on the Apple home page, that today we lost a true American original.

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.  Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.” – Steve Jobs

Please take a look at Jobs’s 2005 commencement address, delivered at Stanford University, a source of ongoing inspiration for me:  http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidewalt/2011/10/05/steve-jobs-2005-stanford-commencement-address/

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart – Steve Jobs

Your Brain on Google

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According to Alva Noe, Professor of Philosophy at UC Berkeley, Google is not making us stupid.  Good news, even though I wasn’t worried until I saw his article. http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2011/09/20/140625802/google-is-not-making-you-stupid.

Noe is the author of, Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness.

He refers to results of a Columbia University study that found we are more likely to remember things we cannot find online than things we can.  The study caused some concern, but Noe says this is unwarranted and links to a blog with this quote from Einstein:  “Never memorize something that you can look up.”

Researchers are not picking on Google in particular but cite it because the phrase, “Google effect” has come to stand for the way many new technologies influence us.  Noe suggests that they are not qualitatively different from other tools we use to navigate the world and make sense of it:  “We use landmarks and street signs to find our way around; arithmetical notation makes it possible for us to calculate with big numbers; we wear wrist watches so that we can know the time without needing to know the time; and we build libraries so that we have access to what we need to know, when we need to know it.”

My predisposition to agree with Noe is based on Sherlock Holmes.  Conan Doyle’s famous detective told Watson he could not afford to fill his mind with information not relevant to his profession.  As a result, he could identify 37 varieties of cigarette ash but knew almost nothing about the solar system.

Beyond my lifelong fascination with Holmes, several things leap to mind.  I really don’t use the internet to remember things – I use it to find things.  Also, memory and intelligence are not the same.  If they were, I’m sure post-it-notes would have shaved several points off my IQ.

Though I don’t worry about Google and memory, Noe adds a link for further reading that raises more serious concerns.  In August, 2008, Nicholas Carr published an article in The Atlantic, called, “Is Google Making Us Stupid:  What the Internet is Doing to our Brains.”  http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/6868/).

Carr is the author of, The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, From Edison to Google.

If nothing else, the internet is changing our brains, says Carr:  “I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages.”

Carr cites the work of Marshall McLuhan, who in the ’60’s observed that media not only supply the content of thought, but shape the process of thought.  Carr says, “what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles.”

Before anyone panics, we should note that Carr is primarily talking about the fight “to stay focused on long pieces of writing.”  An acquaintance of his says he can’t read War and Peace anymore.  I couldn’t get through it even once.  Carr emphasizes intelligence as a series of very cerebral pursuits.  I suspect he and I have different ideas of “meditation and contemplation:”  I don’t think he’s talking of sitting meditation, something I’ve always used to counterbalance intellectual activity, and one I do not find impacted by time spent online.  Watching a violent movie may impact my ability to meditate, but so far, Google does not.  Maybe I’m in denial, but these concerns are fairly low on my hierarchy of worries.

Carr cites another concern that comes from the mouths of the founders of Google:  Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the gifted young men who founded Google while pursuing doctoral degrees in computer science at Stanford, speak frequently of their desire to turn their search engine into an artificial intelligence, a HAL-like machine that might be connected directly to our brains.  More than once, I’ve chatted with friends about how “they” will jack into our brains when the day comes:  USB?  Firewire?  The Matrix ruined my ability to take such a fantasies literally.

***

Serious research is underway, studying what is good and bad about our reliance on the internet.  Parallel hopes and concerns met Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press.  From the distance of centuries, we can see how it affected our brains.  No one in a literate culture has the memory of the tribal Griot in Alex Haley’s, Roots, or the ancient Homeric poets, but we have to ask, along with Einstein, how much should we care?  Is that kind of memory central to intelligence?  Does it’s loss have a negative human destiny?

The internet seems every bit as profound a change as the invention of printing, and it’s likely to take a long time for the dust to settle so that objective evaluations can occur.  Hopefully, as with printing, the good will outweigh the bad.

***

Everyone who has made it through this post should feel good about their ability to concentrate.  Having come to the end, I’m going to go for a walk – one of those those vitamin C for the brain type strategies that can hopefully inoculate me even against the dangers of Google!.