But what does the bible say about Christmas trees? Actually, nothing. There are some verses in Jeremiah about not decorating trees:
Hear the word that the Lord speaks to you, O house of Israel. Thus says the Lord: “Learn not the way of the nations, nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens because the nations are dismayed at them, for the customs of the peoples are vanity. A tree from the forest is cut down and worked with an axe by the hands of a craftsman. They decorate it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so that it cannot move. Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field, and they cannot speak; they have to be carried, for they cannot walk. Do not be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, neither is it in them to do good.”
Killjoy.
But note that he’s referring to making an idol out of a decorated tree. What he is describing sounds more like a totem pole carved by skilled craftsmen. And nailed like a scarecrow? It like a cross, if you ask me. I don’t know about you but I haven’t worshipped a Christmas tree since the last time I sacrificed a goat. They’re just pretty and festive and seasonal. Still, the ancient near east must have been onto something because in Isaiah we get this little nugget:
The glory of Lebanon shall come to you, the cypress, the plane, and the pine, to beautify the place of my sanctuary, and I will make the place of my feet glorious.
Soooooo, God doesn’t have a problem with trees decorating his temple. In fact, he thinks they make his sanctuary glorious. And they have a pleasing aroma so that doesn’t hurt.
But what happened when the Christians and the Pagans met during the Dark Ages? We have an account of one such meeting from the Venerable Bede. He describes the meeting the pagan King of Northumbria, Edwin, had with Paulinus, a Christian missionary in the 7th century. Edwin was preparing to marry a princess from Kent in the south. But she was a Christian and her father wouldn’t agree to the match unless Edwin promised to tolerate Christianity. So, Edwin sent for Paulinus and his own pagan priest and let Paulinus make his pitch. Then Edwin turned to his pagan advisor and asked him what he thought. Bede recounts the advisor’s answer in one of the most beautiful passages from the Dark Ages:
“Your Majesty, when we compare the present life of man on earth with that time of which we have no knowledge, it seems to me like the swift flight of a single sparrow through the banqueting-hall where you are sitting at dinner on a winter’s day with your thegns and counsellors. In the midst there is a comforting fire to warm the hall; outside the storms of winter rain or snow are raging. This sparrow flies swiftly in through one door of the hall, and out through another. While he is inside, he is safe from the winter storms; but after a moment of comfort, he vanishes from sight into the wintry world from which he came. Even so, man appears on earth for a little while; but of what went before this life or of what follows, we know nothing. Therefore, if this new teaching has brought any more certain knowledge, it seems only right that we should follow it.”
Bede goes on to say that the pagan became an instant convert and suggested that all the non-Christian temples of worship be desecrated and burned, which seems unlikely. But it does demonstrate that the pagans might have been receptive to Christianity because of the promise of an afterlife. Then again, it was the Dark Ages and it was pretty hard to check out the claims of the Christians about that whole resurrection thing. Centuries later, we find ourselves turning back into sparrows, flying through the mead hall in the light of the fire and the warmth of our friends. What comes before and what comes after we do not know. “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us”, as Tolkien once wrote.
I snagged a tree this afternoon for $20 bucks. Around here that’s a bahgain. The tree guy said:
“I’m Chris if you need any help”
To which I replied:
“What’s your name if I don’t need help?”
“Chris”, he said.
So, I picked out a tree and asked the guy if his name was still Chris and if it was, would he mind helping me? He did and now the 7.5 foot Canadian fir tree is glorifying my sanctuary. I haven’t put anything on it yet. It’s still relaxing and it’s a weird egg shape. I can’t tell if that has to do with it being Canadian or dirt cheap. But it’s a nice tree and it smells good.
This morning’s post of stuff is in no particular order. The first and third may be related.
Krugman writes in his blog, Conscience of a Liberal, today that, as expected, Obama is turning out to be a lousy negotiator on the so-called Fiscal Cliff conundrum:
Here we go again — or so I find myself fearing.
Obama’s fiscal deal offer was already distressing — cuts to Social Security, and a big concession, it turns out, on taxation of dividends, retaining most of the Bush cut (with the benefits flowing overwhelmingly to the top 1 percent). It wasn’t clear that the deal would have gotten nearly enough in return.
But sure enough, it looks as if Republicans have taken the offer as a sign of weakness, as a starting point from which they can bargain Obama down. Oh, and they’re not giving up at all on the idea of using the debt ceiling for further blackmail.
In other words, all of a sudden it’s feeling a lot like 2011 again, with the president negotiating with himself while the other side enjoys the process.
The Republicans have been dyingfor Obama to offer a social insurance program cut. For weeks now, they’ve been saying that Obama wouldn’t name any spending cuts in a game of gotcha chicken. The minute Obama blinked it was a.) not going to be enough to satisfy them and b.) going to come back to bite the Democrats in the ass because they were the ones who finally conceded on spending cuts that no one likes without getting much of anything in return. So, what does Obama do? He blinks. Not only does he blink, he practically gives away every advantage he had and the Bush tax cuts remain pretty much intact for the 1% while the Chained CPI takes a big chunk of money away from vulnerable seniors as well as raising their taxes.
By the way, there is a very good reason why the Chained CPI is a horrible idea. It’s predicated on the idea that seniors will choose to scale down on their consumer choices. They’ll buy more generic goods at the grocery store or go to Walmart more often than Macy’s. (Great, I can just imagine what my limited fashion choices are going to look like in 20 years. More sparkly things that fit my tall frame even less well because all of the patterns are cut for some 5’2″ model from the Phillipines.) And I might as well just forget about replacing any Apple gadgets when I hit retirement age.
How does this benefit Main Street? If seniors now have to forgo the few little luxuries they have or pick the progressively less expensive items, isn’t that going to have an effect on what is sold and consumed? And won’t that eventually impact the economy and create a progressively larger drag on it? Just askin’ because to Republicans, the fate of the economy doesn’t seem to be very important as long as they get their exemptions on their dividends and they don’t have to look at a poor person in Walmart clothing. What I see evolving is a modern version of the Sumptuary Laws where the “most vulnerable seniors” will still be able to buy low quality consumer goods because that’s where they are in the social ladder and should not seek to rise above their station.
There was a dull witted guy who came home from work early one afternoon to find his wife in bed with another man. The guy is distraught so he goes to the kitchen and returns with a sharp knife. Then he stands over the bed and holds the knife to his throat. The wife looks up and starts to laugh.
“Why are you laughing?”, he says, “You’re next.”
Ba-dum-dum.
I kept thinking about this joke all during the election season and I would have told it sooner but some people would have just called me a racist.
On to Sandy. I got an email from Senator Menendez about the negotiations for Hurricane Sandy funds and it has occurred to me that if Menendez and Lautenberg concede on the so-called “Fiscal Cliff” negotiations, it could be that they’re being pressured to give in or the funds will be much, much smaller than we need or non-existent. Would the Republicans screw business owners in New Jersey who have been footing the bill for their states for decades by getting the least amount of federal funds back for every dollar they send to Washington? Sure they would. They’re not concerned with the fate of New Jersey, the shore communities that make their livings in the summer or the fact that the Northeast Corridor trains from DC to New York cut through this state or that New Jersey towns are really suburbs of either New York City or Philadelphia. No, all that matters is that the Republican donors get to sit on as much wealth as they can possibly accumulate under them. I’d like to hear what is going on with the Sandy reconstruction funds and be reassured that they aren’t being held hostage to the Republican terrorist threat but I am not hopeful.
The last item has to do with marketing. There’s a grocery store in my town that I have been going to faithfully since I moved here in 1992. But lately, the things I like are disappearing from the shelves. It started with some bagged salad items but the trend is picking up steam lately. Suddenly, I can’t find 2% yogurt anymore. More than once I’ve bought groceries home, stuck my spoon in what I thought was going to be a thick and creamy Greek yogurt and unwittingly spooned a glob of honey flavored paste in my mouth. Almost every flavor of yogurt on the shelf is 0% fat yogurt. Oh sure, there are something like *two* flavors out of zillions that are 2%. They’re usually in flavors I don’t like, like pineapple. Don’t get me wrong, I like pineapple but I don’t want it in my yogurt. I want lemon in my 2% Greek yogurt. Can’t find it anymore on my grocery store shelves.
A similar thing has happened to the UHT milk. The store has moved the location of the UHT milk to the juice aisle and reduced the size of the section devoted to it. No explanation. It just happens to be the only milk I buy because otherwise, fresh milk spoils in my house before we get around to drinking it. You can store UHT milk forever. But no, the UHT milk is on its way out.
The hummus crisis is emblematic of this trend. In my grocery store, we have more flavors of hummus than I can count:
I can’t believe that Hillsborough can really distinguish between so many brands and flavors of hummus. I’d like to see how much hummus gets dumped by the store. But there is only one kind of babaganoush, which my house prefers. We also like Tsazhiki but it’s ridiculously expensive. I’d be inclined to make it myself but I don’t want to make it with 0% fat Greek yogurt, which is just about all there is.
I blame marketing and those stupid loyalty cards. Apparently, there weren’t enough of us buying Chobani 2% lemon yogurt and now, the marketing people at Chobani and Shop Rite headquarters are going to send nothing but 0% yogurt from now until doomsday. The thing that drives me nuts is not that they should be sending less of the flavors that were selling slightly less well but it turns out that they aren’t sending any of those flavors at all. It’s apparently all or nothing in marketingland.
It somehow never occurs to them that flooding the shelves with only one type of yogurt or middle eastern spread or milk or whatever is reducing their sales. I won’t buy 0% yogurt because it tastes bad, I don’t care how many suburban soccer moms have decided that 2% fat in yogurt is bad for you, I’m not buying the 0%. Ever. I do not like mouthfuls of pasty yogurt so I will go without it. So, right there, Shop Rite has lost my yogurt purchases when I used to buy yogurt there routinely. But it’s even stupid from a Greek yogurt perspective. When Greek yogurt first hit the stores several years back it was special because of the unique flavors like lemon, honey and pomegranate. If Greek yogurt manufacturers drop that uniqueness and instead go for more mainstream flavors like strawberry and the absolutely worst flavor in the world, strawberry-banana, what will make Greek yogurt stand out among the Dannons, Yoplaits and store brands that are much less expensive? Instead of being something special that Americans would experience and come to love gradually, the Greek yogurt manufacturers have killed themselves by listening to their marketing experts and become just like every other yogurt on the shelves. Except because their yogurt is strained, the end product of a 0% yogurt has none of the creaminess of a typical American or European style yogurt. So now not only is the flavor not “Greek”, it’s got the consistency and mouthfeel of Elmer’s School Paste. I will now go out of my way to Wegmans to find something that is now considered “niche” or I’ll make it myself. Same with babaganoush. From now on, I’ll go somewhere else for that or I’ll buy an eggplant for half the price at the little farmer’s market produce store and make it myself.
The steady encroachment of marketing on my grocery purchases feels like a combination of Soviet five year plans crossed with bullying. “You buy the yogurt we have because we tell you what you want and like even if you don’t want or like it and now we have no way of knowing what you want or like because we don’t give you any way to make a choice that we can collect data on. Suck it up, suburbanite. Why do you have to be different from your neighbors??” I guess I don’t like the idea that I am subsidizing the rest of Hillsborough’s preferences (we don’t know how much they prefer these items because the loyalty cards can’t measure lack of choice) with higher costs for the items I actually like or can’t even find anymore.
Do we know that all the residents of Hillsborough like the same thing or am I the only one who ever complains?
Don’t answer that question.
In any case, the trend continues in Shop Rite which means I am finding myself buying more and more stuff at other stores. It’s a shame. I really used to like that grocery store. But whatareyagoingtodo? I want choice. I gotta be me.
Solstice is almost here and so is Christmas!
The Confluence 