Skip to main content

Time to take the gloves off

By


Boxing Day never took hold in the States.  This traditional British holiday was a day off for the servants who obviously had to put in a full day on Christmas.  They were given gifts on this day in the form of a "Christmas box."  It seemed to evolve from Saturnalia, where slave owners and slaves would switch roles for one day  It later became a banking holiday throughout the Commonwealth nations.

For Americans the day after Christmas is the big day for returns.  The shops have to deal with exchanges for all those Christmas sweaters and other items Americans politely said thank you for but set aside to be redeemed for something else, assuming receipts were included.

It seems much of our holiday season is driven by consumption, and it seems this was a banner year for the retail and food industry as signs seem to be pointing up as far as the economy goes, although Conservatives would be loathe to admit it.  2014 is predicted to be a good year economically, which doesn't bode well for the Republicans, given all the doom and gloom they have been promoting the past five years, although Business Insider claims the bad rollout of "Obamacare" resulted in a 13-point swing in voter confidence, with Republicans now ahead 49-44 per cent in generic Congressional races.  Of course you can take these early polls with a grain of salt.

CNN sounded a hopeful note with their annual presentation of "Hero" awards for community and other non-profit workers around the world.  It's an interactive affair where you can nominate and vote for your favorite "hero."  This year, Chad Pregracke walked away with the top honor, but I was struck by Robin Emmons, who has been championing wholesome foods for poor communities in North Carolina.

However, I have to question the idea of "Heroes."   This seems to be a word too much bandied about these days, especially when I don't think any of these persons regard themselves as heroes.  Nevertheless, it is a refreshing change from the "heroes" the Right Wing has been promoting these days.

For me, Boxing Day is a good day for reflection.  A time to pull my thoughts together and sound a hopeful note for the New Year.  I try to avoid stores, avoid fights and avoid slippery patches on my run.  I hope everyone is having a chance to relax and look forward to resuming our Reading Group in the New Year.

Best Wishes!  Jim


Comments

  1. TripplerDecember 31, 2013 at 7:03 PM



    Santa on a bender:

    http://x.vukajlija.com/var/uploads/reactions/201312/133660/2h9V7bm.gif


    Started his New Year's holiday too soon! :)

    Hopefully, he'll be back in time for the Philadelphia Mummer's Day parade.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

By
  Welcome to this month's reading group selection.  David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908.  At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades.  Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society.  I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran.  Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, not...
228 comments
Read more

Dylan in America

By
Whoever it was in 1969 who named the very first Bob Dylan bootleg album “Great White Wonder” may have had a mischievous streak. There are any number of ways you can interpret the title — most boringly, the cover was blank, like the Beatles’ “White Album” — but I like to see a sly allusion to “Moby-Dick.” In the seven years since the release of his first commercial record, Dylan had become the white whale of 20th-century popular song, a wild, unconquerable and often baffling force of musical nature who drove fans and critics Ahab-mad in their efforts to spear him, lash him to the hull and render him merely comprehensible. --- Bruce Handy, NYTimes ____________________________________________ I figured we can start fresh with Bob Dylan.  Couldn't resist this photo of him striking a Woody Guthrie pose.  Looks like only yesterday.  Here is a link to the comments building up to this reading group.
182 comments
Read more

Team of Rivals Reading Group

By
''Team of Rivals" is also an America ''coming-of-age" saga. Lincoln, Seward, Chase et al. are sketched as being part of a ''restless generation," born when Founding Fathers occupied the White House and the Louisiana Purchase netted nearly 530 million new acres to be explored. The Western Expansion motto of this burgeoning generation, in fact, was cleverly captured in two lines of Stephen Vincent Benet's verse: ''The stream uncrossed, the promise still untried / The metal sleeping in the mountainside." None of the protagonists in ''Team of Rivals" hailed from the Deep South or Great Plains. _______________________________ From a review by Douglas Brinkley, 2005
293 comments
Read more