Here's what he has to say about Vivek seeking the Republican-fascist vote for the SECOND public office he's run for in his lifetime. Poor Vivek, he'll never get to be a real MAGA for the same reason no Person of Color will be anything but their patsy. ESPECIALLY IN THE OHIO REPUBLICAN PARTY WHICH IS WHAT MAKES IT LOUISIANA NORTH.
Reese Waters is a master at what he does.
Theophany
(Luke 2 & Matthew 1-2)
On The Mystery Of The Incarnation
St. Martin's Voices
Commissioned by the Church of England for Advent 2025
O Emmanuel, our king and our lawgiver, the hope of the nations and their Saviour, come and save us O Lord our God.
__________________
Commentary on the above in the form of a rant
I've written here before about how, as an egalitarian democrat I always felt a little queasy about praying "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven," because "no kings." That was until I realized what was wrong with human monarchs was that they were all too human. If nothing the revelations about how good queen Elizabeth II had an absurd blind spot for her criminally horrible favorite child, Andrew, and his crimes and corruption as well as his rotten character from the time he was a little brat - not to mention the likes of that predecessor of the clients of Jeffrey Epstein, Lord Mountbatten* and so many others she certainly knew about.
The Kingdom of God won't be one of inequality. That is it will not be one of greed, cruelty, evil and corruption. All systems that tolerate, never mind being based in inequality as ours is, will ever be anything but those. American history even before the Roberts Court's legalistic corruption shows perfectly well those can be as characteristic of a deputed and even real republic as it can be of a hereditary monarchy. The problem with the absurd and corrupted from the start scheme of John Adams for a balance of powers was that it depended on the fallibility of men, in the case of the early Republic many of them rotten from the start and bent on corrupting even that scheme to their own gain.**
The Hebrew Scripture from the time of Moses and, later, Jesus aspired to more than that for humanity and the world, they aspire to equality beyond the rule of the corrupt, they aspire to nothing short of our salvation. It was in large part the consequences of human governance under man made laws that this antiphon prays we will be saved. In the United States, right now, it is to the consequences of an American election, one governed by the lies of the mass media and a party catering to the worst things about us, greed, racism, misogyny, a desire to be freed of social restraints against being the worst we figure we can get away with, the love of cruelty encouraged by American macho culture and Hollywood - we are living with the media campaign of popularizing cruelty that started in the 1970s with the rise of such things as shock jock radio and cruel, often racist "comedy." I've mentioned here before that a carpenter I knew then told me he thought that the promotion of cruelty in things like Garbage Pail Kids was a promotion of just that, he mentioned Nazism in his discussion and he predicted that things in the United States would get disastrously worse as a consequence of that trend in pop culture. Well, that pop cultural trend continued and things have gotten worse. Secularism will never aspire to more than what leads there. But so much of American "christianity," "christian-nationalism" the kind of "americanism" espoused by conservative Protestants and Catholics like Timothy Cardinal Dolan and Robert Barron is as thoroughly if not even more secular than much of non-religion these days.
American "christianity" was also taken down a similar path with the likes of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and the media campaign to turn the meaning of "Christian" into an anti-Christian deformity that can be spouted by the neo-Nazi shock jocks of now and the white supremacist, Republican-fascists in Congress in the presidency and on the Supreme Court. I'll have a lot more to say about that in the coming year. I think either those who try to follow Jesus will have to really fight against the Mammonist parody of Christianity or Christianity will be discredited for the rest of the lives of everyone alive right now. The law as exposited by Jesus is what this prayer asks for, its real implementation - which here, on Earth will depend on all too fallible human beings and which won't just naturally come about under a libertarian regime of "liberal democracy." It is the law to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, house the homeless, treat the ill, humane treatment for the prisoner. It will include the humane provisions of the Mosaic Law and the prophesy of the Prophets. It won't be the pipedream of "enlightenment" (I'll have more to say about that after Christmas, too) that has been what has gotten us here, too, the framers of the American Constitution were far better proponents of the ideas of the heroes of the "enlightenment" than they're credited with - that is what those false gods really advocated, not what a lefty prof or their all too close allies in "classical political economics" at the best universities trim those into being.
So, as can be seen in this last of the O Antiphons of Advent, Christmas is inescapably political and economic, to ignore that is to ignore why the birth of Jesus is something worthy of celebrating. We ask nothing less of him than our salvation from our economic and political bungling and corruption.
* It being so near to Christmas and he being safely dead, I'll forego more about him for now.
** Everything that has happened for the worse which the laws and Constitutional system invented by John Adams has permitted the most horrible of crimes from the start and even official, legal emancipation of slaves, what should have been the revolutionary and egalitarian consequences of the Civil War amendments and the hard struggled for progress won by civil rights and Womens' rights movements, the labor movement, has proven to be vulnerable to the very Constitutional system set up by the slave-holder-corrupt-financier founders. John Adams may have been the least corrupt of them but he was one of them. I wish his cousin Samuel Adams hadn't so diligently burned his papers because I'd like to know a lot more about his anti-federalism than can be known. I have found reading the best of the anti-federalists entirely relevant to our situation and showing how we can't depend on any of it, especially the Supreme Court to save us because those are fundamentally corrupt. Especially under the legal theories concocted in elite law schools by the members of that most fundamentally lying of professions, lawyers. If honest lawyers don't like that, it's not my fault. They know full well that their colleagues not only are dominated by liars, lying on behalf of even the most corrupt of their clients is held to be a professional obligation. Almost as sacred a professional practice as billing by the hour. The secular law will always prove to be corrupt.
WHAT I HANNAH HADN'T?
(I Samuel)
has effectively killed CBS News. What they do now is See BS "news." Her position in the alleged profession of journalism has been one of sheer self interest and hypocrisy. Not that I had much of any use for CBS for about the last 20 years, I'm not sorry to see it go though I'm sure the habitual treatment of it as a credible source of information will continue for a while into the future. I'm sure Whorey will go on to the next thing, probably backed with billionaire money instead of any credible work in journalism. I hope her next "town hall" can do no better than shifty vinyl siding companies and whatever is the equivalent of Chia Pet is the rest of the year. She's trash. I'm sure the NYT ownership is proud of its protogee.
Commissioned by the Church of England for Advent 2025
O King of the nations and their desire, the cornerstone making both one: come and save the human race which you fashioned from clay.
Concentrating on "the cornerstone making both one" here is Paul in Ephesian's 2
11 So remember that once you were Gentiles by physical descent, who were called “uncircumcised” by Jews who are physically circumcised. 12 At that time you were without Christ. You were aliens rather than citizens of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of God’s promise. In this world you had no hope and no God. 13 But now, thanks to Christ Jesus, you who once were so far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
14 Christ is our peace. He made both Jews and Gentiles into one group. With his body, he broke down the barrier of hatred that divided us. 15 He canceled the detailed rules of the Law so that he could create one new person out of the two groups, making peace. 16 He reconciled them both as one body to God by the cross, which ended the hostility to God.
17 When he came, he announced the good news of peace to you who were far away from God and to those who were near. 18 We both have access to the Father through Christ by the one Spirit. 19 So now you are no longer strangers and aliens. Rather, you are fellow citizens with God’s people, and you belong to God’s household. 20 As God’s household, you are built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. 21 The whole building is joined together in him, and it grows up into a temple that is dedicated to the Lord. 22 Christ is building you into a place where God lives through the Spirit.
Only Paul wasn't only talking about Ephesians and Israel. "Gentiles," the nations is everyone.
Needless to say, those in the United States who are yelling "Christianity" the loudest don't welcome this message because the last thing they want is unity, they don't want two to be one, they don't want to be one with anyone, even at the cost of the unity of them as well as all in God.
And about which, here is a rather strange Christmas story. I won't comment on it.
Jesus Maria · Johan Farjot · Johan Farjot & Friends · Ensemble Saxo Voce · Rosemary Standley · Carla Bley · Carla Bley
You can read more about this recording here.
I had never heard anyone sing the words to this song before finding this recording, it works very well as a delivery of the lyrics. The first one I heard was an early trio performance by Jimmy Giufree with Paul Bley and Steve Swallow from 1961, I don't know if she had set the words to it then, the lead sheet with words linked to yesterday dates from five years later. Here's an especially moving solo performance by Gary Burton.
until I hear Callie Crossley and Mike Wilkens go over his annual collection of wacky Christmas songs.
Every year since 1989, Mike Wilkins has been digging through archives, compilations, vinyls, B-sides, cassettes, CDs and the world of digital music to put together his annual collection of underground holiday tunes.
Then Wilkins, engineer for PRX and GBH’s The World, puts together his “mixtape” — now a playlist. It features new takes on beloved classics, quirky original songs and some selections listeners would deem bizarre at best. But Wilkins said when it comes to holiday music, some artists take big swings to see what could be the next “All I Want For Christmas Is You” or, perhaps more likely, “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer.”
“There are some people who are just like, ‘How wacky can we make it? Let’s veer from the norm a little bit.’ While others still take traditional routes. But I think — when you’re a creative, when you are a songwriter — you probably want to push the envelope a little,” Wilkins told Callie Crossley on GBH’s Under the Radar.
This year’s edition includes plenty of off-the-wall songs, like the promotional track “Charlie, The Christmas Chimpanzee” by Alice Martin, “Lucifer’s Christmas” by Glasgow artist Dale McPhail and “Zoomah, The Santa Claus From Mars” by Brookline’s own Barry Gordon. Gordon, a child star who already had a Christmas hit with his 6-year-old vocals on “Nuttin’ For Christmas,” went on to become an actor and the longest-serving president of the Screen Actors Guild.
For me it's not listening to the atrocities that he finds or rediscovers on the B-sides of his extensive collection, it's the enormous pleasure of listening to Callie Crossley and him going over it. Most of them play about as much of them as I care to hear. Though some of them are so bad that they're worth hearing the entirety of, especially the ones that don't seem to have been created tongue in cheek.
St Martin's Voices
Commissioned by the Church of England for Advent 2025
O morning star splendour of light eternal and sun of righteousness, come and enlighten those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.
Another translation of the Latin is:
O Radiant Dawn, splendor of eternal light, sun of justice: come and shine on those who dwell in darkness and in the shadow of death.
Which reminds me of this passage from the end of the Exultet from the Easter Vigil
May this flame be found still burning by the Morning Star:
the one Morning Star who never sets,
Christ your Son, who, coming back from death's domain,
has shed his peaceful light on humanity,
and lives and reigns for ever and ever.
Which never fails to move me.
Carla Bley - piano, composer
Steve Swallow - bass, chimes
Tobias Weidinger - trumpet, flugelhorn (lead), glockenspiel
Axel Schlosser - trumpet, flugelhorn (soloist), chimes
Christine Chapman - horn
Adrian Mears - trombone
Ed Partyka - bass trombone, tuba
A little boy, recently relocated in the United States, whose name was Jesus Maria, came home from school crying. Some children made fun of his name. His mother tried to explain why the second part of his first name was Maria. This is what she said.
Lyrics:
Jesus was a baby in a far off land.
Mary was his mother she took care of him till he grew to be a full grown man.
His destiny to be a savior who was soon to die.
Jesus don't you cry that's the reason why you have a girl's name
cause we named you after both of them,
Mary and her baby never cease to be in our memory.
I don't do much "golden age" stuff, generally preferring more current plays. But a lot of people like the old stuff and there is nothing if not a surfeit of old Christmas radio shows. So here's a link to a place that collected a large number in one place. I hope you find something you like.
UNTO HIS OWN
(Luke 2:7-16)
Commissioned by the Church of England for Advent, 2025
St Martin's Voices
O Key of David and sceptre of the House of Israel; you open and no one can shut; you shut and no one can open: Come and lead the prisoners from the prison house, those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.
The Scriptures referenced here are from Isaiah and Psalm 102 and 106.
Here is an interesting blog post from 2013 about some anonymous Anglo-Saxon poetic meditations on the O Antiphons and this one in particular. I'll tempt any Tolkien fans out there to read it with this:
This poem takes its main inspiration from the final line of the antiphon: 'those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death'. Its interest is in light and darkness, and in the language of secrecy and hidden things - especially geryne, 'mystery'. (Not to make the Advent Lyrics all about Tolkien - since tomorrow is 'O Earendel' - but I particularly noted the line þæt degol wæs, dryhtnes geryne, 'that was a secret, the Lord's mystery', because degol is the origin of the name Déagol, who was secretly murdered by Sméagol.) The Key of David is to unlock not only the road to heaven, but the secrets concealed on earth. He will give us strength in mode, 'mind, spirit', and tydre gewitt tire bewinde, 'enfold our frail wits in splendour', as if limited human understanding is to be entirely wrapped and wound within limitless divine wisdom. Another Old English poem (Exodus), counselling on the interpretation of the scriptures, uses comparable language in its metaphor of the keys of the spirit:
ONE OF RMJ's FINE ADVENT POSTS reminds me of this piece I did a while back. I checked the link and it is still active.
I JUST LOST the long post I was writing updating my semi-annual poke at the accusation that those mean old Christians stole Yule from those poor, gentle, nature-loving folk, the pagans of Northern Europe. You know, the ones who practiced human, especially, female slave sacrifice as documented in at least one eye-witness account and in excavations of chieftain burials. I lost it in the electricity flickering during the awful ice storm we're having - thank you global warming - so I'll keep this short.
Looking for new material to add to the picture of that Osburg tapestry showing a pagan ceremonial sacrifice, including humans and animals, I found a fascinating paper by Eirik Storesund, a scholar of Old Norse and its literature that says that the modern myth that the Norse Yule had anything to do with the winter solstice is totally unsupported in the Saga and other literature and so the whole modern conception of it - a conception shared with those big fat lovers of Norse paganism, the Nazis - is a big fat lie.
Take a moment to take a long, hard stare at the sun (proverbially of course). Is it not radiant? The tempting assumption that the solstices (and equinoxes) formed the basis of pre-Christian Scandinavian religious feasts, is prevalent not only in modern Heathenry and Ásatrú, but is also reproduced in countless popular media articles on the ancient origins (no pun intended) of Yule in Northern Europe. This view was also widely held by scholars of the field up until the turn of the last century, and though fewer think so today, it has somehow stuck. Even if many have changed their opinion in recent years, this has hardly seeped into the public consciousness.
It doesn't seem too idiotic at face value: The Nordic area can be a dang cold and harsh place. It's not exactly the fertile crescent. We'll take all the sunshine we can have. The old idea that Viking Age Scandinavians celebrated jól on the winter solstice as a sort of solar adoration, is among the most prevalent yuletide claims you'll see presented on the internet (or wherever) this year. It would seem intuitive that Viking Age Scandinavians greatly missed the sun at winter, and if jól was celebrated around the solstice, close to Christmas, it seems to explain how Christianity could simply just walk into Scandinavia and appropriate the heck out of our gluttonous solar feast.
As you must have guessed by now, it's quite more complicated than that, and it rests on a massive jump to conclusions with no direct support in any of the primary sources. And it’s not as if Old Norse texts never said anything about exactly when the yuletide sacrifices should commence, because they totally do, and it coincides with the astronomical winter solstice in exactly no source whatsoever. But that’s good news, because if you are like me, that’s a good excuse to celebrate the season not one or two, but three times properly.
None the less, you will find no shortage people who insist that the opposite is true, refusing to let the evidence speak for itself. To paraphrase the Swedish archaeologist Andreas Nordberg (cf. 2006: 102): Those who insist on referring to jól as the solstice, must be more interested in the solstice itself, than they are in sources for Norse religion.
Do go read it and look at the higher resolution picture of the sacrifice tapestry than I've had access to post in the past. I might write more about this later if the electricity doesn't go again. Modern life has a lot to answer for, too.
Update 2025: I don't know if we'll lose electricity but it's incredibly foggy out, global warming. When it goes below freezing I'll probably break my neck or something falling on the ice. I've got to get crampons that fit my new boots. I'm way too short to be wearing 14 double E. It looks ridiculous. If my feet keep growing (one of those great pleasures of ageing I've found out about since trying my old boots on). I'm going to look like Little Tich.
of photos released by House Democrats last night but I'm hoping they have kept some of the most shocking ones for use when Bondi doesn't release the full Epstein files. Because she won't, I wouldn't be at all surprised if, under her, some of the worst of it has been destroyed. If it soon becomes clear that is the case I will have even more to say about the epic malfeasance by nonfeasence of Merrick Garland who single-handedly chose his own integrity and so handed the country and world over to Trump II. I would not say he did it "unwillingly" because while I'm sure he would not have wanted that to be the result of his non-action, he is certainly not so stupid as to not understand that would be the likely result. He let the petty scruples of the legal racket and the stupidities of lawyers before him at the so-called Department of Justice govern his actions instead of his reasonably informed sense of morals. Scruples are so often at odds with morality, especially in determining the outcome, which is what morality is all about or it is nothing. The ends he got certainly determine the justice of his means.
This could have been done as soon as the cowardly Merrick Garland knew he wasn't going to seriously investigate or bring to trial the many powerful men in those files and pictures. If he had done that investigation, we would have heard about it so we know he didn't and didn't intend to. He could be certain that Trump II wouldn't do that.
I recently said that a whole load of presidential cabinet posts should, by law, be closed to lawyers, maybe including the Attorney General. I was only half joking about that last one. At the very least, no Democratic president should ever be as sentimental in their appointment of an Attorney General as Joe Biden was in appointing Garland. That is something he should have learned from the disastrous appointment of Janet Reno by Bill Clinton. It probably extends to any lawyer who has gotten the kind of respectability in the legal racket that Garland has. A Democratic Attorney General should be thoroughly aware of the catastrophic consequences of the failures of such as Reno and Garland, sacrificing the legitimate bases of government including the law, equality and democracy and, to continue with my theme below, TRUTH, to their professional rules and scruples. To those who self-righteously assert the lawerly scrupulosity of Garland's famed and declared "institutionalism." of putting the welfare, what passes among lawyers as the integrity of the Department of Justice first, ask yourself how's that workin' out for us all as Bondi covers up for the epic criminality of Trump and the worst presidential crime spree of our history continues without any real legal consequences. The civil law is an ass.
