Disrupting the Narrative of the New Left, its allies in Academia, Hollywood and the Establishment Media, and examining with honesty the goals of cultural Marxism and the dangers of reactionary and abusive political correctness.
THE NARRATIVE AND POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
“Threats to freedom of speech, writing and action, though often trivial in isolation, are cumulative in their effect and, unless checked, lead to a general disrespect for the rights of the citizen.”-George Orwell
The Archdiocese of Washington is pleased that today the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued an injunction that prevents the Archdiocese and its affiliates from having to choose between paying crippling fines or facilitating the provision of abortion-inducing drugs, sterilizations, and contraceptives to their employees. The order prohibits the government from enforcing the HHS mandate’s objectionable requirements against the Archdiocese and its co-appellants pending further order from the court.
This action by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is in line with the rulings of courts all across the country which have held that the HHS mandate imposes a substantial and impermissible burden on the free exercise of religion. These decisions also vindicate the pledge of the U.S. Catholic bishops to stand united in resolute defense of the first and most sacred freedom – religious liberty.
While the decision today is a preliminary ruling, and the merits of the case are soon to be considered, the Archdiocese is hopeful that the final disposition of this case will support religious freedom and rights of conscience.
The moonbats among us like to deal in bogus stereotypes of Conservatives as "angry" and "reactionary." In reality, those words more accurately describe the typical liberal of our time. They are, after all, the Establishment now and as such it is they who are the angry reactionaries who bitterly cling to the dying "progressive" status quo first created by Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
A couple of weeks ago Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute, published an interesting piece on happiness in the New York Times' Sunday Review. It includes a very interesting fun fact that merely confirms what normal people already understand: happiness is being a Conservative.
For many years, researchers found that women were happier than men, although recent studies contend that the gap has narrowed or may even have been reversed. Political junkies might be interested to learn that conservative women are particularly blissful: about 40 percent say they are very happy. That makes them slightly happier than conservative men and significantly happier than liberal women.The unhappiest of all are liberal men; only about a fifth consider themselves very happy.
The findings come from the University of Chicago's General Social Survey, a survey of Americans conducted since 1972, which has produced consistent and reliable findings for decades. In the New York Post, Ramesh Ponnuru points out something else that is significant:
"Women who say they have turned down a promotion or made some other work sacrifice for the sake of their families report high happiness levels."
In a finding that has already annoyed the proglodytes, Brooks demonstrates that the four great sources of happiness within human control are faith, family, friends and work. Married people are happier than singles. Those engaged in religious practices are happier than the unchurched. The pushback from the Left is both condescending and deliberately obtuse:
As sociologist Jay Livingston figured out, Brooks’s claim may have come from an analysis of the cumulative (since 1972) data of the General Social Survey (described accurately by Brooks as "the scholarly gold standard for understanding social phenomena"), but Brooks did not realize that things have changed, and since 2009 (the Tea Party era), self-described conservatives have not been the happiest Americans.
Livingston then noticed another false claim, this time from Brooks's most recent column, where the AEI president wrote, "conservative women are particularly blissful: about 40 percent say they are very happy."
The upshot is that while the progs acknowledge that over the course of the past 40 years Conservative women have tended to be happier...
In the cumulative data (aggregated since 1972), the most conservative women were indeed most likely to describe themselves as very happy.
..."things have changed" in the Obama era. Well...duh! Naturally we Conservatives aren't happy with the damage Dear Leader has done and continues to inflict on our nation. But political satisfaction (or the lack thereof) with the current situation is only a small part of the equation. Let's have some discussion, shall we, about the state of liberal women's happiness during the eight years of the Bush administration.
Normally, long-term trends would be counted as more illustrative of a general observation than a much more constricted time period. But, of course, that kind of conventional wisdom is not particularly helpful to the proggies as they once again bitterly cling to their increasingly pathetic ideology. Livingston states:
Why might political views correlate with happiness? Brooks doesn’t say, but later in his formula he cites the importance of work, of being satisfied with your job. ("I'm a living example of the happiness vocation can bring.") People who are dissatisfied in the world of work will not be happy in general. The same logic applies to politics – those who are dissatisfied in the political world will also not be happy in general. So maybe the link between conservatism and happiness is really about who is satisfied with the political status quo. Who is happy will depend on whose status is quo.
For most of those GSS years since 1972, conservatives have felt right at home politically. But the election and re-election of Obama – despite a huge recession, despite a supposedly much-hated healthcare law – changed that status quo. Hence all the conservative talk about taking their country back.
First of all, he's ignoring the fact that the bulk of the Brooks argument is not based on politics. On many levels Conservatives are happier than their liberal counterparts regardless of who controls the White House. It's a life thing, not a political thing. Secondly, again, Livingston ignores the unhappiness of liberals during the Bush administration (and the Reagan era as well).
Furthermore, he claims that the election of Barack Obama has upset the status quo. But I'm old enough to remember that a Democrat inhabited the White House for eight years during the 1990s. And when that era came to an end, it was the proggies who began talking incessantly about "taking back" their country, as I've discussed before.
And then Gelman dumps this turd into the punch bowl:
And, indeed, there is a lot of unhappiness on the far right in the Obama years, as the top graph shows.
Again, let me emphasize that I am imputing no malign intent on the part of Arthur Brooks. Social scientists (including myself) use aggregated data all the time. It’s natural to assume, at least as a starting point, that what happened in the past will continue to be happening now. Brooks made the default choice. But it turns out he made a mistake. He should thank Livingston for catching it, and the New York Times should run a correction. No hard feelings, it’s just a simple mistake that could happen to anyone.
Really. Brooks didn't make a mistake. Brooks merely made points that Gelman and his fellow proggies don't like and so they barf up this oh-so-sassybullshit. How many times have we seen liberals talk a bunch of nonsense, abruptly declare themselves the "winner" and walk away. And this is the Washington Post, not some Twitter troll. Among other things, he apparently can't imagine a time in the near future when liberals will be unhappy with their political fortunes. If ignorance is bliss then why aren't liberals happier?
And if Gelman and Livingston want to restrict the time period in such a way as to make it appear more favorable to their side then hey, let's restrict the timeline even more: How about we examine just the past 12 months. Does anybody want to claim that liberals are as happy in December 2013 as they were in December 2012? Check the most recent polling, my friends. Read 'em and weep!
The bottom line is that they really can't refute what Brooks is saying and so they are forced to distort or ignore what is being said and then attack the strawmen they've created. The Tea Party era is hardly over and Conservatives will be politically happy (to go along with our superior life choices) this time next year when Congress is back under full GOP control. And what will the liberal state of mind be then?
I should also point out that even the WaPo proggies didn't bother to refute the other point that's worth making: why are liberal "men" so unhappy? David French at National Reviewaddresses that one:
A core component of modern leftism is its comprehensive attack (and accompanying redefinition) of masculinity. This attack poisons how men experience their own nature, relationships, and purpose.
First, the Left attacks the very idea of what it means to be a man. Here’s a shorthand version of the Left's view of masculinity (to borrow from a column my wife wrote): Men and women are the same, except when women are better. So when a young boys does what young boys do — play rough, show aggression, gravitate towards contact sports and more violent games and movies — they are greeted with howls of "No." No talking. No pushing. No running. No fighting. No toy guns. No drawings of tanks and guns. No. No. No. Again and again, young boys are shoved into a quiet, more relational, submissive box. As the father of an active young teen boy, what I’ve seen from other parents — the unbelievable stifling — seems cruel.
Next, the liberal male often spends his relational life walking on eggshells, dating women and living in cultures that are constantly calling out any kind of behavior subjectively perceived as "male" or oppressive. So if a man gets angry at a woman, he's just "mansplaining." A man who asks for fidelity is "slut-shaming." Assertions of will are subject to "privilege checks." To enter the world of academia, for example, is to enter a world of social rules and customs that are impossibly complex because propriety is always dictated by the subjective feelings of the most traditionally powerless person in the room. The language of equality is a mere mask for a new hierarchy that explicitly seeks to place the male (especially the white male) at the bottom.
Finally, as a result of upbringing and relationships, liberal men often lack a distinctively masculine purpose. Ask most conservative men to define their roles — whether they're firefighters or accountants — and they'll often respond with words like "protector" or "provider" — even when they're married to capable, strong women with their own careers. They're glad for their wife's success, but they view that success as independent of their ultimate responsibilities. Many liberal men would actively scorn such labels. Indeed, at the end of the day, many men are left with nothing distinctively male about them, aside from their biology. And they often feel a hole in their heart. Indeed, a cottage industry exists to reconnect men with manly pursuits — often centered around experiencing real adventure for the first time in their lives.
In its quest to destroy the patriarchy, the Left hurts mainly its own. We conservatives, on the other hand, oblivious to the latest trends in critical gender theory and content with complementary and mutually supporting gender roles, sail blissfully on as the happiest people in the land.
And now you know why beta males like Jay Livingston and Andrew Gelman are so desperate to debunk Brooks. It's better than self-examination, which would only confirm what Brooks and French are saying.
A study of how older teenagers use social media has found that Facebook is "not just on the slide, it is basically dead and buried" and is being replaced by simpler social networks such as Twitter and Snapchat, an expert has claimed.
Young people now see the site as "uncool" and keep their profiles live purely to stay in touch with older relatives, among whom it remains popular.
Daniel Miller of University College London, an anthropologist who worked on the European Union-funded research, wrote in an article for the academic news website The Conversation:"Mostly they feel embarrassed even to be associated with it.
"This year marked the start of what looks likely to be a sustained decline of what had been the most pervasive of all social networking sites. Young people are turning away in droves and adopting other social networks instead, while the worst people of all, their parents, continue to use the service," Miller wrote.
The Pew Research Center recently published a social media survey, which showed Facebook is still the most used social media application on the market. In fact, the survey found that 45% of U.S. seniors who use the Internet are on Facebook, up from 35% the previous year. The site saw usage grow for all adults over 30, and it is used by 71% of Americans, an increase from 67% last year. Facebook's strongest growth over the past year came from users over age 65, who have signed on to the site to keep in touch with their friends, children and grandchildren. The Washington Post described it this way:
This is not your father's Facebook. It's your grandfather's.
While Facebook is for family interaction (which is the only way I use it these days), many young users are opting for sleeker and more stylish apps to stay in touch with friends. Miller also explained that Facebook's privacy policy and connections to advertising have turned away some users. Other social media apps aren't as controlling...yet.
It's a bit of a paradox, actually. The rapid increase of older users is ruining the experience for many young users. And yet, many younger users maintain their Facebooks in order to keep in touch with older relatives and to make sure they don't feel left out. It's a strange and wonderful cyber world after all. Anyway... back in May a study on "Teens, Social Media, and Privacy" by the Pew Research Center and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society also confirmed what anecdotal evidence has suggested for some time now: that Facebook is falling out of favor with teenagers.
In focus groups, many teens expressed waning enthusiasm for Facebook. They dislike the increasing number of adults on the site, get annoyed when their Facebook friends share inane details, and are drained by the "drama" that they described as happening frequently on the site. The stress of needing to manage their reputation on Facebook also contributes to the lack of enthusiasm. Nevertheless, the site is still where a large amount of socializing takes place, and teens feel they need to stay on Facebook in order to not miss out.
Users of sites other than Facebook express greater enthusiasm for their choice.
Those teens who used sites like Twitter and Instagram reported feeling like they could better express themselves on these platforms, where they felt freed from the social expectations and constraints of Facebook. Some teens may migrate their activity and attention to other sites to escape the drama and pressures they find on Facebook, although most still remain active on Facebook as well.
In July, Mark Zuckerberg slammed claims that Facebook isn't cool among young people, saying it "just isn't true." But in September he was singing a different song, pretending that it's not about being cool at all:
"People assume that we’re trying to be cool. It's never been my goal. I'm the least cool person there is! We're almost 10 years old so we're definitely not a niche thing any more so that kind of angle for coolness is done for us."
Then in October, Facebook CFO David Ebersam admitted that the social network has been losing younger users, according to CNN. That admission caused shares to drop after otherwise strong third-quarter results. Still, as the Post article points out, Facebook has 1 billion users and has settled into the comfortable role of "default" social network. Users go to specific sites based on what they're trying to do. Fifty-seven percent of Instagram users, for example, return daily to the site to check for updates, compared with 63% of Facebook users. Nearly half of Twitter's users, 46%, also make the site a daily habit.
Apparently Pinterest skews more heavily toward women, LinkedIn to more educated or
wealthier users, and Twitter to young adults and blacks. To
that I would add that Twitter is the social media platform that is
strongest for Conservatives.
...Asked by MSNBC's Thomas Roberts how he predicted 2014 will go for his campaign, Rangel suggested he would be proud to run on Obamacare.
"Health care is the most exciting thing that's happened for the United States of America since the republic began," Rangel said. "If the health care plan proved to be as bad as the rollout, we've shot crap. But as far as I'm concerned, the 50 million people that hoped, dreamed and prayed that one day they could get insurance no matter what their status was, this is going to start to roll in and all of those people who have been afraid to stand with the president I think will be making a great moral mistake, but more importantly, a great political mistake as well for 2014."
Meanwhile, the Obama Regime is now denying it's own stated goals regarding the number of ObamaCare signups it needs by the end of March in order for this scam plan to work:
White House health care adviser Phil Schiliro denied that the Obama administration ever set Obamacare enrollment goals of 7 million consumers, saying Tuesday it "was never our target number."
Schiliro spoke with MSNBC's Kristen Welker about the stumbling health care law's prospects moving forward. Current numbers show roughly 2 million signups for Obamacare at the end of December - 1 million short of what the White House projected months ago. Previous administration estimates counted on at least 7 million enrollees by the March 31 deadline, with concerns that government health exchanges could function poorly - or even break down - if a smaller number signed up.
But on Tuesday, Schiliro pretended the White House never set a goal of 7 million, even suggesting that benchmarks weren’t necessary at all:
WELKER: Are you confident that you're going to be able to meet your target of getting 7 million people by the end of March? And is that still your target number?
SCHILIRO: Well, that was never our target number. That was a target that was put out by the Congressional Budget Office and has become the accepted number. But there's no –
WELKER: Well Kathleen Sebelius has said 7 million people, that that's the goal.
SCHILIRO: But that was because it came from the Congressional Budget Office and it had become an accepted number. There’s no magic to the 7 million. What there is magic to is that in the month of December, a million Americans signed up for insurance. Not because they had to. They didn't face a penalty if they didn't. They signed up because they wanted insurance on Jan. 1.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius did, of course, set a goal of 7 million sign ups back in June, calling it a "realistic target." The White House has since backtracked: In November, spokesman Dan Pfeiffer lowered the bar to simply "as many people as possible." But Tuesday marks the first time an administration official outright denied issuing the target in the first place.
Schiliro said he "wanted to come this morning and give some new numbers" on Obamacare enrollments, but that he was unable to do so at this point. "We don't want to put out any numbers that aren't absolutely accurate," he explained. He promised, however, that state and federal exchange numbers will be impressive when finally released.
Got that? The Obama Regime "doesn't want to put out any numbers that aren't absolutely accurate." Sounds legit...
The headline at Politico is this: "Journalist consensus: Media lean left" which I would say is just a bit of an understatement. But I suppose it is helpful that at least the folks in this small group are capable of mustering just enough intellectual honesty to admit that there is a bias:
Top journalists from The New York Times, NBC News and CNN acknowledged Wednesday that, generally speaking, the national media have a liberal bias.
On a Playbook Breakfast panel, the Times' Peter Baker and Mark Leibovich, NBC's Kelly O'Donnell and CNN's Jake Tapper all said "yes" when asked if the news media lean left — though all agreed it was a nuanced issue having more to do with journalists' life experiences than with any particular agenda.
"Most of my colleagues, I have no idea what their politics are. ... But think about it: I live in northwest Washington, none of my neighbors are evangelical Christians, I don't know a lot of people in my kid's preschool who are pro-life," Leibovich said. "When you have conversations, at all the newspapers I've worked at, about politics — it doesn't happen often — but you see clues that there is absolutely a left-wing bias."
Tapper, the CNN host and former ABC News White House correspondent, said the bias was "much more complicated and complex" than "liberal" or "conservative."
I think Leibovich, who gained notoriety this year with the publication of the very revealing bookThis Town, is being either naive (doubtful) or disingenuous about having "no idea" about the politics of his colleagues. Of course he knows their views. What he means is that those views are rarely discussed because...what's to discuss? They all share the same political views. That's called groupthink. It's not a case of him not knowing but rather not noticing. It would require some diversity of thought for him to notice anything.
While Leibovich is willing to acknowledge a left-wing bias, Tapper apparently sees that as "simplistic." Without labeling it as such, Tapper argues that the bias is an elitist one, not a political one:
"A certain type of person becomes a reporter, and generally speaking — generally speaking, I'm not saying every reporter in the world — the kind of person who is a reporter in Washington, D.C., or New York City has never worked a minimum-wage job outside of high school, has never experienced poverty, is not an evangelical Christian, like much of the country is," Tapper said. "There are a lot of experiences that the kinds of people who are reporters, editors, producers in Washington and New York City have not had."
"Most publications, you can get a sense of what the editors are thinking — and I would put a lot more on the editors and the senior producers than on the day-to-day reporters," he went on to say. "But you don't see a lot of coverage of poverty, you don't see a lot of coverage of troops, you don't see a lot of coverage of faith. It's simplistic to say it's liberal or conservative; it's about experiences and lifestyle."
Sorry, Jake. What's shockingly "simplistic" is the pretense that the elitist world you describe is not also thoroughly liberal in outlook.
Democrats have lost their advantage and Republicans now have a slight edge in the battle for control of Congress, according to a new national poll.
A CNN/ORC International survey released Thursday also indicates that President Barack Obama may be dragging down Democratic congressional candidates, and that the 2014 midterm elections are shaping up to be a low-turnout event, with only three in 10 registered voters extremely or very enthusiastic about voting next year.
Two months ago, Democrats held a 50%-42% advantage among registered voters in a generic ballot, which asked respondents to choose between a Democrat or Republican in their congressional district without identifying the candidates. That result came after congressional Republicans appeared to overplay their hand in the bitter fight over the federal government shutdown and the debt ceiling.
But the Democratic lead evaporated, and a CNN poll a month ago indicated the GOP holding a 49%-47% lead. The new survey, conducted in mid-December, indicates Republicans with a 49%-44% edge over the Democrats.
Democratic voters seem particularly unenthusiastic about voting, and that is likely to benefit the GOP. Thirty-six percent of Republicans say they're extremely or very enthusiastic about voting. That number drops to 22% among Democrats.
Another GOP advantage is the President's standing with the public: 55% of registered voters say that they are more likely to vote for a congressional candidate who opposes the President than one who supports him and four in 10 say they are likely to vote for a candidate who supports Obama.
"Those kind of numbers spelled early trouble for the Democrats before the 1994 and 2010 midterms, and for the GOP before the 2006 elections," Holland said.
Militants in Iraq targeted Christians in two separate bomb attacks in Baghdad on Wednesday, killing at least 37 people, officials said.
In one attack, a car bomb went off near a church during Christmas Mass in the capital's southern Doura neighborhood, killing at least 26 people and wounding 38, a police officer said.
A little bit earlier, a bomb ripped through an outdoor market in the nearby Christian section of Athorien, killing 11 people and wounding 21, the officer added.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, but Iraq's dwindling Christian community, which is estimated to number about 400,000 to 600,000 people, has often been targeted by al-Qaida and other insurgents who see the Christians as unbelievers.
Ahmed Edan, a policeman on duty in the area of the attacks, said the sound of the first of the two explosions caused worshippers to leave the church.
"A car parked near the church exploded when the families were hugging each other goodbye before leaving. The blast was powerful," he said.
"Bodies of women, girls and men were lying on the ground covered in blood. Others were screaming and crying while they were trying to save some of their wounded relatives."
It is interesting to note that these attacks happened in Iraq — the one nation that should have served as an early model of what happens once Arab autocrats are removed and so-called "freedom" ushered in, and this a decade before the "Arab Spring" came along. In all cases — in Iraq, followed by "Arab Spring" nations Egypt, Libya, and ongoing Syria — chaos and violence have been the result, with indigenous Christian minorities and their churches bearing the brunt.
An article published just two days before the Christmas Day terror attack highlighted how Iraq's Christian minority have come to dread Christmas:
While millions of Christians around the world prepare to celebrate Christmas, a dwindling number of believers in Iraq will be forced to mark the birth of Christ in private, if at all.
Christians are afraid to put up a Christmas tree or other decorations, according to one Christian pastor in Iraq. Such displays of faith in an increasingly extremist nation can bring threats and violence, say human rights groups. Christian churches must be regularly guarded, but congregants are even more on edge during their holiest days.
Since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein more than 1,000 Christians have been killed in Iraq, and more have been kidnapped and tortured. Some 62 churches and monasteries have been vandalized or even destroyed. The United Nations Committee for Refugees recently stated that 850,000 Iraqi Christians have fled since 2003.
In 1987 Iraq's Christian population numbered approximately 1.2 million. By 2020 there might not be any of them left in their ancient homeland. That's the goal of Islamofascists around the globe: a world without Christians.
Liberals in the U.S. and Europe like to pay lip service to the cause of protecting minority rights around the world. But their lack of interest or empathy for the plight of Christian minorities in Muslim countries exposes their rhetoric as empty, cynical and insulting. Shame on them for their hypocrisy.
Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law banning abortion advertising. Some members of the Duma (the Russian state assembly), are talking about going even further and banning the procedure itself. The Russian Orthodox Church, whose numbers are swelling with converts and "reverts," is weighing in as well. One Orthodox prelate called abortion a "mutiny against God." I couldn’t have put it better myself.
This is an amazing turn about in a country which has long been known for its tragically high abortion rate. Until recently, the average woman in Russia could expect to have seven abortions over her lifetime. Even The New York Times, no bastion of pro-life sentiment, has been compelled to acknowledge that Russia’s high abortion rate was damaging the health and fertility of Russian women. As the paper noted in a 2003 editorial, "Now the Russian government is attempting to slow the abortion rate. It is an admirable goal, given the toll that multiple abortions have taken on the health and fertility of Russia's women." Not to mention the toll that abortion has taken on the unborn, and on the population as a whole.
Abortion was forced on the Russian people by the Bolsheviks (the Russian communist party under Lenin), who upon coming to power in 1920 legalized abortion up to birth without any restrictions. Their goal was to destroy the family by encouraging women to get abortions, get out of the home and into the workforce. Russia was the first country in the world to declare war on the unborn in this way. Of course, with its purges, mass executions, and Gulag it warred on the unborn in other ways as well.
In fact, it was the early Bolsheviks who developed the suction abortion machine that is still in use in abortion clinics today. They actually developed two versions. The first was the electric suction abortion machine used in abortion clinics in the U.S. and other countries. The second was the manual vacuum aspirator, a hand-held and operated abortion machine that is used in less developed countries in places where no electric power is available.
In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled. This was the first enrollment, when Quirin'ius was governor of Syria. And all went to be enrolled, each to his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be enrolled with Mary his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to be delivered. And she gave birth to her first-born son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
And in that region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, "Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger."
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased!" When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us." And they went with haste, and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it they made known the saying which had been told them concerning this child; and all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them.
But Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart.
Is there a day of greater expectation for Christians than Christmas Eve? Holy Saturday, perhaps, should be; but while the Resurrection of Christ is a more remarkable act even than the Incarnation of God as Man, the simple fact that the former depends on the latter—God must become Man before He can die and rise again—has ensured that Christmas captures our imagination more fully than Easter. It is not just visions of sugar plums and glorious roast beast that set our hearts afire on this day; it is the recognition—perhaps less conscious than more so—that, in the words of one of my favorite Christmas carols,
Long lay the world in sin and error pining, 'Til He appear'd and the soul felt its worth.
Even as Christians, we may have reduced the Nativity of Our Lord in practical terms to a holiday of family and friends, of home and hearth and happiness. Yet our souls know more than our minds acknowledge, and on this night of nights they cry out, "Come, Lord Jesus!" That is the cry, too, of the Apostles and Fathers of the Church, of saints and sinners down through the ages, who await His Second Coming with all of the longing of the patriarchs and prophets for His First.
