Skip to main content

The time is the 6th day

The Sixth Day of Christmas—The great feast is now half over. Being herded through most stores you couldn’t tell it even occurred. Nary any green or red (though Christmas’ colors are white and gold) to be seen up and down the aisles, it shall not appear again until October. Consigned to a bargain bin or shelf, the symbols are packed away as our corporate masters wish us to think (obliquely) about another saint, Valentine, if they are directing our thoughts to holiday spending at all.

All time is holy, claimed Sylvester I, whose feast day it is today. If that is true, why are you wasting time reading this blog post when you could notice that on days like this even the trees appear cold. Perhaps, you’d enviously observe the chickadees and juncos puffing up their feathers for extra warmth. Maybe you’d play with your children or talk to your friends, make love to your spouse, devour a writer’s words. Better yet, are there any post-Christmas sales still occurring?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Worth Quoting

There are but three social arrangements which can replace Capitalism: Slavery, Socialism, and Property.                                                                                                 --Hilaire Belloc                                                   ...

Independent Women?

      During breakfast today I was reading an excerpt from a play in The New York Times Magazine (I know, I was a day behind and read Saturday's edition yesterday) entitled Rust .  The play, written by a professor at Grand Valley State University, here in Michigan, is a nonfiction drama about the closing of a GM plant in Wyoming, MI.  The play itself sounds interesting and I enjoyed the excerpt, but what caught my eye was something a character said.  The character is "Academic" and plays a historian and guide to the playwright, also a character.  He is explaining the rise of the automobile factories and the effect of the car on American culture.  He says, "Women became independent, they go from producers of food and clothing to consumers of food and clothing."  This was meant as an earnest, praiseworthy point.     I would counter with "How far we've fallen."  To say that a woman (or a man) is independent because she has m...

Mystery Meat indeed!

During my grocery shopping today I was asked to pick up some hot dogs for some meal or other. Now I am not an aficianado of the 'ot dog, but will usually have a corn dog or BBQed version of one or two during the summer. If my children like them, so be it. The trouble came when trying to find a package that didn't arrive from a chemistry lab. Nitrates and nitrites, sugars (including HFCS), the preservative sodium benzoate, and other fun substances littered every package I picked up. Even Hebrew National which "Answers to a Higher Standard" was doped. Apparently Kosher doesn't mean it can't be injected with a chemical cocktail. So-called "Natural Casings" were prominently displayed to catch my eye. As if sheep or pig intestine somehow offsets Agricorps tinkering. I ended up buying the brand "sold at Tiger Stadium" not because it was chemical-free, Hell no! It was merely the brand with the least additives. Why does a hot dog need su...