Happy Generic Holiday

In our continuing effort to identify The Real Santa Claus, here are a few highlights:

Yesterday, contributor Dave S. led us to this summary of the origins & evolution of Santa Claus by Brian Handwerk for the National Geographic. Here's an even more abbreviated version from the History Channel:

A Holiday Gift from Contributor Mae F.: "Six to Eight Black Men" by David Sedaris:, who elaborates on the Dutch Sinterklaas:

     ... The text (plus audio & illustrations) is here. ...

The "Real" Sinterklaas arrives in Amsterdam (or someplace) from Spain (or someplace.) He is accompanies by six or eight Zwarte Piet.Leo Cendrowicz of the Guardian: "While families exchange presents and eat cakes to welcome Santa Claus's slimmer and more sober ancestor, criticism of the crude depictions of his sidekick, known locally as Zwarte Piet, has reached the United Nations. The clown is usually portrayed by a white person in blackface, who goes around offering sweets to good children and, according to legend, threatens to collect naughty ones in a sack to be taken to Zwarte Piet's home in Spain. But he is increasingly reviled by critics as a racist relic of Christmases past." CW: Zwarte Piet, surely coming to a Southern U.S. town any day now. To voice disapproval of this holy tradition would be trampling on the First Amendment, I'll betcha. You think Sarah Palin looks great in "Duck Dynasty" camo? Wait till you see her in Zwarte Piet blackface.

The Science of Santa:

Still, I'm going with the clues Dylan gives us in this thoroughly-researched analysis (reprised from my "Worst Christmas Songs Ever -- 2012"):

David Edwards of the Raw Story: "An African-America Santa Claus was shot in the back with a pellet gun during a toy giveaway in Washington, D.C. on Christmas Eve -- and the whole thing was caught on video by a local news crew."

Politico has a Santa Quiz. I flunked.

Delia Ephron has a Christmas Manners Quiz in the New York Times. Unlike Politico, she does not provide correct answers. However, she has given me some ideas on how to react to the bizarre & merely awkward happenings at holiday gatherings.

New York Times. Thanks to MAG for the link.

NEW. Also via MAG, Gary Shteyngart, in a New York Times op-ed, on "the Most Unknowable Time of the Year."

Dario Thuburn of AFP: "Pope Francis held his first Christmas Eve mass in the Vatican by highlighting the role played by humble shepherds in the Nativity, as thousands flocked to the historic site of Jesus's birth in Bethlehem."

The Christ's Penis. Lee Siegel in the New Yorker: "A credo of the Franciscan order was nudus nudum Christum sequi ('follow naked the naked Christ'). It was a radical call to cast aside worldly wealth and belongings and acknowledge the fragile, fallen nature of all men and women. But in casting aside Christ's garments, the Franciscans made Christ's nude body a focal point. As a result, according to [scholar Leo] Steinberg, from about the middle of the thirteenth century until the sixteenth century artists lavished particular care on Christ's penis, the part of Christ's body that made him most mortal, and which proved his union with humankind.... Pope Francis could well agree with Steinberg, who lamented that the human Christ disappeared 'as modern Christianity distanced itself from its mythic roots; as the person of Jesus was refined into all doctrine and message, the kerygma of a Christianity without Christ.' ... One might add that in our own epoch the Catholic Church's denial of Christ's sexuality runs parallel to its denial of human sexuality, taboos that resurface in once scandal after another."

Capitalist Jesus. Richard Schiffman of AlterNet in the San Diego Free Press: "The King James Bible, not to mention more recent translations like the New International Version (NIV), are veritable primers of progressive agitprop, complains Andy Schlafly, the founder of Conservapedia.com. (His mother [is] Phyllis.) ... Andy Schlafly's group ... have invited ... the 'best of the public,' whose assistance is solicited in proposing new wording for left-leaning Bible verses.... What they are looking for is not exactly egghead scholarship, but a knack for using words they've read in the Wall Street Journal. They have a list of promising candidates on their website -- words like capitalism, work ethic, death penalty, anticompetitive, elitism, productivity, privatize, pro-life -- all of which are conspicuously missing from those socialist-inspired Bibles...."Via David Edwards.

Dancing Ladies Get Big Raise. Katrina Bishop of CNBC (Dec. ): "The cost of buying your true love all the gifts named in the holiday song 'The 12 Days of Christmas' has shot up in 2013, according to a holiday-themed index, significantly outpacing the rate of U.S. inflation.... The biggest riser on the index was the nine ladies dancing, which increased in price by 20 percent over the year."

Elon Gilad of Haaretz writes a brief history of Christmas celebrations.

Amanda Marcotte in the Raw Story: "Keep the Saturn in Saturnalia": There "really is a fear [among some Christians] that if non-Christians are allowed an equal space in society, then people, especially young people, might start to realize that you don't have to be a Christian. And, let's be blunt: A huge chunk of people, upon finding out they don't have to be Christians, are going to say, 'Well fuck that then, I'm sleeping in on Sundays.'" ...

Saturnalia festival in Chester, England. No Christians were burned at the stake nor did the "Roman" soldiers declare a war on Christmas.

... Oh, to be in England now that Saturnalia's here. In Chester, England, near the Wales border, "crowds" are "delighted" by the annual celebration of Saturnalia. Torch-lighting is part of the parade festivities, not -- as in New Jersey -- one of numerous attempts by Christians to destroy a Saturnalia billboard.

SNL's "I Wish It Was Christmas Today" has made past Worst lists (I think this is SNL's second version). ...

     ... Update: Video removed as it started loading automatically. You can still find this classic here. ...

... I did not intend to run the "Worst Christmas Songs Ever" feature this year. But SNL outdid itself last week, so I can't resist adding their entry:

Antidote, from the 1998 Winter Olympics:

Presidential Weekly Address:

News Ledes

Guardian: "Utility crews from Maine to Michigan and into Canada worked on Wednesday to restore power to more than half a million homes that were left in the dark by last weekend's ice storm, which has been linked to 27 deaths. In the United States, the death toll from the storm reached at least 17 on Wednesday, from traffic accidents and carbon monoxide fatalities."

Hill: "Iran President Hassan Rouhani is endorsing the spirit of Christmas. Rouhani on Tuesday retweeted two tweets, one by Iran's supreme leader and one by its foreign minister, that focused on the spirit of Christmas. The tweets appear to be a part of a continuing effort by Rouhani to put a friendlier face toward the West."

Washington Post: "A U.S. government contractor kidnapped by al-Qaeda militants in Pakistan in 2011 has recorded a video message calling on the Obama administration to negotiate with his captors, saying he feels 'totally abandoned and forgotten.' Warren Weinstein looked ashen and sounded lethargic as he pleaded for renewed interest in his case and asked the U.S. government to consider releasing al-Qaeda militants in its custody. The 72-year-old development expert from Rockville, Md., began his address by urging President Obama to step up efforts to get him released."

AP: "Egypt's military-backed interim government declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization Wednesday, intensifying its campaign of arrests and prosecutions targeting its members and tightening the noose on the group's network of charities and businesses."

Reuters: "Utah's attorney general instructed county clerks on Tuesday to issue marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples requesting them, as ordered by the federal judge who overturned a state ban on same-sex weddings, or risk being held in contempt of court."

AP: "The government's retooled health care website was put to its biggest test yet as record numbers of Americans rushed to beat Tuesday's extended deadline for signing up for insurance.... HealthCare.gov, where people in 36 states can shop for coverage, received 2 million visits Monday, its highest one-day total, the government said. Traffic was not as heavy on Tuesday but still high.... 'The site is performing well under intense consumer traffic,' said Kurt DelBene, a former Microsoft executive appointed last week to take over management of the online marketplace. 'With the highest volumes we have seen to date, response time is fast and the error rating is low.'"

Washington Post: "The price of a first-class letter and most other mail will rise by 3 cents on Jan. 26, the largest rate hike in 11 years, the commission that oversees the U.S. Postal Service announced Tuesday. The stamp-price increase to 49 cents will be in effect for two years, giving the financially struggling agency a temporary infusion of extra revenue intended to help it recoup losses suffered during the economic downturn between 2008 and 2011."

The Gospel According to Sister Sarah

So people who are so insulted and offended by what he said, evidently, are offended by what he was quoting in the Gospel. -- Sarah Palin, after admitting she didn't read the GQ article in which Phil Robertson made grotesque claims about blacks & gays, still insisting Robertson was citing scripture ...

... Wherein Sarah Palin admiWats on-air she has no idea what she's talking about. CW: And here I thought Palin read "um, all of them." Apparently the "vast variety of sources where we get our news" does not include the GQ article whose content she is so intent to defend. ...

... CW: Now, in the spirit of the day, I shall drop my spontaneous snark & admit I feel sorry for Palin. I think she has a severe learning disability. I doubt she can read at a ninth-grade level. She certainly cannot reason like an ordinary adult. If people patiently & repeatedly explain stuff to her in simple terms, she memorizes the catchphrases & can regurgitate them later in a string that -- because she cannot grasp the underlying concepts -- doesn't usually constitute a coherent sentence. She is embarrassed by her disability & is angry at the herculean effort she has always had to make to hide it. Unfortunately, she transfers her self-loathing onto others. Thus, after admitting she does not know what Robertson said, she quickly "recovers" by (a) blithely asserting words she never read are New Testament scripture, & (b) people who took umbrage at them are anti-Christian; that is, they are "insulted and offended" by Christian teachings. This is not the first time I've watched her cover her ignorance by lashing out at others.

The Commentariat -- Dec. 24, 2013

Michael Shear & Robert Pear of the New York Times: "A record-setting crush of last-minute shoppers descended on HealthCare.gov on Monday, creating long wait times for users and putting new stress on the government's much-maligned health portal as they raced against a midnight deadline to sign up for coverage that will go into effect on Jan. 1.... The high volume of visitors also prompted White House officials to abruptly establish a 24-hour grace period that will effectively extend the deadline, allowing those who sign up on Tuesday to still receive coverage from Jan. 1." ...

... Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "President Obama has enrolled in the federal health-care insurance exchanges, selecting a bronze-tiered insurance plan on the D.C. marketplace.... In advance of Monday's key enrollment deadline, Obama signed up for coverage over the weekend during the start of his holiday vacation here in Hawaii in what a White House official described as a 'symbolic' act to promote the Affordable Care Act.... The president's health care will continue to be provided by the military.... Although Obama was involved in selecting a plan, he didn't sign up himself. The president's staff did that for him, going in person to the D.C. exchange over the weekend...." ...

... OR, as Josh Lederman of the AP put it: "He won't use it, and he didn't actually sign up for it himself, but President Barack Obama has enrolled for health coverage through the new insurance exchanges." ...

... Paul Steinhauser of CNN: "Support for the country's new health care law has dropped to a record low, according to a new national poll. And a CNN/ORC International survey released Monday also indicates that most Americans predict that the Affordable Care Act will actually result in higher prices for their own medical care."

For me, in terms of personal satisfaction, the mission's already accomplished. I already won. As soon as the journalists were able to work, everything that I had been trying to do was validated. Because, remember, I didn't want to change society. I wanted to give society a chance to determine if it should change itself. -- Edward Snowden ...

... Bart Gellman of the Washington Post interviews Ed Snowden. ...

... The Snowden ABR Project -- Anywhere But Russia. RT: "Edward Snowden is offering Germany his help with investigating NSA spying activities on its soil, if Berlin grants him political asylum, Stern reports, citing correspondence with the whistleblower. 'I have a great respect for Germany,' Snowden wrote to the German Stern publication." CW: Last week, Brazil; this week, Germany. Guess we'll have to start playing the Whither Ed? game: Where in the world will Ed Snowden seek asylum next week?

Peter Sullivan of the Hill: "Civil rights leaders and members of the Georgia congressional delegation on Monday called on President Obama to withdraw his nominees for federal courts in the state over concerns about their views and lack of diversity.... According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Obama administration reached a deal with Georgia's Republican senators in September to appoint three nominees to the district court whom they had cleared, in exchange for allowing through the nomination of Jill Pryor, whom the senators had been blocking, to the Eleventh Circuit. Judge Julie Carnes, an appointee of former President George H.W. Bush, is also in line for promotion to the circuit court." CW: Note that, filibuster or not, Southern states can still get the winger judges they want, simply by "blue-slipping" moderate to liberal nominees.

The Shriveling of Bush's Brain. Nicholas Confessore of the New York Times: "At least a dozen 'super PACs' are setting up to back individual Republican candidates for the United States Senate, challenging the strategic and financial dominance that Karl Rove and the group he co-founded, American Crossroads, have enjoyed ever since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010 cleared the way for unlimited independent spending." ...

... CW: Right on cue, Molly Ball of the Atlantic, usually a credible analyst, writes a Battle of the Democrats handwringing piece to make sure we all know Both Sides Do It. Also, I wish liberalish pundits like Ball would quit writing this: "... McAuliffe succeeded in painting his opponent, Ken Cuccinelli, as an extreme Tea Party ideologue." McAuliffe didn't "paint" Cuccinelli as an extremist; Kenny is an extremist. Using the verb "paint" implicitly accuses McAuliffe of playing dirty; it suggests he smeared Cooch with untrue or half-true epithets. Better: McAuliffe identified Cuccinelli as an extremist.

CW: I missed this piece by Jonathan Chait, published a few weeks ago, but it has & will have a distressingly long shelf-life: "Conservatives can transport themselves for two hours into the hellish antebellum world of 12 Years a Slave and experience the same horror and grief that liberals feel. What they cannot do, almost uniformly, is walk out of the theater and detect the still-extant residue of that world all around them." Chait perfectly captures what "respectable racism" looks like today. I expect it will be harder to eradicate than the kind that caused the Civil War.

Dean Baker in TruthOut: "In his speech on inequality earlier this month President Obama proclaimed that the government could not be a bystander in the effort to reduce inequality.... The problem is that President Obama wants the public to believe that inequality is something that just happened.... This story is 180 degrees at odds with the reality. Inequality did not just happen, it was deliberately engineered through a whole range of policies intended to redistribute income upward."

Alex Pareene of Salon on the President's favorite horrible columnists. CW: Pareene's assessments of the columnists are spot on, but I'm with Barbarossa -- I wish Pareene had documented his source for his assertion that the President just loves to read Friedman & Brooks. With the possible exceptions of Chait & Klein, I doubt Obama reads these pissants because he actually likes them; rather, I suspect he glances at their stuff to get a feel for what leading opinionators are feeding the public.

Congressional Race

Lizette Alvarez of the New York Times: The death of Rep. Bill Young (R-Fla.), who represented the Sarasota region for 43 years, "has set off a contest in the first race of the 2014 battle for control of Congress, with both parties hoping for a victory and watching carefully how President Obama's health care law may affect the outcome. Determined to snatch the long-awaited open seat in the March 11 special election, Democrats effectively cleared the field for Alex Sink, a former chief financial officer of Florida, who ran for governor and lost in 2010. Ms. Sink did not even live in the district, Pinellas County, in October; she packed up and moved one county over last month." CW: Sink has already asked me for cash.

Dan Amira of New York: Fox "News" convicts, kills George Zimmerman. Later, they very, very quietly resuscitated & exonerated him. Also, a painting by Zimmerman sold for more than $100K on e-bay.

Weasly Republican Trick. Josh Israel of Think Progress: "In the aftermath of the contested 2000 presidential election, Congress passed the bipartisan Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) to provide federal money to make it easier for Americans to exercise their right to vote and for local governments to ensure smooth elections. But according to the office of Iowa State Auditor Mary Mosiman (R), a $140,000 voter fraud investigation launched by Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz (R) may be improperly using those federal funds on his probe to ferret out largely non-existent voter fraud."

Weasly Trick. Kevin Opsahl of the Logan, Utah, Herald Journal: "Cache County Attorney James Swink announced Monday that the Cache County Clerk's Office will remain closed pending a decision by the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals on a request for an emergency stay on same-sex marriages by the state." ...

     ... Scott Lemieux in Lawyers, Guns & Money: "Once again, states' 'rights' are being used to trump actual human rights, a development that can fairly be called unsurprising."

... Amanda Myers of the AP: "A federal judge Monday ordered Ohio authorities to recognize gay marriages on death certificates, saying the state's ban on such unions is unconstitutional and that states cannot discriminate against same-sex couples simply because some voters don't like homosexuality. Although Judge Timothy Black's ruling applies only to death certificates, his statements about Ohio's gay-marriage ban are sweeping, unequivocal, and are expected to incite further litigation challenging the law. Ohio's attorney general said the state will appeal."

Fish's Swan Song. Stanley Fish writes his New York Times his last column for the New York Times. CW: Ironically, Fish, who has spent a good deal of his career undermining the value of authorial intent, finally divulges the intent of his past columns.

Heartwarming Story Alert. Scott Keyes of Think Progress: "The Obama administration has set a goal of ending homelessness among veterans by 2015, but one city reached that mark a year early. Phoenix[, Arizona,] announced last week that it has eradicated chronic veteran homelessness -- making it the first city in the country to do so -- after it housed an additional 56 veterans on Wednesday."

UPI: "Three-quarters of U.S. adults say they believe in God, down from 82 percent in 2005, 2007 and 2009, a Harris Poll indicates.... Forty-seven percent say they believe in Darwin's theory of evolution, compared to 42 percent in 2005.... No margin of error was provided." CW: If I had to guess, I'd guess that beliefs haven't changed much but a willingness to express nonbelief has ticked up slightly. That is, some nontheists are coming out of the closet. I'd also guess that the stridency of politically-motivated super-Christians is encouraging nonbelievers to push back against the nonsense.

"Christmas in America." Charles Pierce notes how grateful unemployed Americans will be that in their infinite wisdom, the representatives of the people have decided "that people -- other people, naturally, and their children -- will be strengthened in their moral character by completely avoidable deprivation."

CW: If you don't feel like reading the kiddies "T'was the Night Before Christmas/"A Visit from St. Nicholas," Michelle Obama & muppet Abby fill in for you:

... If you'd rather read it yourself, the poem by Clement Clarke Moore is here. ...

... AND let us not forget what St. Nicholas really looked like (at least by early tradition & forensic reconstruction based on a skull reputed to be his):

Miracle on 34th Street -- Finding Secret Santa. Amy Nelson finds Black Santa at Macy's 34th Street -- after a rigorous search. Nelson blogs here. Via Dan Amira:

... Brian Handwerk for the National Geographic on the origins & evolution of Santa Claus -- still not a universally beloved, fat, jolly white North Pole resident. Thanks to Dave S. for the link to this excellent summary. CW: If you tell the kids the "real" story of Santa Claus, you might want to leave out those bits about prostitution & pickled children.

News Ledes

Politico: "People who can’t finish the online signup for Obamacare health insurance by midnight Tuesday because of problems with HealthCare.gov and a surge of last-minute shoppers can seek extra time to finalize their application and still get covered by Jan. 1, the Obama administration said...."

NBC News: "Same-sex marriages can go on in Utah after a federal appeals court Tuesday denied the state's request to stop them pending an appeal of a judge's ruling legalizing them. In a two-page order (.pdf) entered in 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, Judges Robert E. Bacharach and Jerome A. Holmes declined to grant Gov. Gary Herbert's request for an emergency stay."

New York Times: "On Tuesday, Brian Krebs, the security blogger who first broke the news that Target had been breached, said he believed he had identified a Ukranian man who he said was behind one of the primary black market sites now selling Target customers' credit and debit card information for as much as $100 a piece. Mr. Krebs lays out evidence that the man, Andrew Hodirevski, may be in touch with the criminals supplying Target's credit card data."

Bloomberg News: "Robert W. Wilson, a retired New York hedge-fund founder who committed his life to giving the fortune he made from investing to charities, has died. He was 87. He died Dec. 23 after leaping from his 16th-floor residence at the San Remo apartment building on Manhattan's Central Park West...."

Guardian: "Alan Turing, the second world war codebreaker who took his own life after undergoing chemical castration following a conviction for homosexual activity, has been granted a posthumous royal pardon 59 years after his death."

AP: "Former New York governor Eliot Spitzer and his wife announced late Tuesday that their two-decade-plus marriage is over." ...

... New York Daily News: "The announcement came two days after revelations that Spitzer was in a relationship with former aide Lis Smith, who is the spokeswoman for New York Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio."

AP: "One of the Greenpeace activists detained in Russia's Arctic has been granted amnesty, the environmental group said Tuesday.... The crew members were originally accused of piracy, a charge that was later changed to hooliganism.... The 26 non-Russian crew members have not been allowed to leave Russia because of the pending case. An amnesty law passed last week is expected to clear them of the charges. Several more of the Greenpeace activists are expected to receive similar amnesty notifications." Greenpeace did not name the released activist.

Reuters: "Russia will host international talks on Friday on the elimination of Syria's chemical weapons, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said. The meeting in Moscow will draw together experts from Russia, the United States, Syria, the United Nations and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)...."

AP: "Two space station astronauts ventured out on a rare Christmas Eve spacewalk Tuesday, hoping to wrap up urgent repairs to a cooling system."

AFP: "Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas urged Christian pilgrims from around the world to visit the Holy Land to mark the visit of Pope Francis, set for 2014, in a Christmas message on Monday.... 'As we begin preparations for the visit of His Holiness Pope Francis next year, we call upon pilgrims from all over the world to come and experience Palestine and our Holy Sites,' Abbas said."

AP: "Israel's state archives has published a 50-year-old letter from the Mossad spy agency claiming it unknowingly offered paramilitary training to a young Nelson Mandela, along with documents illustrating the Jewish state's sympathy for the anti-apartheid struggle in the 1960s. The release of the documents on the archives' website in the wake of Mandela's death appear to be aimed at blunting criticism of the close alliance Israel later developed with South Africa's apartheid rulers.... The [current] South African government is a fervent supporter of the Palestinian cause, and the Palestinians frequently compare their campaign for independence to the black struggle that ended apartheid."

The Commentariat -- Dec. 23, 2013

** NEW. Amy Goldstein & Juliet Eilperin of the Washington Post: "At midnight Monday, the official deadline arrives for Americans to sign up through the new federal health insurance exchange for health plans that begin Jan. 1. But, without any public announcement, Obama administration officials have changed the rules so that people will have an extra day to enroll, according to two individuals with knowledge of the switch."

Michael Shear & Annie Lowrey of the New York Times: "Four years after President Obama vowed to 'dramatically reform the way we do business on contracts,' the spectacular failure of the HealthCare.gov website has renewed calls for changes in how the government hires and manages private technology companies. But despite Mr. Obama's promises in the last two months to 'leap into the 21st century,' there is little evidence that the administration is moving quickly.... Outside experts, members of Congress, technology executives and former government officials say the botched rollout of the Affordable Care Act's website is the nearly inevitable result of a procurement process that stifles innovation and wastes taxpayer dollars." ...

... Jerry Markon & Alice Crites of the Washington Post: "Not considered in the 2011 selection process [for a contractor to build Healthcare.gov] was the history of numerous executives at CGI Federal, who had come from another company that had mishandled at least 20 other government information-technology projects more than a decade ago. But federal officials were not required to examine that long-term track record, which included a highly publicized failure to automate retirement benefits for millions of federal workers.... The company had been included in a pool of pre-screened, approved contractors in 2007, during the George W. Bush administration, and only firms in that pool were later allowed to bid for the Affordable Care Act work. It was at that earlier time that the problems at American Management Systems, the Fairfax County IT contractor acquired by CGI, would have figured into the assessment of CGI Federal, contracting experts say. In hindsight, one former CMS official said, the AMS record 'could well have knocked [CGI Federal] out of the competition, and probably should have.'" ...

... Liz Neporent of ABC News, with the help of the Kaiser Foundation's Karen Pollitz, explains ObamaCare in terms even a child could understand. Actually, quite a useful overview. ...

... Kate Pickert of Time on "why the latest ObamaCare delay is the biggest one yet." Also logically inconsistent, inherently unfair & politically-motivated.

Andy Sullivan of Reuters: " As Washington empties out for the holidays, a final budget fight will play out in the nearly empty Capitol building as congressional staffers parcel out more than $1 trillion to fund everything from cybersecurity to student loans.... This debate will largely take place within what one lobbyist calls a 'cone of silence' with Republicans and Democrats aiming to minimize discord as they race to set spending levels for thousands of individual government programs.... [The process causes] a lobbying blitz as defense contractors, hospitals, day-care providers and thousands of other groups push to maximize funding for the programs that affect them most directly."

Money Pits. Paul Krugman tries to explain the concept of currency to stupid people. (Rand & Ron Paul, take note.) "What's really happening is a determined march to the days when money meant stuff you could jingle in your purse. In tropics and tundra alike, we are for some reason digging our way back to the 17th century."

CW: I know the grey eminence Bill Keller doesn't have to stoop to writing his own headlines, but the title of his column in today's Times --"Inequality for Dummies" -- is a fine expression of his disdain for us dimwitted peons. In the spirit of the season, I'd like to deck that smug bastard.

Michael Katz, in Salon, on "how America abandoned its 'undeserving poor,' an excerpt from his book The Undeserving Poor: America's Enduring Confrontation With Poverty. CW: By my recollections, Katz's history seems accurate, & he doesn't blame everything on Republicans -- also accurate.

President Jimmy Carter & Robert Pastor in a Washington Post op-ed: "It is time to change the agenda, the preconditions and the strategy on Syria -- and end the war."

E. J. Dionne: "... when even the pope wonders aloud as to whether it's appropriate for him to judge, you begin to see the difficulty of deciding what 'true Christians' ought to believe. This raises the question of whether the religiously based principles are merely cultural artifacts that we bend to our own immediate purposes." CW: This is impossible to explain to the zealot, whatever the cant of his zealotry. ...

... Michael Hiltzig of the Los Angeles Times: "I got the gist of the "Duck Dynasty" thing after my first and only viewing: bunch of rural jackasses who somehow struck it rich get brought into our living rooms to be laughed at by the rest of us aristocrats.... A&E knew what it was doing when it put these people on the air, so its show of indignation in 'suspending' one of them ... falls a little flat.... In [Louisiana Gov. Bobby] Jindal's seven-sentence statement [supporting Robertson], not a word of defense for gay people so crudely mocked by Robertson. Not a word to remind us that the life of black sharecroppers in Louisiana's Jim Crow era was not 'godly' or 'happy.' In January of this year, Jindal lectured his fellow Republicans on the need to "stop being the stupid party." ... Now, according to Jindal, Republicans are supposed to embrace offensive and bizarre comments. The party's transformation into a marginal and regional movement thus continues. Jindal has made himself the biggest jackass in the story, and his career as a national political figure the thing to be laughed at." ...

Ironically, if you read the whole interview, not just take one section, he talks very specifically about loving everybody. He talks very specifically about not being judgmental toward anybody, that's God's decision, not his. I mean, it is remarkable. There's sections there where he sounds like Pope Francis. -- Newt Gingrich, on "Duck Dynasty" star Phil Robertson's anti-gay, pro-Jim Crow opinions

Probably not the section where Robertson expresses his preference for vaginas over anuses. Then again, I haven't read everything Francis has said. Maybe the vagina bit was lost in translation. -- Constant Weader

Isaac Chotiner of the New Republic provides an atheist's guide to Christmas. CW: The advice & experience of atheist Deborah Mitchell, whom Chotiner interviews, is very similar to mine. I would add that I appreciate religiously-themed art (Christian & otherwise), & I have plenty of it around the house. This year I bought a charming presepio, which I have prominently displayed.

"The fifth of 7 limited edition, hand-painted, sets of Russian dolls - signed by Sir Elton John, Stephen Fry, and Graham Norton. Featuring artist's renders of five great gay icons: Sir Elton John, Stephen Fry, George Michael, Graham Norton, and Tom Daley. Crafted to raise awareness, and money, for the Russian gay community, all proceeds of the auction will go to the Kaleidoscope Trust."Andri Antoniades of Takepart.com: "For its holiday campaign titled "#ToRussiaWithLove" U.K.-based creative agency Mother London commissioned seven sets of the matryoshka dolls, each painted to look like a gay celebrity, such as Elton John and Stephen Fry. One set of the dolls will be sent to the Kremlin and another to the Russian Embassy in London. The rest are being auctioned off on eBay to raise money for Kaleidoscope Trust, a human rights organization dedicated to promoting LGBT equality worldwide." E-bay-U.K. is auctioning one set here. No indication of what the shipping charges to the U.S. are.

Local News

Matt Pearce of the Los Angeles Times: "A federal appeals court denied Utah officials' request Sunday to immediately halt same-sex marriages in the state, which began after U.S. District Judge Robert J. Shelby[, an Obama appointee] struck down Utah's ban.... Sunday's refusal by the appellate court to suspend Shelby's ruling was not the definitive word on same-sex marriage in Utah, however. In a two-page order, the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals denied the emergency request on technical grounds, saying it had not been made properly. The appeals court noted that officials could file for an emergency stay again if they followed correct procedures." ...

...** NEW. Update: Marissa Lang & Brooke Adams of the Salt Lake Tribune: "A federal judge in Utah -- who last week issued a controversial ruling allowing same-sex marriages -- on Monday denied the state's request for a stay. State attorneys had argued before U.S. District Judge Robert J. Shelby that same-sex couples who marry in Utah would be irreparably harmed if the state's continuing efforts to overturn the judge's ruling succeed and those marriages are later invalidated."

News Ledes

Los Angeles Times: "A former executive with Tiffany & Co. has been sentenced to one year in federal prison for stealing jewelry worth $2.1 million from her employer and selling it. Ingrid Lederhaas-Okun, who worked 25 years at Tiffany and became its vice president of product development and design, pleaded guilty in July to interstate transport of stolen property."

New York Times: "With about a week left in the year, the Obama administration is backing away from a Dec. 31 deadline for securing a deal to keep American troops in Afghanistan beyond 2014, though it is standing by its warning that a total military withdrawal is still possible if delays continue, American and Afghan officials said."

New York Times: "Lt. Gen. Mikhail T. Kalashnikov, the arms designer credited by the Soviet Union with creating the AK-47, the first in a series of rifles and machine guns that would indelibly associate his name with modern war and become the most abundant firearms ever made, died on Monday in Izhevsk, the capital of the Udmurtia republic, where he lived. He was 94."

AP: "After the first full day of winter brought everything from balmy temperatures along the Mid-Atlantic to snow in the Midwest and ice, snow and flooding in the Great Lakes, some people could be left in the dark for Christmas.... By late Sunday, ice and snow had knocked out power to 440,000 homes and businesses in Michigan, upstate New York and northern New England -- about half of whom had their power back by early Monday. The storm also left more than 400,000 customers without electricity in eastern Canada."

New York Times: "Two women from the punk group Pussy Riot serving two-year prison terms for staging a protest performance against President Vladimir V. Putin in Moscow's main cathedral were released on Monday under a new amnesty law.... The two women were convicted, along with a third woman, Yekaterina Samutsevich, whose sentence was later overturned on appeal, of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred."

Reuters: "Russia has sent 25 armored trucks and 50 other vehicles to Syria to help transport toxins that are to be destroyed under an international agreement to rid the nation of its chemical arsenal, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Monday."

New York Times: "Three activists who played central roles in the uprising against former President Hosni Mubarak were convicted on Sunday of participating in recent protests and sentenced to three years in prison, raising fears that the new government was seeking revenge against opponents of Egypt's old order."

Washington Post: "... Treasury Department officials last week [identified two men] as major financial backers of al-Qaeda and its regional chapters across the Middle East. Although U.S. officials routinely announce steps to disrupt terrorist financing networks, the individuals named in the latest case are far from ordinary. Both men have served as advisers to government-backed foundations in Qatar and have held high-profile positions with international human rights groups."