If there were no God, there would be no Atheists.
G. K. Chesterton
Holy, Blessed, Hopeful Christmas to All!
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| Giovanni Battista Salvi da Sassoferrato |
I am not an art critic, but as a matter of personal taste, I like simpler, more realistic images, not a lot of veneration of the baby, halos, etc. (Speaking of art in general, I am bored by what I regard as pretentious, obscure or provocative pieces. It's like how I view political writings or commentaries: I appreciate clearly organized, direct communication (regardless of the orientation, i.e., progressive or conservative). It's not that I can't follow rambling, self-indulgent, heavily-nuanced discussions (as a professional, graduate fellow and professor, I've literally debugged hundreds, if not thousands of computer programs written by other people), but I disdain the implicit elitism of people as if trying to impress other people by how smart they are. Writing well is very difficult work and somewhat of an art; intrinsically complex things cannot be made simple, but there are ways of writing about them, to structure them and hide unnecessary detail.)
The Legend of Santa Claus
One of the things that is predictable every Christmas season is that atheists will go on their predictable talking points, presumptuously comparing childhood legends like Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny with Biblical stories (in particular, the story of Christ's birth). I never really was a true believer in childhood myths, but it was like a game to me. My folks played along with the myths; to me, it was more about exercising one's imagination as a child. I never really thought much about the fact that Disney's cartoon animals could walk and talk like people; I certainly didn't confuse them with real animals, and if I ever heard another kid trying to impress the rest of us by pointing out that animals don't really talk, I would probably have told him to get a life.
I've probably told my own story of finding out, the hard way, Santa wasn't real. My middle brother was in first grade (I'm about 3 years older), and he asked me whether I thought Santa was real. I hadn't really thought about it; it was more like, I'll go with the flow--why should I care who really gave the presents as long as the gift tag bore my name? But, being the oldest, it was important to live up to my little brother's dare that I didn't really know about Santa; it was important to maintain the status of the all-knowing big brother. So I thought about the phony dime-store white beards and confidently noted, "Well, I think I saw some black stubble under that white beard." I was bluffing, of course. My brother looked at me in utter shock--he picked up on the hint, knowing there was only one person in the house with black stubble. My brother ran out, yelling out loud (for the benefit of all our other siblings, of course): "Mommy! Mommy! Ronald just said that Daddy is Santa Claus." My Dad was furious, and as I got my obligatory corporal punishment, he let me know in no uncertain terms that I "didn't have to spoil it for the others." I didn't really, but I don't think Perry Mason could have gotten me off...
Getting back to the concept of Santa Claus or Father Christmas, I'm not going to go the other predictable theme about how Christmas has gotten too commercialized, how the birth of Christ has gotten lost in what's become more of a secular holiday, where people feel compelled to give something to other people and certain gifts, like dried-out fruitcake, get repeatedly regifted. All that is true, of course, but for me, the concern was more about the morally hazardous concept of giving someone a reward for doing the right thing. As a Catholic boy who went to confession, I never argued with my confessor that I should get rewarded for my just deeds. I knew a lot of fellow students got more stuff at Christmas, but I never really envied them.
There are numerous websites which chronicle the evolution of the Santa Claus concept. Perhaps at the risk of oversimplification, the image of St. Nicholas (until the beginning of the nineteenth century) was of a tall, thin, serious man. Washington Irving (the writer of "Rip Van Winkle" and other famous American literary works) wrote a satirical work "A History of New York" under the pseudonym Diedrich Knickerbocker. One of the things a writer does in satire is to caricature a person; the image of St. Nicholas was transformed into something the exact opposite: short, fat, and jolly. Irving then built on this imaginative take on St. Nick in a series of follow-up short works : he entered houses by the chimney. Now it didn't make a lot of sense to have a short, fat man constantly climbing up and down houses, so Irving imagined a sleigh which could travel directly from roof to roof. (The evolution of the name 'Saint Nicholas' to 'Santa Claus' is intuitively obvious.)
For me, Christmas has evolved into occasional visits home with the folks and finding the 'right' gift (not necessarily the most expensive). This will vary by individual experience, but for me I'll often focus on some incidental comment in past communications, knowledge of hobbies and interests, etc. For example, one of my sisters and I were talking about how our maternal grandfather used to give us nickels to pick out penny candy at a variety store across the street from his grocery store. The proprietors of the variety store I'm sure didn't make much money off penny candy but loved our deliberations over what candy to choose from a large variety. My sister recalled that and wistfully remembered choosing chocolate non-pareils. So chances are, the next time I see her, I'll bring some Ghirardelli dark chocolate non-pareils... It's more than just getting her a present; it's a way of acknowledging her importance to me and in valuing what she has to say. Archetypal incidents of the first Christmas, e.g., the journey of Joseph and Mary to the ancestral birthplace, and the gifts of the Magi, are seminal in my conceptualization of the Christmas experience.
The Government Performance Act: A Promising First Step: Thumbs UP!
How many times have blog readers read me write about streamlining government? Much of my scholarly research has dealt with measurement issues (reliability and validity), behavioral outcomes, milestones, deliverables, etc. But what you often find is that evaluated parties try to game the system; this attitude was clearly displayed during the past decade's debate in education funding, tied to outcomes: teachers argued that what would come of using objective measures of student performance is that fellow educators would "teach to the test". Paul Light in his Washington Post column gives a salient example in distinguishing between activities and outcomes: ICE went through every gimmick possible to hit a misleading record target of about 390,000 people over the border. (Without knowing the specifics, this might happen if you manipulate certain review periods to push out people earlier than normal. But borrowing from Peter to pay Paul is not a sustainable process; it's also comparing apples to oranges, because prior records were not achieved the same way.)
Paul Light traces the original GRPA (Government Performance and Rewards Act) which set the standard over the past 2 decades; it was intended to do much the same as the current legislation but it didn't provide usable outcome-based criteria/metrics or accessible/action-oriented management summaries. Light summarizes three principal benefits of the current legislation sponsored by Warner (D-VA) and others and passed earlier this week at the end of the lame duck session: (1) it requires explicit justification of metrics used; (2) it demands year-over-year comparative outcome statistics; and (3) it improves managerial assessment by improving report usability, with high-level takeaway summaries that can serve to facilitate managerial decision making.
Granted, President Obama is bored by these managerial processes (and perhaps some of my readers' eyes may glaze over), but suffice it to say that this is an invaluable first step in trying to compare and contrast relevant government operations for eliminating redundancy, improving consistency, and propagating better, more efficient business methods, processes, and outcomes. Clearly, I don't think it's enough (if it was enough, Chicken Little bureaucrats would have been coming out of the woodwork, screaming the sky is falling). It's something that House Republicans can build upon next term.
A Classic Reading From Ben Stein
Musical Interlude: Holiday Tunes
Neil Diamond, "You Make It Feel Like Christmas". Any faithful reader knows I'm a HUGE Neil Diamond fan. I have done several musical interlude segments of Neil Diamond songs. But when Neil Diamond, a Jewish boy from Brooklyn, tackled the Christmas music genre over 20 years ago, even I had some doubts he could pull it off. But then I heard the first single released (or received airplay), "Morning Has Broken", and I had to buy the album. (Cat Stevens' version had been my favorite, but Neil redefined the song in his own style with the backing choir... Many pop artists have a signature original Christmas hit, and this track is Neil Diamond's...)
The Legend of Santa Claus
One of the things that is predictable every Christmas season is that atheists will go on their predictable talking points, presumptuously comparing childhood legends like Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny with Biblical stories (in particular, the story of Christ's birth). I never really was a true believer in childhood myths, but it was like a game to me. My folks played along with the myths; to me, it was more about exercising one's imagination as a child. I never really thought much about the fact that Disney's cartoon animals could walk and talk like people; I certainly didn't confuse them with real animals, and if I ever heard another kid trying to impress the rest of us by pointing out that animals don't really talk, I would probably have told him to get a life.
I've probably told my own story of finding out, the hard way, Santa wasn't real. My middle brother was in first grade (I'm about 3 years older), and he asked me whether I thought Santa was real. I hadn't really thought about it; it was more like, I'll go with the flow--why should I care who really gave the presents as long as the gift tag bore my name? But, being the oldest, it was important to live up to my little brother's dare that I didn't really know about Santa; it was important to maintain the status of the all-knowing big brother. So I thought about the phony dime-store white beards and confidently noted, "Well, I think I saw some black stubble under that white beard." I was bluffing, of course. My brother looked at me in utter shock--he picked up on the hint, knowing there was only one person in the house with black stubble. My brother ran out, yelling out loud (for the benefit of all our other siblings, of course): "Mommy! Mommy! Ronald just said that Daddy is Santa Claus." My Dad was furious, and as I got my obligatory corporal punishment, he let me know in no uncertain terms that I "didn't have to spoil it for the others." I didn't really, but I don't think Perry Mason could have gotten me off...
Getting back to the concept of Santa Claus or Father Christmas, I'm not going to go the other predictable theme about how Christmas has gotten too commercialized, how the birth of Christ has gotten lost in what's become more of a secular holiday, where people feel compelled to give something to other people and certain gifts, like dried-out fruitcake, get repeatedly regifted. All that is true, of course, but for me, the concern was more about the morally hazardous concept of giving someone a reward for doing the right thing. As a Catholic boy who went to confession, I never argued with my confessor that I should get rewarded for my just deeds. I knew a lot of fellow students got more stuff at Christmas, but I never really envied them.
There are numerous websites which chronicle the evolution of the Santa Claus concept. Perhaps at the risk of oversimplification, the image of St. Nicholas (until the beginning of the nineteenth century) was of a tall, thin, serious man. Washington Irving (the writer of "Rip Van Winkle" and other famous American literary works) wrote a satirical work "A History of New York" under the pseudonym Diedrich Knickerbocker. One of the things a writer does in satire is to caricature a person; the image of St. Nicholas was transformed into something the exact opposite: short, fat, and jolly. Irving then built on this imaginative take on St. Nick in a series of follow-up short works : he entered houses by the chimney. Now it didn't make a lot of sense to have a short, fat man constantly climbing up and down houses, so Irving imagined a sleigh which could travel directly from roof to roof. (The evolution of the name 'Saint Nicholas' to 'Santa Claus' is intuitively obvious.)
For me, Christmas has evolved into occasional visits home with the folks and finding the 'right' gift (not necessarily the most expensive). This will vary by individual experience, but for me I'll often focus on some incidental comment in past communications, knowledge of hobbies and interests, etc. For example, one of my sisters and I were talking about how our maternal grandfather used to give us nickels to pick out penny candy at a variety store across the street from his grocery store. The proprietors of the variety store I'm sure didn't make much money off penny candy but loved our deliberations over what candy to choose from a large variety. My sister recalled that and wistfully remembered choosing chocolate non-pareils. So chances are, the next time I see her, I'll bring some Ghirardelli dark chocolate non-pareils... It's more than just getting her a present; it's a way of acknowledging her importance to me and in valuing what she has to say. Archetypal incidents of the first Christmas, e.g., the journey of Joseph and Mary to the ancestral birthplace, and the gifts of the Magi, are seminal in my conceptualization of the Christmas experience.
The Government Performance Act: A Promising First Step: Thumbs UP!
How many times have blog readers read me write about streamlining government? Much of my scholarly research has dealt with measurement issues (reliability and validity), behavioral outcomes, milestones, deliverables, etc. But what you often find is that evaluated parties try to game the system; this attitude was clearly displayed during the past decade's debate in education funding, tied to outcomes: teachers argued that what would come of using objective measures of student performance is that fellow educators would "teach to the test". Paul Light in his Washington Post column gives a salient example in distinguishing between activities and outcomes: ICE went through every gimmick possible to hit a misleading record target of about 390,000 people over the border. (Without knowing the specifics, this might happen if you manipulate certain review periods to push out people earlier than normal. But borrowing from Peter to pay Paul is not a sustainable process; it's also comparing apples to oranges, because prior records were not achieved the same way.)
Paul Light traces the original GRPA (Government Performance and Rewards Act) which set the standard over the past 2 decades; it was intended to do much the same as the current legislation but it didn't provide usable outcome-based criteria/metrics or accessible/action-oriented management summaries. Light summarizes three principal benefits of the current legislation sponsored by Warner (D-VA) and others and passed earlier this week at the end of the lame duck session: (1) it requires explicit justification of metrics used; (2) it demands year-over-year comparative outcome statistics; and (3) it improves managerial assessment by improving report usability, with high-level takeaway summaries that can serve to facilitate managerial decision making.
Granted, President Obama is bored by these managerial processes (and perhaps some of my readers' eyes may glaze over), but suffice it to say that this is an invaluable first step in trying to compare and contrast relevant government operations for eliminating redundancy, improving consistency, and propagating better, more efficient business methods, processes, and outcomes. Clearly, I don't think it's enough (if it was enough, Chicken Little bureaucrats would have been coming out of the woodwork, screaming the sky is falling). It's something that House Republicans can build upon next term.
A Classic Reading From Ben Stein
I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are: Christmas trees. It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, "Merry Christmas" to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a creche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.
I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.
Musical Interlude: Holiday Tunes
Neil Diamond, "You Make It Feel Like Christmas". Any faithful reader knows I'm a HUGE Neil Diamond fan. I have done several musical interlude segments of Neil Diamond songs. But when Neil Diamond, a Jewish boy from Brooklyn, tackled the Christmas music genre over 20 years ago, even I had some doubts he could pull it off. But then I heard the first single released (or received airplay), "Morning Has Broken", and I had to buy the album. (Cat Stevens' version had been my favorite, but Neil redefined the song in his own style with the backing choir... Many pop artists have a signature original Christmas hit, and this track is Neil Diamond's...)
