a holiday on the lam

an advertisement in my sunday paper sets forth in the form of a picture the four things that are needed for a successful christmas. at the top of the picture is a roast turkey, below that a christmas pudding, below that a dish of mince pies; and below that a tin of_...'s liver salt...implied in the above-mentioned advertisement is the notion that a good meal means a meal at which you over-eat yourself. in principle i agree. i would only add in passing that when we gorge ourselves at christmas, if we do get the chance to gorge ourselves, it is worth giving a thought to the thousand million human beings or thereabouts who will be doing no such thing. for in the long run our christmas dinners would be safer if we could make sure that everyone else had a christmas dinner as well...a deliberately austere christmas would be an absurdity. thew whole point of christmas is that it is a debauch-as it was probably long before the birth of christ was arbitrarily fixed on that date..." george orwell. as i please 66, london tribune 20 december 1946________________________________________________________________________ i,ve quoted george before but this bears repeating...orwell had the habit of occasionally dissecting the front page of his newspaper in his column and trying to read between the lines of the editorial slant provided by advertisers for himself and anyone who cared to read what he wrote...it's the holidays and anyone who doesn't know i loathe the intrusive nature of this one doesn't know me...agnostic that i am i have no "true religion"...not even a secular one...they are pretty much thin veneers of someone else's agenda for my behaviors and i am skeptical of the wisdom behind that manipulation...nobody "knows" they just think they do...which is all fine and good as long as they shut up about it...i will not tolerate a missionary...this leaves me out of any sort of spiritual attachment to this holiday and i am left with scrooges "false and commercial festival"...according to today's n y times the "festival" has seen better days...a dreary pre-christmas sales week for retailers has them in a holiday funk with more probable losses to come as they dump inventories after christmas...if anyone shows up for that...the op-ed page says nobody trusts anyone anymore ( i never did ) because of the growing inequality the consequentialism of the bogus ponzi scheme called capitalism has created...they are well behind the curve on this...tom freidman is dragging them down...there is also news that the "nest of vipers" called congress is crafting a farm bill that will further restrict access to food aid for the poorest amongst us...a manifestation of the tea party cretins and their war on the poor because their social darwinist philosophy tells them they deserve it all...fuck them...twice...inflation is there as well...the cost of the 364 items in "the twelve days of christmas" is up to $114,651...6.9 higher than 2012...and finally crude oil is trading at $99.22 a barrel this holiday morning...well above the $85 that "economists" say causes economic damage...yet the band palys on and the hegemonic culture tries its best to convince us that "business as usual" can go on in the face of climate change ( deniers scoff! ) and the relentless reduction of non-renewable resources that are central to "business as usual" while alternatives are hyped with the downside ( energy density ) left out ( i read another piece about "advances in science and technology" allowing jatropha seeds to be converted into bio-fuel...what's the eroei? is it scalable? how much cropland will be diverted to its production and what will be the impact on food prices? what's the energy density of the fuel? ethanol has 1/4 the energy of gasoline...no-one talks about that...especially the national corn growers' association...read brian tokar's essay on bio-feul and food then read the research from the university of minnesota...it will help balance the propaganda )...if we are realistic in our thinking ( read cut the greed out with a really sharp knife ) and actually practice all the fucking expedient blather about equality of opportunity that the myth makers puke out we just might be able to provide christmas dinner for all those people who will "be doing no such thing"...feeding nine billion people by mid-century means less of the 364 items and a bit more community...happy holidays everyone...i am off to spend some time with my children and grandchild...giving small gifts and sharing of ourselves.