December 25, 2008 archive

Three Essays A Day

I’ve noticed some people are using up their Essay limit and I suspect they have more to say. As a group we want to encourage participation and freedom of expression. We’re a progressive blog, not a partisan one.

So we’ve increased the daily essay limit to three.

This is vitually unlimited opportunity to be silly and serious. I hope spaming will be minimal.

Merry eksmas!

Midnight Oil Spill for Christmas … Happy Holidays!

Burning the Midnight Oil is the evolution of the Midnight Oil series that evolved on Daily Kos earlier in the year.

Burning the Midnight Oil is a place for me to compose diaries that normally end up crossposted hither and yon, normally including Docudharma. It also has an eclectic RSS sidebar of some interesting blogs, but there are more interesting examples elsewhere on the Intertubes.

It also has a regular series of “New Oil” posts of links encountered on my way around the blogosphere, which then becomes “Burning Fires” as the next lantern is opened up to get its New Oil.

Since there’s only been one visitor to the Midnight Oil that I am aware of, I thought as a Christmas pressie, I’d share the New Oil for the last two months.

Grampy is the King

My strange and unique communication skills with a two year old grandson once again illustrate the miracles of Christmas.  Or perhaps something even greater than that, the miracle of a simple act of love.  A two year old shows me the universal love of God.

And So This Is Christmas…





John Odum had an interesting post up at OpenLeft yesterday. Good food for thought.

The Rise of the Angry Center?

Odum, December 23, 2008, OpenLeft

My thesis was that much of the reactive anger we’re seeing in blog comments every time a diarist criticizes a choice or appointment the President Elect makes is not necessarily all attributable to what Sirota calls “Dear Leaderism.” In fact, a significant portion of that anger does not share the characteristics of such a “cult of personality” at all. In these cases, I think we’re seeing hints of a new manifestation of the so-called “moderate” center in American politics – a center possessing a distinction from its previous incarnations that could have ramifications for future debate:

This new “angry centre” has found institutional voice in the ideology-versus-pragmatism discussion playing out in the media. Obama, to the fired-up centrists, is the champion of adulthood following eight years of screaming children, and it’s time for the children to pipe down and mind their manners, lest they find themselves expelled from the dinner table. This new centre is distinct from the old, even though it is populated by many of the same faces. The old centrism was quick to compromise and was largely defined by what it wasn’t (left or right).

This emerging, muscular centrism wants to be a force in its own right, defining itself, rather than being defined by the political poles. It’s basic tenets remain unchanged from the days of the Third Way, (with a more Keynesian bent, granted), but it stands eager to challenge anyone suggesting that taking a principled, centrist stand is oxymoronic.

In other words, the American centre has itself become ideological – and it’s pissed off.

Merry Holidays! A Pony Party

Merry Christmas/Solstice/Hannukah/Kwanzaa/Festivus/ReturnoftheLight.  Please enjoy some silliness of the season; and quaff a Yuletide beverage for me.

This is an Open Thread.  Please do not wRECk the party.

Twas the night, before

Christmas.

Is the light returning yet?

Are we there yet?

Is there a there?

A glimmer of light on the horizon

Some bright star adawning?

To guide us to a home, dimly remembered deep inside, covered by the cloak of the darkness that men have made in their hearts? Is there some star that can penetrate even that which we so constantly remake within us, that can show us a way to cast off the shroud that has been imposed upon us but that some part of us cannot seem to help embracing?

What would morning look like, how would it feel, what would the taste of freedom from that shroud be, how would it smell….could the darkness survive it’s true touch? Will we ever know that touch?

Or is the fight unchanging, the darkness never ending, the struggle eternal, both outside and in our hearts?

We will have to walk into the future to know.

But what the heck, we were going there anyway. And so all we can do is walk …and keep walking, and with every step bring some small change, within our selves and to the path itself, our eyes on the horizon stretched wide for any glimmer, any star that may give us even the dimmest light. So let us walk, together? Towards the future, towards the star, towards the morning light that may yet someday come. Twas the night, before, and darkness all around. I wonder what time it is now?

Skipping the “Made in China” Christmas

Happy Holidays everyone!  Sorry I haven’t blogged in a bit, but I’ve been extremely ill and well the holiday-related madness.  Anyways, if it pleases the court, I’d like to talk about the latter.  Yes, despite several outpatient surgeries and other things I tried to trudge through that oh-so-Christmas event known as shopping.  Ok, I only went out three times, but that was enough for me.  Frankly, I am beginning to believe they should change the name of Christmas to Consumermas.  There was nothing I could find meriting all the hassle at the stores.  Especially didn’t feel like contributing more funds to China in the form of some plastic trinket.  Seriously, is this what the holidays are all about now?

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