Civil Commotion

Say what you like about them, Westboro’s hostility to gays and ‘worldly’ people in general has a sound Biblical pedigree. They are an exemplar for my frequent observation that most people have too much sense and decency to be ‘good’ Christians — it’s the ones who don’t that you have to watch.

Bruce Gerencser is publishing portions of Mark Twain’s Letters From the Earth at his Web site just now; if you’ve never read it, you should head over there and take a look.

Like Bertrand Russell’s famous lecture Why I Am Not A Christian, or Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Antichrist, it’s one of those things you cannot unread, something that you cannot forget.

Meantime, every person is playing on a harp — those millions and millions! — whereas not more than twenty in the thousand of them could play an instrument in the earth, or ever wanted to.

Consider the deafening hurricane of sound — millions and millions of voices screaming at once and millions and millions of harps gritting their teeth at the same time! I ask you: is it hideous, is it odious, is it horrible?

Consider further: it is a praise service; a service of compliment, of flattery, of adulation! Do you ask who it is that is willing to endure this strange compliment, this insane compliment; and who not only endures it, but likes it, enjoys it, requires if, commands it? Hold your breath!

It is God! This race’s god, I mean. He sits on his throne, attended by his four and twenty elders and some other dignitaries pertaining to his court, and looks out over his miles and miles of tempestuous worshipers, and smiles, and purrs, and nods his satisfaction northward, eastward, southward; as quaint and nave a spectacle as has yet been imagined in this universe, I take it.

Twain knew that the work would be unpopular, that it was wildly out-of-step with the culture that surrounded him. Accordingly, he stored it away and left it to his daughter to decide whether it would someday be published; she resisted till the 1960s. If you’ve never read it, you’re missing out.

Reince Priebus, Chief-of-Staff to President-elect The Donald, sends Christmas greetings to the Little People.

Merry Christmas to all! Over two millennia ago, a new hope was born into the world, a Savior who would offer the promise of salvation to all mankind. Just as the three wise men did on that night, this Christmas heralds a time to celebrate the good news of a new King. We hope Americans celebrating Christmas today will enjoy a day of festivities and a renewed closeness with family and friends.

Well — who knows? It clearly says what it says. But if Priebus were a smart man he wouldn’t be supporting Trump in the first place or serving in his administration, so maybe it was just a clumsy locution (like that time Trump promised to pay the legal bills of supporters who beat-up protesters, or that time he promised to release his tax returns, but didn’t actually mean it).

Remember: Your innate no-damned-goodness is the Reason for the Season.

I dunno. Something about The Donald with a raised fist just doesn’t give me that Christmas vibe.