My favorite part of a classic, and with great significance to us these days . . . "'Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,' said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit's robe,' but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw.' 'It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it,' was the Spirit's sorrowful reply. 'Look here.' From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment. 'Oh, Man. look here. Look, look, down here.' exclaimed the Ghost. They were a boy and a girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread. Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude. 'Spirit. are they yours.' Scrooge could say no more. 'They are Man's,' said the Spirit, looking down upon them. 'And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it.' cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. 'Slander those who tell it ye. Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. And abide the end.' 'Have they no refuge or resource.' cried Scrooge. 'Are there no prisons.' said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. 'Are there no workhouses.'"
to repeat what i just posted in the TFAMSF thread, but applicable to the P&C landscape in extenso : read in a book i received this morning, philippe labro, speaking about the united states and quoting paul valery : the advancement of a society can be measured by the number of its contradictions. so merry xmas to all and let our differences enrich us and not only divide us.
Well, I just completed my annual Christmas tradition: went around looking for an open Starbucks and got some coffee. I went to the grocery store too. Later I will do laundry. Nope, no Chinese food and movies for me ... I may be a Jew, but I'm just not that observant. Still, this is shaping up to be a reasonably endurable day. I will share one bit of Christmas lore that I learned about only this year. Krampus! I like that guy! We need more of him in America!
santa in his different avatars often has a negative companion/counterpart (zwarte piet, le pere fouettard ...) when the role of year-end giftgiver doesn't fall on a dual-edged personnage like the befana. i was going to recommend claude levi-strauss' le pere noel supplicié since you seem interested in the subject but since it's a very minor work (very, very minor, in fact it's just an old review article which is probably only published in book form since it makes a nice xmas present!) it's apparently never been translated.