Brother Baal and one of his sons will come in tonight and sleep here. The rest of the kith will gather here tomorrow. I have every confidence that this will be a Christmas that will be remembered long after I’m dead as one of the most disastrous my nieces and nephews ever experienced.

As you’ve probably noticed, it’s my policy to always expect the worst. I figure it’s a way of cheating the malevolent forces of the universe. I like to think there’s a good chance they’ll choose to get their kicks out of disproving my prophecy, and so let the events turn out OK.

This policy hasn’t worked with the predictions in my novels, so I don’t know why I cling to it.

Yes I do. I cling to it because I’m neurotic.

I listened to Michael Medved driving home from work tonight, and heard part of his interview with Chris Gardner, the guy Will Smith plays in the new movie, “Pursuit of Happyness.” I don’t know how the movie will be, but I’ve rarely heard a guy on the radio I just liked so much, so quickly.

Good news via Libertas: Ennio Morricone is finally getting his Academy Award. There’s a vestigial remnant of justice somewhere under heaven after all.

Also, I’ve been informed by way of the Science Fiction/Fantasy Writers of America that my old publisher, Baen Books, is making books available to the disabled:

“Baen Books (www.baen.com), a publisher of science fiction, will provide its

books to fans who are blind, paralysed, or dyslexic, or are amputees, in

electronic form free of charge, effective immediately.”

My novel Wolf Time is one of those books in electronic form, unless they’ve dumped it (always a possibility).

On Wednesday night the Dutch-speakers of Belgium, which amount to 60% of the country, broke with their German-speaking countrymen and declared independence! The monarchy is on the run! Will there be blood? Will there be famine? And have we told you that we made this all up?

State-owned television ran a bit of make-believe as a special news report, saying, “‘Flemish parliament has unilaterally declared the independence of Flanders’ and that King Albert and Queen Paola had left on the first air force plane available.” After 30 minutes, they let their audience in on the fantasy.

“It’s very bad Orson Welles, in very poor taste,” Didier Seeuws, a spokesman for Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, told the national news agency Belga, recalling the 1938 radio adaptation by Welles of H.G. Wells’s “War of the Worlds,” which caused widespread chaos when thousands of Americans believed that Martians had invaded the United States.

Tags: Belgium, Orson Welles, hoax

Infant holy, Infant lowly, for His bed a cattle stall;

Oxen lowing, little knowing, Christ the Babe is Lord of all.

Swift are winging angels singing, noels ringing, tidings bringing:

Christ the Babe is Lord of all.

Flocks were sleeping, shepherds keeping vigil till the morning new

Saw the glory, heard the story, tidings of a Gospel true.

Thus rejoicing, free from sorrow, praises voicing, greet the morrow:

Christ the Babe was born for you.

Tra­di­tion­al carol

Tags: Christmas, Christ, holidays, carols

And our eyes at last shall see Him,

Through His own redeeming love,

For that Child so dear and gentle

Is our Lord in Heav’n above,

And He leads His children on

To the place where He is gone.

Not in that poor lowly stable,

With the oxen standing by,

We shall see Him; but in Heaven,

Set at God’s right hand on high;

Where like stars His children crowned

All in white shall wait around.

(from “Once in royal David’s city” by Ce­cil F. Al­ex­an­der)

Tags: Christmas holidays carols hymns

SR pointed out Peter Kreeft’s website, and today I noticed a lecture called, “10 Uncommon Insights Into Evil from Lord of the Rings.”

I haven’t listened to it yet, but I heard a coincidental news report today on the real evil in Ukraine. “Healthy new-born babies may have been killed in Ukraine to feed a flourishing international trade in stem cells, evidence obtained by the BBC suggests.” Killing unborn children isn’t enough for some hospital staff in that country. Newborns have been stolen from their mothers by their nurses so that their bodies can be mined for stem cells.

Is this the result of viewing children as non-persons or of viewing the human body as an organic machine, separate from spirit within it?

Linking: the last refuge of the uncreative. Got some good ones today though.

Ed Veith at Cranach passes on some information about possible evidence that Jesus may in fact have been born on December 25. Probably too good to be true, but few things would satisfy me more than poking a finger in the collective eye of the Scroogeist Church.

Aitchmark sent me the following link which he describes as a “wonderful, amazing timesink”: How Products Are Made.

And finally, continuing in the comprehensive mode, novelist Michael Z. Williamson alerted me to every guy’s dream knife.

“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this” (Isaiah 9:6-7 KJV).

Lynn Vincent is calling for alternative names for “The Holiday That Must Not Be Named”. She suggests “Retail” or “Retail Season.” Others have offered “Santa Claus Day” and “Eatspendtide.”

From AP reporter Jaymes Song: “With their number quickly dwindling, survivors of Pearl Harbor will gather Thursday one last time to honor those killed by the Japanese 65 years ago, and to mark a day that lives in infamy. This will be their last visit to this watery grave to share stories, exchange smiles, find peace and salute their fallen friends. This, they say, will be their final farewell. . . .

Nearly 500 survivors from across the nation were expected to make the trip to Hawaii, bringing with them 1,300 family members, numerous wheelchairs and too many haunting memories.”

Thank you, gentlemen, for giving your lives to protect our country and thank you to your families for supporting you. May we never forget, and may the Lord of all creation bless you and your families richly.