Twitterer

It's not that I don't have anything to say. It's just that I've been swept up in the fascination with Twitter.

Now, mind you, I'm not much for technological fads. In fact I tend to oppose them more often than not. I was buying VHS right up until a couple of years ago. I got my first iPod a few months ago, and only then because it was a second hand gift from a family member. I've never seen an Xbox, and only tried a Wii when on a visit to someone else. I'm still not entirely clear on the mp3 concept. And I've never been on Facebook, and am not sure I see the point in trying it now. On the whole friends and family tell me I'd be a perfect candidate for the Amish, if only they would take converts.

But I do find Twitter interesting. The severe limitation I find almost liberating. There is no need to be verbose (verbosity is in fact prohibited by the design of the application). That nagging need to pursue literary greatness that dogs the heart of every diarist and blogger is almost entirely foiled. Even the brevity of the Gettysburg Address could never be compressed into 140 characters. And so one is free...free to loose one's random thoughts onto a wired civilization that could probably care less. Yes, one could argue many of those random thoughts end up being completely inane. But even inanity is sort of freeing. One could also argue that Twitter is simply a manifestation of the attention-deficient society we have become. I think there is definately something to that critique. Nevertheless, I find it mostly to be playful, not a bad thing to be in times such as these.

It is hard to say I won't abandon The Alta Californian, as in many ways I have abandoned it since January. But I dare say that, for the moment, Twitter will probably take up a bit more of my attention, or I suppose you could say a bit more of my inattention.

McCain's Question

We heard it over and over, from McCain, Palin, and for a time Hillary and others. At last, an answer to McCain's Question.

Who is Barack Obama?


Answer:

The President of the United States

Merry Christmas!

And yes, of course I still mean that.

As I write this it's Twelfth Night, the feast is coming to an end, but the star still shines and the Magi draw near. May we too draw near our Lord, and spend 2009 in His favor.

So Happy Christmas!

And for anyone reading this tomorrow, just pretend you're Orthodox...

Advent Hymnody

One of the fascinating, and for Anglican sticklers like myself, vexing ways catholic Christianity finds itself in conflict with modern Western culture is over Christmas. Not just the current "War on Christmas" of Fox News fame which is a more recognizable part of the Culture Wars, but the conflict between the commercial secular calendar and the catholic liturgical calendar.

Out on the public square it has been Christmas since well before Thanksgiving. Decorations and carols have been popping up since early November, which is late. I think only the Election kept them from coming out in late October. Last year I saw Christmas candy next to Halloween candy the week before All Hallow's Eve (that year, in a different store, I watched as employees put up a Valentine's Day candy display....on Christmas Eve!). By the time December 25 actually arrives, everyone is so sick of Christmas kitsch that it very quickly gets the boot. As the "Holiday Season" creeps ever earlier, it is also starting to end sooner. I saw neighbors taking down their Christmas ornaments the next morning, and most stores were clear of red and green by the following weekend. It has long irritated me that the Boy Scouts insist on doing their Christmas tree pick-up well before Christmas actually ends. But it makes a great deal of sense to them since most people want the ol' Tanenbaum out of the house well before the champagne corks pop at midnight, January 1.

This vexes catholic (small 'c') sticklers, because the liturgical calendar has things the other way around. The month before the feast of the Incarnation is Advent, and Christmas lasts nearly a fortnight after the 25th. Episcopalians can be so pugnacious about this that December on the Church Pension Group's wall calendar has a humorous depiction of the "Advent Police" citing people for Christmas activity too early. The most obvious example of this obstreperousness is in music. Despite the public's longing for it, despite the radio stations blaring them, and the shopping malls drowning in them, you will not hear Christmas carols in Church until Christmas Eve. And then, we will sing them to our hearts content for nearly two weeks, long after everyone else is sick of them. We get around this in some ways, usually with non-liturgical events, caroling parties, hospital visits, "concerts" and such, but in liturgy we hold the line.

Their are only a few real vestiges of the liturgical seasons remaining. One is the only Advent hymn which has managed to cross over into the Christmas carol world, O Come, O Come Emmanuel (well, it's appropriate for both, but it's primarily an Advent hymn in Church). Another is an entirely secular song, The Twelve Days of Christmas. The latter, with its partridges and pear trees, is of course problematic. Coupled with the continuing popularity of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, it should remind people that Christmas does not end until the eve of the feast of the Epiphany, January 6 (which is to say, on the Twelfth Night after Christmas...Jan. 5...twelve days after Christmas Eve). But as I recall reading in an article last year, polls show a majority of Americans think the "twelve days of Christmas" are the twelve days before Christmas. Argh!

The irony of all of this....Advent has some of the best hymns of the whole year. When I scan my mental lexicon of favorite hymns, probably as much as a third are from Advent. Which brings me to really an essential point...modern American culture, even when it seizes upon certain aspects of its own Christian heritage, completely misses out on the richest parts of the catholic tradition and the Christian faith itself. In some ways we should not complain. It is precisely the commercialization of Christmas that is robbing it of its import to most people, and leading to the Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays Wars we see in the news. That Western capitalism has not capitalized on Advent (or Easter or Pentecost) is probably a blessing. But that does not mean that most people aren't missing out.So when you see me in the store, looking slightly pained at every Jingle-Bell Rock, know that in my heart I'm singing something else. Songs of expectation of the coming of Christ, not just as the babe at Christmas, but in glory at the end of time.

For the record...some of my favorites:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVjL4tRYrD4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yw639RcD2YU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Lj48lYLIvs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0VuMxp5mUE

I may treat the words of these over the next few days. The words, after all, are the important thing. But for the moment, the music is splendid enough. (They're pretty good arrangements, and make me want to keep an encouraging eye on the nice folks at http://hifihymnbook.com/).

Thwacked Again

One of my holiday delights was to have that certain reader (who has not even seen fit to leave a comment herself) chastize me once more for only posting when I'm gravely ill. I find it difficult to believe that my comments are so interesting that one would want to read me daily or even weekly. But I can confess that I too am slightly irritated when bloggers I enjoy reading slacken off. One of my particular favorites, Captain Sacrament, has not posted for over a month. I managed to get a blogging priest I know (who shall remain nameless) posting again...once. Then nothing, despite my suggestion that he post the notes from at least one, particularly excellent, sermon I heard him give recently. So I can certainly see why someone would want to thwack me with the Stick of Compassion, to wake me from my semi-meditative slumber. So to that restive reader, I say I will post again very soon...perhaps if this tickle in my throat gets worse.

Ah, I see Kyle has come out of hiding, and has big plans.

A Sad Correction

It would seem that the Summer of the Thousand Fires has not truly ended, at least for the good people of Southern California. I do wish I had been right that it was over. The Northstate may not be out of the woods yet either. For all our sakes, I do hope it ends soon.

Yes, apparently we can!

Well, look at what we just did!

I was really too engrossed in the news to liveblog last night, but here's about how my thoughts went:

It did not look particularly good for Obama at first. No one had any illusions about Kentucky, but the speed at which they called it for McCain (along with Vermont, no surprise) was a little unsettling to me.

Then it became abundantly clear that McCain would carry Georgia. The first of the states Obama had outside hopes for, and where stories of massive turnout and African-American enthusiasm were abounding, to be called for McCain (well it is not officially called even now because of masses of absentee and early vote ballots....but it pretty well stated that McCain would take it by a decent margin, though that margin has narrowed a bit since).

The most worrying sign was that for the first couple of hours McCain was leading the count by a wide margin in Virginia. Yes...it's because NoVa and the Tidewater came in last...but it was still worrying to see McCain up 10% in the Old Dominion for the first hour or more. Even Olbermann started commenting on how the expansion of the map Obama had promised was not materializing. Pundits on CNN and Fox were similarly skeptical.

For the next hour there were no surprises....Massachusetts, Connecticut, South Carolina.

But it was immediately apparent this was a different sort of year, as no one was calling Indiana, or North Carolina, or New Hampshire.

Then the nets called Pennsylvania. McCain has practically lived in Pennsylvania for the last three months. The speed at which it was called was as striking as Kentucky had been.

I watched the returns with my father, who was unnecessarily confident at this point. I remained a study in caution...carefully eyeing the numbers in still unfavorable Virginia. Several pundits and pollsters had suggested Virginia (or Indiana) would be the state that would let us all know how this was going to shape up. After all, Obama was supposed to be up 10% there, it should be easy.

Instead.....

The moment the networks called Ohio, I knew it was over. I was so startled by the call, I actually shut the TV off for a second to collect myself. I fully expected it to be close like in 2004, and not be called for some time (it was the next day last time). I had to check Fox just to make sure. But there it was. We now reversed positions as my confidence surged past my father's. I had to walk him through the numbers, to demonstrate that nothing short of McCain taking California would save him.

The rest was icing on the cake. And some icing it was...

By the end of the night the symbolic victories I wanted most had occurred. Indiana rejoined the Union (they've voted with the South long enough). And then my dear Nevada. And finally the old capital of the Confederacy itself, Virginia.

Of all the things I hoped for, the biggest would be that Obama would carry one or more of the infamous 1964 states, the dozen or more states that haven't voted Democratic since LBJ (other than Minnesota and DC, the Democrats have never been able to inspire such loyalty...even Massachusetts went for Reagan). By George, he got two of them. All night I was calling out to the TV, "Flip Indiana....flip! Restore the Union!" and "Come on Virginia! You can do it". No wonder they call campaigns a horse race. Gradually Obama's deficit in Virginia vanished, with Fairfax County and Newport News putting him well over the top. Just before I went to bed, the Hoosiers followed suit.

And in the end, they didn't call it until the West Coast had closed, until our Pacific states had made it official. Florida, once the keystone, was now almost an afterthought. As were hard fought Colorado and New Mexico.

There were minor disappointments. As someone who loves the Great Plains, I had thought North Dakota would be incredibly symbolic (another 1964 holdout). I also had high hopes for Montana. I respect McCain too much to want to see him humiliated, so I was actually pleased that Arizona remained loyal.

Other interesting things:

- California has gotten irritatingly used to being written off. In several of the past elections the thing was called before our polls were even closed. For all of our might as the largest state with the most votes, we are pretty soundly ignored most of the time (Yes I know...it's because we're solid Democratic, so count your blessings). This time, with 2000 in mind, the networks waited until the Pacific closed to announce. CNN was particularly cautious, not calling states for up to half an hour after Fox and MSNBC. I actually think that was good of them. Makes us feel like our votes count.

- Looks like Missouri is going to break its streak. Except for 1956 (when they went for Adlai), Missouri has voted with the winner in every election in since 1908. 100 years. 1908 and 2008, I suppose, are good bookends, with 1956 almost half-way.

- Ohio didn't break its. It remains that a Republican cannot seem to win without it (though they can lose with it).

- Some margins were larger than I expected: Ohio, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, North Dakota. Some were closer: Virginia was closer than the polls predicted, though I thought it would be close. Some were razor close: Indiana, Missouri, North Carolina.

- McCain campaign bluster about Iowa and Pennsylvania proved to be as bogus as most people thought.

- Congress was a different story. The predicted Democratic wave never really materialized, as evidenced by Ms. Bachmann, the Diaz-Balart brothers, Mr. Souder, as well as Senators McConnell, Chambliss, Coleman, and Stevens. Coleman does face a recount. Chambliss faces a runoff he should easily win. And Stevens may yet end up in jail. But it was nowhere near the filibuster ending sweep that many predicted. Personally I think that may end up being good. There is less chance for excess, more need for bipartisanship, and slightly less opportunity for the Republicans to blame everything in the next two years on a runaway Dem Senate. Besides, with the aid of moderates like Lugar, the ladies from Maine, and, dare I say, McCain, the Democrats are going to be able to get a lot done. The wild card is Leiberman. Reid is still going to want his vote in the caucus, and the Republicans are going to woo him like nothin' doin', but no one likes a Benedict Arnold. He may have acted quite bravely, but I suspect he will still end up persona non grata in the Democratic Party. And I suspect he'll need to make some retirement plans in four years.

I have other thoughts as well, but I'll close with this. The Conventional Wisdom has been wrong about everything this election with one massive exception. About the primaries, who was "inevitable", how the conventions were run, and the debates, the ways the electorate would split, and what states would be safe or in play....the CW was wrong on it all. But there has been one overarching assumption that served as a backdrop for all....that this was bound to be a Democratic year.

Still when one thinks about it, its really quite incredible.

President Barack Obama....good heavens what a sound. Who would ever have thought it.

A historic day.