Being "Poor" in America

Reading La Shawn Barber reminded me of a great Wall Street Journal article from a few years back. Thanks to the wonders of Google and the internet, a quick search produced the article.

America Has the World’s Richest Poor People
By Robert Rector
Wall Street Journal
September 24, 1998

Today the Census Bureau releases its annual report on income and poverty in the U.S. As it has for many years, the report will show more than 30 million Americans “living in poverty.” But a close look at the actual living standards of people defined as “poor” shows that the Census Bureau’s report is misleading.

For most of us, the word poverty suggests destitution: the inability to provide a family with adequate food, clothing and shelter. But only a small number of the 30 million plus people classified as “poor” by the Census Bureau fit this description. Although real material hardship does occur in America, it is rare. The bulk of the “poor” live in material conditions considered comfortable or even well-off just a few generations ago. Indeed, total spending per person among the lowest-income one-fifth of households actually equals those of the average American household in the early 1970s--after adjusting for inflation.

How poor are the “poor”? Consider the following statistics, all drawn from federal government reports:

• In 1995, 41% of all poor households owned their own homes. The average home owned by a poor person has three bedrooms, 1 1/2 baths, a garage and a porch or patio.
• More than 750,000 poor people own homes worth more than $150,000; nearly 200,000 own homes worth more than $300,000.
• Only 7.5% of poor households are overcrowded; nearly 60% have two or more rooms per person.
• The average poor American has a third more living space than the average Japanese and four times as much living space as the average Russian--that’s the average citizen in Japan or Rusisa, not the average poor person.
• Seventy percent of poor households own a car; 27% own two or more cars.
• Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television; nearly half own two or more color televisions. Nearly three-quarters have a videocassette recorder; one in five has two VCRs. Sixty-four percent own a microwave oven; half have a stereo system; more than 25% have an automatic dishwasher.
• Two-thirds of poor households have air-conditioning. By contrast, 30 years ago only 36% of the entire U.S. population had air-conditioning.
• As a group, the poor are far from being chronically hungry and malnourished. In fact, poor Americans are more likely to be overweight than middle-class ones. Nearly half of poor adult women are overweight. And 84% of the poor say their families have “enough” food to eat; 13% say they “sometimes” do not have enough to eat. Only 3% say they “often” do not have enough to eat.
• The average consumption of protein, vitamins and minerals is virtually the same for poor and middle-class children and in most cases is well above recommended norms. Poor children actually consume more meat than do higher-income children and have average protein intakes 100% above recommended levels. Indeed, most poor children today are supernourished, growing up, on average, to be one inch taller and 10 pounds heavier that the GIs who stormed the beaches of Normandy in 1944.

The Census Bureau’s poverty report is simply inaccurate: It overstates the extent of poverty in the U.S. and understates the real income of most Americans. While a number of errors contribute to the report’s inaccuracy, the most critical is that the census dramatically undercounts the true economic resources or annual income received by the American public.

The magnitude of the Census Bureau’s economic undercount can be revealed by comparing census figures with the Commerce Department’s National Income and Product Accounts, which measure the gross domestic product. In 1996, Commerce Department figures showed that the aggregate “personal income” of Americans (including personal payments of Social Security taxes) was $6.8 trillion. By contrast, aggregate personal income, according to the Census Bureau’s official income definition, was only $4.8 trillion.

Thus the Census Bureau missed $2 trillion in annual income, or roughly $20,000 for each U.S. household. The unreported $2 trillion exceeds the entire economies of all but a handful of nations in the world. It is true that much of this missing income belongs to the middle class and the rich, but a large slice is received by low income families as well. Most notably, official Census income figures fail to report more than a half trillion dollars in government assistance to low income and elderly households.

For decades, both conventional wisdom and the Census Bureau have told us that “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” This is untrue. The material conditions of lower-income Americans have improved dramatically over time. Most “poor” Americans today are better housed and better fed and own more personal property than average Americans throughout much of this century. In fact, living conditions in our nation as a whole have improved so much that our society can no longer clearly remember what it meant to be poor or even middle class in earlier generations.

But higher material living standards should not be regarded as a victory for the War on Poverty. Living conditions were improving dramatically, and poverty was dropping sharply, long before that war was declared. The principal effect of the War on Poverty has been not to raise incomes but to displace work and earnings with dependence on government. By rewarding dysfunctional and self-destructive behavior, the modern welfare state has contributed to the growth of a new “behavioral poverty” exemplified by illegitimacy, crime, school failure and drug abuse.

By exaggerating the extent of material deprivation and by distracting attention from the more important behavioral problems afflicting low-income communities, the census poverty report does society and the poor a disservice.

Mr. Rector is senior policy analyst for welfare and poverty issues at the Heritage Foundation.

More La Shawn Barber

You may recall my recommendation of La Shawn Barber's blog. I checked it today to see what, if anything, she had to say on the Alito hearings. I didn't get far. I stopped to read this post and just had to put it up here:

How Not To Be Poor

How much does racial discrimination explain? So far as black poverty is concerned, I’d say little or nothing, which is not to say that every vestige of racial discrimination has been eliminated. But let’s pose a few questions. Is it racial discrimination that stops black students from studying and completing high school? Is it racial discrimination that’s responsible for the 68 percent illegitimacy rate among blacks?

“How not to be poor” is classic Walter Williams. When I first started writing my little column, I wrote about the same things and got plenty of hate mail for the trouble. What should be common sense is often viewed as “self-hatred” by black liberals. I argued that blacks’ biggest problem was their own behavior, which is true for any other human being.

I’d get e-mails with questions like this one, usually from black women who called themselves taking me to task: “You mean to tell me you don’t think racism still exists?”

I’ve never said nor even implied such a thing, but “racism” is so inconsequential to black people’s lives in 2005 as to be laughably negligible. Given the extent of social pathology in certain “black communities,” I can’t tell you how embarrassing it is to hear black men in expensive suits blaming immoral behavior on “racism.” It’s archaic, tired, shameful and unimaginative. It bores me to tears as they prattle on about “racism,” as if white people have that kind of power over blacks. We’re teaching our children that if they fail, blame the white man.

So how can one avoid poverty? You’ve heard them before, but here’s a rundown of a few general factors in case you’ve forgotten:

• Graduate from high school.
• Get married before you have children, and stay married.
• Work at any kind of job, even one that starts out paying the minimum wage.
• Avoid engaging in criminal behavior.

The second and fourth are especially problematic in urban areas. Incidentally, removing the stigma against out-of-wedlock pregnancies was probably the worse thing to happen to black people. Whenever I meet a black child with a residential biological father, I’m in awe. Expectations are quite low.

Black liberals often claim that government schools stink because of racism, although some of those same schools have outrageously high per pupil expenditures. You’ve been sold a bill of putrid goods if you believe bad urban government schools are a “civil rights” problem (It is NOT), and Williams agrees with my assessment. He writes:

Washington, D.C. public schools, as well as many other big city schools, are little more than educational cesspools. Per student spending in Washington, D.C., is just about the highest in the nation. D.C.’s mayors have been black, and so have a large percentage of the city council, school principals, teachers and superintendents. Suggesting that racial discrimination plays any part in Washington, D.C.’s educational calamity is near madness and diverts attention away from possible solutions.

Come to think of it, the District of Columbia is a black-run city with a black mayor. Blacks are everywhere in the D.C. government, and high up, too. They’re also scandal-prone, the latest being City Administrator Robert Bobb, who’s apparently done some unscrupulous hiring. Well, how much can you expect from a city that re-elected crack smoker Marion “*itch set me up!” Barry as mayor and recently re-elected him to the D.C. Council? Stupidity, not racism, has everything to do with the subpar performance of this black-run city.

It’s pitiful, really, that the blacks tasked to run things often turn out to be crooks, and not very smart ones at that.

I must say that government services have improved under Anthony Williams. One thing I’d suggest is training employees to be polite. (There was a time when such training wasn’t necessary.) For instance, the Department of Motor Vehicles is full of sour-faced black women who either hate their jobs specifically or working in general. At this point black liberal readers are usually up in arms when I write such things about other blacks, especially with white people reading. Dirty laundry, and all that. But it’s true, and more importantly, they know it’s true. One or two polite black women don’t make up for the majority who aren’t. Nice try, though.

Back to Williams. He writes:

Bill Cosby had the courage to speak out against individual irresponsibility. Surely those who profess to have the best interests of blacks at heart should be able to summon the courage to do so as well.

I’ve got the courage, Mr. Williams. People can balk all they want, but it is right conduct, pride, and decency that will improve conditions of “poor” blacks, not loose living, grievance-shopping and welfare checks.

Related posts:

• Dead Last!
• D.C. Bureaucrats Can’t Find School Superintendent

Posted by La Shawn @ 7:45 am

Here is the Walter Williams column La Shawn Barber refers to above.

How not to be poor

May 11, 2005
by Walter E. Williams

Ministers Louis Farrakhan, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Washington, D.C.'s Mayor Anthony Williams and others recently met to discuss plans to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the October 1995 Million Man March. Whilst reading about the plans, I thought of an excellent topic for the event: how not to be poor.

Avoiding long-term poverty is not rocket science. First, graduate from high school. Second, get married before you have children, and stay married. Third, work at any kind of job, even one that starts out paying the minimum wage. And, finally, avoid engaging in criminal behavior. If you graduate from high school today with a B or C average, in most places in our country there's a low-cost or financially assisted post-high-school education program available to increase your skills.

Most jobs start with wages higher than the minimum wage, which is currently $5.15. A man and his wife, even earning the minimum wage, would earn $21,000 annually. According to the Bureau of Census, in 2003, the poverty threshold for one person was $9,393, for a two-person household it was $12,015, and for a family of four it was $18,810. Taking a minimum-wage job is no great shakes, but it produces an income higher than the Bureau of Census' poverty threshold. Plus, having a job in the first place increases one's prospects for a better job.

The Children's Defense Fund and civil rights organizations frequently whine about the number of black children living in poverty. In 1999, the Bureau of the Census reported that 33.1 percent of black children lived in poverty compared with 13.5 percent of white children. It turns out that race per se has little to do with the difference. Instead, it's welfare and single parenthood. When black children are compared to white children living in identical circumstances, mainly in a two-parent household, both children will have the same probability of being poor.

How much does racial discrimination explain? So far as black poverty is concerned, I'd say little or nothing, which is not to say that every vestige of racial discrimination has been eliminated. But let's pose a few questions. Is it racial discrimination that stops black students from studying and completing high school? Is it racial discrimination that's responsible for the 68 percent illegitimacy rate among blacks?

The 1999 Bureau of Census report might raise another racial discrimination question. Among black households that included a married couple, over 50 percent were middle class earning above $50,000, and 26 percent earned more than $75,000. How in the world did these black families manage not to be poor? Did America's racists cut them some slack?

The civil rights struggle is over, and it has been won. At one time, black Americans did not have the same constitutional protections as whites. Now, we do, because the civil rights struggle is over and won is not the same as saying that there are not major problems for a large segment of the black community. What it does say is that they're not civil rights problems, and to act as if they are leads to a serious misallocation of resources.

Rotten education is a severe handicap to upward mobility, but is it a civil rights problem? Let's look at it. Washington, D.C. public schools, as well as many other big city schools, are little more than educational cesspools. Per student spending in Washington, D.C., is just about the highest in the nation. D.C.'s mayors have been black, and so have a large percentage of the city council, school principals, teachers and superintendents. Suggesting that racial discrimination plays any part in Washington, D.C.'s educational calamity is near madness and diverts attention away from possible solutions.

Bill Cosby had the courage to speak out against individual irresponsibility. Surely those who profess to have the best interests of blacks at heart should be able to summon the courage to do so as well.

Dr. Williams has served on the faculty of George Mason University in Fairfax, VA, as John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics, since 1980.

Copyright © 2005 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

Got these pictures in an e-mail today. I'm at a loss for words -- but please join me in offering a prayer:

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord.
And may perpetual light shine upon them.
May the souls of the faithfully departed
through the mercy of God rest in peace.
Amen.

The bravery of our fellow US Marines

During hostile action in Iraq, a Marine is hit and wounded and this brave Marine comes to his aid while taking hostile fire.

A second Marine comes to the rescue and is struck by an enemy round.

In the attempt to evacuate the wounded Marine, the Marine to the left is fatally struck again by enemy fire and falls to the ground.

This sad photo shows two of our brave brothers lying motionless on the ground. The Marine on the right will survive, but sadly the Marine on the left who came to rescue his fellow Marine would not survive.

These are the images you will not see on CNN, but as hard as they may be to look at, it is important to see them as Marines to honor them, and to be filled with a sense of honor and respect for those brave men who have fallen and for those who would unselfishly risk their own lives for their fellow Marines. Please say a prayer for all of our troops, and pass this on so that others may see the honor and bravery of our brothers in action.

La Shawn Barber and the Must Read Blog

Notwithstanding the Christmas Moratorium, I've been cutting back on my blog time. Why? Easy answer -- there's just not enogh time in the day, the week -- in a life -- to keep up with them. There are just so many out there that it becomes overwhelming.

It can also be distracting, frustrating, etc. when you read a good blog and they refer you to another blog and say it's a "must read" blog. Argh! you say. I can't keep up with the few I do read and you're telling me I *must* add another link and regularly check another blog. (And that is the other time-consuming aspect of blogs -- their frequent updates. Once you start, you have to regularly check them. Unlike newspapers or magazines which come at specified intervals, blogs are virtually "real time" and you can find yourself checking them several times a day or "run the risk" of missing an update (gasp!).)

OK. Does all this bloviating ... er, pontificating (that's better :-) have a point? Of course it does! The point is I am calling La Shawn Barber's blog a must read blog. I came across a post from her blog recently and it was awesome (see below). I recently checked back and there were some more great posts.

My recommendation: Bookmark La Shawn Barber's Corner and visit, if not regularly, at least occasionally. You won't be disappointed. See below for a sample of her wisdom and common sense.

12.21.05

Do You Hate Black People?

I get e-mail from black people (and a few whites) asking me if I hate black people. I usually don’t dignify the question with an answer, but I get the point.

I am more critical of blacks than I am of whites because, no offense, I care more about what happens to blacks. That is, I care whether they’re valuing education as highly as they should, whether they’re pushing themselves and their children to be the best and not wallowing in excuses or hurling unfounded charges of racism.

Having grown up black among black family and friends, I noticed a certain undercurrent that didn’t have a name. Whether a person actually suffered from racial discrimination or not, there was an urge to “keep whitey on the hook,” a term I picked up from John McWhorter. He articulated it so well in Authentically Black. We are never to allow whites to forget our historical grievances, whether an individual white person was guilty of discrimination or not. Most whites seem intimidated by blacks who do this. I dare say some of my white commenters are probably intimidated as well, despite their boldness on this blog.

I vowed to take the opposite approach. Rather than using this blog to bit** and moan session about slavery, institutional racism and such, I’d use it to “keep blacks on the hook.” It’s a fresh approach and much more interesting than telling whites how racist they are. Blacks need to be reminded, constantly, of our responsibility in this mess.

For example, as we all know, black crime statistics are outrageous, especially considering our proportion of the population. Rarely, if ever, do you hear black people expressing disgust for out-of-control crime rates or lecturing other blacks about their responsibility to stay out of the criminal justice system.

At least I haven’t. I perceived the void and decided to fill it. That makes a lot of blacks angry, and a few whites, too. But that can’t be helped. Here’s the beauty of living in a free country: if you don’t like what I say or write, you can counter it with your own op-ed or blog or other form of communication. Free expression.

When I offer this advice to disgruntled blacks who e-mail me, they have an excuse at the ready. Big surprise, right? (Making excuses must be a reflex.) They’re “nobody,” they say, and I have this huge forum, so who is going to listen to them? Or (this is my favorite) my powerful white benefactors have propped me up so as to drown out the dissenters.

Whatever.

I’ve worked hard on this blog for two years. I didn’t sit around making excuses for what I can’t do, and I’m not here to clear up misconceptions about myself. It would be a waste of time because people who hate me will hate me. All I ask if that you examine yourselves before you start handing out excuses and pointing fingers at white folks. If you want a place to bit** and moan about whites, this is not it.

One of the government policies I hate is skin color preferences, which I’ve written about ad nauseum and will continue to do so as long as it exists. So-called affirmative action was intended to include more blacks in the candidate pool, but it has become the biggest entitlement program ever conceived. It has nothing to do with so-called racial discrimination and everything to do with lowered standards.

Apparently, it’s difficult to find black job candidates and potential university students with credentials comparable to whites. On the one hand, some blacks claim that credentials are comparable, but whites need a “push” to hire or admit. On the other hand, some blacks claim that “comparable” is relative. Just because a black person has a lower score, it doesn’t mean he’s not qualified for a job or admission. It is reasonable, however, to set hiring and admissions criteria, and if your score is below the threshold, you are, by those standards, not qualified. Unfortunately, some blacks — not all, thank goodness — see racial motives behind everything.

I hate “affirmative action” because it’s immoral, unconstitutional, embarrassingly unfair, and undignified.

If blacks with comparable credentials are being passed over, blanket skin color preference policies are not the remedy. Courts are where such disputes should be heard. If blacks are passed over because they don’t have comparable scores, we need to address the problem at a much earlier stage. We all know how dumbed down government schools have become. Get the socialist bureaucrats out of the front offices and demand better for your kids. Fight for school choice, support rigorous standards, and advocate excellence, not mediocrity. And for the love of God, stop making excuses. Discipline your children to turn off that idiot box and study. Embrace and reward studious behavior and penalize laziness.

Despite government policies designed to force equal outcomes, thanks to human nature, it ain’t going to happen. We each have different or varying degrees of talent, drive, and motivation. This is where “diversity” bites liberals on the rear end. In a society as diverse as America, individuals will never have equal stuff. You won’t find equal outcomes within the same biological family, for crying out loud, so how can you expect to find it within a diverse country???

Equal opportunity is the best we humans can hope for and what the Constitution guarantees. That document does not have the power to ensure equal distribution of material wealth, nor should it.

Don't Be Fooled by all the Fawning Reviews of Brokeback Mountain

You can say one thing about homosexual activists, they're persistent. They are bound and determined to reshape our culture in their own image. Years ago, when homosexuality was still *in the closet*, their "sole objective" was not be persecuted. However, once they achieved that goal, they quickly moved on to acceptance of their lifestyle. It's not enough not to be persecuted, society must acceptance the homosexual lifestyle -- and even affirm it as normal. (That's why they hate the Catholic Church so much, they see it as the primary obstacle to accepting the homosexual lifestyle.)

So far, however, homosexual activists have not been successful in their attempts to persuade us that their lifestyle is normal and acceptable. But, they aren't about to give up. And Brokeback Mountain is the latest initiative in the assault on our values -- and, from what I hear, it's a good one. Don't just read reviews of the movie from the professional reviewers -- you know they'll all love it and rave about it (in fact, look for it to win numerous Academy Awards, including Best Picture).

Instead, read "User Reviews" on sites like Yahoo (user reviews for the movie are here). I don't know how many of these User Reviews are "plants", but there are a lot of them which tell how the movie changed their mind about homosexual *love*. (Oh, be careful in case you decide to post your own comments -- I posted that I considered it to be homosexual propoganda. My comment was deleted and I got a warning from Yahoo that I had violated their Terms of Service.)

Movies and television are change agents for our culture. These mediums go to great lengths to positively and favorably portray homosexuality. This movie uses this medium to furhter promote this agenda. Before getting overwhelmed by the movie and all the positive reviews, check out this review.


Brokeback Mountain
Jan. 4, 2006
Review by David Lazar

Love story or tragedy, heart-rending or stomach-turning, Ang Lee’s gay cowboy epic Brokeback Mountain could do for Prozac prescriptions what Titanic did for life preservers.

As cinema, it showcases Lee’s trademark gusto for fine performances, dazzling cinematography, and intriguing, often weighty storylines.

As social commentary, however, it does less to advance the ball in the alternative lifestyle debate than advocates and media elites would like to believe.

Because at its root, Brokeback Mountain is a film less about the courage acolytes ascribe to it than about choices. And those choices are almost uniformly squandered throughout by central figures Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger).

The resulting melancholy with which many moviegoers will exit may have less to do with the plight of those chief characters than with the scrap heap of broken lives each leaves behind.

Beautifully shot, with the same eye for setting and mood as the clinically cold 1970s New England he depicted in Rick Moody’s The Ice Storm, Lee’s take on Anne Proulx’s short story captures both the breathtaking majesty and desolate loneliness of Wyoming’s Tetons.

And like the swinging, me-generation postmodernism of The Ice Storm, Brokeback takes on moral ambiguity, selfishness and infidelity in matter-of-fact, you-be-the-judge fashion. This is reality. It is what it is. And it’s up to the audience to decide whether it’s right or wrong.

Brokeback tells the story of Jack and Ennis, two presumably straight Marlboro Man types who fall in love during the summer of 1963 while tending sheep on the movie’s eponymous mass of rock – a love quickly consummated in a holster-your-popcorn, Rolaids-inducing sequence played out one cold night in a pup tent.

When the summer ends, and the job is over, the two must make a choice: try to make a go of it together and continue their relationship (which Jack wants), or bow to the inhospitable climate of that era and try to lead straight lives. They choose the latter, and to paraphrase Robert Frost, that makes all the difference.

Each marries and starts a family – Jack in Texas, Ennis in Wyoming. But their longing for one another can’t be abated and so begins a 20-plus-year affair, punctuated by long “fishing trips” on Brokeback during which (amazingly) no fish are actually caught. There’s little doubt these two men love each other. The way the pair ravenously attack one another in the parking lot of Ennis’s apartment complex after a four-year cool-down – while long-suffering wife Alma (Michelle Williams) helplessly watches through a window – conveys nothing less.

The fallout, of course, is calamitous. Ennis’s marriage ends in divorce, his kids are left fatherless, and he becomes an alcoholic, hopping from job to job and passing his days in a dilapidated single-wide trailer. Jack, meanwhile, takes on his demons by hiring male prostitutes and carrying on affairs with other men when he can’t see Ennis. His marriage somehow stays intact, but his life takes a similarly southbound spiral.

Depending on one’s outlook going in, Brokeback Mountain viewers are likely to leave with different impressions.

Those who laud it, like the Human Rights Campaign, which will give Lee its annual Equality Award next February, are calling it an eye-opener, with the power to change hearts and minds about the tenderness, and often pain, of the gay experience.

“Through his moving directorial work, Ang Lee proves the old adage, ‘Love is love is love,’” the gay rights group’s president Joe Solmonese said recently.

But is this the kind of love that should be celebrated? The kind of love that spawns infidelity, breaks up families, and creates almost suicidal depression?

Three years ago, gay filmmaker Todd Haynes took on a similar theme in his 1950s era Douglas Sirk send-up, Far From Heaven. In that film, long-closeted Dennis Quaid succumbs to his urges and leaves long-suffering wife Julianne Moore for another man. Advocates were almost nowhere to be found when that film was released, perhaps because Quaid’s character was implicitly shamed as a louse. Not for being gay, but for being dishonest from the outset and for ruining lives, for starting a family and ultimately sacrificing it for physical desire.

Man is inherently flawed. All of us have yearnings, demons, and temptations we struggle with each day. But our choices have consequences. It’s one’s ability to be honest with himself and others, how he chooses to act on those weaknesses and his ability to reason and control impulses, that helps define his character.

The challenges homosexuals face each day about coming out, creating lives for themselves, coming to terms, and fighting intolerance and escalating suicide rates are too important to be ignored or swept under a rug.

But Jack and Ennis are not heroes, nor are they courageous. They’re selfish. And at a time when Americans remain uneasy about issues of acceptance and gay marriage, Brokeback Mountain does not advance discussion the way films like Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? and Gentleman’s Agreement did two and three generations ago, when it came to the shame of racism and anti-Semitism.

Instead, it risks trivializing and leaves questions. Questions about whether these two men would have led the kind of lives they did had they never met; about whether much of the hurt they caused could have been avoided had they chosen the other path.

And about whether viewers will be moved to sympathize, or to hit their nearest pharmacy.

David Lazar, a former newspaper reporter, is a speechwriter for a federal agency. He lives in suburban Washington, and can be reached via email.

Copyright © 2006 Townhall.com

Williams vs. Sowell?

No, not really. I did recently read this great article by Walter Williams on some basic economics related to the recent gasoline "crisis". However, the only crisis we face, as Dr. Williams so clearly shows, is in common sense and clear thinking. I'm used to seeing such plain speaking from Thomas Sowell -- but I don't think he'll mind *competing* with Walter Williams here.

Basic Economics
Dec. 7, 2005
by Walter E. Williams

With all the recent hype and demagoguery about gasoline price-gouging, maybe it's time to talk about the basics of exchange. First, what is exchange? Exchange occurs when an owner transfers property rights or title to that which is his.

Here's the essence of what transpires when I purchase a gallon of gasoline. In effect, I tell the retailer that I hold title to $3. He tells me that he holds title to a gallon of gas. I offer to transfer my title to $3 to him if he'll transfer his title to a gallon of gas to me. If this exchange occurs voluntarily, what can be said about the transaction?

One thing we know for sure is that the retailer was free to retain his ownership of the gallon of gas and I my ownership of $3. That being the case, why would we exchange? The only answer is that I perceived myself as better off giving up my $3 for the gallon of gas and likewise the retailer perceived himself as better off giving up his gas for the $3. Otherwise, why would we have exchanged?

Exchanges of this sort are called good-good exchanges, namely "I'll do something good for you if you do something good for me." Game theorists recognize this as a positive-sum game -- a transaction where both parties are better off as a result. Of course there's another type of exchange not typically sought, namely good-bad exchange. An example of that kind of exchange would be where I approached the retailer with a pistol telling him that if he didn't do something good for me, give me that gallon of gas, I'd do something bad to him, blow his brains out. Clearly, I'd be better off, but he would be worse off. Game theorists call that a zero-sum game -- a transaction where in order for one person to be better off, the other must be worse off. Zero-sum games are transactions mostly initiated by thieves and governments.

Some might argue that there's unequal bargaining power between me and the gas retailer. That's nonsense! The retailer has the power to charge any price he wishes, but I have the power to decide how much I'll buy, including none, at that price. You say, "Gas is a necessity, and we're forced to buy it." That too is nonsense. If I voluntarily purchase the gas, I do so because I deem it better than my next best alternative. Of course, at a high enough price, I wouldn't deem it as such.

In the wake of the spike in fuel prices, many Americans demand that politicians do something. You can bet the rent money that whatever politicians do will end up harming consumers. Despite a long history of their economic calamity, some Americans and politicians are calling for price controls or, what amounts to the same thing, anti price-gouging legislation. As Professor Thomas DiLorenzo points out in "Four Thousand Years of Price Control," price controls have produced calamities wherever and whenever they've been tried.

Economic ignorance, misconceptions and superstition drive us toward totalitarianism because they make us more willing to hand over greater control of our lives to politicians. That results in a diminution of our liberties. Think back to the gasoline price controls during the 1970s. The price controls caused shortages. To deal with the shortages, restrictions were imposed on purchases. Then national highway speed limits were enacted. Then there were more calls for smaller and less crashworthy cars. With the recent gasoline supply shocks, we didn't experience the shortages, long lines and closed gas stations seen during the 1970s. Why? Prices were allowed to perform their allocative function -- get people to use less gas and get suppliers to supply more.

Economic ignorance is to politicians what idle hands are to the devil. Both provide the workshop for the creation of evil.

Dr. Williams has served on the faculty of George Mason University in Fairfax, VA, as John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics, since 1980.

Copyright © 2005 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

It's Dated Dec. 25th, It Talks About the Bible, ...
This Doesn't Violate the Moratorium -- Does It? :-)

Falling birth rates not just a problem in Europe

December 25, 2005

BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

"But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John."

If, like increasing numbers of Europeans, you have "some problems with conventional organized religion" (as Harry Potter's J.K. Rowling puts it), you've probably forgotten that bit from the Christmas story. It's Luke 1:13, part of what he'd have called the back story, if he'd been a Hollywood screenwriter rather than a physician.

Only two of the gospels tell the story of Christ's birth. Mark plunges straight into the son of God's grown-up life: He was writing for a Roman audience and, from their perspective, what's important is not where Jesus came from but what he did once he got going. But Matthew was writing for the Jews, and so he dwells on Jesus and his parents mainly to connect the king of the Jews with all that had gone before: He starts with a long family tree tracing Joseph's ancestry back to Abraham.

Like Mark, Luke was writing for a gentile crowd. But, like Matthew, he also dwelt on Jesus' birth and family. And he begins with the tale of two pregnancies. Before Mary's virgin birth, he tells the story of her cousin Elisabeth: Zacharias is surprised to discover his impending fatherhood -- "for I am an old man and my wife well stricken in years."

Nonetheless, an aged, barren woman conceives and, in the sixth month of Elisabeth's pregnancy, the angel visits her cousin Mary and tells her that she, too, will conceive.

If you read Luke, the virgin birth seems a logical extension of the earlier miracle -- the pregnancy of an elderly lady. The physician-author had no difficulty accepting both. For Matthew, Jesus' birth is the miracle. Luke leaves you with the impression that all birth -- all life -- is to a degree miraculous and God-given.

There's a lot of that in the Old Testament, too, of course -- going right back to Adam and Eve, and God's injunction to go forth and multiply. Or as Yip Harburg explained in his rollicking biblical precis in the show ''Finian's Rainbow'':

''Then she looked at him

And he looked at her

And they knew immediately

What the world was fer.

He said 'Give me my cane.'

He said 'Give me my hat.'

The time has come

To begin the Begat.''

Confronted with all the begetting in the Old Testament, the modern mind says, ''Well, naturally, these primitive societies were concerned with children. They needed someone to provide for them in their old age.'' In advanced Western society, we don't have to worry about that; we automatically have someone to provide for us in our old age: the state.

But the state -- at least in its modern social-democratic welfare incarnation -- needs children at least as much as those old-time Jews did. And the problem with much of the advanced world is that, like Elisabeth, it's barren. Collectively barren, I hasten to add. Individually, it's made up of millions of fertile women, who voluntarily opt for no children at all or one designer kid at 39. In Italy, the home of the Church, the birth rate's down to 1.2 children per couple -- or about half ''replacement rate.'' You can't buck that kind of arithmetic.

Here's a story from Friday's Japan Times:

''Japan's population has started shrinking for the first time this year, health ministry data showed Thursday, presenting the government with pressing challenges on the social and economic front, including ensuring provision of social security services and securing the labor force.''

Happy New Year, guys! And, as the reporter adds, ''Japan joins Germany and Italy in the ranks of countries where a decline in population has already set in.'' And don't forget Russia, which is even further ahead in the demographic death spiral. Of the great powers of the 20th century, America's still healthy birth rate, like its still healthy Christianity, is now an anomaly.

Demography is not necessarily destiny. Today's high Muslim birth rates will fall, and probably fall dramatically, as the Roman Catholic birth rates in Italy, Ireland and Quebec have. But demographics is a game of last man standing. It's no consolation that Muslim birth rates will be as bad as yours in 2050 if yours are off the cliff right now. The last people around in any numbers will determine the kind of society we live in.

You can sort of feel that happening already. ''Multiculturalism'' implicitly accepts that, for a person of broadly Christian heritage, Christianity is an accessory, an option; whereas, for a person of Muslim background, Islam is a given. That's why, as practiced by Buckinghamshire County Council in England, multiculturalism means All Saints Church can't put up one sheet of paper announcing its Christmas carol service on the High Wycombe Library notice board, but, inside the library, Rehana Nazir, the ''multicultural services librarian,'' can host a party to celebrate Eid.

To those of us watching Europe from afar, it seems amazing that no Continental politician is willing to get to grips with the real crisis facing Europe in the 21st century: the lack of Europeans. If America believes in the separation of church and state, in radically secularist Europe the state is the church, as Jacques Chirac's ban on head scarves, crucifixes and skull caps made plain. Alas, it's an insufficient faith.

By contrast, if Christianity is merely a ''myth,'' it's truly an immaculately conceived one, beginning with the decision to establish Christ's divinity in the miracle of his birth. The obligation to have children may be a lot of repressive Catholic mumbo-jumbo, but it's also highly rational. What's irrational is modern Eutopia's indifference to new life.

A year or so back, I had a conversation with an European Union official who, apropos a controversial proposal to tout the Continent's religious heritage in the new constitution, kept using the phrase ''Europe's post-Christian future.'' He used the phrase approvingly. But the evidence suggests that, once you reach the post-Christian stage, you don't have much of a future. Luke, a man of faith and a man of science, could have told them that.

©Mark Steyn, 2005

They Defended our Right to Observe the Reason for the Season

I saw this picture from Arlington National Cemetery linked from Michelle Malkin's blog. In your prayers this Christmas, please remember the men and women of our Armed Forces who died defending us, thereby ensuring that we can openly celebrate the birth of Jesus.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord.
And may perpetual light shine upon them.
May the souls of the faithfully departed
through the mercy of God rest in peace.
Amen.

December 18, 2005

Fourth Sunday of Advent

Old Calendar: Fourth Sunday of Advent

Today is the second of the O Antiphons, O Adonai (O Almighty God). As Moses approached the burning bush, so we approach the divine Savior in the form of a child in the crib, or in the form of the consecrated host, and falling down we adore Him. "Put off the shoes from thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground . . . I am who am." "Come with an outstretched arm to redeem us." This is the cry of the Church for the second coming of Christ on the last day. The return of the Savior brings us plentiful redemption.

2nd O Antiphon: And leader of the house of Israel, who Appeared to Moses in the bush's flaming fire, And gave to him the Law on Sinai, COME To redeem us with outstretched arm.

Thou art He "who didst appear to Moses in the burning bush." "I have seen the affliction of My people in Egypt, and I have heard their cry because of the rigor of them that are over the works. And knowing their sorrow, I am come down to deliver them out of the hands of the Egyptians and to bring them out of that land into a good and spacious land, into a land that floweth with milk and honey" (Exod. 3:7 f.). Thus spoke the Lord to Moses from the bush which burned but was not consumed, which is a figure of God's condescension to assume the weakness of human nature. The human nature of Christ is united to the burning divine nature, and yet it is not consumed.

As Moses approached the burning bush, so we approach the divine Savior in the form of a child in the crib, or in the form of the consecrated host, and falling down we adore Him. "Put off the shoes from thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. . . . I am who am" (Exod. 3:5, 14).

O Adonai, almighty God! Mighty in the weakness of a child, and in the helplessness of the Crucified! Thou, almighty God, mighty in the wonders that Thou hast worked! Mighty in guiding, sustaining, and developing Thy Church! "The gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matt. 16:18).

"Come with an outstretched arm to redeem us." This is the cry of the Church for the second coming of Christ on the last day. The return of the Savior brings us plentiful redemption. "Come, ye blessed of My Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you" (Matt. 25-34).

Excerpted from The Light of the World by Benedict Baur, O.S.B.

More Civil Affairs

Now Back to the Moratorium

Here's another great post from a milblog, again via Michelle Malkin. (And just because it involved Iraq, doesn't mean it's political ;-)

More Civil Affairs

In another recent letter from Brian:

I have a new story from last night that is pretty neat. We got a call fairly late in the evening that two Iraqi nationals were up at the hospital and needed to be picked up. Evidently they had been treated in Baghdad and flown here, which shouldn’t have happened, and the hospital that released them expected someone here to get them back to their town.

Nobody really knew what to do with them, so they called us, since we are civil affairs. We went to the hospital and that’s where the story begins. When we got there we found out that it was an Iraqi man and his grandson. The grandson has cerebral palsy and had somehow got a hold of some kerosene where he lives and drank some of it. When the American military found out, they put him on a helicopter along with his grandfather and flew him to Baghdad for treatment.

We brought one of our interpreters so we could communicate, then figured out what to do. Evidently a flight in the morning had already been identified for them, so we just had to put them somewhere for the evening, since the hospital here refused to let them stay over night, saying, “We’re not a hotel”, which I thought was a little ridiculous.

Well, we decided to put them up for the night at the local mosque, because we know the caretaker really well and work with him often on various projects. This all took a couple of hours to figure out so by this time the child had fallen asleep so I wrapped him up in his blanket and carried the little guy out to the truck to take them over there. He didn’t wake up until we got outside and into the cold air but when he did, he didn’t seem afraid at all that a stranger was carrying him. It seemed like he knew that he could trust us, and when we got to the mosque and I went to get him back out of the truck he reached for me and put his little arm around my neck when I carried him inside. I guess it made quite an impression on the mosque caretaker as well, because he told our interpreter a little later that he was very moved by it. He told her it was such a sight to see an American carrying an Iraqi child as if it was his own. Like he was carrying him to safety. I’m not sure how much the child knew what was going on, but when I laid him on the bed they had ready for him, he looked up at me and smiled.

The caretaker and his wife invited us to stay for tea (a common custom in this culture) so we sat down and visited with them and the grandfather of the child. As it turns out, the grandfather is a village elder where he is from and holds a significant amount of authority and power. He had never dealt face to face with Americans and kept saying how impressed and amazed he was with us. He said that he watched all of us work and he had never seen a group of people that work day and night every day without tiring and that work together so efficiently. He had been in the Iraqi military years ago and said that it couldn’t compare to the level of efficiency and effort of our American military. He also couldn’t believe that we would do so much for a man that we had never met before and did not know. That we would fly his grandson all the way to Baghdad, treat him, and get them back home. He couldn’t believe that we all cared so much about people we didn’t know, and that my fellow Marines and I would take time to sit and talk with him and look after their well being. He kept saying, “Look, you are all officers and you talk to me and look after me. I am nothing.”

Judging from the stories he was telling, evidently he had been fed the propaganda that the Americans were conquerors and that we had come to “swallow Iraq up.” With reference to me carrying his grandson and us treating and looking after them he said, “Look, this is not how conquerors behave.” Our interpreter said that he kept repenting for the way he had thought and for what he had done before, which led us to believe that he had probably supported the insurgency in one way or another. He repeatedly said that he would go back to his home and tell everyone about the Americans and how we really are. That we are here to help them and to help rebuild their country and give them a better life. Since he probably has quite a bit of local influence, this could be pretty good for our cause. Who knows, maybe we helped prevent some insurgent activity and possibly saved a couple of American lives down the road somewhere. I hope so.

After tea we left for the night, then came back early in the morning and got them on the flight back to their home. I was left with a good feeling about the whole experience. This is one of those things you don’t get to see on the news. How we completely changed someone’s mind about what Americans are like and how we were able to save a little Iraqi child. The man assured us that under the old regime before we were here, his grandson certainly would not have been flown to Baghdad and treated and saved. When we said goodbye to the man, he shook my hand and blessed me and wished me long life. That was pretty neat.

Christmas Moratorium* Temporarily Held in Abeyance

Michelle Malkin had a link to this blog and I couldn't resist posting it:

US Troops Terrorize Iraqi Family

December 14, 2005 Staff Sgt. Carlswell, from 23rd Infantry Regiment, 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, greets an Iraqi family at a traffic control point in Mosul, during pre-election security operations. Photo by Staff Sgt. James H. Christopher III

The horror!!! Look at the wrist lock he’s employing on that innocent child!!!

Coach TC
12/15 at 06:23 AM •
(27) comment • (1) pings • Permalink

Page 1 of 1 pages

In case you're curious, the moratorium was on posting. I'm still reading political magazines, blogs, etc. -- I'm just not blogging on politics during the Christmas season. :-)

See Advent’s Meaning Through Mary

Pope Benedict XVI
Nov. 26, 2005

(courtesy www.catholicculture.org)

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

With the celebration of First Vespers of the First Sunday in Advent we are beginning a new liturgical year. In singing the psalms together, we have raised our hearts to God, placing ourselves in the spiritual attitude that marks this season of grace: “vigilance in prayer” and “exultation in praise” (cf. Roman Missal, Advent Preface, II/A).

Taking as our model Mary Most Holy, who teaches us to live by devoutly listening to the Word of God, let us reflect on the short Bible reading just proclaimed.

It consists of two verses contained in the concluding part of the First Letter of St. Paul to the Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24). The first expresses the Apostle’s greeting to the community: The second offers, as it were, the guarantee of its fulfillment.

The hope expressed is that each one may be made holy by God and preserved irreproachable in his entire person — “spirit, soul and body” — for the final coming of the Lord Jesus; the guarantee that this can happen is offered by the faithfulness of God himself, who will not fail to bring to completion the work he has begun in believers.

This First Letter to the Thessalonians is the first of all St. Paul’s Letters, written probably in the year 51. In this first letter we can feel, more than in the others, the Apostle’s pulsating heart, his paternal, indeed we can say maternal, love for this new community. And we also feel his anxious concern that the faith of this new Church not die, surrounded as she was by a cultural context in many regards in opposition to the faith.

Thus, Paul ends his letter with a hope, or we might almost say with a prayer. The content of the prayer we have heard is that they [the Thessalonians] should be holy and irreproachable to the moment of the Lord’s coming. The central word of this prayer is “coming.” We should ask ourselves what does “coming of the Lord” mean? In Greek it is “parousia,” in Latin “adventus,” “advent,” “coming.” What is this “coming”? Does it involve us or not?

To understand the meaning of this word, hence, of the Apostle’s prayer for this community and for communities of all times — also for us — we must look at the person through whom the coming of the Lord was uniquely brought about: the Virgin Mary.

Mary belonged to that part of the people of Israel who in Jesus’ time were waiting with heartfelt expectation for the Savior’s coming. And from the words and acts recounted in the Gospel, we can see how she truly lived steeped in the prophets’ words; she entirely expected the Lord’s coming.

She could not, however, have imagined how this coming would be brought about. Perhaps she expected a coming in glory. The moment when the Archangel Gabriel entered her house and told her that the Lord, the Savior, wanted to take flesh in her, wanted to bring about his coming through her, must have been all the more surprising to her.

We can imagine the Virgin’s apprehension. Mary, with a tremendous act of faith and obedience, said “yes”: “I am the servant of the Lord.” And so it was that she became the “dwelling place” of the Lord, a true “temple” in the world and a “door” through which the Lord entered upon the earth.

We have said that this coming was unique: “the” coming of the Lord. Yet there is not only the final coming at the end of time: In a certain sense the Lord always wants to come through us. And he knocks at the door of our hearts: Are you willing to give me your flesh, your time, your life?

This is the voice of the Lord who also wants to enter our epoch, he wants to enter human life through us. He also seeks a living dwelling place in our personal lives. This is the coming of the Lord. Let us once again learn this in the season of Advent: The Lord can also come among us.

Therefore we can say that this prayer, this hope, expressed by the Apostle, contains a fundamental truth that he seeks to inculcate in the faithful of the community he founded and that we can sum up as follows: God calls us to communion with him, which will be completely fulfilled in the return of Christ, and he himself strives to ensure that we will arrive prepared for this final and decisive encounter. The future is, so to speak, contained in the present, or better, in the presence of God himself, who in his unfailing love does not leave us on our own or abandon us even for an instant, just as a father and mother never stop caring for their children while they are growing up.

Before Christ who comes, men and women are defined in the whole of their being, which the Apostle sums up in the words “spirit, soul and body,” thereby indicating the whole of the human person as a unit with somatic, psychic and spiritual dimensions. Sanctification is God’s gift and his project, but human beings are called to respond with their entire being without excluding any part of themselves.

It is the Holy Spirit himself who formed in the Virgin’s womb Jesus, the perfect Man, who brings God’s marvelous plan to completion in the human person, first of all by transforming the heart and from this center, all the rest.

Thus, the entire work of creation and redemption which God, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, continues to bring about, from the beginning to the end of the cosmos and of history, is summed up in every individual person. And since the first coming of Christ is at the center of the history of humanity and at its end, his glorious return, so every personal existence is called to be measured against him — in a mysterious and multiform way — during the earthly pilgrimage, in order to be found “in him” at the moment of his return.

May Mary Most Holy, the faithful Virgin, guide us to make this time of Advent and of the whole new liturgical year a path of genuine sanctification, to the praise and glory of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Saturday of the Third Week of Advent

December 17 marks the beginning of the O Antiphons, the seven jewels of our liturgy, dating back to the fourth century, one for each day until Christmas Eve. These antiphons address Christ with seven magnificent Messianic titles, based on the Old Testament prophecies and types of Christ. The Church recalls the variety of the ills of man before the coming of the Redeemer.

1st O Antiphon:
Who hast issued from the mouth of the Most High, Reaching from end even unto end, Ordering all things indomitably yet tenderly,

COME
To teach us the way of prudence.

Divine Wisdom clothes itself in the nature of a man. It conceals itself in the weakness of a child. It chooses for itself infancy, poverty, obedience, subjection, obscurity. “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the prudence of the prudent I will reject. . . . Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For seeing that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God, by the foolishness of our preaching, to save them that believe. For both the Jews require signs, and the Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews, indeed, a stumbling block, and unto the Gentiles foolishness; but unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. . . . But the foolish things of the world hath God chosen, that He may confound the wise; and the weak things of the world hath God chosen, that He may confound the strong. And the base things of the world and the things that are contemptible, hath God chosen, and the things that are not, that He might bring to naught the things that are” (I Cor. 1:19 ff.).

• Come, O divine Wisdom, teach us the way of knowledge. We are unwise; we judge and speak according to the vain standards of the world, which is foolishness in the eyes of God.

• Come, O divine Wisdom, give us the true knowledge and the taste for what is eternal and divine. Inspire us with a thirst for God’s holy will, help us seek God’s guidance and direction, enlighten us in the teachings of the holy gospel, make us submissive to Thy holy Church. Strengthen us in the forgetfulness of self, and help us to resign ourselves to a position of obscurity if that be Thy holy will. Detach our hearts from resurgent pride. Give us wisdom that we may understand that “but one thing is necessary” (Luke 10:42). “For what doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul?” (Matt. 16:26.) The Holy Spirit would have us know that one degree of grace is worth more than all worldly possessions.

Excerpted from The Light of the World by Benedict Baur, O.S.B.
(Courtesy of www.catholicculture.org)

"As We Forgive Those Who Trespass Against Us"

If a stranger brutally injured you, would you show mercy to your attacker? Victoria Ruvolo did exactly that in October, 2005, at the sentencing of Ryan Cushing, a 19-year-old whose "prank" had nearly killed her.

Ruvolo, 45, of Lake Ronkonkoma, New York, was on her way to hear her niece sing in a recital when her car passed Cushing's. He was riding with five other teens who had just gone on a spending spree with a stolen credit card at a nearby supermarket. One of their purchases? A frozen, 20-pound turkey. Cushing decided to toss the turkey into oncoming traffic, and when he did, it smashed through Ruvolo's windshield, crushing her face. It took 10 hours in the operating room at Stony Brook University Hospital, a medically induced coma, and a month in the hospital before, miraculously, Ruvolo was able to go home. She still had a tracheotomy tube. Months of painful rehabilitation followed.

During her ordeal, Ruvolo was in touch with Cushing, who wept and expressed remorse for his action. At his sentencing on October 17, 2005, Ruvolo asked the judge for leniency. Part of her statement read: "Despite all the fear and the pain, I have learned from this horrific experience, and I have much to be thankful for.. Each day when I wake up, I thank God simply because I am alive. I sincerely hope you have also learned from this awful experience, Ryan. There is no room for vengeance in my life, and I do not believe a long, hard prison term would do you, me, or society any good."

Cushing was sentenced to six months in jail. He could have gotten a 25-year prison sentence had Ruvolo not intervened. Ruvolo added: "I truly hope that by demonstrating compassion and leniency I have encouraged you to seek an honorable life. If my generosity will help you mature into a responsible, honest man, whose graciousness is a source of pride to your loved ones and your community, then I will be truly gratified, and my suffering will not have been in vain..Ryan, prove me right."

Ruvolo, an animal lover with four cats and a dog, all rescued, told the media, "What would vengeance do? God gave me a second chance, and I'm just passing it on."

Courtesy: Beliefnet.com

How Penguins Commit Suicide

Christ Was Born for Our Salvation

Pope John Paul II
(Homily at Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, December 24, 1998)

1. "Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy.... For to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord" (Lk 2: 10-11).

On this Holy Night, the liturgy invites us to celebrate with joy the great event of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. As we have just heard in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus is born into a family poor by material standards, but rich in joy. He is born in a stable, for there is no place for him in the inn (cf. Lk 2: 7); he is placed in a manger, for there is no cradle for him; he comes into the world completely helpless, without anyone's knowledge, and yet he is welcomed and recognized first by the shepherds, who hear from the angel the news of his birth.

The event conceals a mystery. It is revealed by the choirs of heavenly messengers who sing of Jesus' birth and proclaim glory "to God in the highest and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased" (Lk 2: 14). Through the ages their praise becomes a prayer which rises from the hearts of the throngs who on Christmas Night continue to welcome the Son of God.

2. Mysterium: event and mystery. A man is born, who is the Eternal Son of the Almighty Father, the Creator of heaven and earth: in this extraordinary event the mystery of God is revealed. In the Word who becomes man the miracle of the Incarnate God is made manifest. The mystery sheds light on the event of the birth: a baby is adored by the shepherds in the lowly stable, at Bethlehem. He is "the Saviour of the world", "Christ the Lord" (cf. Lk 2: 11). Their eyes see a newborn child, wrapped in swaddling cloths and placed in a manger and in that "sign", thanks to the inner light of faith, they recognize the Messiah proclaimed by the prophets.

3. This is Emmanuel, God-with-us, who comes to fill the earth with grace. He comes into the world in order to transform creation. He becomes a man among men, so that in him and through him every human being can be profoundly renewed. By his birth he draws us all into the sphere of the divine, granting to those who in faith open themselves to receiving his gift the possibility of sharing in his own divine life.

This is the meaning of the salvation which the shepherds hear proclaimed that night in Bethlehem: "To you is born a Saviour" (Lk 2: 11). The coming of Christ among us is the centre of history, which thereafter takes on a new dimension. In a way, it is God himself who writes history by entering into it. The event of the Incarnation thus broadens to embrace the whole of human history, from creation until the Second Coming. This is why in the liturgy all creation sings, voicing its own joy: the floods clap their hands, all the trees of the wood sing for joy, and the many coastlands are glad (cf. Ps 98: 8; 96: 12; 97: 1).

Every creature on the face of the earth receives the proclamation. In the astonished silence of the universe, the words which the liturgy puts on the lips of the Church take on a cosmic resonance: Christus natus est nobis. Venite, adoremus!

4. Christ is born for us; come, let us adore him! My thoughts already turn to Christmas next year when, God willing, the Church will inaugurate the Great Jubilee with the opening of the Holy Door. It will be a truly great Holy Year, for in a completely unique way it will celebrate the 2,000th anniversary of the event and mystery of the Incarnation, in which humanity reached the apex of its calling. God became man in order to give man a share in his own divinity.

This is the good news of salvation; this is the message of Christmas! The Church proclaims it tonight, by means of my words too, for the peoples and nations of the whole earth to hear: Christus natus est nobis Christ is born for us. Venite, adoremus! Come, let us adore him!

C.S. Lewis on 'Xmas and Christmas' -
Some lessons from the barbarian mists of Niatirb

12/7/2005 5:08:00 PM
By Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap. - Denver Catholic Register

Fifty years ago C.S. Lewis published an ironic little essay called, "Xmas and Christmas: A Lost Chapter from Herodotus." In it, he reverses the letters of his home country, "Britain." Then he writes about the strange winter customs of a barbarian nation called Niatirb.

It's worth reading, as we get deeper into Advent. I'll share with you just one passage. "In the middle of winter when fogs and rains most abound, (the Niatirbians) have a great festival called Exmas, and for 50 days they prepare for it (in the manner which is called,) in their barbarian speech, the Exmas Rush.

"When the day of the festival comes, most of the citizens, being exhausted from the (frenzies of the) Rush, lie in bed till noon. But in the evening they eat five times as much as on other days, and crowning themselves with crowns of paper, they become intoxicated. And on the day after Exmas, they are very grave, being internally disordered by the supper and the drinking and the reckoning of how much they have spent on gifts and on the wine.

"(Now a) few among the Niatirbians have also a festival, separate and to themselves, called Crissmas, which is on the same day as Exmas. And those who keep Crissmas, doing the opposite to the majority of Niatirbians, rise early on that day with shining faces and go before sunrise to certain temples where they partake of a sacred feast.

"But (as for) what Hecataeus says, that Exmas and Crissmas are the same, (this) is not credible. It is not likely that men, even being barbarians, should suffer so many and so great things (as those involved in the Exmas Rush), in honor of a god they do not believe in."

What Lewis wrote about in Britain half a century ago is increasingly true about our own country today. We're already half way through Advent. What have we done to really live it? The world has an ingenious ability to attach itself to what Christians believe; tame it; subvert it - and then turn it against the very people who continue to believe. Too many Americans don't really celebrate Christmas. They may think they do, but they don't. They celebrate Exmas.

The world - left to its own devices - has no room and no use for the birth of Jesus Christ. It has contempt for Christians who seriously strive to be His disciples. So we have nothing to lose and everything to gain by being the saints God intended us to be. We can at least seek to be holy by tithing our time to sit quietly with God; allow Him to fill our actions and our choices with His Son; and let Him shape us into the men and women He needs. We can get up and experience the dawn in silence as a reminder of what Advent and Christmas mean. We can prepare ourselves to be alert for the voice of God and to receive God's word afresh and proclaim it anew.

We need to understand that in many ways America is no longer a Christian culture. Of course, that can change. Many good Catholics and other Christians still live in it. But if people really understood and acted on the meaning of Advent, the world would be a different place.

Advent means "coming." What's coming in the reality of Christmas is an invasion. The world needs the invasion but doesn't want it. It's an invasion of human flesh and all creation by the Son of God; by the holiness of the Creator Himself.

All of us in the Church were baptized to be part of that good invasion. The doubts, the failures, the mistakes of the past don't matter. Only our choices now matter. How will we live our Christian faith from this day forward? How will we make our Catholic witness an icon of Christ's Advent?

For our own sake, and the sake of the people we love, we need to pray that our yearning for God will truly reflect God's yearning for us. And when it does, then the world will be a different place.

What Are the 'O Antiphons'?
Fr. William Saunders

The “O Antiphons” refer to the seven antiphons that are recited (or chanted) preceding the Magnificat during Vespers of the Liturgy of the Hours. They cover the special period of Advent preparation known as the Octave before Christmas, Dec. 17-23, with Dec. 24 being Christmas Eve and Vespers for that evening being for the Christmas Vigil.

The exact origin of the “O Antiphons” is not known. Boethius (c. 480-524) made a slight reference to them, thereby suggesting their presence at that time. At the Benedictine abbey of Fleury (now Saint-Benoit-sur-Loire), these antiphons were recited by the abbot and other abbey leaders in descending rank, and then a gift was given to each member of the community. By the eighth century, they are in use in the liturgical celebrations in Rome. The usage of the “O Antiphons” was so prevalent in monasteries that the phrases, “Keep your O” and “The Great O Antiphons” were common parlance. One may thereby conclude that in some fashion the “O Antiphons” have been part of our liturgical tradition since the very early Church.

The importance of “O Antiphons” is twofold: Each one highlights a title for the Messiah: O Sapientia (O Wisdom), O Adonai (O Lord), O Radix Jesse (O Root of Jesse), O Clavis David (O Key of David), O Oriens (O Rising Sun), O Rex Gentium (O King of the Nations), and O Emmanuel. Also, each one refers to the prophecy of Isaiah of the coming of the Messiah. Let’s now look at each antiphon with just a sample of Isaiah’s related prophecies :

O Sapientia: “O Wisdom, O holy Word of God, you govern all creation with your strong yet tender care. Come and show your people the way to salvation.” Isaiah had prophesied, “The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: a spirit of wisdom and of understanding, a spirit of counsel and of strength, a spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord, and his delight shall be the fear of the Lord.” (11:2-3), and “Wonderful is His counsel and great is His wisdom.” (28:29).

O Adonai: “O sacred Lord of ancient Israel, who showed yourself to Moses in the burning bush, who gave him the holy law on Sinai mountain: come, stretch out your mighty hand to set us free.” Isaiah had prophesied, “But He shall judge the poor with justice, and decide aright for the land’s afflicted. He shall strike the ruthless with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked. Justice shall be the band around his waist, and faithfulness a belt upon his hips.” (11:4-5); and “Indeed the Lord will be there with us, majestic; yes the Lord our judge, the Lord our lawgiver, the Lord our king, he it is who will save us.” (33:22).

O Radix Jesse: “O Flower of Jesse’s stem, you have been raised up as a sign for all peoples; kings stand silent in your presence; the nations bow down in worship before you. Come, let nothing keep you from coming to our aid.” Isaiah had prophesied, “But a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, and from his roots a bud shall blossom.” (11:1), and A On that day, the root of Jesse, set up as a signal for the nations, the Gentiles shall seek out, for his dwelling shall be glorious.” (11:10). Remember also that Jesse was the father of King David, and Micah had prophesied that the Messiah would be of the house and lineage of David and be born in David’s city, Bethlehem (Micah 5:1).

O Clavis David: “O Key of David, O royal Power of Israel controlling at your will the gate of Heaven: Come, break down the prison walls of death for those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death; and lead your captive people into freedom.” Isaiah had prophesied, AI will place the Key of the House of David on His shoulder; when he opens, no one will shut, when he shuts, no one will open.” (22:22), and “His dominion is vast and forever peaceful, from David’s throne, and over His kingdom, which he confirms and sustains by judgment and justice, both now and forever.” (9:6).

O Oriens: “O Radiant Dawn, splendor of eternal light, sun of justice: come, shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.” Isaiah had prophesied, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shown.” (9:1).

O Rex Gentium: “O King of all the nations, the only joy of every human heart; O Keystone of the mighty arch of man, come and save the creature you fashioned from the dust.” Isaiah had prophesied, “For a child is born to us, a son is given us; upon his shoulder dominion rests. They name him Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, Prince of Peace.” (9:5), and “He shall judge between the nations, and impose terms on many peoples. They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; one nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again.” (2:4) .

O Emmanuel: “O Emmanuel, king and lawgiver, desire of the nations, Savior of all people, come and set us free, Lord our God.” Isaiah had prophesied, “The Lord himself will give you this sign: the Virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel.”

(7:14). Remember “Emmanuel” means “God is with us.”

According to Professor Robert Greenberg of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the Benedictine monks arranged these antiphons with a definite purpose. If one starts with the last title and takes the first letter of each one - Emmanuel, Rex, Oriens, Clavis, Radix, Adonai, Sapientia - the Latin words ero cras are formed, meaning, “Tomorrow, I will come.” Therefore, the Lord Jesus, whose coming we have prepared for in Advent and whom we have addressed in these seven Messianic titles, now speaks to us, “Tomorrow, I will come.” So the “O Antiphons” not only bring intensity to our Advent preparation, but bring it to a joyful conclusion.