A Note To My Christmas Dinner

In my heart I know that making the conscience choice to eat another living creature, killed only so I can enjoy it, is probably not the right thing to do. Just as I know that, even though millions of years of evolution have made me crave meat, I now have a variety of acceptable alternatives that could easily keep me healthy and well fed. That being said, I love meat.

This afternoon I perfectly roasted a 14lbs, Kosher, organic, grain-fed, brined, turkey that produced some of the finest gravy ever made. So maybe it is a fetish, a perversion that allows me to do something that I know is probably wrong, but feel the need to do it anyway because I like it so much. Maybe that is why I don’t give a second thought to how and why this turkey was given life only to have it brutally taken away. I guess that I could have insisted on its humane treatment while it was alive, but really that’s missing the point. Nothing will change the fact that this delicious looking dead creature lived and died so that I could find it yummy. And somehow that really doesn’t bother me enough as it probably should.

Call it the evolutionary programming, my apathetic or underdeveloped sense of morality or maybe it’s something more akin to the norms and moral of my culture, but I just can’t convince myself that it’s ethically evil enough to stop. Sure, I’ve seen the videos of slaughterhouses and the disgusting environments that most of the animals that we eventually decapitate and disembowel live in; just as I’ve killed and eaten several creatures. I have been present at, been part of and have experienced life leaving a body both voluntarily and involuntarily, and yet I cannot mentally link the two with something that I will soon eat.

So I’m sorry, sort of. I know that you had a horrible existence, brought into consciences only to live in deplorable conditions and die at a young age. I am sorry that your cooked, dead corpse is now resting on my counter, so that body you once called your own still retains the same juiciness it had before your head was mechanically separated from the rest of your body. I am sorry that I used your entrails to make a sauce that I will soon ladle over a plate full of sliced you meat. But most of all, I’m sorry that I just can't bring myself to stop. Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to carve you up and devour you without feeling immoral or dishonest in any way. And for that, I apologize.

Jesus Claus

Both come from a mystical land that many talk about, but no one has ever seen.

Both promise gifts and treasure for good behavior.

Both keep a record of your lifetime of conduct.

Both can always see what you are doing, at any time, anywhere.

Both magically ascend into the sky when the job is done.

What is amazing is that every single child in the world is naturally compelled to ask enough provoking question to dispel the Santa myth before even reaching intellectual maturity. Whereas most adults refuse to ask any questions that undermine their belief in whether or not Jesus is real. For a long time I thought that children were just naturally smarter to ask for their gifts upfront, but in time I’ve realized that children inherently know that not receiving gifts from an imaginary person is not a fair trade for the truth.

It is with that in mind that my wife and I decided, post-theological as we are, to celebrate the myth of Santa with our son Sebastian. We see it as a trial run, practice, for the gauntlet of mythical propaganda to follow. If he can let go of a jolly man giving out candy and toys, then seeing through a world filled with talking snakes, the dead rising like zombies, and the beliefs that the creator of the universe has nothing better to do then worry whether or not people like him, then he should be able easily dispensed with that as fiction too.

In time we hope that our son realizes that the true meaning of this season predates religion, civilization, and humanity itself. It is a celebration of the dark, cold, and slumbering. It is the understanding that everything needs rest, the world will renew, and that life will continue. And in some small part, if we support each other with cooperation and love when times are dark, we will be stronger when the light comes. So maybe, just maybe, if we are good, will get to see our gift in the smile of every independent thinker who has just figured out that Santa Claus is just Jesus for adults.

Deadly Stampede At Wal-Mart Not Surprising

By: Andrei Codrescu

President Bush told us to go shopping.

Seven years later, Lehman Brothers went under.

In the aftermath, our panicked leaders prophesied doomsday if we didn't immediately go shopping to save America from recession.

And so we went shopping! We so went shopping, in rumbling herdlike elephant masses, we killed a guy who didn't get out of the way fast enough. It's a tragic incident, but by no means meaningless. Shopping is a religion, and some religions demand sacrifices.

The Wal-Mart employee died for us on Black Friday, but have we stopped to think what his sacrifice means? Not at all: We're stampeding right on through to the other side of Christmas. We aren't just shopping: We are saving America.

There were some voices that said on TV that maybe we should start saving instead of shopping. We heard those voices, too, especially when gas was $4, but we seem to have quickly forgotten them. Save what?

The business of America is business. And for you and me, Mr. and Mrs. Citizen Average, that means shopping.

I'm not going to make anything out of the fact that the killer mob stormed Wal-Mart, not Neiman Marcus, because the tragedy could have happened anywhere. Shopping mobs are unstoppable regardless of whether they are after diamond-encrusted slippers or Chinese lawn ornaments. The urge is the same: Get to it before they quit running the sale ads and America goes down.

And now that we are officially in a recession and too tired from shopping to figure anything out, they are making us feel guilty of murder, which we may well be. But we were just following orders.