I don’t know if I’m amused or exasperated by the recent struggle
over what to call the national sacrificial tree: Christmas or Holiday? Deadis most accurate.
Can you imagine the look on Jesus’ face if he came into your living room and saw your Christmas tree? “What the
hell is that?”, he’d ask.
From libertine secular humanist to the most hidebound bible literalist, everyone must realize that that
the solstice tree comes to us from pagans or polytheistic Romans, not from the bible or Jesus. Part of the Christian Conquest of Europe
(and the world) involved co-opting anything they couldn’t suppress or destroy.
So, by all means, call it the Capitol
Christmas Tree. Just don’t overlook the irony.
Almost as ironic as Christian enthusiasm for pagan symbols is the
decision of the Albuquerque Journal to elevate this to the MOST IMPORTANT STORY OF THE DAY. Or do I misconstrue the meaning of its
placement just below the banner across the front page. Perhaps in today’s news bizness that’s just the place for the piece that gets us
to plunk our dollar down.
I feel sorry for writer Michael Coleman if this is what it
takes to get one’s stories on the front page.
If that place is for stories with both a national and local twist, the Journal
could have elevated the story in which both of our Senators are pursuing the intimacy and duplicity of the Oil Industry with BushCo. Or
how about the following, which languishes deep in section C (and is missing from the HTML equivalent). mjh
Group Says LANL Plutonium Missing
[mjh: Jesus Christ! Is this not news?]
POJOAQUE — More than 660 pounds of
plutonium at Los Alamos National Laboratory is unaccounted for, a Maryland-based environmental watchdog group said Tuesday.
The Institute for Energy and Environmental Research compared public records data from the nation’s weapons and disposal sites
with a 1996 Department of Energy report detailing plutonium waste inventories. IEER researchers discovered large inventory discrepancies
at Los Alamos, said institute president Arjun Makhijani, who co-authored a report on the findings.
On the Christmas tree story – that’s a slot in the paper often filled with a story that
has some amusement value. I frankly think we need more amusement in the mix on the front page.
On the plutonium story, it’s not
“news,” in the sense of something that’s new. As John Arnold notes in his story (and I agree, having read Makhijani’s report last night
for myself), the new study restates an argument that has been going on for a decade. Still worth doing – the subject’s definitely a good
and worthy topic for public discussion. But it’s an emphatic restatement of something we already knew, rather than a revelation of
something we didn’t. So I agree with the story placement decision.
John- You know I appreciate you reading my blog and writing here and there. No sarcasm. I
am also a regular reader of http://www.inkstain.net/fleck .
I accept your comment on the plutonium “story.” Logic trumps rhetoric.
So, that story earned its placement, but we may disagree on the Tree story’s worthiness. If amusement belongs on the front page, why not
start Belshaw’s column there or print Ziggy there? And how amusing was this story? Not half as funny as Freedom Fries. peace, mjh