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Thomas Mitchell When my wife is out of town, I often watch old movies. Tonight it’s Only Angels Have Wings with Cary Grant and Jean Arthur (plus Sig Ruman, Rita Hayworth, and others). They’re great, but I want to praise Thomas Mitchell, who was great in several Capra films and this one too.
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“How He Came to Life One Day”: Photographs of Snowmen From 1854 to 1950: Wonderfulness from The Public Domain Review
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Hello, Mr. Chip 
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Scathing I don’t want people to kill insurance executives, and I don’t want insurance executives to kill people. But I am unsurprised that this happened. Indeed, I’m surprised that it took so long. It should not be controversial to note that if you run an institution that makes people furious, they will eventually become furious with you.
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Two Kinds of New We say, “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year” in one breath, and commonly refer to this time of year as the “Holiday Season”, as if it were all one singular event. There is an interesting irony in lumping the two celebrations together …
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Song of Zechariah In the tender compassion of our God
the dawn from on high will break upon us
To shine on those who dwell in darkness and in the shadow of death,
and to guide our feet into the way of peace. -
Made Me Smile -
More Features, Not Bugs One of the worldviews that seems to appeal to the folks who are so excited about ChatGPT is “long-termism,” which assumes that humankind as a whole has a destiny, and that our tools will help us to reach it somewhat faster. What that destiny is, nobody knows. But work and education are hindrances to it, and, to the extent that they are necessary, should be sped through as quickly as possible. Since no real account is usually given of the thing that we are speeding to – it will involve space travel, algorithms, asteroid mining, and spreadsheets, but there’s a great nothing at its center – this worldview functions like nihilism. To me, work and education – like rest, love, worship, culture, strange hobbies, village pantomimes, dumb mistakes, chants that children jump rope to, heartbreaking last-quarter fumblings of the ball, graffiti on ugly bridges, all of it – are things we do because it is our job to be people.
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As impersonal systems play increasing roles in information-gathering and decision-making, the personal element can be summed up as “human error.” … [T]hen of course the fields concerned with human nature—specifically, all the ways it is not predictable—are unseated, too…
[I]t is simply better to be a human when a personal God is at the heart of the universe. Human lives are easier to defend. Human joys have cosmic significance. Human foibles are “a feature, not a bug.” Human creativity is more arresting. Human language can be savored. Human stories must be told.
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A Treasure Malcolm Guite is posting poems he’s collected in his Advent Anthology, Waiting on the Word. I love to hear Malcolm read (and speak). Today’s offerings, a poem by Robert Hayden, and art by Linda Richardson, are particularly lovely.
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Mind the Gap 
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Yuck I’ve posted about Trump’s unfitness for… well, anything. But how awful is Biden’s statement pardoning Hunter? I understand how, as a father, he might have been compelled to save his son. But to (1) throw his own DOJ under the bus and (2) make the pardon so broad? Nope. It stinks.
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All Things Come of Thee, O Lord 
And we are thankful. Happy Turkey Day, friends!
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Maybe what most concerns me about these times… is the assaults on the truth of truth. The roots run deep – as deep as the modernism? Certainly, deeper than Trump.
But he’s stormed the battlements, and the breach is wide.
Helping repair it may be the work of my Third Act.
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