Assorted Snowy Day Items

It's too snowy today to travel home for Christmas, so I'm reading a short piece in Time on the success of the Alpha program at Trinity Brompton in London. There is also a photo essay on the drug war in Culiacán. Mexico, and a piece on the Red Cross workers who tend the wounded, which I read as accompaniment to an article in Texas Monthly on the drug violence in Juárez.

The Rebel Jesus

One of my favourite Christmas songs has no holly or silver bells or snow - it's The Rebel Jesus, written by Jackson Browne and included on The Chieftains album The Bells of Dublin.

All the streets are filled with laughter and light
And the music of the season
And the merchants' windows are all bright
With the faces of the children
And the families hurrying to their homes
As the sky darkens and freezes
They'll be gathering around the hearths and tales
Giving thanks for all God's graces
And the birth of the rebel Jesus

Well they call him by the Prince of Peace
And they call him by the Saviour
And they pray to him upon the seas
And in every bold endeavour
As they fill his churches with their pride and gold
And their faith in him increases
But they've turned the nature that I worshipped in
From a temple to a robbers' den
In the words of the rebel Jesus

We guard our world with locks and guns
And we guard our fine possessions
And once a year when Christmas comes
We give to our relations
And perhaps we give a little to the poor
If the generosity should seize us
But if any one of us should interfere
In the business of why they are poor
They get the same as the rebel Jesus

But please forgive me if I seem
To take the tone of judgement
For Ive no wish to come between
This day and your enjoyment
In this life of hardship and of earthly toil
We have need for anything that frees us
So I bid you pleasure
And I bid you cheer
From a heathen and a pagan
On the side of the rebel Jesus.

Coalition Madness

A few more editorials, a lot more blogging, some threats...then the federal government's economic update and the opposition parties' coalition pushed every other issue out of blogs, talk radio, and newspaper front pages. Today Parliament was prorogued, so we have until January 26 for the sense of crisis to dissipate and/or the coalition to fall apart.