caucus99percent

free-range politics, organic community

Marley was dead: to begin with.  There is no doubt whatever about that.  The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner.  Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to.  Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Mind!  I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail.  I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade.  But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for.  You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Scrooge knew he was dead?  Of course he did. How could it be otherwise?  Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years.  Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend and sole mourner.  And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain.

The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to the point I started from.  There is no doubt that Marley was dead.  This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.  If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot -- say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance -- literally to astonish his son's weak mind.

own goal
noun: (in soccer) a goal scored inadvertently when the ball is struck into the goal by a player on the defensive team.

Back to reality.

Begone, visions of sham impeachment. Begone, epic mounds of hypocrisy. Begone, purveyors of death, destruction, desolation.

Begone Social Justice Warriors, who only fight for the Politically Correct goal.
Begone, Snowflakes with their trigger-free zones of shelter from life.

“Do a loony-goony dance 'Cross the kitchen floor, Put something silly in the world
That ain't been there before.” ~ Shel Silverstein

Most Americans are oblivious to how deeply entangled we are in the conflicts in Africa.

Ho, ho, ho. Time for my annual ek'smas visit where I find out who's been naughty or nice.

Sometime around December 23rd, but canonically any time between December and May, we celebrate Festivus.

Symbolically represented by the Festivus Pole, an aluminum tube between 3' to 6' high stuck in some drab and out of the way corner.  It can be used as a weapon and frequently is.  Traditionally it is stark and entirely unadorned and the stand crudely fashioned.  Under no circumstances should any 'presents' be placed near it unless they're of the sort a too long ignored pet would leave.

There are several rituals that accompany the celebration of Festivus.

I think I'll spare you the feats of strength, though if you think I'm dead you can poke me with a stick and see.

While a lot is made of the strikes shutting France down during Christmas week, it is interesting to note that it is a reaction to the latest moves by Macron against the working classes. And there are broad swathes of the country not really feeling the strikes at all.