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Not plastic crud from Wal-mart made in sweatshops and sold to run small businesses out of town.  No siree.

It saddens me every year to see how corrupted this lovely season of holidays has become. The generosity of the Magi on Epiphany has been perverted into materialism and shopping mall stampedes. The memory of harried immigrant parents traveling across the desert has been exploited to support global economic disparities that exacerbate international migration and miserable labor conditions. The humble beginnings of our Jesus Christ’s birth in Bethlehem have become submerged in a pre-packaged Christmas of fake snow and sucrose.  I really do wish we could put our Christ back in Christmas, and pull all the credit cards, all the consumerism, all the conformity, all the crap! out of my favorite holiday.

As you may have guessed, I just saw the new movie What Would Jesus Buy? by Morgan Spurlock (of Supersize Me fame) about Rev. Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping as they made their pre-Christmas national tour to save people from the Shopocalypse.  The movie is good, and you should go see it. It compassionately portrays real, creative, edgy, radical direct activism, showing that the people involved are real people, struggling with the same societal pressures to consume as the rest of US, but while still maintaining their ethics.  And even without coming out as Christian, it reminds us what Christmas - and all of Jesus Christ’s radical, liberatory message - is really about.

In the ongoing war on women, news yesterday reported about another woman and her child killed by her husband. These murders are always tragic, always to be mourned. The gruesome details can be found at the article here, if you want to stomach it.

But one item caught my attention. The husband had apparently named himself several years earlier. And this is what he was named:

Jesus Jihad

What was he thinking? Was the judge who allowed this name change at all alarmed? Can we really judge some books by their covers, or rather, their titles?  Just strange.

Carlos and Fernando, two MALE flamingos, have adopted a baby chick over in the UK. The BBC tells more.  (I LOVE the BBC’s human interest stories!)

Apparently, the zoo staff forgot to remind these chicky daddies that the best family to raise a baby has a mom (flamingo) and a dad (flamingo). But these birdies seem to be doing just fine, anyway. Maybe being flaming-o doesn’t make you unfit to parent.

Thanks to Reuters and Jason Reed for this excellent shot of our dear old president: