Who’s ‘Chris’? The evolution of Chrismuss

[Editor's note: Apologies for the short-notice of this post - just due to my own busy-ness of late]

“Christmas starts with CHRIST”, a religious billboard seeks to remind us. Yet it conveniently forgets that the winter solstice festival didn’t actually start with Christ. Besides, we should be forgiven for not remembering, as nobody – not even the most devout of worshippers – bothers to pronounces it as the somewhat odd-sounding, ‘Christ’s Mass’ anymore. So is it any great surprise that along with the name, the ‘meaning’ of the festival has been constantly evolving too?

The true origins of Christmas are numerous and geographically varied, hence its burgeoning bough of collective symbolism. Many ancient cultures celebrated the 25^th December as Winter Solstice – the day when the Sun’s maximum position in the sky is at its lowest. On this day, some ancient tribes would drag tall trees from the forest in order to build burning pyres to remind the sun of it’s crucial role – hence our tradition to ‘light up’ a tree in our homes during this period.

The Romans celebrated the festival of Saturnalia – a week long cavalcade of merry-making and gifts, culminating in the feast of Sol Invictus, or the ‘birthday of the unconquered sun’, on the 25^th December. Interestingly, the Roman sun-god was seemingly nicknamed Christos Helios, or ‘Christ-The-True-Sun’ – which perhaps answers the question of why Jesus is always depicted as having a yellow orb floating around his head.

Raging to the Top: The Christmas No 1.

This is the culmination of watching the RatM vs. Joe McSomething battle unfold today. I was drawn into a couple of tweet/facebook/blog debates with people about it, and having written enough for a post anyway, so here’s the result.

Firstly, for anyone who’s not in the UK, or has been severed from popular culture for the past month or so, today was the day the Christmas No.1 single was announced. It was between the winner of the X Factor apparently with a cover of a Miley Cyrus song, and Rage Against the Machine with Killing in the Name. The latter had come into play as a result of a Facebook campaign to get it there by some dissenters/fans.

Now, there were a lot of people who were unnecessarily trolling on both sides, but I wanted to address a few ‘points’ that I saw made by people who deemed the campaign ’stupid’ -  (particularly after they realised it was real threat, and more so after it won).

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Destroying Unique Works of Art

I do not contend that this post contains anything of great originality, but it is sincere and from the heart. Its message has been reiterated often, but, evidently, not often enough. It is based on little beyond my own personal sentiments, my own conviction of its logic and my belief that compassion should be stronger than hate. It is unashamedly single-sided, for I will not tolerate those who would call for another’s death.

The United States cannot be considered to have reached any point of civilization until it names, whether by Supreme Court ruling of unconstitutionality, or by constitutional amendment, the death penalty for what it truly is: a monstrosity of anti-humanism that is degrading to its victims and, in their self-assuredness, the perpetrators.

Reforming the Electoral Register (A Junk Mail Crusade iv)

I’ve just found out that the Ministry of Justice is opening a public consultation on the Edited Electoral Register; this is a seemingly rare opportunity to actually effect some change on the way our data is handled by the government.

The consultation is looking at reforming the register, with a range of options from just educating the public more on its existence to abolishing it as soon as possible. For those of you who don’t know, when you register to vote (or, as the case seems to be in university halls of residence, are involuntarily registered), your name is added to two registers – the full one and the edited one. The full one is for government use and credit checks, and contains your DOB and personal voting information as well as name and address. The edited one is available to anyone at all who just wishes to buy yours mailing information, with no stipulations on what they do with it.

On Regulative Ideas

The author gratefully acknowledges the fruitful conversations with Julian Cottee which helped shape these thoughts.

What is the ethical?

Searching for this elusive point of presence in an unlikely place (an essay by a post-structuralist thinker on the September 11th attacks: Jacques Derrida) yields, perhaps unsurprisingly, a twofold answer defined, primarily, in negation. The ethical cannot be a system of logical rule following, for this both forbids, and is governed by, deferral; there can be no changing one’s mind; action has begun; no decision is involved; it is no longer one’s own responsibility. The ethical also cannot be the purely dutiful for, as Kant has observed, this duty is, at base, a compulsion, a coercion. Does this situate the ethical in the realm of the impossible, beyond even a “regulative idea”? (Derrida, 133-134) While I would, by no means, cast myself as a Derridean, in this instance the writer heralded as a practitioner of “obscurant terrorism” (see Mitchell) provides a useful backing against which to conceptualise such problems.

46 Years On: The Assassination of JFK

Dallas, Texas. November 22, 1963,12:30pm.

The hugely-popular 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, and his wife Jacqueline, were touring the city in the final motorcade before the upcoming ‘64 election. As the car turned down Elm Street, it slowly passed the waving crowds by the School Book Depository Building in Dealey Plaza.

What happened next is probably one of the most controversial and most often-debated pieces of modern political history.

David Cameron: Hugo Young Memorial Lecture

It seems as though David Cameron wants to move away from someone the Tories hold in such high esteem – Thatcher. In his Hugo Young Memorial Lecture Cameron set out his party’s agenda to tackle poverty, by calling for a “big society” as an alternative to “big government”, accusing the Labour party of failing to act to protect society and instead promoting selfishness and individualism. This is in stark contrast to Thatcher who broke all social cohesions that hindered competition, favouring individualism above society when she rejected Keynesian economics for ‘supply side’ solutions. After all, she did declare there is “no such thing as society, only individual men and women”.

It could be read that the current Tory Party are moving to the centre, more so than any previous Conservative party before them. There is no doubt that distancing themselves from Thatcher will curry support with the swing-voters and the disgruntled Labour members; but will this come at a cost to the core Tory support? I have no doubt that Cameron’s intentions are good, but will his party support him on this policy if elected or are they merely creating a superficial unity beacuse they have been out in the wilderness for so long?

R.I.P. A Final Taboo

Ever since the stuffy cultural pinnacle that was Victorian Britain, this country has been cautiously emolliating many of our most latent taboos – from exposing seemingly-lubricious piano legs (it is believed some Victorians covered them up) to legalising same-sex relationships. Although more self-critical dialogue is still needed in the majority of these categories, one prosaic taboo which still remains conspicuously ignored is that of death. The relative lack of progress in this area can be partly explained by the grip of our instinctual fears, deeply-embedded religious doctrines, and the heart-felt sensitivity of this gargantuan and complex issue. However whilst there is a lot at stake, there is also a lot to gain.

Poppyism

A Personal History

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always bought a Red Poppy in the run-up to Remembrance Day on the 11^th November. During my school years, it was made considerably easier by the volunteer students who would interrupt our classes to sell them in the week leading-up to the event. Even in a London suburban, multi-ethnic, youf comprehensive, you were considered tight if you didn’t fork out at least 20p of your lunch money for a poppy. The tradition has been so deeply instilled in me since my childhood that last year, horrified that I couldn’t find a vendor on my university’s campus, I went on a poppy-specific shopping-trip.

Preliminary to Copenhagen: the Legislators’ Drive

There is little over a month to go before the climate change conference at Copenhagen, and it is, without question, more significant than the G20 meetings, as climatic destabilization will affect everyone in most walks of life. After all, if global systems were to go kaput tomorrow, we would not be able to eat the hoards of cash that were saved in solving the economic crisis.

But what will come of this meeting? Is it likely to fall flat on its face like Kyoto, all fart and no sh*t, or is a credible, viable path going to open-up for us to follow? One of the reasons for failure of the Kyoto Protocol was the fact that domestic legislatures were unwilling to act on international agreement. For example, the Clinton administration supported the agreement but Congress did not, thus rendering the Kyoto Agreement meaningless.

The Furore of Regulations

It has been over year since the financial crisis started, yet only this week it would seem as if nothing had happened at all. Much like an alcoholic who promises to give up the booze in order to have a life-saving liver transplant, only to recover from the operation, sober up a little and then go on another round of binging until the new liver packs-in – and then he pleads again for an operation, and so on.

This is uncannily reminiscent of the banking and financial sectors. They, not all of them though, were “ill” last year and came to the government for stimulus – some were considered worthy, and some were not. The “too big to fail” behemoths made it; I like to think of them as the George Best of the banking system. Prolific and high profile enough to warrant saving. Now they have been saved what protection is there in place to prevent them from going off the rails again?

Why, regulation silly!

A Junk Mail Crusade iii

So after sending off a few letters to companies sending me some junk mail, I got a rather pleasing response from the Halifax to this strongly-worded letter of complaint…a few personal highlights of my original letter are here:

If you had put in ‘a little extra’ effort invading my privacy, you would have discovered that I am a recently-graduated student. Consequently not only am I educated enough to realise the imprudence of light-heartedly taking out credit cards, but also I am very aware of potential financial difficulties ahead, and do not wish to willingly exacerbate them further.

…

I can only conclude that you as a company either use the [recycling] symbol with deliberate sarcasm, or you naively don’t understand these simple manufacturing processes. Luckily, I’m quite the optimistic individual and I obligingly enclose your letter for you yourself to recycle (many thanks for your paid envelope for this purpose), and trust that you will adjust your policies accordingly.

The BNP’s Big Break?

So, the far right British National Party leader Nick Griffin has been included on a panel for BBC’s Question Time. I’m as sick as you of hearing about this, and just want to get on with seeing the actual programme (which at time of writing has finished being recorded). I’ve got a couple of reflections on what is – rightly or wrongly – probably the most momentous televised political event since Cameron did Marr. But first, at the risk of repeating what many have said before, I shall clarify my own position.

A Defence of Twitter

The idea for this piece has been rattling around in my notebook for a while now, but it seems particularly timely to finally get it out. Part One is on Twitter in general (if you’re familiar, then I’d advise you skip over it), and the second is my take on what’s gone on in the last week.

If anyone is interested, you can find me @liannedemello.

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Part One: Why Twitter?

I’ve been questioned countless times by friends on ‘the point of’ Twitter. Why would you want a poor man’s version of Facebook, without the photos, walls or applications and with a limit on what you can say? Isn’t it merely a mirror for masses of narcissistic wannabes to post vacuous and mundane details of their lives?

To some extent, yes.

But there is a whole lot more to Twitter, and the thing I try to impart to people is that it is what you make of it.

A Democratised Manifesto

Comedian/performer/political activist/all-round affable everyman Mark Thomas has, since early September, been running a series of shows around the country, most recently ending up at the Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn, London. The premise?

Each audience gets to nominate their favourite ideas to make Britain a better place and decide a policy for the Manifesto, which Mark will examine, road test and then make these policies a reality…or at least try to…At the end of the tour, Mark will take the policies to politicians in a public debate to see if any of the ideas can become a reality.

It’s a great concept, and I for one was curious to see how it panned out. So, the aforementioned finale to the tour was a debate on Saturday with four London Assembly Members – Jenny Jones (Greens), Joanne McCartney (Labour), Andrew Boff (Conservative) and Caroline Pidgeon (Lib Dems).