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GOD REST YE
“At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge," said
the gentleman, taking up a pen, "it is more than usually
desirable that we should make some slight provision for
the Poor and Destitute, who suffer greatly at the present
time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries;
hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts,
sir."
“Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge.
"Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, laying down
the pen again.
"And the Union workhouses?" demanded Scrooge. "Are
they still in operation?"
"They are. Still," returned the gentleman, "I wish I
could say they were not."
Merry Christmas, y'all! I haven't had the Christmas spirit in
a pretty long while, so I thought I'd set my taste buds back to
zero and read A Christmas Carol, to savor that original template
of Bah! Humbug! yielding to a concern for humanity. Since the
run-up to Yuletide has coincided with the Republican debates,
we have been reminded that the rich shall inherit the Earth,
and that they deserve to, because they are job creators, and
those who are not, those who have no jobs, who have lost
their homes, who have no insurance to pay for the cost of ill
ness... well, not everybody can be a winner in the race of life.
We should indeed turn to Dickens, for his world was the
quintessential working out of these iron rules of economics
unfettered by the bleeding hearts of liberals.
Read Dickens, and get it straight where we're headed. Read
Dickens, and understand this reality show, where only the
strong and the privileged stay on the island. Read Dickens, and
sleep better at night just knowing that this is the way things
are, and the way they are supposed to be. But if you do read
Dickens, be prepared, too, for the spirits that come in the
night.
When they do, you, too, may be given pause at what our
corporatocracy is wreaking on our people, with its loopholes
and tax cuts paid for by downgrading education, by our war
economy that has unlimited funds for bombs and drones but
little for health, by our denigration of government and the
acquiescence of both our political parties and our government
institutions in the exaltation of corporate control.
Read Dickens, and see what our return to Victorian values
means for human life. Read Dickens, and wonder if there is any
chance that we as a country can somehow know the epiphany
that generated even in Ebenezer Scrooge a regard for his
employee, his family and the people who made up the society
surrounding him.
Read Dickens, and hope that there is hope for us yet, that
some spirit will come to us and open our eyes before it is too
late, before we must forever confront the results of our neglect.
They were a boy and a girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged,
scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility.
Where graceful youth should have filled their features
out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and
shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted
them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might
have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menac
ing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of human
ity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful
creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.
Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to
him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children,
but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties
to a lie of such enormous magnitude.
"Spirit, are they yours?" Scrooge could say no more.
"They are Man's," said the Spirit, looking down upon
them. "And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers.
This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them
both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this
boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom,
unless the writing be erased... "
Have they no refuge or resource?" cried Scrooge.
"Are there no prisons?" said the Spirit, turning on
him for the last time with his own words. "Are there no
workhouses?"
Charles Dickens and Pete McCommons editor@flagpole com
THIS WEEK’S ISSUE:
NEWS <§2 FEATURES
City Dope 4
Athens News and Views
Some cautious optimism for a holiday season—and new year—full of peace and
unity.
Athens Rising 6
What’s Up in New Development
The eastern slope of downtown is where Athens began, and a perfect place to
initiate a new vision for its future.
AFT
EVEIN1T
Art Notes 7
Village People
Jill Carnes' drawings seem almost musical in their interplay of pattern and color.
Movie Pick 9
With You in Poetry
Young Goethe in love offers genuine, fleet-footed charm.
[MUSO©
Mixtape Wars 13
Holiday Cheer: Tobias vs. Lewis
Cheer up. Charlie Brown! We’ve got two great mixes that’ll really spike your eggnog.
Threats & Promises 15
Music News and Gossip
Nugi's Spaca gears up for the next Athens Business Rocks! Tunabunny’s set to tour
the U K.! And more...
CITY DOPE 4
CITY PAGES 4
CAPITOL IMPACT 5
ATHENS RISING 6
ART NOTES 7
FILM NOTEBOOK 7
MOVIE DOPE 8
MOVIE PICK 9
HOLIDAY GUIDE 10
MIXTAPE WARS ’....13
THREATS & PROMISES 15
TOP 11 ALBUMS 16
TOP 10 SHOWS 17
THE CALENDAR! 18
BULLETIN BOARD 22
ART AROUND TOWN 23
CLASSIFIEDS 24
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