So ends my 22nd birthday. This is a fine age to be, I think. As the number suggests, I feel I have been back for seconds a lot lately. Lately Anne Rice's The Vampire Lestat, the second book in her Vampire Chronicles, arrived in the mail, and after the first 50 pages I am glad I finished Whitman's interminable Leaves of Grass earlier that day to make room for something less shallow. The impious reputation these books have acquired is really undeserved. Lestat, necessarily, is quite the sinner, but like the first book's Louis his very existence as a vampire leads him to a disdain of mortals' lack of curiosity about the grand scheme of things and the reason for being he despairs of discovering. And, as if to throw a bone to counter-cultural traditionalists who cannot but mention "rock n' roll" without mentioning that in some paleolithic era the term itself was lewd, Lestat confirms their suspicions: Rock music is satanic. I believe it, even if I can stand a Doors song once in a while. The second second, in case you were wondering, was Sara Bareilles' Kaleidoscope Heart, which my kind brother purchased for my big day.

More significant than my good fortune is the approach of Christmas. Sigh; the way this advent has proceeded, the War on Christmas certainly seems lost. And it is rather hard to get into the Christmas spirit when the unusually potent lame duck Congress passed, among other abominations, the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, with the assistance of a flip-flopping Senator Scott Brown no less. There can be no greater sign of sickness in a nation than acceptance of open sodomites and other criminals against nature, in armed forces which should foster genuine manliness and shun effeminacy no less! See my favorite commentary on this disaster here. Nonetheless, Christians always have reason for hope, and in this season most of all. Christ is our refuge, even if He is excluded from every place on the earth but our own hearts. Please enjoy this year's Christmas sonnet, which just happens to be the big 150.

Sonnet CL- The Father's Christmas Gift

The sky peered sweetly over Bethlehem,
Lit bright from deep to earth, hardly a night.
For God had placed a star, marvelous bright,
For men of good will in Jerusalem
And in the country near to follow, find
Their captive Israel's Messiah come.
These guests brought presents also; soon with them
The Infant's shelt'ring stablery was filled.
Eggs, poultry, linens, songs, fine gold and myrrh
Accumulated round the trough and kine.
The finest gift, though, roof could not confine:
For in the midnight blue and royal were
An endless many angels fair as stars
To glorify the throne our Savior chose.

Thinking of the little drummer boy, naturally Jesus accepts all the gifts he surely received that night, but when I think of them piling up like children's toys and men's gadgets underneath the Christmas tree, I expect that whether they were really all that good themselves was a different story. Moral to the Story: The presents God gives are a lot better than the ones we give.

Even though it's my birthday, your goodies do not end there! I also have a recommendation to make, after the fashion of those bloggers who select any old obscure book and label it a "conservative obligation", I assert the same about Shangri-La, the anime Al Gore doesn't want you to see. When I read that the plot involves a corporate elite that enrich themselves by manipulating the carbon market, which arose when the nations of the world joined together to fight global warming with tax on CO₂ emissions, that got my attention. This little darling, Karin Ishida of Ishida Finance, makes obscene sums of money by manipulating the carbon market with a computer program named MEDUSA. Note the teddy bear; she's also fond of lolly pops. And of course, no anime would be complete without a pale heterochromatic girl afflicted with an XP-like disease, coddled like an absolute monarch, and with power of life and death over her army of underlings, here manifested in Mikuni, called the Moon. I caution, to be sure, that global warming is real in the world of Shangri-La and causes sea levels to fluctuate, but most of the good guys are members of Metal-Age, a resistance group that protests government carbon policy, which is so strict that street merchants have to bribe the police to ignore the emissions from their grills, and is clearly a remedy much worse than the original problem. Lure eco-crazies in with the promise of an anime all about the environment and climate legislation; they'll be be glad you provided the assist. Maybe they'll even be ready to realign themselves with Metal-Age.

This is Kuniko with her trademark boomerang. See the opening here, and the ending here. The entirety of the series is available legally and free at the Crunchyroll website.

It has been too long, but then again I, crusader88, could say finals have been too long. And before that one of my classes was much taken with reading David Hume the British empiricist, not to be confused with the livelier Brit Hume. What it took to get through only 75 minutes! Hume was one of a half dozen modern thinkers we'd read who thought they'd come up with a system that was genuinely new, and whose clarity would at least bring quiet to the disputes of philosophers. It never worked, and inspired by a funny anecdote the professor told in class I came up with this ditty, entertaining friends and faculty:

As I was reading David Hume
I counted thinkers who presume
They were the ones to start anew
But stopped when I reached sixty-two.

In real life, some long-ago gal undergrad stopped short at just that number in her efforts to enumerate boys wearing khakis and backwards baseball caps in a large lecture hall. Monkey see, monkey do.

But at long last I completed the work I set out for tonight, so there are a few minutes to blog. I wish Atobe had kept the dust off for me, and the good Lord knows he had the good time. The diligent aristocrat, no procrastinator, up and left the moment classes left last Wednesday, leaving just a note saying that he'd finished his (all written) exams and had by the time I read it returned to Japan, and including to be sure the URLs of a few seasonable gift ideas, in fulfillment of a promise:

--His Charm Point wa Naki Bokoro album (hear the hit single here. Though perhaps best suited for the J-pop enthusiast, with that hat, he's basically Rat Pack.

--Too many keys? Or is that college lanyard just too de mode for the rebellious spirit? Well, these Prince of Tennis keychains are for you. Since the Ryoma and Karupin one's nice too, your purchase is a true choice between these eternal rivals, including a cat.




--Isn't this Atobe pin accessory adorable? Features the young Atobe's yearbook photo, and the Hyotei crest in metal.

--This may be too chilly for New England this time of year, but what respectable undergrad could pass up the Keigo Atobe line of togas? Possibly the one reason to wish Assumption College would go Greek.
















--Ever just wanted to pet that blueberry Slurpee-colored hair with your very own hands? Well, Atobe's very sensitive about his color... but in the spirit of Christmas he's included this huggable plush toy for the young and young at heart.

At the end of the note, Atobe relays to all his fans around the world, A MERRY CHRISTMAS, AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!















Atobe also asks for your prayers. Though you can expect him to show at Christmas Mass in his level best, along with his fellow Hyotei converts Ryo and Chotaro, he requests your prayers for the conversion of the other 99% of Japan. And especially his longtime on-court foe Tezuka, who's been spotted outside Nagasaki's famed Oura Catholic Church recently.














Yes, as you can tell, the War on Christmas drags on still another year, surpassing even the War in Iraq. Though it was the atheists that got off to a good start this year with their billboards, their spirit and sport, detestable as are the objects pursued thereby, enlivened my soul. Despite the ingenuity which should follow from their purported REASON, the design hardly betrays Nietzschean creativity. Same old, but of course, the worry is that Christians haven't found an adequate anti-soundbyte. As it happens, I had the good fortune to read Chesterton's Orthodoxy a month or two ago (Lord and Chesterton forgive me for not having read more sooner), and was impressed to say the least by G.K.'s take on reason, and of the fools he made of the atheist goons of his day! So if any Roman Catholics more enterprising than this one want to undertake a billboard, my suggestion is something like this:

[sample]

WHAT IS REASON?

AskWhatReasonIs.Org

Try to ignore THAT on the freeway! Large and in-charge! The site would, of course, present the inquirer with some of G.K.'s timeless barbs and teach the atheists a thing or two--literally.

I myself have little contributed to the War. While, of course, avoiding the heartless "Happy Holidays," and giving everyone a buoyant sending-off at the last SGA meeting, usually my spirits have been barely enough to annunciate "...yeah, you have a nice Christmas too." Don't worry, my life is certainly not bad, and further my days have not been without new cheers. Just a few days ago I began the wonderfullest anime, Kemono no Souja, meaning The Beast Player, and called simply Erin on the CrunchyRoll website where it can be seen for free. Based on a light novel series by Nahoko Uehashi, a university professor of ethnology no less, Erin follows the life of Erin, a young girl living in a village that raises tohdas, an important beast of war; Erin is illustrated with a baby tohda at right! One of the first things I noticed about the masterpiece show (it's not just me saying it) is that the characters and landscapes look as if they were taken right out of The Legend of Zelda and specifically The Wind Waker. I got to thinking, Maybe Erin is a fitting consort for Link. After all, she basically raises dodongos! As I searched for images, I made a sad discovery. Not being a Zelda fan of the caliber to have played the original, I had been wholly ignorant that Link USED TO BE A CHRISTIAN KNIGHT! I know! Maybe he lost the Faith when he found the tritheist Triforce.