Your Christmas Crib is Wrong!

     Some years ago my wife's aunt sent her $100 as a Christmas present, so we went out and purchased a Christmas crib, which now goes on display every year during the Christmas season. It contains the usual features: the baby Jesus in the manger, Mary, Joseph, a shepherd carrying a sheep on his shoulder, the three Magi, an angel, and, of course, the ox and ass. It is all very nice, and we like it. But it is inaccurate. No, I am not going to "debunk" the Biblical story. You can believe it or reject it as you feel fit. What I am saying is that the traditional story as we know it is not actually consistent with the Bible.

The Tragedy of an English Jihadist

     Thomas Evans, alias Adbul Hakim, alias "The White Beast" is dead, a white corpse among the black on a battlefield in Kenya. He has committed his last atrocity. A typical white British boy, he converted to Islam at the age of 19. Two years later, in 2011, he flew to Egypt and, a year after that, slipped into Somalia to enlist with Al-Shabaab. He took part in the terrorist raid on the Westgate shopping mall in Kenya in 2013, but his number finally came up in a failed raid on Kenya on 14 June 2015.
     His descent into the abyss has been adequately documented, both by the press, and in a television documentary. In both, his mother and his brother asked, "How could this happen?" Well, as soon as I saw his history, two factors leaped out at me.

Wedding Presents Are So Passé

     Recently, the daughter of a family friend got married and, per instructions, the ninety guests gave no physical presents, only money. Well, that should cover the cost of the wedding and reception, and they wouldn't have needed anything else. I read that some engaged couples provide lists of presents such as vouchers for sky-diving, and other totally impractical items. Perhaps it is about time we accepted that, to a large extent, the rationale of wedding presents has disappeared.