Persistent Myths XII: The "It's all about oil" edition.

The "It's all about oil" edition.

There's a persistent belief in the US that every conflict in the Middle East is about petroleum oil, and that's because every single nation in the Middle East is swimming in petroleum oil and vastly wealthy.  If non Middle Eastern nations are tied up in the affairs, including the wars, of the Middle East, that's because they want the war.    Some even tie past actions of various nations from many decades past to a desire to control oil, such as everything the UK did during World War One in the Middle East was due to its insatiable desire for oil.

Sorry, this just doesn't match the facts.

Oh, some thing in the Middle East definitely are about oil, no doubt.  And the Western importing nations have always been more careful to pay attention to the oil exporting nations than those that didn't have a commodity to export.  But then, paying attention to a nation that produces a necessary export commodity is something all nations have done at all times.

But a lot in the Middle East happens that has nothing at all to do with oil  And a lot of the Middle East is completely devoid of oil.

That last fact alone comes as a shock to a lot of people, but it's quite true.  Indeed, twice this past week I've seen events in Syria tied to oil. Well, Syria produces only a small amount of oil, about 28,000 bbls/day.  In contrast, the US produces over 3,000,000 bbls/day, Saudi Arabia over 9,000,000 bbls/day and Russia over 10,000,000 bbls/day.  They aren't fighting over Syria's small production, and the various outside forces that back one side or another don't have oil in the forefront of their minds either.  Shoot, Russia (and Iran) have tended to back the Syrian government, and they're both awash in oil.

And Syria isn't alone.  Jordon, a nation we hear about frequently in the region, isn't really an oil producer either.  Neither is Egypt.  Indeed, much of the Middle East is pretty devoid of appreciable oil production.

And frankly, oil doesn't matter like it once did.  It mattered more before the substantial Russian production, the greatest in the world, came on line and before new technology made the United States the third largest producer in the world.  The US now produces so much oil that, combined with other fuel sources, it's now a net energy exporter and it appears that the US will reenter the petroleum exporting countries.  Beyond that, we seem to be entering a period of flat demand, due to technological rather than economic, reasons such that oil will never resume the place in the global economy it once had.

Where oil demand should really matter is with developing nations, and not all that long ago there was serious concern that China was acting to tie up future supplies. But China itself is the world's fourth largest oil producer and it appears to be on the cusp of technological changes that will reduce its need for fossil fuels.

All of this is not to say that oil isn't important, and that people don't fight on it. But the common simple response of "it's all about the oil" is simply wrong, almost always.  Indeed, some of the places we have been involved in that have oil, if we were thinking of our own economy, we'd have been better off not getting involved with.

Persistent Myths XI: The World War Two Horsey Edition.

The World War Two Horsey Edition.

Following on item VI above, its also commonly believed that the retention of horse cavalry in any army, or horses in general, during World War Two was just romantic naivete.

Actually, it wasn't.  Every single army in World War Two had some mounted forces they used in combat. Every single one.  There are no exceptions whatsoever.  The simple reason was that there were certain roles that still could be preformed in no other way.

One of the major combatants, the Germans, attempted to eliminate independent cavalry formations while retaining organic formations in infantry units and found the need so pressing that it ended up rebuilding its independent cavalry formations and incorporating irregular ones.  The United States and the United Kingdom both ended up creating "provisional" mounted formations in Italy, as they couldn't fill the reconnaissance role there in any other fashion.  One army, the Red Army, had huge numbers of cavalrymen throughout the war.

The last mounted combat by the United States, prior to Afghanistan, actually took place in the context, with a mounted charge of sorts being done in late 1944 or early 1945 by a mounted unit of the 10th Mountain Division. The last German charge was in the closing weeks of 1945, when a German cavalry unit charged across an American armored unit, in part of their (successful) effort to flea the advancing Red Army. When the last Soviet charge was I do not know, but the USSR kept mounted cavalry until 1953.

In terms of transportation, the Germans in fact were more dependent upon transport draft horses in World War Two than in World War One, which is also true for artillery horses.  Germany, the USSR, China, Japan, France, and Italy (at least) all still used horse drawn artillery to varying extents during the war.

Persistent Myths X: The Great War Edition

 The Great War Edition.

Starting with:


The Horsey World War One Edition

 U.S. Remounts, World War One.

It's commonly stated that the First World War demonstrated what any competent observer should have been able to know by simple deduction, that being that the age of the horse in war, or more particularly cavalry in war, was over.  This appears again and again in everything from films to serious academic histories.

It's also complete bunk.

In reality, cavalry served effectively on every front during the war and the Army that acted to keep its cavalry fully separate to the extent it could, rather than folding cavalry elements into infantry divisions, had the most effective cavalry, that being the British.  There are numerous examples of cavalry deployments from every front in the war in every year of the war, with some being very effective deployments indeed. Generally, properly deployed, cavalry proved to be not only still viable, but extremely effective.  And it was also shown that not only did the machinegun not render cavalry obsolete, but cavalry was less impeded by machineguns than infantry, and it was more effective at deploying light machineguns defensively than infantry was.

This doesn't even touch, of course, on the heavy reliance on horses by the artillery and transportation corps.

An excellent book on this topic can be found in Horses In No Man's Land, which addresses very effectively the British cavalry.  Less has been written on the cavalry of other armies, although a good book on the general topic was published by the U.S. Army shortly after World War One.  Nonetheless, even with what is readily at hand, its pretty plain that the role of the horse wasn't diminished in World War One.  Indeed, the Germans lost the war in 1918 as they lacked cavalry by that point in the war.

The World War One Trenches Edition

We all know that the miserable wretches in the Allied trenches stayed in them, in the Great War, until they were killed or injured, or driven mad.

Except they didn't.

Don't get me wrong.  World War One was truly horrible.  In comparison to the wars of the last half century, World War One was so awful its nearly unimaginable.

But the armies did not commit troops to the trenches until they were killed or injured. They rotated them out.

The British, for example, rotated troops out every four weeks. At any one time, a large number of troops were off the lines, and for that matter, even those at the lines were not necessarily in the foremost trench, but often in a reserve trench.

Again, this is not to say that the whole thing wasn't bad, it was. But the common idea that the soldiers were in the trenches for months on end with no relief is wrong.

For that matter, as an aside, the idea that cavalrymen were idled, in the British Army, in the rear for the whole war, except when actually deployed mounted, is wrong. They rotated them up to the front as infantry. 

The World War One Parachute Edition

It's well know that World War aviators didn't wear parachutes, but less known why.  Its sometimes stated that parachutes of the era couldn't fit in the small cockpits of the planes then in use.

Yes, they could.  World War One aviators didn't wear parachutes as their superiors forbid it on the thesis that it would encourage pilots to bail out at the first sign of trouble.  That was an absurd idea, but that's what the idea was.

Persistent Myths IX: The D-Day Edition.

The D-Day Edition.

We just passed the 70th anniversary of Operation Overload, the Allied landings in Normandy during World War Two, popularly known as D-Day.

This major World War Two event has justifiably received a lot of attention over the years.  In the US, however, so much of the focus has been on the American effort, with that focus sharply on just one beach, Omaha  Beach, that there's a common misconception that the US had the predominant role in the landings. Actual figures, however, are a bit surprising.

2/3s of the troops who landed in Operation Overlord were troops of the British Commonwealth, i.e., British or Canadian.

2/3s of the air assets used on D-Day were British.

3/4s of the naval assets were British.

Amongst the senior level overall command, more officers at the very senior level were British than American.

The US was clearly in the ascendancy amongst the western Allies by June 1944, but it wasn't until later that summer that over 50% of the ground troops committed in France were Americans.  At the time of the landings, there were still more British forces in the mix of ground troops, and as these figures show, their role in other combat resources was also still predominant. 

The landings on the British and Canadian beaches went very well, in part due to good luck as to the choice of their locations, and in part due to the extensive use by the British and Canadians of special armor, which the US had largely rejected.  For that matter, American landings at Utah Beach went very well as well, with it really being Omaha Beach that was stoutly contested for a variety of reasons.  All the Allied forces committed to Operation Overlord performed brilliantly and this posts isn't made to suggest otherwise.  However, the English Commonwealth forces deserve their just attention for June 6 in which they had more men engaged in the operation than the US did.

Persistent Myths VIII: The Spanish Civil War Edition

The Spanish Civil War Edition

That Spain fought a tooth and nail civil war in the 1930s, leading up to World War Two, is of course well known, but the version of it remembered by most people, and even by quite a few historians, is mostly bunk.

The common popular view of the war is that nasty Spanish fascist in the Spanish army launched a war against the republican democracy loving legitimate government and squashed democracy in the name of fascism.

That didn't happen.

In reality, Spain's pre civil war government was extremely weak and unstable and was very obviously rocketing towards falling into Communism.  That instability wasn't novel for the time, there were a lot of European governments that were having trouble sustaining democracy, in part because their experiment with democracy was quite young and quite a few political parties had no real concept of being more loyal to the country and the system than themselves.  The more unstable of them tended to teeter between Communism and Fascism in the 1930s, with Italy and Germany of course falling into Fascism.  Other countries rocked back and forth, like France, but survived with democracies in tact.  Others fell into other forms of totalitarianism.  Poland fell into a socialist dictatorship, Austria into a right wing dictatorship, Hungary had a Communist uprising, and so on.  In Spain, it was pretty clear that it was reaching the end of its democratic days and was going to fall into some sort of left wing radical government.

The Army did revolt against the government, that's quite true, but contrary to myth it wasn't all Francisco Franco.  Franco wasn't even the most senior of the rebels, and he wasn't in Spain, but in Morocco, when the revolt broke out.  He did rise to leadership of it, however.

But, contrary to the common myth, he wasn't a Fascist and the war wasn't one between Fascism and democracy.  It was one between the hard right/military and Communism.

Spain had a fascist party, the Falange, but Franco never joined it.  It contributed members to his various governments over the years, but at no point did it ever dominate it.  Spain also had a monarchist party, the Carlist, that Franco was quite sympathetic with, but he never joined that either.  He was basically a military dictator of the Spanish type, but he used parties that were fellow travelers with him. Those groups had nowhere else they could go, as Franco was the only game in town.

As for the Spanish Republicans, there were no doubt some democrats in that movement early on, and some officers in the Spanish army went with the Republicans. But the Republicans were radical to start with and very quickly became more radical.  And when it appeared that they would win, the Communist took the opportunity to begin to eliminate other radicals within the movement, acting as it turned out prematurely.  That was to Communist type, as the Communist always wiped out competition once they'd won, and in Spain's case, they just acted too soon.

So why all the romance about the Republican cause and the common view of the war, when in real terms the Spanish Civil War belongs more to the revolutions of the 20s and 30s and is uniquely Spanish in nature?  Well, the answer is World War Two.

Because the Italians first, and the Germans, backed the Nationalist (with the USSR backing the Republicans), and because the Republicans lost, it's been easy and inevitable to recast the war as "a dress rehearsal for World War Two."  It wasn't in any way.  But it's been commonly viewed through the thick lens of the Second World War which has allowed people to grossly simplify the war and completely misunderstand it.  It's also let foreign volunteers to the Republican side off the hook, as they've been re-imagined as armed democrats, rather than Communist dupes, as they really tended to be.

Persistent Myths VII: The Roman Edition

The Roman Edition

I was reminded today of a couple of popular myths regarding the Romans.

I suppose it would be surprising if the Romans weren't subject to all sort of myths, after all, they were a major power forever.  Given that, some baloney is going to stick to them.  Let's take a look

A. The Romans Never Lost a Battle

There's apparently a popular myth that the Romans never lost a battle.  Oh yes they did.  You can't be a military power that long and not loose a few, that's for sure, and they lost their fair share.

What's more the like it is that the Romans had really deep military pockets, so they were able recover from their losses, but loose they did.

B.  Rome Fell because it was corrupt.  

This myth is extremely persistent, but completely in error.

Students receive this myth in some classrooms today, and its no surprise as it was a thesis advanced by Gibbons, who was the first really major modern historian (1700s) who addressed the topic of Roman history.  Gibbons, however, was not free from inserting his own beliefs and agendas into his writing, and while the world owes him a debt of thanks for tackling the topic, it is burdened by his outlook.  

Gibbons was English and living in an era when the ruling class of the United Kingdom was quite anti Catholic, as was Gibbons himself.  This is significant in that it seems to have colored Gibbons views of 5th Century Rome.  It doesn't seem to answer, however, why Gibbons went on in his work, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, to cover the Byzantine Empire as well, which is typically forgotten about him.

Anyhow, the popular myth is that Rome had become debauched and was reveling in vice which is why the robust Germans busted in and shut the whole thing down.  In actuality, Rome had been pretty debauched since day one and was actually living at the height of its virtue at the time it fell.  The Romans did a fairly good job of actually cleaning up its early history, in terms of what it told about itself, but in reality the town had been founded by bands of roving, fleeing ,thieves and had at first been a pretty much all male criminal enclave.  It became a real town when it acquired a female population, but it did that by taking its female population by force, not a very admirable thing to do.  In its imperial period Rome did all sorts of nasty icky things, but that didn't cause it to fall.

With Constantine the  Great, who ruled from Byzantium, the empire became Christian, but retained a large pagan population.  But its character really began to change. By the mid 400s when Rome fell its official religion was Christianity and it was at an all time high in moral behavior.

Rome really fell because of a series of odd events, which is often how such things occur.  For one thing, Rome had overextended itself, which it knew.  It had withdrawn from its most northerly advances some time prior and was working on trying to consolidate its holdings.  Its grip on Britain was slipping.  Administering the Empire from Rome had proven too difficult and the administration of the Empire had been split in two.  It had suffered from internal armed strife since the time of Caesar which continually drug it down.  And, most significantly here, Germanic peoples from Eastern Europe were being driven west by invading Slavs, which caused them to push by necessity on Rome's northern and eastern borders. They were coming in no matter what, and there was little Rome could do stop that.  Having said that, the Romans botched it specifically by ineptly handling Germans crossing the Rhine, giving unnecessary rise to invasion, and the end of the Western Empire.

C.  The Vomitorium isn't what you've heard.

As a minor one, a Vomitorium wasn't where people went to throw up, in their debauchery.  It's a big exit.  That's because it derives from   a word meaning to spew forth, as to pour out, as in to pour out a lot of people.  Think stadium exist.

Persistent Myths VI: Hindus and vegetarianism

Hindus and vegetarianism

 Hindu wedding party. Chicken was probably on the reception menu.

Americans commonly believe that Indian is a vegetarian nation, because the largest religion in India is Hinduism.

Before we go on to that, we'll note that some Americans believe all Indians are Hindus.  Not hardly.  India is a "put together" nation of the former English colony variety, and not one single "nation".  It has a wide variety of ethnic identities and religions, including a Catholic population that dates back to the Apostolic age.  Islam and Buddhism are also present in India, and India still has a pretty large Communist Party, which of course is philosophically opposed to any religion.  But Hinduism is the largest religion in India.

Well, Hindus are all vegetarians, right?

Nope.  A minority of Indian Hindus are vegetarians. 

Hindus do have dietary restrictions, to be sure. The oldest one in Hinduism appears to be a ban on eating horses, cattle, or people, although this is debated.  It is thought that the ban might actually have applied to possessed horses and cattle, and any people.

Some Hindu sects are vegetarian, and these are well represented in India. But a majority of Indian Hindus are not members of those sects, and they do eat meat.  They do not eat cattle, but other meats.

This myth is interesting in that it at one time was a reason that Hindus were looked down upon, and now its a reason that some who come from outside Central Asia will point towards Hinduism, but it's simply wrong.

Page Updates 2015

This blog has "pages", other than this, the main page. Some of the pages were former trailing threads that simply grew to be too unwieldy as they grew too large.

Formerly, when the pages that were threads were updated, they were bumped up, and several of them were amongst the most read threads on the site.  Now, of course, there's no easy way to know when they're bumped up. so this thread will serve that purpose.

Recent Updates:

They Were Lawyers.

January 1, 2015:  Mario Cuomo.

The Were Lawyers.

February 23, 2015:  G. D. Spradin.


They Were Soldiers.

February 23, 2015.  G. D. Spradin, Michael Vincente Gazzo,

They Were Soldiers

March 2, 2015.  Leonard Nimoy

March 12, 2015:  Neal McMurry, Mick McMurry.

The Poster Gallery, WWI

U.S. Coast Artillery.

The Were Soldiers

March 15, 2015:  Demond Wilson

They Were Clerics

March 15, 2015:  Demond Wilson

They Were Lawyers

August 19, 2015:  Helmuth James Graf von Moltke

The Were Soldiers

September 6, 2015: Dean Jones.

They Were Soldiers

September 15, 2015:   David Janssen, Richard Long, Martin Milner

They Were Soldiers

September 22, 2015:  Lawrence "Yogi" Berra

They Were Lawyers

September 22, 2015:  Erasmus  Corwin Gilbreath

They Were Farmers

October 2, 2015:  Robert Burns. 

They Were Soldiers

November 5, 2015:  Toshiro Mifune

November 6, 2015: George Gobel, Johnny Carson, Walther Matthau, Steve Forrest, Paul Newman, Jonathan Winters, Kirk Douglas, Dale Robertson, John Carroll, Randolph Scott, Charles Bronson, Art Carney.

November 9, 2015:  Hans Christian Blech,  Oskar Werner (Oskar Josef Bschließmayer), Hannes Messemer, Robert Graf, Sig Ruman (Siegfried Albon Rumann).

November 10, 2015:  Conrad Veid, Wayne Morris, Tony Curtis, Larry Storch, Forrest Tucker, Robert Montgomery

They Were Farmers

November 24, 2015:  Union soldiers, Confederate soldiers.

They Were Soldiers

November 24, 2015:   Olivier Jacques Marie de Germay

They Were Lawyers

December 9, 2015:   Charles White Whittlesey

December 31, 2015:  Bernard V. Rogers

Lex Anteinternet: New Year's Resolutions for Other People

So, how did they do?

This past January I published this:

Lex Anteinternet: New Year's Resolutions for Other People: Yeah, I know its rude.  But if you are in the public eye, I guess you are open for public content.  So here's some resolutions for folks who might miss these obvious ones.

 So, let's look and see if they checked in here, read the resolutions, and adopted them.

Congress.  Let's just assume that your audience is intelligent and can follow an intelligent argument.  I bet it can. And after assuming that, whether you are in the left or the right, conduct your public debates that way.  If you can't do that, you ought to not be there.

Hmmm. can't say I grew more impressed with Congress over the year.  They mostly seem just to have sort of checked out, but maybe I just quit paying as much attention to them.  Maybe they weren't paying as much attention, oncoming Presidential election and all. . .

Congressional Judiciary Committees:  Avoid appointments to the bench from Harvard or Yale for the entire year.  Not a single one. Don't we have enough of them already?  There are lawyers from other places.

For that matter, how about not appointing any sitting or retired judges to appellate benches.  Branch out.  You'll be glad you did.

And put a retirement age on the Federal Bench.  These are public jobs for the American public, not jobs for life for one single benighted generation.  Appointments for life no longer make any sense.

Well, I can't say that I paid much attention to appointments this year either.  No big ones seemed to come up.  But I can say that this was not an impressive year for the Federal Judiciary in some ways.  A knowledge of the nature of the law seemed quite lacking.  So, to the extent that this extends out to the judiciary on a Federal national level, it wasn't a good year.

Country Music.  If you aren't actually from the country, please sit this one out or admit you are a "pop artist".  It's different.

And cut out the sap, too, will you?  

Obviously, there was no progress in "Country" music at all.

ISIL  Open your minds up, at least a bit.  And get a calendar and see what century this is.

This may have proven to be the year of the Islamic State.  That's who I'd put on the cover of Time, if I was doing the "Man of the Year".  The Islamic State has been on the rise all year long, and the results have been horrific.

Kim Jong-un.  Kim, you are on your way to being remembered as a complete clown.  You could be remembered as a hero.  Take the bold move, open the borders, and announce that you intend to peacefully reunite North Korea with the South by letting the Republic of Korea take over.

You could go into comfortable retirement in Switzerland within a year, and be a hero for life.  The way you are going, you are going to be remembered as one of the all time biggest doofuses ever.

Kim obviously didn't check in here.

People with the last name Bush or Clinton.  Enough already, the country can function fine without you as President.  Sit this one out, and the next several as well, and surprise people by not running for
President.

And people named Clinton or Bush didn't check in here either.

Barack Obama.  Go outside and see where you live.  You are not a law school professor anymore.  Yapping at people doesn't equate with action, and getting mad and assigning things to the class you can't deal with isn't going to work either.  Quit studying Wilson.  Study Roosevelt, Truman, Reagan, Bush I or Clinton and see how to get some things done.

It seems the President didn't get my reading list.

New York:  Hello New York and things New Yorkish.   We still love you, but you aren't "Number One" anymore, and you haven't been for a really long time.  Just because you pass a bill or collectively think something doesn't make it the up and coming thing, it probably is viewed by the rest of us as stale and a little moldy, which is how we also view New York.  You are going to have to get over yourself.  Your resolution is to have a little humility this year.  Think of yourself as, oh. . . Labrador.

Labrador, New York.  Look it up.

The People's Republic of China.  You can only pretend to be a "people's republic" while ignoring democracy so long. Read the history of your own country, and realize that China's always only a second away from a revolution, and take the next step to open the politics of the country up.  Your excuse for not doing so is long gone.  And stop acting like a 19th Century colonial power too.

Well, no huge reform in China in 2015, but  then its a huge country. 

Pop-Tarts You know who you are, you collection of women famous only for being famous, or for your appearance alone.  Stop acting like your for sale on the street and have a little big of dignity. Spend their year dressing modestly and really shock people. Read a book. Go outdoors with some outdoorsy close on.  Just be something, for goodness sake.

Nope.  They're still at it.

Television.  Hello television, you are stupid.  Get an education and quit broadcasting crap.

This is particularly the case regarding anything billed "Entertainment", or that appears on "TLC".  Enough already.  But it applies to the rests of television as well. Time for some remedial classes.

 If anything, this has gotten worse.

So, all you listed here, get to work.  You need to do your 2015 resolutions in 2016.

Persistent Myths V: Myths about religion in the Middle East

Myths about religion in the Middle East

LeAnn   at Ramblings of a Teacher, has a series of related "mythconceptions" that she's posted about, and she justifiably asks why, on her blog, do these myths persist.  It's a good question.  Indeed, it's one I pondered without really having a good answer to, but this week I was given a partial one.  In this case, some teachers (not LeAnn) fail to do their homework, and then teach their charges myths or errors.

The reason that I can say that, and I am, is that my daughter was studying for a test on the Middle East last night, and she had with her the supposed answers to the questions she will be tested on. Some of those answers were flat out wrong.  I discussed this as part of the family conversation, but quite frankly, as its her grade, she's learned the wrong answers to the questions.

This teacher is a popular one, and the kids like the teacher.  But at least on this subject, the teacher is pretty badly misinformed.

For example, one of the questions was what three countries in the Middle East are theocracies. As we know, a theocracy is a state ruled by a religion.  There are darned few of them, actually, in history at any one point, and there aren't really any in the Middle East today. The official answer, however, was "Iran, Israel, and Saudi Arabia.

Hmmmm.

Israel is a parliamentary democracy and always has been. It's a "Jewish state", but that doesn't make it a theocracy any more than Germany's status as a German state (like Israel, Germany has a "law of return) makes it a racial state of some sort.  Israel may have a law of return, extending citizenship by option to Jewish people who seek it, but it also grants full voting rights to its Moslem and Christian citizens, both of which it has and has always had.

Indeed, even its status as a "Jewish state" doesn't quite mean what people might suppose.  At its founding, the state of Israel had a fair number of influential secular Jewish people whom others might term as "culturally Jewish."  To be Jewish does not necessarily mean that a person is an observant person religiously, any more than to be Greek automatically makes a person a devout member of the Greek Orthodox Church.

Anyhow, Israel certainly isn't a theocracy.

But that wasn't the only error.

Well what about Saudi Arabia and Iran?  He was right there, wasn't he?

No, neither of those nations are "theocracies", although a person can make the case that Iran is a semi theocracy.

Starting with Iran, Iran calls itself an "Islamic Republic", but names do not necessarily mean all that much.  China, for example, calls itself a "People's Republic", whatever that is supposed to mean, and it isn't a liberal democracy by any means.  East Germany called itself the German Democratic Republic, with the only part of that name that was accurate being the German part.  To add to the problem, it isn't entirely clear what an Islamic Republic is even supposed to mean.

What it seems to mean is a government incorporating Sharia law, which Iran does.  And Sharia law does originate in the Koran.  Beyond that, Iran has a semi functional electoral system, which falls short of what we'd regard as a functioning democracy, but it does have some electoral process.

The country isn't actually run by mullahs, as some would assert, but its very clear that Shia mullahs have a huge, perhaps determinative, role in the governance of the country, together with the descendants of the 1970s Shia fundamentalist revolutionaries.  So what we have there is a heavily Shia influenced, less than fully democratic, quasi revolutionary state.  A person might compare it loosely with early post Mexican Revolution Mexico which had some sort of functioning deliberative body, but which only the PRI really mattered.  Or, a person might badly compare it with Imperial Germany, which had a democratically elected parliament, but the country was really governed and controlled by traditional forces outside of parliament.

Either way you look at it, it isn't truly a "theocracy", although perhaps it comes close.

Well, what about Saudi Arabia?  Not so much.

Saudi Arabia is truly one of the worlds sole surviving examples of a true monarchy.  It's a country basically owned by a single family.  Now, that family did rise to prominence in part through supporting a certain extreme Sunni group of Arabian mullahs, whose thinking is reflected in the state.  But the mullahs themselves never actually governed the country.  Indeed, as the branch of Sunni thought the Sauds espoused was so radical that it was questioned as heretical before their adoption of it and ascension to the crown (or rather creation of the crown), a person might argue that group is in debt to the Sauds.

Now, it is certainly the case that Saudi Arabia is unquestionably Sunni Moslem, and that it also applies Koranic principles to its law.  A person can criticize it, but it doesn't depart in this fashion hugely from other primitive monarchies, most of which have been associated with a religion their respective crowns adopted.  Queen Elizabeth I, for example, wasn't exactly tolerant of Catholics.  That didn't make Elizabethan England a theocracy, however.

And to be continued.

 Syrian Archbishop.  Syrian Catholics and Orthodox represent the second largest religion in the Middle East and the second oldest of the major religions in the Middle East.

Okay, well what else?

Another question asked the students to rank the three largest religions in the Middle East, with the provided answer, in order if number of followers, being Islam, Judaism, and Christianity.

Right?  Nope, that's wrong.

The second largest religion in the Middle East is Christianity. 

I guess I might give a person a bit of a pass on this one, as Middle Easter Christians are so ignored by the outside world, but they are the second oldest religion in the Middle East and they are spread throughout the Middle East.  There isn't a country in the Middle East that doesn't have some native Christians, save perhaps for the very small ones like Dubai or Kuwait.

That's right, some native Christians.

Christian populations in the Middle East range up to as many as 18,000,000 but may be as few as 16,000,000.  More than any other major faith, Christians have been targets of violence in the Middle East and they have accordingly opted for decades for emigration, if they could.  But they still outnumber adherents of Judaism by at least 10,000,000 people, if not more, and it probably is more.Some Middle Eastern countries have, or would have, extremely significant Christian populations but for their being the targets of increasing violence in recent years, making them a population that is essentially undergoing "ethnic cleansing" as we speak, with hardly anyone doing anything about it.  Populations of Catholics, Orthodox and Coptic Christians are under stress everywhere in the Middle East.

If immigrant populations in the form of temporary workers are included, some Middle Eastern countries, such as Dubai, would be regarded as having huge, mostly Catholic, populations.

Indeed, one of the myths of the Middle East, related to this story, is that Islam took the region by storm.  It didn't.  Islam didn't become the power in the region it became until Sulemon, but even at that the "Islamic" principalities he conquered often had Christian majorities.  It wasn't until tremendous force was brought upon these communities that conversions to Islam really began.  Islam wasn't even able to sweep the Arabian Peninsula without the help, ironically, of a tribe on the peninsula that was Catholic.  Christian populations hung on everywhere, in isolation, for a very long time, and in some ways what we're seeing now in regards to them has been a story that's been ongoing for over 1,000 years.

Persistent Myth IV: Being a law unto yourself.

You have a right to act like a member of the James Gang on your own property.

One I occasionally run into is the concept that a person has the right to shoot somebody on their land, if they're there without invitation.  No, there is no such right.  Never.

The point at which food paranoia crosses over the line

From NBC News on the net:

(CNN) -- There's so much to dislike about air travel. There are the long lines and the delays, and of course, there is the bad airplane food. A recent survey found that airlines have a long way to go in making their meals and snacks nutritious and low in calories.

"I don't think airlines are keeping up with the trends across the United States, the 'better for you' food trend, the organic trend," said Charles Platkin, nutrition professor at Hunter College and City University of New York. Most airlines are also failing to provide nutritional information about their menu items that would allow passengers to make the healthiest choices, he added.

Yeah, well get over it.

Shoot, people don't live on the plane.  A little "bad" food on the plane isn't going to kill you.

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: Old West Shootout

Wyoming Fact and Fiction: Old West Shootout: Anyone who has made a serious study of Western history knows that the middle of the street, showdown gunfight is mostly a creation of pulp ...

Mid Week at Work: Loading the plane in the rain.

The state's income increases in 2015 in spite of, and actually because of the decline of the price of oil. . .

because it raised agricultural profits.

Cheaper fuel, and high cattle prices at the start of the year, gave a big boost to agricultural income.  So the state's income actually rose.

This obviously isn't expected to last, but it's an interesting illustration of cause and effect in the economy.

The Bonnie Blue Flag?

In Moneta Wyoming?

The Big Picture: More southern Big Horns

Monday at the Bar: Courthouses of the West: Carbon County Courthouse, Rawlins Wyoming

Courthouses of the West: Carbon County Courthouse, Rawlins Wyoming:

This is the Carbon County Courthouse in Rawlins Wyoming.  This Depression era courthouse was built by the Works Project Administration, like the former courthouse in Casper, Wyoming.  It houses the Carbon County Court and also serves Wyoming's Second Judicial District together with the courthouse in Albany County.

This courthouse is unique for a classic Wyoming courthouse in that it sits on an entire city block in the center of town.  While not visible in these photos, due to the mature trees, the courthouse is also unique in that it was built with attached substantial living quarters which served the sheriff and his family at the time of its construction. The concept was that the sheriff would need to live there, as the jail was housed in the courthouse.

Sunday Morning Scene: Churches of the West: First Christian Church, Tulsa Oklahoma

Churches of the West: First Christian Church, Tulsa Oklahoma:

Lex Anteinternet: Happy Boxing Day!

Lex Anteinternet: Happy Boxing Day!: Today, December 26, is Boxing Day in most English speaking countries outside the United States. Boxing Day is a legal holiday in most Engl...

Blog Mirror: Texas World War One Centennial

Interesting looking site, Texas World War One Centennial.

Movies In History: Three Godfathers

Three Godfathers

This 1948 John Ford western is one of my favorite Christmas movies.

Indeed, I actually don't like most of the Christmas classics for one reason or another, although I've just posted on another one of my favorites, A Christmas Story. 

This movie is a classic John Ford western featuring three of the best known actors who appeared in his films.  John Wayne, Pedro Armendáriz, and Harry Carey Jr. appear as three outlaws who ride into a small western town while on the lam, and then set out to make good their escape.  While in the desert they run across a dying woman and her baby, the only survivors of misbegotten effort to cross the desert.  The woman make the men the baby's Godfathers as she passes away and they then proceed to attempt to save themselves and the child.

Very well done, what is not evident at first is that this classic Ford western is also heavily allegorical. As the movie progresses we learn that it takes place near Christmas and the three Godfathers come to stand in for the Three Wise Men as they seek to rescue the baby and make it to the town of New Jerusalem.

The film is fantastically done, with rich color tones, and well worth seeing.  As a western movie, the film is typical of films of this period and attention to material details doesn't equal that of later films.  However, this film fares better in those details than some others as no date is given for the film, so it cannot be said that any of the physical items depicted in the film are done so incorrectly.  The clothing is typical for a film of this era and is not 100% accurate, but is not badly done either.

The film is well worth seeing and stands out as one of Ford's very good western movies, as well as being a unique Christmas movie.

Movies In History: A Christmas Story

A Christmas Story.

This 1983 movie committed to film a series of stories by Jene Shepherd and has become a beloved Christmas classic. 

Shepherd was a radio and television personality and writer whose storied varied wildly in terms of topic and quality, but who built a huge East Coast fan base that ultimately lead to a television series that was of more consistent quality than his radio shows.  At his best, he was extremely funny, and that often occurred when his stories focused on his youth in the Mid West.  Much like Patrick McManus, McManus' best stories tend to surround his childhood, and in his case, his service in the Army, although unlike McManus, Shepherd's youth was urban.  His written work tended to be much more consistent than his radio work, which was hugely ad libbed.

The only full length film every made from Shepherd's work was this one, A Christmas Story, which concerns the young Ralphie, a thinly disguised Jean Shepherd.  In his written and radio work many of the same characters appear, and it is clearer from those that Ralphie is the Shepherd character.  Here too he much resembles McManus, as many of the characters that appear in his work are in fact real characters from his youth.

Shepherd was born in 1921 and therefore old enough to serve in World War Two.  This is notable here as this story is set in 1940 when Ralphie is still in grade school, so unlike his radio and written works the movie Ralphie is a bit younger than the actual Shepherd was.  This doesn't matter too much in the context of this film, but the film does have late Great Depression feel to it, although that would not be inaccurate for the year it is set in.

A Christmas Story is not normally thought of as a period piece, and it remains hugely contemporary in spite of being set in the 1940s.  None the less, viewed as a film set in time, its remarkably accurate.  The film very accurately portrays the grade school experience that generations of Americans experienced, but which really basically started in the late 1920s and which ran through, in this form, the 1980s.  Clothing and material details are very well done.  The childhood focus on certain significant toys in any one Christmas is accurate.  The focus on a Red Rider BB gun in fact portrays a common Christmas gift that boys sought well into the 1970s. 

Even odd material details are well done. The role of the radio in the home, the appearance of the interior of buildings, the lack of electrical outlets, the nature of coal burning stoves, and servicemen in uniform, are all correctly done.

This movie deserves its place as a Christmas classic, and it stands up much better than many other period pieces filmed several decades after the events portrayed.  Given the prolific nature of Shepherd's output, it is somewhat ironic however that this really stands out by far as his work that's really well remembered as it was less satiric and had much less of a sharper edge than most of his other work.  Still, it's a good work to be remembered by.

Blog Mirror: Modern Farmer: The Draft-Horse Gear and Tools you need.

Modern Farmer: The Draft-Horse Gear and Tools you need. Linking a horse to farming implements is a bit more involved than saddling up for a ride. A hames, which has small metal or wooden bars on either side, supports the horse’s collar and transfers the pulling power of the horse to the equipment in tow via heavy leather traces and, for some equipment, a yoke. A britchen strap around the rump acts as a brake, preventing wheeled implements from rolling forward when a team walks downhill.

Blog Mirror: The Suburban Hermit: St. Augustine's Christmas Sermon

The Suburban Hermit:  St. Augustine's Christmas Sermon:  Awake, mankind! For your sake God has become man. Awake, you who sleep, rise up from the dead, and Christ will enlighten you. I tell you again: for your sake, God became man . . .

A Day in the Life: Christmas 1915

G.K. Chesterton: Christmas

G.K. Chesterton: Christmas: THERE is no more dangerous or disgusting habit than that of celebrating Christmas before it comes, as I am doing in this article. It is the ...

The Big Speech: A Visit From Saint Nicholas

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro' the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar plums danc'd in their heads,

And Mama in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap —
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters, and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow,
Gave the luster of mid-day to objects below;
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and call'd them by name:
"Now! Dasher, now! Dancer, now! Prancer and Vixen,
"On! Comet, on! Cupid, on! Donder and Blitzen;
"To the top of the porch! To the top of the wall!
"Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!"
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of toys — and St. Nicholas too:
And then in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound:
He was dress'd all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnish'd with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys was flung on his back,
And he look'd like a peddler just opening his pack:
His eyes — how they twinkled! His dimples: how merry,
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry;
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face, and a little round belly
That shook when he laugh'd, like a bowl full of jelly:
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laugh'd when I saw him in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And fill'd all the stockings; then turn'd with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose.
He sprung to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew, like the down of a thistle:
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight —
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Lamenting the change in the Christmas Season. . .?

I recently heard two podcasts by a fellow who was lamenting the passing of the traditional Christmas season.  I sort of like the particular podcast, but I'll admit that it tends to be a bit snarky in what I think is sort of an over snarky way.  And it also features an interview, normally, of the same fellow by the same captive interviewer, which makes the style a bit problematic as the interviewer, in that context, is a bit captive.

 Christmas Tree, Madison Square Garden, 1915.

Anyhow, the fellow's point was that we now have an American (largely Protestant) Christmas that starts well before the liturgical Christmas Season and concludes well before Christmas, and we've lost the traditional Christmas Season entirely.  He maintains that this is the result of an intentional effort by American politicians to boost the Christmas marketing season and that this goes back to the early 20th Century.  And in support of it, he twice cited the absence of a celebration of the Twelve Days of Christmas.

Hmmm. . . .

I don't know, but frankly, I doubt his point here.

This isn't to say that Christmas hasn't become hyper commercialized, but the commercial, i.e., the gift giving aspect of it, is hardly a new thing.  And it isn't entirely a bad one either.

Before we look at that, however, let's look at his point, to the extent he has one.

 

St. Mary's Cathedral, Cheyenne Wyoming.  The cathedral for the Catholic Diocese of Cheyenne.

Liturgically, the pre Christmas season is Advent.  The United States Council of Catholic Bishops defines advent this way:

Beginning the Church's liturgical year, Advent (from, "ad-venire" in Latin or "to come to") is the season encompassing the four Sundays (and weekdays) leading up to the celebration of Christmas.

The Advent season is a time of preparation that directs our hearts and minds to Christ’s second coming at the end of time and also to the anniversary of the Lord’s birth on Christmas. The final days of Advent, from December 17 to December 24, focus particularly on our preparation for the celebrations of the Nativity of our Lord (Christmas).

Advent devotions including the Advent wreath, remind us of the meaning of the season. Our Advent calendar above can help you fully enter in to the season with daily activity and prayer suggestions to prepare you spiritually for the birth of Jesus Christ.  More Advent resources are listed below.

The 1917 Catholic Encyclopedia, a valuable resource which is frequenlty made resort to by traditional minded Catholics and those who look towards Catholic tradition, holds:

According to present usage, Advent is a period beginning with the Sunday nearest to the feast of St. Andrew the Apostle and embracing four Sundays. The first Sunday may be as early as 27 November, and then Advent has twenty-eight days, or as late as 3 December, giving the season only twenty-one days.
With Advent the ecclesiastical year begins in the Western churches. During this time the faithful are admonished

• to prepare themselves worthily to celebrate the anniversary of the Lord's coming into the world as the incarnate God of love,
• thus to make their souls fitting abodes for the Redeemer coming in Holy Communion and through grace, and
• thereby to make themselves ready for His final coming as judge, at death and at the end of the world.

Symbolism

To attain this object the Church has arranged the Liturgy for this season. In the official prayer, the Breviary, she calls upon her ministers, in the Invitatory for Matins, to adore "the Lord the King that is to come", "the Lord already near", "Him Whose glory will be seen on the morrow". As Lessons for the first Nocturn she prescribes chapters from the prophet Isaias, who speaks in scathing terms of the ingratitude of the house of Israel, the chosen children who had forsaken and forgotten their Father; who tells of the Man of Sorrows stricken for the sins of His people; who describes accurately the passion and death of the coming Saviour and His final glory; who announces the gathering of the Gentiles to the Holy Hill. In the second Nocturn the Lessons on three Sundays are taken from the eighth homily of Pope St. Leo (440-461) on fasting and almsdeeds as a preparation for the advent of the Lord, and on one Sunday (the second) from St. Jerome's commentary on Isaiah 11:1, which text he interprets of the Blessed Virgin Mary as "the rod out of the root of Jesse". In the hymns of the season we find praise for the coming of Christ, the Creator of the universe, as Redeemer, combined with prayer to the coming judge of the world to protect us from the enemy. Similar ideas are expressed in the antiphons for the Magnificat on the last seven days before the Vigil of the Nativity. In them, the Church calls on the Divine Wisdom to teach us the way of prudence; on the Key of David to free us from bondage; on the Rising Sun to illuminate us sitting in darkness and the shadow of death, etc. In the Masses the intention of the Church is shown in the choice of the Epistles and Gospels. In the Epistle she exhorts the faithful that, since the Redeemer is nearer, they should cast aside the works of darkness and put on the armour of light; should walk honestly, as in the day, and put on the Lord Jesus Christ; she shows that the nations are called to praise the name of the Lord; she asks them to rejoice in the nearness of the Lord, so that the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, may keep their hearts and minds in Christ Jesus; she admonishes them not to pass judgment, for the Lord, when He comes, will manifest the secrets hidden in hearts. In the Gospels the Church speaks of the Lord coming in glory; of Him in, and through, Whom the prophecies are being fulfilled; of the Eternal walking in the midst of the Jews; of the voice in the desert, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord". The Church in her Liturgy takes us in spirit back to the time before the incarnation of the Son of God, as though it were really yet to take place. Cardinal Wiseman says:

We are not dryly exhorted to profit by that blessed event, but we are daily made to sigh with the Fathers of old, "Send down the dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the Just One: let the earth be opened, and bud forth the Redeemer." The Collects on three of the four Sundays of that season begin with the words, "Lord, raise up thy power and come" — as though we feared our iniquities would prevent His being born.

Duration and ritual

On every day of Advent the Office and Mass of the Sunday or Feria must be said, or at least a Commemoration must be made of them, no matter what grade of feast occurs. In the Divine Office the Te Deum, the joyful hymn of praise and thanksgiving, is omitted; in the Mass the Gloria in excelsis is not said. The Alleluia, however, is retained. During this time the solemnization of matrimony (Nuptial Mass and Benediction) cannot take place; which prohibition binds to the feast of Epiphany inclusively. The celebrant and sacred ministers use violet vestments. The deacon and subdeacon at Mass, in place of the dalmatics commonly used, wear folded chasubles. The subdeacon removes his during the reading of the Epistle, and the deacon exchanges his for another, or for a wider stole, worn over the left shoulder during the time between the singing of the Gospel and the Communion. An exception is made for the third Sunday (Gaudete Sunday), on which the vestments may be rose-coloured, or richer violet ones; the sacred ministers may on this Sunday wear dalmatics, which may also be used on the Vigil of the Nativity, even if it be the fourth Sunday of Advent. Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) states that black was the colour to be used during Advent, but violet had already come into use for this season at the end of the thirteenth century. Binterim says that there was also a law that pictures should be covered during Advent. Flowers and relics of Saints are not to be placed on the altars during the Office and Masses of this time, except on the third Sunday; and the same prohibition and exception exist in regard to the use of the organ. The popular idea that the four weeks of Advent symbolize the four thousand years of darkness in which the world was enveloped before the coming of Christ finds no confirmation in the Liturgy.

Historical origin

It cannot be determined with any degree of certainty when the celebration of Advent was first introduced into the Church. The preparation for the feast of the Nativity of Our Lord was not held before the feast itself existed, and of this we find no evidence before the end of the fourth century, when, according to Duchesne [Christian Worship (London, 1904), 260], it was celebrated throughout the whole Church, by some on 25 December, by others on 6 January. Of such a preparation we read in the Acts of a synod held at Saragossa in 380, whose fourth canon prescribes that from the seventeenth of December to the feast of the Epiphany no one should be permitted to absent himself from church. We have two homilies of St. Maximus, Bishop of Turin (415-466), entitled "In Adventu Domini", but he makes no reference to a special time. The title may be the addition of a copyist. There are some homilies extant, most likely of St. Caesarius, Bishop of Arles (502-542), in which we find mention of a preparation before the birthday of Christ; still, to judge from the context, no general law on the matter seems then to have been in existence. A synod held (581) at Mâcon, in Gaul, by its ninth canon orders that from the eleventh of November to the Nativity the Sacrifice be offered according to the Lenten rite on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of the week. The Gelasian Sacramentary notes five Sundays for the season; these five were reduced to four by Pope St. Gregory VII (1073-85). The collection of homilies of St. Gregory the Great (590-604) begins with a sermon for the second Sunday of Advent. In 650 Advent was celebrated in Spain with five Sundays. Several synods had made laws about fasting to be observed during this time, some beginning with the eleventh of November, others the fifteenth, and others as early as the autumnal equinox. Other synods forbade the celebration of matrimony. In the Greek Church we find no documents for the observance of Advent earlier than the eighth century. St. Theodore the Studite (d. 826), who speaks of the feasts and fasts commonly celebrated by the Greeks, makes no mention of this season. In the eighth century we find it observed not as a liturgical celebration, but as a time of fast and abstinence, from 15 November to the Nativity, which, according to Goar, was later reduced to seven days. But a council of the Ruthenians (1720) ordered the fast according to the old rule from the fifteenth of November. This is the rule with at least some of the Greeks. Similarly, the Ambrosian and the Mozarabic Riterites have no special liturgy for Advent, but only the fast.

 

 Holy Transfiguration of  Christ Orthodox Cathedral, a Russian Orthodox cathedral in Denver Colorado.

Advent is most definitely observed in the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church.  It's also observed in observed in the Eastern Rite of the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches, which have traditionally  had a Lent like observance of Advent.  Regarding this, the Orthodox Church in America, branch of the Orthodox that had their origin with the Russian Orthodox Church, provides:

We fast before the Great Feast of the Nativity in order to prepare ourselves for the celebration of Our Lord’s birth. As in the case of Great Lent, the Nativity Fast is one of preparation, during which we focus on the coming of the Savior by fasting, prayer, and almsgiving.

By fasting, we “shift our focus” from ourselves to others, spending less time worrying about what to eat, when to eat, how much to eat, and so on in order to use our time in increased prayer and caring for the poor. We learn through fasting that we can gain control over things which we sometimes allow to control us—and for many people, food is a controlling factor. 

[We live in the only society in which an entire TV network is devoted to food!] While fasting from food, however, we are also challenged to fast from sin, from gossip, from jealousy, from anger, and from those other things which, while well within our control, we all too often allow to control us.

Just as we would refrain from eating a lot before going to an expensive restaurant for dinner—if we “ruin our appetite” we will enjoy the restaurant less—so too we fast before the Nativity in order to more fully feast and celebrate on the Nativity itself.

During the Nativity Fast, we are called upon to refrain from meat, dairy, fish, wine, and olive oil. At the same time, we are challenged, within this framework, to fast to the best of our ability, and to do so consistently. 

If we must modify the extent to which we fast within this framework, it is of course possible, but in every instance our fasting should be consistent and regular, for Christ does not see fasting as an option, but as a “must.”

In Matthew Christ says, “WHEN you fast, do not be like the hypocrites,” not “IF you fast” or “IF YOU CHOOSE to fast.”

Finally, it seems quite odd that in our society—a society in which people gladly and freely spend huge sums of money for diets, most of which recommend that one refrain from red meats and dairy products—fasting is not more widely embraced. How odd that a Jenny Craig consultant or diet guru or physician will tell us to refrain from eating meat or cheese or butter and we will gladly embrace—and pay large sums of money for—his or her advice, while when the Church offers the same advice [at “no cost”] we tend to balk, as if we were being asked to do the impossible.

Okay, you may not be seeing any of that, right?  So does that mean that Christmas as a Christian holiday has really fallen off and isn't property observed?  No, probably not.  The number of Orthodox in the United States isn't large (which doesn't mean its insignificant), and the Eastern Rite of the Catholic Church, in recognition of their small size, generally modify their Advent customs somewhat. The Catholic Church is large, but then again, Catholics do observe Advent. That many Protestants really don't isn't surprising, as their history with it is significantly different.

Indeed, the Puritans, often cited as an example of tor original founding Americans, banned Christmas in both the United States and England. That's right, they banned it. And that sort of thing is exactly what lead to the English Restoration in England, and the dim view that was held of them there that caused them to have to take refuge first in Holland and then in North America.  So, for people who hold the "war on Christmas" view of things, the original hostility to Christmas in this country goes back as far as the same group of people we cite as founding Thanksgiving here.

Of course, it was exactly this sort of thing that caused Cromwell to posthumously lose his head.

Anyhow, going on, the same commenter referenced the "Twelve Days of Christmas" more than once, noting that few even are aware that the Christmas season commences on Christmas itself and then runs for twelve days, assuming that it does.

In actuality,that reference is a bit complicated.  It is the case that Christmastide is a feature of most Christian denominations in some fashion, although it's also the case that probably very few average people are aware of that.

Not all Christian denominations calculate Christmastide the same way.  In the Catholic Church, which most Christians in the west look to for the liturgical year, the Christmas season is longer than twelve days, although not by much, and runs from Christmas to Epiphany.  Catholics do observe that on their liturgical calendar.  In the Eastern Church this is also true, but it isn't calculated in quite the same fashion on their liturgical calendar.  The Anglican and Lutheran churches use a strait twelve days from Christmas, with the twelfth day being called Twelfth Night. Their calculation relies on the Latin Rite liturgical calendar, but the custom dates to a calendar that was in use at the time of their separation.

And here's where things get complicated.  It was indeed the case that these twelve days were once festive in character, with the onset of Christmas having broken the fasting of Advent.  The observation of the Advent fast was itself more strict to some degree in the West than it currently is, where it isn't observed at all. Rather obviously, in the Eastern Church, it still is observed.  Adding to that, the twelve day festival in the dead of winter was no doubt heavily looked forward to by people in what would have been otherwise a dreary indoor seasons.  Note also that the twelve days incorporated New Years Day within it, which is a Holy Day of Obligation in the Eastern and the Latin Rites of the Catholic Church, so in terms of the liturgical year a season commencing on Christmas and ending on Epiphany makes a great deal of sense and it retains a bit of its festive nature even today.

What is missing, however, is a public ongoing celebration of the seasons, such as celebrated in the somewhat dreaded Christmas song, the Twelve Days of Christmas.  But that parties and whatnot occurred is in fact correct.  Indeed, the legendary concluding party in A Christmas Carol in which Fezziwig dances with his workers takes place on Twelth Night.

Fezziwig gets down at the Twelfth Night Party.

So all is lost, right?

Well, I don't know.

Frankly, I think the point has been pushed too far.

Indeed, the lamenting on how commercial Christmas has become is a modern Christmas tradition and hardly new to our age.  The great G. K. Chesterton, whom I genuinely admire, noted in the first half of the the last century:

The same sort of ironic injustice is applied to any old popular festival like Christmas. Moving step by step, in the majestic march of Progress, we have first vulgarised Christmas and then denounced it as vulgar. Christmas has become too commercial; so many of these thinkers would destroy the Christmas that has been spoiled, and preserve the commercialism that has spoiled it.

Sounds like a very modern commentary (although much of Chesterton's work has as disturbingly prophetic nature to it ).

Perhaps it seems to connected, however, as already by the early 20th Century the modern gift giving Christmas we are used to already existed.  And indeed, it did.

It's very clear that the practice of giving gifts on Christmas was well established well prior to 1900.  Probably the only real change in the past century isn't that, but rather the onset of a consumer culture has emphasized it, and that too goes back about a century.

 Shoppers checking out a Christmas display in 1915.

Consumerism has undoubtedly made ongoing inroads into Christmas.  Now many stores don't balance their books for the year until Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, which is called that as that's the day their accounts hopefully go into the "black" and out of the "red".  But that's being going on for awhile.

Granted.  It hasn't been going on to the same extent that it is now, and the ongoing relentless advance of consumeristic thought and behavior has impacted things.  But not just as to Christmas, but as to seemingly everything in western life.  As societies have become richer, and more accepting of consumer debt, this behavior has expanded everywhere in the west.

But that didn't lead to a demise in the society wide celebration of the Twelve Days of Christmas. That declined on its own.

And that it would decline in the US is not surprising.  In spite of the observation of the commenter, this would really have been a public observance in that fashion very early in the country's history, when it was mostly English.  The observation of Epiphany elsewhere amongst Europeans, and Middle Eastern Christians, would have been real, but of a different character.  And the fact that the United States was so early on home to a number of dissenting Protestant denominations would have at least made some inroads into what was basically an Anglican tradition.

And indeed, in the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, the observations really continue on, but just not quite in the same fashion as imagined by a Twelve Days of Christmas, but then it never matched that description.

But, going back to the lack of twelve day long holiday, why additionally would that have occurred?  Well, we really have to accept that this is something that lasted no longer, in that form, than the early 19th Century.  And the disappearance of isn't too surprising.

First of all, once again, it's really an English holiday we're discussing.  And sort of rural English one at that.  By the early 19th Century that England was disappearing very rapidly in favor of the industrialized England that came on rapidly behind it. Even in Dicken's A Christmas Carol the change is manifestly noted, and in part the work laments that change. Scrooge can be seen not only a a miser, but the emblem of industrial England.  He wasn't celebrating a twelve day holiday and was limiting the time off of his employees to Christmas alone. Sound familiar?  Well, that's because that's largely what happened in industrial societies, with usually a single day or two around a major holiday, like Christmas, also included (Boxing Day remains a holiday in countries with large English influence).

And indeed, that was inevitable.  In a rural setting, a series of feasts lasting more than a week long is not difficult to create.  In an industrial setting, however, that's not the case.  Most modern urban workplaces can't idle for more than a few days before dire things begin to occur to them, no matter what they are.

And, as noted, in the United States this distinctly English spin on the season wasn't going to last.  As an Anglican observation, the mere presence right from the onset of competing denominations would impact that.  One of those traditions, Puritanism, was hostile to Christmas itself at its origin.  Once members of other faiths, such as Catholics, arrived, the nature of an English Anglican observation was going to diminish in any event.

 Family with their Christmas Tree, 1915.  The Christmas Tree is a German tradition, incorporated in the American holiday.  Presents can be seen near the tree.

None of that really means that the holiday has somehow become un-observed, however.  By late 19th Century it was already a holiday that varied by community, with elements of various cultures mixing their traditions.  The religious nature of the holiday, in spite of the sometimes declared belief that there's a "war on Christmas" continues on, even in a country that has some substantial non Christian populations.  Indeed, Christmas has been so pervasive that some observation of the season is generally acknowledged by some non Christians, if only in a muted secular fashion.

Yes, it does seem that the commercial nature of the season has expanded. But then the consumer nature of everything has.  That might have less to do with Christmas than we suppose, and more to do with a culture that's completely adopted a consumer mindset, which is a problem in its own right, but a distinct problem.

Anyhow, Merry Christmas. And enjoy Epiphany as well.