Lift Up Your Hearts!

— 1 —

This will be my last 7 Quick Takes Friday, at least on a regular basis.  It's been fun thinking in this way, and I have enjoyed reading other people's Quick Takes.  But it takes a lot of time (it's not "quick" for the writer, at least not for me), and if I spread the work out over the week, well, why not publish immediately rather than wait till Friday?  I think getting seven posts all at once overwhelms some of my readers, too.  Perhaps I'll do more 7 Quick Thanks posts, or gradually collect short posts around a theme for an occasional 7 Quick Takes.

It's probably due more to the season than to my joining the 7 Quick Takes gang, but I've been overwhelmed with spam comments since commencing.  I wonder if it will drop off now (whether due to my dropping out or to the end of the infamous Shopping Season), or if that door has been opened never to close.

Any real, human readers who stopped by via the 7 Quick Takes program are welcome to come here directly.  :)

— 2 —

Requiem Aeternam Dona Ei, Domine.   One of my strongest memories from 1968 is the feeling of desolation as Soviet tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia. RIP Václav Havel.

"Truth and love must prevail over lies and hate."

— 3 —

Steven E. Landsburg was a math classmate of mine at the University of Rochester.  I remember him chiefly for his brilliance and for his decision to forgo a bachelor's degree in favor of a master's because the master's program had no physical education and language requirements.  (The link in his name takes you to the Wikipedia article on Steve, which has, as far as I can tell, at least one error—I believe it was his bachelor's degree, not his master's, that he received after becoming a professor of economics at the U of R.  The University of Chicago would hardly have accepted him into its PhD program with no degree at all.)  Steve appeared in the Wall Street Journal last month with this article:  A Short Econ Quiz for the Super Committee.  Here's how it ends:

The government's chief asset—in fact, pretty much its only asset—is its ability to tax people, now and in the future. The taxpayers are the government's ATM. Make a withdrawal today, and there's less available tomorrow.

Now the ability to tax is a pretty huge asset and the government has not (yet!) come close to depleting it. In that sense, there's a lot of money in the bank. But no matter how much you've got in the bank, a policy of ever-increasing withdrawals is nothing at all like a decision to earn more income. It's important to get the analogy right. And it's clear from the blogs and the op-ed pages that not everybody gets this.

Instead, the notion persists that an extra trillion in federal spending can be converted from "irresponsible" to "responsible" as long as it's accompanied by an extra trillion in tax hikes. That's like saying a $500 haircut can be converted from "irresponsible'' to "responsible'' as long as you withdraw the $500 from your bank account. If the super committee loses sight of this fundamental truth, it is doomed to fail.

Once upon a time, the United States had huge assets independent of its ability to tax people.  We had the better part of a whole continent, in fact.  Sometimes I wonder if we were any wiser than Napoleon in disposing of our riches.

— 4 —

Too Much of a Good Thing? I love Christmas music, and we have a huge collection thereof:  over 500 songs at last count, from Medieval chant to Mannheim Steamroller.  I'm not complaining!  But I do wonder, occasionally, if I might have been richer as a young child, with three or four 33 1/3 rpm vinyl records of Christmas music that I loved dearly, knowing nearly every word, note, and album cover by heart.

— 5 —

Brad Smith.  Brad who?  That's what I said.  Our Christmas collection has been enriched by the fact that Janet's massive CD collection largely resides with us, and this year I added her Christmas music to the playlist on the mp3 player that pours out random Christmas treats as we go about our work.  With all the new music, I often found myself thinking, "That's a wonderful arrangement; what's it from?"  Time and time again the answer turned out to be Brad Smith's The Gift:  A Christmas Celebration.  (Click on the link to hear samples.)  A little research revealed that Brad Smith is a master craftsman—a woodworker.  But he is also an artist of a different sort, a musician—a master of the oboe and English horn, as a matter of fact, which explains both his presence in Janet's collection and my captivation with his music.

— 6 —

 Variations on a Dream (Cookie).   Dream Cookies were a favorite with my family growing up, and equally so with our family now.  I don't know where the original recipe came from; as far as I'm concerned, it's my mother's.  :)  It came a bit later in my life than the other cookie recipes I consider essential for a traditional Christmas, but I'll bet my siblings don't remember a time without Dream Cookies.  Here is the original recipe:

Dream Cookies

• 1 cup butter, softened  (Actually, we often used margarine, back in the days when it was considered healthier.  The taste was still good, though different.)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups flour
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

Preheat oven to 300°F.  Cream butter; add sugar, and beat until light.  Mix in vanilla.  Sift dry ingredients together.  Add and mix well.  Form into small balls; dip in colored sugar crystals and place on ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake for about 18 minutes until done but not browned.  Alternatively, instead of dipping dough in sugar crystals, try dipping warm, baked cookies in a mixture of ¼ cup confectioner's sugar and 1 teaspoon nutmeg.

And here's the new version I created recently.  It was a huge hit.

Variations on a Dream

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon Penzeys double-strength vanilla (Regular vanilla would probably do.)
• 1 tablespoon Penzeys almond extract (I'm a Penzeys snob, but you could use another brand.)
• 2 cups King Arthur white whole wheat flour (Does anyone else make white whole wheat flour?)
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

Preheat oven to 300°F.  Cream butter; add sugar, and beat until light.  Mix in vanilla and almond flavorings.  Stir dry ingredients together.  Add and mix well.  Form into small balls (we always did this by hand, but I find my new cookie scoop works very well, too); dip in colored sugar crystals and place on ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake for about 18 minutes until done but not browned.  I suspect the powdered sugar/nutmeg version would not work well with the almond flavor, but who knows?

— 7 —

Thoughts on the Incarnation.  For years I unthinkingly accepted the admonition that Easter should be a more important holiday for Christians than Christmas.  After all, the resurrection of Christ is the one spectacular event on which Christianity stands or falls.

Or is it?  If it is unique and astonishing that a man so clearly dead should in three days be so clearly alive, and alive in such a new way that he has a physical body (that can be touched, and fed) and yet comes and goes through space in a manner more befitting science fiction—is it any less unique and astonishing that God, the creator of all that is, seen and unseen, should become a human being, not in the shape-shifting ways of the Greek gods, but through physical birth, with human limitations?

Debating which holiday is more significant for a Christian is like asking whether my left or my right leg is more important for running.

A very Merry Christmas to all !

God bless us, every one.

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