God is good. I need to acknowledge that more often.  I am always dwelling on the negative.  The glass is not only half empty, it’s chipped and it has a lipstick stain on it, to quote my sister Effie. I often pray I can change my outlook to become more positive. Yet time after time I’m forced to acknowledge that the world is going to Hell in a hand basket. Take this: Black Friday shoppers trampled and crushed a Valley Stream, Long Island, Wal-Mart employee as they broke down the doors to the store in a mad stampede, running over the dying man to get to the bargains. Many of them refused to quit shopping and complained when authorities told them they must leave because the store was closing due to the death.

Can you imagine what this makes us look like to the rest of the world? How incredibly, incredibly self-centered we are. Those frantic, rabid bargain hunters actually yelled at police who tried to evict them from the store. They ran over a dying man and refused to stop shopping. Alas, I am incredulous.

May God have mercy on our souls if this is what Christmas means to us. I can’t even say “forgive us, for we know not what we do,” because we know very well what we are doing. We’re angry and we want everyone to just get out of our way. What could possibly be on sale at Wal-Mart to make you want to kill somebody to get to it before someone else does?& A TV?& A vacuum cleaner?

And the New York Times reported this addendum: “About the time that Mr. Damour was killed, a shopper at a Wal-Mart in Farmingdale, 15 miles east of Valley Stream, said she was trampled by a crowd of overeager customers, the Suffolk County police reported. The woman sustained a cut on her leg, but finished her shopping before filing the police report, an officer said.”

Well, thank Heavens she was able to keep on shopping!

I can’t remember ever going out to shop for bargains on Black Friday. The thought of getting up at 3 a.m. to face huge crowds of people fighting and tearing at each other trying to get the best deal on designer underwear—well, it just makes me sick to my stomach.

Call me old fashioned, but to me Christmas is not about presents and shopping and finding the best deals—it’s about miracles. It’s about a baby born to a virgin who would one day save the world. It’s about peace, and joy, and good will towards men. It’s the awe of shepherds as they watched a star’s light fill the night sky. It’s about the spirit of giving, not the giving itself.  It’s not about plasma televisions and iPods. It’s about loving your brother, taking time out of the busy rush to get ahead to stop and smell the pine needles and to thank God for this humble shot at life. If I had my way, I would live in the Frank Capra world of It’s a Wonderful Life, a world of family and warmth and helping each other when we fall. Yes, I guess I am old fashioned.

We didn’t have much growing up, but every Christmas my father would take out a small loan to buy presents for the seven of us, each kid getting an equal amount of money spent on him, and each year dad would go further and further into debt. He never gave much thought to how he would pay the money back, being like a child himself at Christmas and getting as much pleasure in watching us as we did in opening our presents.

He used to make his own decorations, big wreaths and angels of plywood covered with glittering tinsel garland and twinkling fairy lights. And always the creative entrepreneur, he could turn half of a pine log into a beautiful winter centerpiece with red taper candles and tiny soft-eyed deer peering out of fake snow-covered trees. These are the things that I like to remember about Christmas, not the bottom-feeding-frenzy of A Wal-Mart Christmas.

I know that the best thing I can do is to pray for those people who trampled poor Mr. Damour—they will have to live with that memory for the rest of their lives, and if God has instilled any humanity in them at all, well, I hope that they will pause to re-think their visions of Christmas. It’s not Xmas. It’s Christmas, and if anyone finds that offensive I feel a great deal of sorrow for them. How very empty a life must be to find offense in the hope and giving spirit of Christmas. But God is good. There is hope for them, as there is for everyone who takes a child’s-eye-view of the season of miracles. Jesus did not come to judge the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. It’s that simple, and that beautiful. God bless us, every one.

Okay, okay, I thought I was done with the whole "newspapers are dying" thing, but apparently I was wrong. It seems that everyone's favorite Tribune hero, the infamous and oft-quoted InkStainedRetch of TellZell fame, has dropped off the radar.  The last posting was September 19. Oh where, oh where has our little Retch gone? Is he/she a victim of the Zellion's crackdown on anti-Tribune rhetoric? Did the Tribune employees lawsuit against Zell and Company lead to The Retch's demise?

After all, didn't Zell say publicly that "there is a difference between questioning authority or challenging the 'business as usual attitude,' and maligning the company in public. That's just bad judgment and does no one any good. It's a distraction that's unnecessary." And obviously not tolerated. Maybe The Retch became just another name on the Times' 30 list, accepting a buyout that included a disclaimer to shut it both now and in the future. We may never know. Too bad for us. The Retch's vitriolic criticism of Tribune's honchos made for some great reading.   

And what of TellZell's sister-site Tribune Employees Talk? Apparently there has been nothing for them to talk about since October 8. Hmmmm.... Interestingly enough, the last posting had this to say: "LAObserved felt compelled to issue a warning to Times staffers: according to sources, their not-so-new publisher is calling it 'treason' for employees to share information about stuff going on inside the paper.

"LAO's Roderick writes that 'current Times leadership is unhappy enough (or paranoid enough) about stuff getting out to consider action against staffers' and advises staffers to 'take precautions — use your personal email, our PO box, or pick up the phone — and don't presume they aren't watching.'" Brrrr....

And on top of that, here's the latest Tribune news: "Tribune Co. reported a loss of $124 million for the third quarter; operating cash flow for the publishing division was down 91 percent from last year." Am I glad I am no longer a Tribune employee? You bet. Am I worried that my meagre Tribune pension may not be there when I turn 55? You bet. Stay tuned.

On those rare moments when the traffic noises of busy Tilghman Street die down, my urban back yard is alive with the songs and chatter of birds.  Chickadees, sparrows, cardinals, catbirds, yellow finches, robins and mourning doves all find solace in the hedgerow between our houses and at the feeding station I share with my next door neighbor.  Birds are also welcome to eat any and all of the pest bugs in my vegetable garden as I don’t use any chemicals for either pest control or accelerated growth, preferring to remain organic.  The only thing I ask in return is don’t poop on my head.

My modest back yard is a delicate ecosystem where everything that happens there affects something else.  Our resident cardinals nest in the arborvitae and raise their young each spring.  Chipmunks skitter up the garage walls and eat the sunflower seeds that drop on the ground from the bird feeder.  Squirrels (aka Tree Rats) dig up flower bulbs and carry off the first tomatoes of the season.  Skunks come in at night, rooting about in the dirt for grubs.  A red-tailed hawk once took down a rabbit there and left nothing behind but two fuzzy ears.