Sunday after Thanksgiving marks beginning of Advent

The Christmas decorations came down from the attic Saturday, a rainy, dreary day that seemed prescribed for indoor tasks and needing the antidote of joyful, memory-filled decorations. Today is the first Sunday of Advent, the long prelude to the 12-day Christmas season. Scripture readings will be all about anticipation and eagerness.

Retailers, worried about an economic downturn and a tightening of consumers' wallets, are far out ahead of these four Sundays before Christmas. Decorations and Christmas accessories have filled store aisles for weeks, some of the merchandise preceding even Halloween. This year's late Thanksgiving — Nov. 27 — made retailers' concerns more urgent than ever.

Advent gets lost in the annual rush from Oct. 31 to Dec. 25. There are decorations to be displayed, shopping to be done, cakes and cookies to be baked, plans to be made, and a whirlwind of activities that give us no time to slow down and reflect. An observance of Advent, through something as simple as an Advent calendar or lighting an Advent wreath at home, can help slow down the mad rush toward Christmas, even if just for a few moments.

The hymns of the season — "O Come, O Come Emmanuel," "Prepare the Royal Highway," "Hark the Glad Sound," "All Earth is Hopeful" and the rest — rein in the joyful celebrations found in Christmas carols and provide a spiritual reflection needed this time of year. When Christmas comes at last, its joyousness stands in contrast to the reflective meditation of Advent.

At my house, the decorations will go up gradually. Over three decades-plus, my wife and I (mostly she) have collected a range of Christmas paraphernalia that will be scattered throughout the house. A tree from the Optimist lot will be carefully placed and decorated with items collected along our journey through life. These include keepsakes from places we've lived, places we've visited and people we've known. Another tree will hold my wife's collection of angels. This recent addition to our Christmas decor evolved as her angel collection became too much for our single tree.

Unlike some people, who haul their tree to the curb by nightfall Dec. 25, we'll keep our house decorated through the 12 days of Christmas, removing decorations only on or after Epiphany, Jan. 6.

On this Sunday after Thanksgiving, Advent has begun, and Christmas lies ahead. Let us pause, reflect and meditate before it arrives.

Black Friday shopping turns ugly

Each year at this time we are provided a new testimonial to excess, otherwise known as Black Friday shopping. The Wilson Daily Times chronicled people who got in line shortly after midnight for predawn store openings. These people wanted to be sure to be first to get the limited-quantity early-bird specials. The Associated Press reported that a Wal-Mart employee in New York was trampled to death by overly eager shoppers. What has happened to sane judgment?

While the world suffers through its deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression, shoppers on Friday were lining up to buy discounted flat-screen TVs at around $1,000 a pop, computers for several hundred dollars and navigation units in the hundreds of dollars. These same shoppers were complaining about the economy and about not having as much to spend this year.

A couple of months ago, I wrote about the coming New Frugality, a potential return to the tight-fisted regimen our parents and grandparents knew in the Great Depression. I guess it hasn't arrived yet.

Violence in Mumbai worse than economic crisis

Wednesday's coordinated attacks in Mumbai, India, are a reminder that the world has more to worry about than the global economy, and we Americans have more to worry about than the state of our 401(k) accounts.

Today's reports indicate that no one is sure just who is responsible for these attacks, but they appear to be directed by Islamic radicals, and they are frighteningly well-organized and carried out. In attacking Mumbai, the terrorists singled out Western tourists and business people working in the heart of India's toehold on the global economy and also India's economic modernization itself. Like the Taliban and al-Qaida, these terrorists want to turn back the calendar to about the seventh century, a time when tribal elders dictated trade policies, women were subservient and covered up, and modern values, ranging from democracy to live-and-let-live moral standards, were unknown or forbidden.

The attacks also are an affirmation that no place is safe. Although India has a long history of political violence, these attacks targeted upscale Western hotels, where tourists and business travelers had every reason to feel safe. They also tellingly targeted a Jewish center —  a target that points the blame at Islamic radicals.

Wednesday's attacks reassert the axiom that no country can sit on the sidelines while Islamic radicals strive to bring down world markets, democratic institutions and the safety and security of travelers. The radicals want a new worldwide theocracy that will eliminate most of the freedoms achieved in the West since the Reformation and the Enlightenment. There are no "unaligned nations" in this battle, and no nation or nationality is safe. Nations that tolerate or harbor these terrorists, including Iran, Syria and Pakistan, must be penalized. They must be excluded from the world of civilized countries and from global trade and travel. Nations, such as Afghanistan, that host radical organizations while battling against them must be aided in their efforts to oust or capture the militants. Only coordinated global efforts, not some unilateral invasion or cruise missile strike, can succeed against the worldwide threat to civilization.

New policy will regulate comments

No, I will not allow this blog to devolve into the new version of the Wilson Times now-canceled Forum. That venue was canceled for a reason: It had become nothing more than a gripe bulletin board for a handful of malcontents who liked nothing better than deriding their community and all who occupy it. I  had nothing to do with the decision to cancel the Forum, but I believe it was the right decision.

I won't let this blog descend to that gutter. Apparently some refugees from the Forum had migrated to this blog and were continuing their negative, hateful remarks here. I won't allow it. Therefore, I have changed the settings regulating comments. You can still make comments anonymously, but all comments will be vetted through me before posting. Therefore, you can write all the personal attacks and insults you want — they just won't be posted on this site.

I do welcome and encourage anyone who wants to comment on the topics I raise.

Much to be thankful for

Thanksgiving Day arrives with an obligation to be thankful for all that we have, and I can affirm that I have much to be thankful for. I am grateful for family and friends, for good health, for the quiet harmony of a long marriage, for grandchildren, for a home that truly feels like home, for adequate food to eat, for a future to look forward to.

But for the first time in nearly 30 years, I can't be thankful for work. For the second Thanksgiving since graduating from college, I find myself unemployed. In 1979, I had just resigned from editing a newspaper in Virginia. I had assigned a reporter to get the goods on a local politician who was rumored to be corrupt. He got the story. The attorneys okayed it. The publisher killed it. He and I resigned in protest. Three weeks later, it was Thanksgiving, and I had no job. Looking back, that holiday does not seem particularly eventful. We traveled for a big gathering of my wife's family. I do not recall being particularly anxious about my unemployment, although I had three small children and a wife who stayed home with them (putting three kids in day care would have been a fiscal negative). I picked up some work helping out at a couple of small newspapers who could use my services. Today, we'd call that consulting, but I never used the term. It was just a way to bring in some money until I found a permanent job.

That permanent job came as an offer to be managing editor at The Wilson Daily Times. It looked like a job I could stick with for a lifetime. It looked like a good town, a good place to raise children, as then-editor John Scott told me. So I planted roots here, expecting to retire, perhaps even do some work in retirement for the paper, take on a title of editor emeritus. And for a long time, that looked like a good plan. It was not a lack of ambition that  kept me at a small daily. I had opportunities to go elsewhere, to climb the ladder at metropolitan  dailies, but I was satisfied at the Daily Times. My wife and children were satisfied with Wilson, and so I settled in.

Being laid off from the Daily Times before the age of 60 was not part of the plan, but here I am. Just as happened 29 years ago, I don't feel particularly anxious about finances. My seven-week job search has not been fruitful, but I feel an inexplicable confidence that this situation will resolve itself, that it will all work out. "All things work for good for those who love God," I've been reminded frequently. I will continue to check job listings and pigeonhole anyone I can about a job, but on this Thanksgiving I have much to be thankful for, even if a steady job is not one of them.

Will president-elect influence fashions?

We have entered the Age of Speculation, that time between the election of a new president and the inauguration. The news media are full of speculation — and some actual news on the matter. What will the Obama administration do about the economy, Iraq, Iran, Detroit, etc.? What kind of White House puppy will be Obama girls get? What impact will Michelle Obama have on policy, parenting and fashion?

Here's another speculative question: What impact might the new president have on fashion? The question is more significant than the then-revolutionary preference of John F. Kennedy to go hatless. Kennedy's dislike of hats was the death knell of the fedora, pork-pie, bowler, top hat and all the rest that were a standard part of the male wardrobe until the 1960s.

I'm eager to see what impact Obama will have on the fashion tastes of African-American boys and young men. Obama's fashion sense is 180 degrees from the gangsta-influenced saggy pants, gold chains, backward caps and oversized T-shirts of the rappers, pimps and drug dealers who have led African-American fashions for the past generation. Obama's style is the epitome of conservative, Ivy League, business professional. His dark, two-button suits, white dress shirts and neat ties proclaim successful, confident, respectful, traditional, modern. His neatly trimmed hair and his trim, athletic body also make a statement about his priorities. It is impossible to imagine Obama dressed in saggy pants with the waistline below his buttocks, showing off his boxer shorts, a cockeyed cap on his head, and a baggy dark hooded sweatshirt adorned with gold chains.

This fashion style originated by musicians and emulated by many professional athletes (but not, notably, Tiger Woods) has dominated black fashions, likely because many young black males saw rappers and basketball stars as their only successful role models. But his election Nov. 4 makes Barack Obama by far the most successful black role model in the country, perhaps in the world. And he is, by any definition, a role model, succeeding against the odds to earn an Ivy League degree and a Harvard Law diploma. His astoundingly rapid political rise culminated in an election that many see as revolutionary. If young black men — or young white men, for that matter — want a role model and mentor, Obama should be the one.

The first indicator of how successful Obama will be in turning the "angry black male" attitude into "yes we can" confidence might lie in how quickly, if at all, young blacks eschew the rapper/pimp style for presidential fashions.

Raleigh editor gives Wilson arts a plug

News & Observer executive editor John Drescher's front-page column today is ostensibly about the impact of N&O photographs, but it also gives a huge plug to Wilson as an arts community. Drescher quotes Burk Uzzle, a former N&O photographer who went on to work for Life magazine and establish a legend as a photographer, about Wilson. Uzzle, who only recently moved to Wilson, tells Drescher, "I keep turning up people who are active in the art world here. It's a great place to live. I just love it."

Wilson has welcomed Uzzle to the community. I attended a reception welcoming Uzzle to Wilson, and his photos are now on exhibit at Barton College's galleries. I have not been to see the exhibit, which also includes the work of other photographers, but I hope to make it this week.

And now the editor in Raleigh has taken notice and given Wilson a nice promotion.

Several months ago, Lindsey de Guehery, a Wilson physician, suggested in a letter to the editor that Wilson promote itself as The City of the Arts. (Don't bother looking for this letter in the Wilson Times online archive; I just did, and I couldn't find it.) As opinion editor at the time, I endorsed the idea, but Wilson's claim to such a lofty title seems endangered now. The last two theatrical productions in Wilson — Barton College's "Crucible" and Wilson Playhouse's "Christmas Belles" — were not reviewed by the local newspaper. The Edna Boykin Cultural Center, venue for most live performances in Wilson, is closed for ceiling and roof repairs. Unless the repairs are done quickly, the 2009 Theater of the American South festival could be jeopardized. Wilson has a plethora of visual artists, such as Oona Lewis, Keve Clayton, Vollis Simpson, Mark Gordon, J. Chris Wilson and dozens more, but these people who give this old tobacco and agriculture community a patina of beauty and sophistication get little recognition in their own town.

Wilson has a vibrant arts community that can set this town apart. Too bad that, like a biblical prophet in his own town, these artists don't get much local respect or recognition.