Christmas is Coming

I know, I know, it's not even Thanksgiving yet, but you know how time flies this time of year; it's really not too early to place an order for the perfect Christmas gift: the Pants on Fire doll!

If you're not into the consumption thing .... um, you're probably on the wrong planet, unfortunately. But if you're still able to enjoy gifts you don't have to buy, the Massachussetts Supreme Court handed down a great gift to U.S. citizens yesterday. Yeah, so "young adults are split on gay marriage," and older people are against it 4:1. So what? I'm sure if someone had been polling in 1860 they would have found that young and old adults were "split" on slavery at the time, too. It's called equality people, and our constitution says it's a foundation of our country, so, well, Merry Christmas!

A couple of time zones away, thousands of people in London are getting into the Christmas cheer early this year. They've assembled to promote peace, love and happiness (isn't that what Christmas is all about?), but some people are apparently pretty worried about all this positive energy, so they've turned London into a fortress for Bush's visit. As the lovable Jon Stewart said on Monday's Daily Show, Britain has deployed thousands of troops, just in case the people love Bush too much. And don't forget, London is the capital city of our closest ally. Of course, FOX News says Bush hasn't heard the "hecklers," so I guess everything's going to be ok.

Meanwhile, back in the U.S., back in the U.S., back in the U.S.S.... oops! I was channelling those Brits there for a second. Back in the United States, the U.S. House is apparently in a festive mood—it's trying to give some whopping gifts to the energy industry. MTBE producers alone would get $1.75 billion from the bill, but hey, why should anyone complain about giving billions of dollars to people who make the chemicals that are ruining our environment? Those complainers just must not be in the right giving spirit.

And even more locally, if you're a law student, finals are also coming, so you've got some built in Christmas cheer right there. Think of your finals as gifts from your professors. Yeah, that's it. Your professors have spent hours (maybe) constructing intricate fact patterns that will wow you with their mind-numbing complexity. The best of them—the ones who really want to give you the best gifts—have buried all kinds of little pseudo-facts and red herrings in their hypos so that you'll have extra fun sorting the meaningful from the irrelevant. What could be a better gift than that!?

So yeah, Thanksgiving's coming soon, but I'm thinking we all better start getting into the Christmas spirit as soon as we can. You don't want to be left out, and from the looks of things, we're going to need all the good cheer we can muster in the next few weeks...

Posted November 19, 2003 06:04 AM | general politics law school