Skin in the Game

We’ve been having a lot of fun – at least I think it’s been fun – about Fox anchor Megyn Kelly’s assertion a while ago that Santa Claus was white – kind of like Jesus. I hope the comedians and satirists out there send her thank-you notes for this great holiday gift. Saves paying writers for it.

Let’s start with the hard one first (or is it the easier one?). Scholars have debated this for a long time, but to my mind, there’s a much better-than-even chance that Jesus was Semitic (BTW, a designation that could apply to other Middle Eastern ethnicities besides Jews). Which means he likely had dark, curly hair and olive skin. Fine. Many classical artists, on the other hand, have depicted him as white. Why? I don’t think they were making political statements – more likely, that’s what they were surrounded by and were used to. It seems doubtful, given the difficulties of travel in his day, that Jesus would have been either white or black. But he didn’t do selfies, and the Shroud of Turin isn’t going to shed any light on this one, either.

Seems artists have had similar problems with the Virgin Mary. Images of her as a white woman seem to predominate in our culture, but unlike Jesus, she’s apparently been “coming back” over the centuries on a semi-regular basis, and doesn’t always look the same. Hispanics in this hemisphere have depicted her as one of them – based, I suppose, on one of her regional appearances.

Santa? Well, he would seem to be a Northern European invention – snow, reindeer, etc., so the depiction of him as white does not seem to cause too much pain, at least for me. As a young man, he may have even been blond before his beard turned white. But hang on a minute: If Santa Claus is actually based on St. Nicholas, who was a real figure, there might be a problem. St. Nicholas was Greek or Turkish. There’s a good chance, then, that he had olive skin and curly hair as well, right? (And while we’re dealing with popular symbols, is Santa, as commonly depicted, sending the wrong message to kids about obesity? Just wondering…)

Even the reindeer have their secrets. From what I heard yesterday, male reindeer shed their antlers in the winter, while females, who also grow them, hang onto theirs until after they give birth in the spring – meaning all of Santa’s reindeer, according to the depictions of the season, have to be girls. So what does that make Rudolph? A “transgen-deer”?

I think the Muslims may have a point. They forbid depictions of Allah. No white guy with a beard sitting on a cloud hurling lightning bolts at them. This has allowed those of that faith to move on to other issues. Shouldn’t we?

When Will We Ever Learn?

What’s wrong with me? What chip did I not come with?

Yesterday, London witnessed a horrible crime. Two crazies, armed with a machete and a knife, murdered a 25-year-old British soldier outside the Woolwich barracks of an artillery unit.  Seeing passersby with smart phone cameras, one of the suspects mouthed threats, held up the bloody machete and shouted something about Allah before armed police shot and wounded the two.

A grisly and shocking incident by anyone’s standards, to be sure. But some in the UK are calling it the worst incident of terrorism in the city since the bombings of 2005. The graphic footage is all over TV and the Internet; Downing Street went into crisis mode, with Prime Minister David Cameron cutting short his trip to France to meet with a security committee. Reporters are asking folks if they feel safe walking the streets. Has the new era of “lone wolf attacks” begun? the columns ask.

I don’t mean to minimize this whole thing, but these guys didn’t crash a plane into a building, release a lethal chemical agent, or even blow up a bomb full of ball bearings. They used a machete -- can’t get much lower-tech than that. And one person died – not 10, not hundreds, not thousands -- one.

Is there a chance that this has been overblown in some way? What exactly is wrong with this picture?

For one thing, the crazies got exactly what they wanted: PUBLICITY.  Some media – even respected outlets -- have been showing this graphic footage repeatedly. There was little regard for the victim of this crime, whose family could as easily have seen the whole thing on TV or the Internet before being formally notified of the death of their loved one. There used to be conventions about self-censorship. Not anymore. Some have called what was put on-screen to be just short of a live execution. I bet that day isn’t very far off.

Overnight, there were attacks on mosques. Today there are reports that the perpetrators were “known to security services,” so there’s sure to be am investigation into who dropped the ball. Two additional people have been arrested for alleged conspiracy.

I can’t help thinking there’s a rodeo we should have been to already, and a movie we should have seen before. Is there something that can be done differently the next time? We’d all better figure out what that is, and soon.