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Juvenile Justice System

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Audrey Livingstone

Almost a century ago, the juvenile justice system was founded on a radical idea.  Because children are so different from adults, the law should treat them in a way that complements those differences.  The Progressive Era, which spanned from about 1900 to 1918, was a time of widespread social reform and provided the basis for the idea of a juvenile justice system.  In 1899, states began to notice the problem of juvenile imprisonment and consequently began building youth reform homes — a place where young people could be rehabilitated, not incarcerated, regarding their issues.  The public felt a responsibility to help juvenile offenders before they became immersed in crime they had already begun to take part in.

As the juvenile justice system began to develop, states took on the task of “parenting” the youths until they either changed or became adults (“parens patriae”).  They were not tried in adult courts anymore, and the cases took on a more informal aspect.  Oftentimes, they were not represented by lawyers, and judges took extenuating evidence and circumstance into consideration before sentencing.  The juvenile justice system evolved rapidly as these changes took place.  By the 1960s, juvenile courts automatically had jurisdiction over nearly all cases involving children under the age of 18.  In addition, transfers into adult courts could only be made per the juvenile court’s waiver.  And by 1967, new rights were available to minors: the right to receive notice of charges, the right to obtain legal counsel, the right to “confrontation and cross-examination,” the “privilege against self-incrimination,” the right to receive a “transcript of the proceedings,” and the right to “appellate review.”

Coming into the twenty-first century, there was a sudden rise in juvenile crime.  This occurred specifically between the late 1980s and the late 1990s.  Legislatures took action to make sure this rise in crime would not continue.  In 1974, the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act was modified to allow states to try juveniles as adults for some violent crimes and weapons violations.  This act is what provides the most controversy regarding juvenile and criminal courts today.  The question on everyone’s mind is, “Should children be allowed to be tried in criminal courts?”

Some say no, children who commit violent crimes (murder, rape, etc.) should absolutely not be tried as adults.  For example, about twenty-one years ago, nine-year-old Cameron Kocher was tried as an adult for murder.  He fired a rifle outside of his window and killed his seven-year-old neighbor.  The prosecutor decided to try him as an adult.  A few of his reasons were he lied about the murder when he was questioned about it, and he slept during pretrial motions.  This showed a lack of remorse for what he had done and perhaps ignorance for the gravity of his actions.  This caused a giant uproar, and consequently Kocher was sentenced as a minor.

Another similar case took place in 2009.  Eleven-year-old Jordan Brown was charged as an adult with criminal homicide.  He shot his father’s pregnant fiancée in the head with a shotgun.  The judge originally ruled Brown would be tried in a criminal, adult court, but eventually (almost two years later) his case was transferred into a juvenile court, and he was tried there.  Both of these children were sentenced to life in prison until they reached the age of twenty-one, and then they were put on probation.

Those who disapprove of children being tried in adult courts assert children are immature in three different ways: their development is incomplete, their judgment is not yet mature, and their character is still in the developmental process.   Because of this immaturity, they cannot be treated as adults; they are not fully matured; they are not competent, responsible, and unlikely to change like adults are.  They are still impressionable and can be rehabilitated.  Can they really process information and plan crimes like adults can?  Of course not, they say.  Yet, we have increasingly younger children committing increasingly more violent crimes.

At the other end of the spectrum are those who believe yes, children committing violent crimes should absolutely be tried as adults.  If they are old enough to make an awful decision, like killing or raping someone, they are old enough to deal with the consequences of that decision, regardless of age.  For example, in February of this year, three thirteen-year-old boys assaulted and raped one of their fellow classmates, a thirteen-year-old girl, at a community park.  Because they were under the age of 14, however, they were kept in a juvenile court.  This caused a tremendous amount of controversy.  As one woman stated on the news in response to the case, voicing the opinion of the public, “If they are old enough to gang rape, then they are old enough to be tried as adults.  I have no sympathy for them.”  Another stated, “What is this world coming to when they can simply walk away?  And that is pretty much what will happen.”

Another case with a similar reaction took place several years ago.  A two-year-old English boy was taken by two ten-year-old boys.  He was mutilated and murdered.  The two ten-year-old boys then placed his body on a railroad track in hopes an oncoming train would cover up what they had done to the little child.  Instead, the body was found, and the boys were arrested.  The general reaction was absolute horror.  The fact children could do something so monstrous to a mere toddler disgusted everyone.

The children were tried in an adult court, to the public’s satisfaction, though they denied all charges brought against them — attempted abduction, abduction, and murder.  The prosecuting attorney in the trial successfully rebutted the idea of doli incapax, which assumes children cannot be held responsible for their actions.  Both of the young boys were evaluated by psychologists and found to have undoubtedly known the difference between right and wrong, and that purposefully causing harm to another was wrong.  The court came to the conclusion it was a cold-blooded murder, and the two boys were found guilty, becoming the youngest convicted murderers of the twentieth century.  The boys were kept in custody for eight years at different locations.

This point of view comes down to the fact a complete lack and disregard of morals cannot be fixed or rehabilitated.  This is absolutely true.  Everyone has an inner sense of right and wrong.  Everyone measures someone else’s actions against that sense of right and wrong.  This is why when these murder, assault, and rape cases appear in the media, the general reaction is horror.  Everyone knows what that person or group of people did was wrong.

While it is true children are developmentally immature in their teenage years, they are still fully aware of the rightness or wrongness of their actions.  A teenager who makes a decision to murder or kidnap someone has done just that — made the decision.  All who commit a violent crime have a choice before them.  Age has nothing to do with that.  A child who kills someone is fully aware of that fact.  The argument that child did not understand the gravity of his actions or did not understand what he did is absurd and cannot and should not be made, much less presented in a courtroom.

Everyone must be held accountable for their actions.  Just because someone is under the age of eighteen does not mean he did not understand the gravity and wrongness of the crime.  If a ten-year-old is old enough to murder someone, he is old enough to deal with the consequences of that murder.  He is old enough to deal with those consequences without the protection and cushion of a juvenile court. Excuses cannot and should not be made for youths merely because of their age.  If the severity of violent crimes committed by children was taken into account as much as their age was, they would certainly be tried as adults.

Bibliography

MacArthur, John T. and Catherine T. “MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice.” Established 1977. <http://www.macfound.org/site/c.lkLXJ8MQKrH/b.948173/k.D1D7/Research_Networks__Adolescent_Development_and_Juvenile_Justice.htm>.

Reaves, Jessica. “Should the Law Treat Kids and Adults Differently?” TIME. 17 May 2001. <http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,110232,00.html >.

Schwartz, Robert. “Kids Should Never be Tried as Adults.” CNN. 18 February 2010. <http://articles.cnn.com/2010-02-18/opinion/schwartz.kids.trials_1_justice-system-juvenile-justice-cameron-kocher?_s=PM:OPINION>.

Wilde, Jessica. “Juvenile Criminals Must be Tried as Adults.” The Rebel Yell. 5 March 2009. <http://unlvrebelyell.com/2009/03/05/juvenile-criminals-must-be-tried-as-adults/>.

Gangs: True Societal Bottom-Feeders, or Misunderstood Assets?

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Kaitlyn Thornton Abbott

What are gangs?  Gangs, by definition, are “an organized group of individuals.”  When gangs are talked about, it usually comes with a negative connotation.  For example, gangs are usually associated with inner cities and trouble.  Albeit, it might be true there is certain criminal-esque intent behind the formation of gangs, there are aspects to gangs in neighborhoods that aren’t necessarily bad, depending on one’s perspective.

Being a part of a gang guarantees one a family environment for the rest of one’s life.  Being a part of a gang ensures everyone has each other’s back, regardless of the circumstance.  For example, Carlos T. Ramirez, Jr. speaks out about his life in one of the most well-known gangs in Texas.  He has spent a majority of his life in prison and explains the pros and cons of being a part of a gang.  When speaking about his life in the gang, he explains how they opened up their arms to him when his home life was not welcoming or loving.  As he gives his testimony about his former gang life, he reminisces about how for the first time in his life, he felt like he was a part of something special.  For the first time, he felt included.  For the first time, he was able to call on people and have them always be there for him.

Another benefit of being a part of a gang is it gives you financial stability.  The best part — it’s not taxed!  No matter what one plunders, and comes to have through the glamorous life of gang membership, the government can’t take it!  It’s like being a pirate, except the swashbuckling rogue has been transformed into a baggy-pants thug.  Who wouldn’t love that life?

Speaking of the thug life, it’s another added benefit of being part of a gang.  If one happens to have fathered a child out of wedlock, nobody is going to mess with that kid if they know the father is a member of a notorious gang.  So, even if the father wants to walk out on his family, one can see he still genuinely cares about his child.  Although most would consider a father walking out on his child an example of bad parenting, they should consider the positives it brings.  For example, it builds character. If children are forced to stand up for themselves without having anyone to fight their battles for them, they learn how to handle themselves and to evade situations that could end detrimentally for them.  It also allows the women to stand up for themselves.  Feminism is a huge part of American society; having a significant other walk out on the family allows them to work and find self-realization.

Many people are hesitant to say gangs are a good faction of society.  However, gangs are really only members of the police force without the badges.  They all share a certain uniform, usually a bandana that marks which group they are a part of.  Also, they all carry weapons.  Every police officer carries weapons not only to protect themselves, but also to protect civilians who might need it, such as people in the Witness Protection Program.  In comparison, gang members carry guns with them as well.  Unless fired on, they usually will not use them except in self-defense or as an act of retaliation, which, essentially is what the military does.

Gangs also encourage physical activity and finesse.  When one sees a gang strolling down the block, rarely does one see an obese member.  They encourage one another, strongly, to stay in great physical shape.  What happens if during an afternoon stroll, they are just suddenly attacked?  They must be in shape to defend themselves against any enemy.  Gang members can be seen at one’s local gym, but usually they will stick to working out in their own homes.  Lots of times, gangs will spend quality time together by playing street sports, like football or basketball.  Not only does this help build the bond between members, but it also gives them the competitive edge it takes to live the lifestyle they have chosen.

Gangs are also fantastic for reducing population.  Inner cities quickly become over populated, and there is usually no motivation to move out of slums.  That’s where our lovely friends come into play.  If they were not there to help with population control, then it would just completely overrun the city, and there would be even more children and mothers homeless.  The gangs really are a huge asset to the community; society would be lost without them.

Now, many people would not agree with my assertion gangs are a helpful part of our communities.  They tend to argue gangs are dangerous, that it only leads to drug usage, violence in the home, coarse language, and traditional values are no longer held sacred; instead they are traded in for casual sex and binge drinking.

Gangs may be dangerous; there is no denial of that.  But realistically, there are much more dangerous things in life than being part of a gang.  For example, driving a car!  It’s a huge, metal, deathtrap one willingly enters multiple times a day.  Not only do you put your own life in danger, you also put others in danger, too!  Being on the road is a much more life-threatening situation than being a part of gang is.  If one were to compare the potential threats of simply driving to work and being in a gang, the results would be astounding.  For example, Drivesafety.net gives the statistics of driving related accidents: there were 30,196 traffic related deaths in 2010.  In gang-related deaths … less than three thousand per year.

Gangs also do tend to run in the drug circles.  But going back to my earlier point, they are making money!  They make glorious amounts of non-taxed money, which they could be saving for their college education.  Not only are they using their God-given talents, they are also learning!  Mixing drugs is a simple matter of chemistry.  For them to create the drugs, they are learning the infinitely valuable lesson of which chemicals can mix with what without exploding.  If that isn’t a valuable life lesson, I’m not sure what is.

The violence in the home isn’t created by the gang presence.  The gang presence is a direct result of the violence found within the home.  When the fathers continue to abuse their children, the children try to find an escape.  Once they find themselves welcomed into the gang, they are taught to fight back.  Self-defense is not morally or legally wrong; so the “violence” caused inside the home life is really created from the parental figures; the gangs are simply a response to how the parents treat their children.

Many people will also argue gangs have given up traditional values and traded them in for casual sex and incessant drinking.  Realistically, that behavior goes far beyond the gang atmosphere.  Casual sex is something Hollywood has taken upon itself to glorify, not only in the movies and television shows it produces, but also in the real lives of the actors and actresses it employs.

All in all, gangs are not the blot on society they are portrayed to be.  Yes, they could use some bettering of their situation, but hey, so could we all.

White Christmas

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Nicole Moore Sanborn

This year, I experienced my first white Christmas.  You may be thinking “Uh…where was she about eight years ago when we had all that snow and a white Christmas??”  I was in Georgia in about 70-degree weather visiting my grandparents and preparing for my leg surgery on the 27th in South Carolina.  Most of you know about this surgery, so I will not take time to explain.  If you’re interested in hearing the story, feel free to ask me about it later; I’m very open to talking about it.  Also, if you’re wondering where I was two years ago when it snowed Christmas Eve and the 26th, I do not count that, because it didn’t snow Christmas Day.

This year, it wasn’t about the gifts for me.  My family and I traveled to Washington state (it takes three flights to get there and nearly an entire day of travel) to visit my mom’s sister and mother, who we rarely see.  My mom’s brother and his family came up from Nevada to join the fun.  Older readers, remember the retreat story from a few years ago when Dan Hardesty told the spider cave story, and a guy named Keith was involved?  Yeah, that was my uncle.  True story.  I got to see my cousins (mom’s sister’s kids) that are near me in age for the first time in about two and a half years.  One of the guys is 21 or 22 (I’m not sure), the girl is 19, and the other guy just turned 16.  They’re just about the most awesome cousins I could ever ask for.  Well, the 22 year-old can be mean, but that comes with the territory.  Bond, the 19-year-old (yes, her name is Bond, like James Bond, just to clarify), and I enjoyed the time together, catching up and discussing how college is going.  Bond is a freshman at Baylor University this year.  Britt, the 16-year-old (yes, my cousins have interesting names), is very nice.  He and I had many good talks about life and learning from mistakes.  Through our time together, we discovered he and I are a lot alike in struggles we either have gone through or are currently struggling with.  He attempted to teach me how to play Brawl on the Wii, but I’m still very horrible at playing video games.  Now, on to stories about my visit.

The first day, I interned at my aunt’s office.  She is the CEO of an international Market Research and Innovation firm, called New Edge, the Brewery.  While there, I listened in on part of a conference call with Pepsi.  I was shown recent work the company had done with Coors Molson (yes, the beer company) and Milliken (a textile company now developing wound care products).  I learned many things while at her office, and it confirmed my career aspirations.  I want to go into Business Marketing, focusing on the innovation and research side of things.

I was taught how to play Settlers of Catan, a strategy game some of you might be familiar with.  It is very competitive and quite fun.  I won one of the games, which was surprising since I was not familiar with the game until my visit (since it is a strategy game).  Admittedly, my family helped me, so I did not win entirely using my own strategy.  We also played card games.  Aunt Pam, Bond, and I successfully completed nearly all of the Christmas shopping December 23-24.  The stores were crazy, but the three of us were surprisingly good at making quick stops at a variety of stores.  A couple of days before Christmas, it snowed.  I was thrilled, because this presented the possibility of experiencing my first white Christmas.  Christmas morning, not all of the snow had melted.  I decided to call it my first white Christmas, even if it did not officially snow that day.  However, as the morning progressed, it began snowing.  Bond, Britt, and I made a giant snowman, approximately 10-12 feet tall, and named him “Big Bob.”  He was the biggest snowman I have ever made.  Pictures are on Facebook.  Unfortunately, my family and I flew back to Virginia the 26th, so our visit was cut very short.  My aunt and uncle invited me to return over the summer and intern at my aunt’s office, as well as spend time with my cousins.

One of the best parts of Christmas was seeing all of my family.  My younger cousins, a guy who is 12 and two girls ages nine and eight, were also with us.  I was able to see my grandmother while in Washington, which was very nice.  She is 83 now, and since I do not get the opportunity to see her in person often, I cherish the moments I am able to spend with her.  My grandfather passed away when I was about two, so I never knew him.  Flying home was bittersweet, but more adventures were to come.

We arrived home the 26th at nighttime.  The 27th was spent doing laundry, working, and preparing for our next trip.  The morning of the 28th, my dad and I began another adventure.  We drove down to the area of Charleston, SC to visit my dad’s sister.  My cousin is 24, and she was on a different vacation, so I did not get to see her.  My aunt, uncle, dad, and I went on many adventures.  We arrived around dinnertime on the 28th.  The 29th, my dad, aunt, and I went to the USS Yorktown.  For those unfamiliar, the Yorktown is an aircraft carrier used in World War II and is now open to the public.  No other aircraft carrier in the country is open for the public to tour.  We explored the ship, and I concluded I would not want to live on a ship like that for any period of time.  While the ship is large, the bedrooms are like barracks, the restrooms are public, and the whole time you live on the ship you are confined without portholes.  Inside the ship was much information about the history of the USS Yorktown, as well as information about how the sailors lived.  At the site of the Yorktown, the USS Clamagore, a World War II submarine, and the USS Laffey, a much smaller World War II vessel, were also open for touring.  The submarine was tiny.  My dad and I had to bend down to get through all of the passageways, and living spaces were extremely cramped.  Approximately 30-40 men would live on one submarine for extended periods of time.  This forced good crew relations, as they lived right on top of each other.  The Laffey was slightly more spacious than the Clamagore, however it would still not be fun to live on during a war.

The same day, we traveled to Ft. Sumter, where the Civil War began.  Presently, the fort is basically just walls with nothing but cannons inside, but we saw pictures of what it looked like at the start of the war.  Being on the fort was a neat experience, since it was where the Civil War started, and because we studied the Civil War in detail in history class.

We also visited the Hunley, the first submarine to sink an enemy battleship.  The Hunley was a part of the Civil War.  Unfortunately, all three crews that embarked in the submarine died.  The submarine was tiny, and in order to get into it, the crew had to have a 20-inch waist to fit through the entrance hole.  In order to make the ship move, the crew had to sit on a bench and turn a crank continuously. It was a very early model of the submarine.  The Hunley was submerged in restoration water.

We also attended a local minor league ice hockey game.  The Stingrays, the local team, won 3-0.

Walking the downtown area and seeing the Charleston museum was on our list as well.  The downtown area was beautiful, especially walking the “Rainbow Row.”  The old painted houses were beautiful, and I recommend walking downtown if you’re ever in the greater Charleston area.

We also toured a plantation. Middleton Place was very beautiful.  The gardens are very well kept, and many plants were in bloom even though it was the end of December.  The plantation demonstrated what times were like before the Civil War.  During the war, Middleton Plantation was burned to the ground.  The Plantation almost survived the war, as it was burned in the last few months of fighting.  One of the three buildings was rebuilt by the family and is now a museum featuring furniture similar to that of the Middleton’s, family portraits, and memorabilia.  Middleton Place kept horses, water buffalo, sheep, chickens, goats, and hogs.  It was, unfortunately, a slave-owning plantation.

After visiting South Carolina, my dad and I traveled to North Georgia, near Atlanta, to visit his parents for a day.  The visit was short, as we needed to return home.  My grandpa is currently fighting an illness, and we wanted to visit him.  My grandparents were planning to stay at my aunt and uncle’s house the same time as us but were unable when my grandpa became ill.  He is receiving treatment as this article is written.  His illness is not fatal.  He has an auto-immune disorder.  Since he is a born-again Christian, if treatment is unsuccessful he will be in a better place.  I believe he will recover.  My dad and I began the return home less than 24 hours after we arrived, but the visit was worth the trip.

Over Thanksgiving, my parents and I stayed at Massanutten, a resort outside of Harrisonburg, Virginia, where James Madison University is located.  While staying in Massanutten, we drove a couple of hours to Luray Caverns.  The caverns are worth the visit if you have never been.  Another highlight included watching James Bond movies when we were exhausted.  My family also drove a few minutes to the hiking trails in the Shenandoah National Park.  We went on a couple of hikes and enjoyed the outdoors and scenery.  On Thanksgiving, we drove about an hour and a half to Charlottesville (where University of Virginia is located) and went out to dinner (we made a reservation earlier in the week).  One of my favorite memories of the trip happened on the way to Shenandoah National Park.  As soon as we entered the park (we were still in our vehicle), we saw a wild black bear.  The bear looked like a teenager due to his size.  He was eating and digging for food on the side of the road less than 100 yards from the park entrance!  My family and I stopped and watched him for a few minutes, and I have a video and pictures of him on my phone.  Our family vacation to Massanutten was very enjoyable and relaxing.

As a whole, my holiday experiences this year were amazing.  The time spent with my extended and immediate family was very worthwhile, and I will cherish the memories forever.  My first real White Christmas, fun with cousins, and wild bear sighting were all gifts from God, and I wouldn’t trade the memories for anything.

Christmas III: A Patrick Swayze Christmas (12/8 Time, A-flat Major)

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Christopher Rush

Ten issues.  Where did the time go?  Three Christmas specials, two music series, and a partridge in a pair of trees later, we are still going strong yet willing to go out on top.  There is no tradition like a new tradition, and we were proud and glad to be a new tradition of yours for these three years.  Now we will all get to start some new traditions next year without Redeeming Pandora in our lives.  I’m not sure what those will be right now, but when the time comes, I’m sure we’ll all think of something.

Did we watch Santa Claus Conquers the Martians last year in Humanities? … Maybe.  Was I the only one still in my jim-jams Christmas morning last year? … Yes.  Did I feel bad about that? … No.

2012 has been another interesting year for us.  We got to visit Dubuque again, see the family and some old friends Neil, Dave, Weber, Nate, Jessica, and Jon.  That was comforting and enjoyable.  My niece was born, my son learned how to walk, my daughter is developing into a selfless young girl, and my wife is even closer to a Master’s degree.  Me?  Well … I finally played some wargames I’ve been carrying around for years.  Oh, and I read Othello for the first time, with the help of the Class of 2013, so that’s something.  I also finally read Giant-Size X-Men 1, if that means anything to you.  Summit saw the graduation of its largest senior class to date, all 27 of ’em … and I read every single senior thesis more than once.  That was about half of my year right there, but I was glad to do it.  More importantly, my wife and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary this past summer.  We went to The Melting Pot.  We went to the Outer Banks for our 5th anniversary.  At this rate, we’ll probably go to the living room for our 15th anniversary.  Let’s hope Domino’s will still have those yummy parmesan bread bites.

Last Christmas for us was probably the last of the great Christmases, at least in terms of all the family being together.  We might not have another Christmas like that for a while, but that’s okay … we had it last year.  This year promises to be good in its own way, and that’s what you have to do, really — take it one at a time.  I don’t want to sound selfish; obviously recent events have turned a lot of families’ Christmases upside down, and we know Christmas is often a rough time for many families for many reasons.  We are living in a fallen world, and Satan is regent over this world, even though Christ is risen and reigning.  We do hope you will still find some reason to be merry this Christmas.  The Light of the world is still shining.

One thing I don’t miss about Christmastime in the Midwest is driving in the snow.  Sure, we’ve had a few snow days here, and one or two of them have been legitimate, but snowfall here is nothing compared to Dubuque snowfall.  I’m all in favor of global warming, if it meant living in Dubuque without having to drive in the snow.  If global warming was a real thing that actually existed, of course.  I also don’t miss having to wetvac the basement all April long, which is another story for another time.  Of course, if we were in Dubuque, it might be possible we’d actually get to sing Christmas carols at church, so … we’ll see.

Christmas is starting to mean different things as I get older.  Obviously having children and no longer being part of the young generation are key factors in this metamorphosis.  Sleeping on December 24th is not the challenge it used to be, most likely because my bedtime is later than it was (though not as late as it was in college, for some reason — somehow, 9 o’clock went from “oh, it’s only 9? let’s start a movie” to “it’s already 9?”).  Now I’m part of the team getting the house ready for Christmas morning, moving presents and stockings and whatnot, instead of being the one imagining what the tree and couch will look like in the morning.  Exhaustion settles in much easier than it used to.  Though my lists are not any shorter than they used to be, there’s more difficulty in making them than there used to be.  That probably sounds more materialistic than I mean it to be, but it should indicate a waning sense of acquisitiveness as I get older.  Coupled with the fact our house is out of space, the desire for things just isn’t there like it used to be.

It’s interesting to look back at the old wish lists, see what moods and fancies I was in back in the day.  Not too surprisingly, my fancies go in phases (common among wargamers).  Some years I’m hankering for video games; some years, such as this year, I’m leaning more toward board and wargames.  We are still a few years away from playing a lot of family board games, but we believe in stocking up when the deals are right.  Coming from a family of gamers helps as well.  The majority of the list are the typical fare: music, MST3K box sets, graphic novels, the occasional book, a classic TV series perhaps.  Maybe a gift card or two.  Ideas, really — not things.  Experiences, ideas, opportunities for growth and improvement — these are the denizens of my wish lists.

Again, this is not to sound acquisitive.  The desire for intellectual and spiritual (and emotional) experiences are what I request for Christmas.  If that’s greedy, I suppose I’m greedy, then.  I don’t need any new things, of course, and I am the first to admit that.  I wouldn’t be disappointed if I didn’t get anything new this year.  I have plenty of unread books, unplayed games, unstudied albums, and unwatched series/movies to fill up a few lifetimes.  Toward that end, I have become more active in recent years about giving away things, especially books.  Part of the challenge of this, though, is deciding what to give to deserving others (especially alumni) and what to keep for my children.  Their interest isn’t high currently in books without pictures, but hopefully there’s time.  In the meantime, if you want anything, let me know.  I’ll see what I can do.  If you’d like to get together for some wargaming, we could definitely work on that as well.

Lord willing, my parents will be flying in for Christmas night this year, allowing most of us to gather again for Christmas dinner (though my brother will be missed).  One benefit of this is that we’ll be able to do Christmas morning two days in a row.  I, for one, plan on staying in my jim-jams for both mornings.  I will not feel bad about that.  Some traditions are worth holding on to.

It’s time to say “farewell” to our final Christmas issue of Redeeming Pandora.  Our first instinct might be to be sad to see such an entertaining and edifying part of our lives disappear, but that would be the wrong path to take.  As Theodor Giesel said, “Don’t cry because it’s over.  Smile because it happened.”  Now go keep the old traditions worth keeping.  And start a few new ones, while you’re at it.

Oh, let’s have a Patrick Swayze Christmas, one and all.

And this can be the haziest …

This can be the laziest …

This can be the Swayziest Christmas of them all!

A European Christmas

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Elsa Lang Lively

Growing up in an American household, my views on Christmas and my memories associated with the holiday have stemmed from traditions such as hanging stockings, Christmas Eve services, opening presents, and family feasts.  Christmas is truly the happiest season of all, not just in America, but in many other countries as well.  Although European Christmas traditions can be quite similar to those of American ones, each country has its own traditions that make celebrating Christmas unique.  In order to find out more about how Christmas is celebrated in Europe, let’s examine the traditions of England, Norway, France, and Italy, shall we?

The first stop on our whirlwind European Christmas tour is jolly old England.  British Christmas traditions date back as far as the days of the British Druids, when they would keep holly, ivy, and mistletoe in their homes to bring peace.  The Christmas tree first became popularized in England when Prince Albert had one stand in the Royal Household in 1840.  Today, nearly every city and small town in England has its own Christmas tree standing in the city center to be admired by all its townspeople and visitors.  Since 1947, Norway has presented England with a large Christmas tree each year that stands in Trafalgar Square to commemorate Anglo-Norwegian cooperation in World War II.

The first British Christmas card was mailed in the 1840s, and the practice of wishing holiday tidings to loved ones quickly became a common practice.  Today, over a billion Christmas cards are sent across Great Britain, many of which are sent in order to aid charities.  For children, the best way to send a letter full of Christmas wishes to Father Christmas is by placing them in the back of the fireplace.  The draft then carries them up through the chimney and to the North Pole.

On Christmas Eve, many English enjoy caroling to their neighbors in groups, wishing them a happy Christmas.  Families hang their stockings over the fireplace in order to find goodies in them the next morning.  Children leave mince pies and wine out for Father Christmas, as well as a carrot for his reindeer.

On Christmas morning, presents are unwrapped and the Christmas Day feast is prepared.  A traditional British Christmas feast features a roast turkey, goose, or chicken with stuffing and roasted potatoes.  This is then followed with mince pies and Christmas pudding flaming with brandy.  “Figgy” pudding done right takes weeks to prepare, with occasional stirring by each family member (if you stir the pudding, you get to make a wish).  Some families also prepare a Christmas fruitcake made with marzipan, icing, and sugar frosting.  Many children enjoy breaking open their Christmas crackers during the feast, which are not, in fact, edible crackers at all, but brightly colored tubes that can contain riddles, toys, or other trinkets.

After the family feast, families all across England gather around the radio or television to hear the annual Queen’s Christmas Message.  Some families attend Christmas services at a local church.  The next day is known as Boxing Day, a holiday that first began in order to give deliverymen and other city employees who worked throughout the year a gift of money or food in a Christmas box.  These days, the holiday is more commonly celebrated by tipping milkmen, postmen, and other servicemen during the Christmas season.

Norwegians have their own unique Christmas traditions as well.  A Nordic Christmas is characterized by its celebration of light, as the winter months in Scandinavian countries are cold and dark, with the sun setting around three or four o’clock in the afternoon on a daily basis.  Holiday celebrations begin on December thirteenth with Santa Lucia day.  Santa Lucia, the “Queen of Lights,” was actually a Sicilian saint from the fourth century who helped persecuted Christians by guiding them through tunnels wearing a wreath with candles on her head.  She was eventually martyred for her faith and her aiding of the poor.  Historians are not exactly sure how Santa Lucia day came to be celebrated in Scandinavia, but some speculate the story of Santa Lucia was told to the Nordic peoples when missionaries from southern Europe spread the gospel to Scandinavians in order for the Scandinavians to have an idea of what true faith looked like.  Traditionally, Norwegian girls wear white robe-like dresses with a red sash and have a crown of either candles or electrical lights perched upon their heads as they deliver lussekattor, saffron buns, to those in their families and schools as well as to those in nursing homes and hospitals.

Norwegians also use mistletoe and Christmas trees like the British, a tradition that started with Norse pagans and remained alive even when Christianity spread across Scandinavia.  Christmas trees are kept simple, yet beautiful, decorated with only white lights and candles and a star on top of the tree.  During this time of year, Norwegians put candles on the graves of loved ones as well as a sign of remembrance and honor, where they are lit on Christmas Eve.

Each country has its own version of Santa Claus, and Norway is no exception.  The Norwegian version is called the Julenisse, which literally translates to “Christmas goblin or gnome.”  Although the Julenisse originally was a mischievous Christmas elf or forest gnome who watched over the farm and the animals, he has become more similar to the American Santa Claus over the years.  These days, he now possesses the ability to ride in a sleigh transported by reindeer and ask children if they’ve been good over the course of that year.  Children faithfully set out Christmas porridge on their doorsteps on Christmas Eve for the Julenisse.

On Christmas Eve, Norwegians attend a five o’clock Christmas service at church before starting a traditional Christmas feast with their families.  The feast usually consists of a roast goose or duck, pickled herring salad, and a plethora of desserts, including a julekake, a fruitcake, and a kransekaka, a marzipan tower.  The feast is then followed by the joining of hands to form a circle around the tree, where the entire family sings carols and walks around the tree while keeping formation.  Then, a knock at the door signifies the arrival of presents from the Julenisse, and gifts are opened while coffee and cakes are enjoyed.  After all the singing and unwrapping is finished, family members wish each other “God Jul!” before heading to bed.

Heading on down to France, Christmas begins with the shopping for items for the Christmas feast in the marchés de Noël.  These Christmas markets have beautifully displayed decorations for French homes as well as abundant amounts of fresh produce and seafood from various regions of France.  Because the French culture is largely centered around cuisine, the preparations for the révillion de Noël, the large Christmas feast, are essential to the French.  Depending on the region of France, this meal could include roast goose, turkey, foie gras, or oysters served with a vast array of local cheeses and good wine.  For dessert, the traditional Yule log cake, called la bûche de Noël, is served along with other treats.

Before the révillion de Noël, however, families attend midnight mass at a local church or cathedral.  No matter the size of the church, light shines throughout the building from multiple candles, representing the birth of the Light of the World.  Carols and hymns are sung, and the echoes of bells and organs can be heard throughout the city or village.  Usually young children do not attend the midnight mass but instead go to bed early after placing their shoes by the fireplace to receive candy and gifts from Père Noël the following morning.  Interestingly enough, a law was passed in 1962 stating all letters sent to Père Noël would be replied to with a postcard.  So when children send their Christmas lists to Père Noël from school, they know they will receive a response shortly.

Christmas trees, or sapins de Noël, are traditionally decorated with candy, fruit, nuts, and small toys either several days before Christmas or the night before.  Although Christianity is not as prevalent in France these days, many families still place une crèche, a manger, inside or outside of their homes to commemorate the birth of Jesus.  To many, this is their way of wishing “Joyeux Noël!” to all those passing by.

In France, holiday festivities do not end after Christmas Day or even New Year’s Day, but instead last up until the sixth of January, the day of Epiphany.  This holiday celebrates the visits of the Magi to the baby Jesus, when they presented him with their gifts.  On Epiphany, families celebrate by eating une galette des rois, a wafer king cake.  Inside the cake is une fêve, typically a small porcelain figure or a bean, which ends up in one person’s slice.  The one who finds la fêve in his or her piece of cake is declared king for a day and can choose his or her companion.

Venturing even more south, an Italian Christmas is celebrated starting in early December with La Festa di San Nicola, L’Immacolata Concezione, and La Festa di Santa Lucia.  Unlike the children of other European countries, Italian children are known to write letters of love and gratitude to their parents instead of to a Father Christmas or Santa Claus.  These letters are placed under their fathers’ plates and are read following the Christmas Eve meal.

Although some Italian families, primarily those living in the northern parts of Italy, put evergreen trees in their homes, many families’ primary decoration is a ceppo, a wooden frame shaped as a pyramid that holds a manger scene at the bottom and fruit, candy, and small gifts on the other higher shelves.  This pyramid is called a “Tree of Light” and is decorated on the sides with shiny paper and candles and topped with a star or small doll.

Italian Christmas Eve feasts differ depending on the region, although many families enjoy dishes of eels and other seafood along with a Milanese cake called panettone.  On Christmas Day, the pope gives his blessing to crowds gathering in Saint Peter’s Square.  Children enjoy going around neighborhoods singing traditional Christmas carols and wishing “Buon Natale!” to the elderly.

Interestingly enough, Italian children anxiously await an annual visit from la Befana, a kindly old witch who brings gifts to children on January sixth, the day of Epiphany.  Santa Claus does not seem to be as important in Italy.  According to legend, la Befana was asked for directions by both the Magi and the shepherds when they were on their way to visit the baby Jesus.  When they asked her to accompany them and see the baby for herself, she refused.  Later that night, she saw a great light in the heavens and wished she could have gone with them to visit Jesus.  She collected all the toys that belonged to her child who had died and tried to find Jesus in the stable.  Unfortunately, she was unable to locate the stable and was left wandering.  Each year, she brings toys to good Italian children and coal to the bad ones while roving the streets attempting to find baby Jesus.

These European Christmas traditions have truly stood the test of time, remaining a part of each country’s culture over hundreds of years.  As both Europeans and Americans alike have moved away from Christianity over the years as a whole, Christmas is a time of year that unites many people groups under the celebration of the birth of the true High King.  So wherever you are in the world, remember that Jesus is the reason for the season.  Merry Christmas!

Sources

http://french.about.com/cs/culture/a/christmas.htm

http://italian.about.com/library/weekly/aa120600f.htm

http://mylittlenorway.com/2009/12/julenisse-decorative-christmas-elves/

http://travel.usatoday.com/experts/story/2011-12-10/Rick-Steves-Christmas-in-Europe-lasts-more-than-a-day/51768578/1

http://www.ambafrance-us.org/spip.php?article557

http://www.californiamall.com/holidaytraditions/traditions-england.htm

http://www.santas.net/italianchristmas.htm

The Culinary Ride of Your Life

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Audrey Livingstone

As the most wonderful time of the year comes upon us once again, I can’t help but be reminded of all of the wonderful memories I have of past Christmas holidays.  And most of those memories involve food.  I will be the first to say the most important thing to focus on during this wonderful holiday season is the birth of our Savior, but I would like to remind you Jesus Himself commands His people to feast!  Take, for instances, the feast of Tabernacles, ancient Jewish weddings (which included at least three days of eating, drinking, and dancing), Passover, and the coming Wedding Supper of the Lamb.  So many important events include feasts — why should Christmas be any different?

Now that I have established the importance of feasting, I would like to share some of my very favorite Christmas foods with you all.  Consider yourselves extremely privileged, because some of these recipes have never been seen by eyes not belonging to a Livingstone.  These dishes date back … well … quite a while.  As long as I can remember, my parents would cruelly deny me of food after a very small breakfast on Christmas Day.  In my wise old(er) age, I now understand why they did this.  At the time, however, I merely became cranky and would disappear to my room with my sister and fawn over our new presents until I was called back downstairs when dinner was ready.

Let me establish that large holiday meals are not only a time to enjoy amazing food but also the company of one’s family.  I am perhaps exaggerating the importance of Christmas food in my eyes for the purpose of this article (though not very much).  You may consider me a glutton right now, but I guarantee you after you finish this article and perhaps prepare some of these life-changing dishes, you will be thanking me profusely.  As such, I would like to say “you are welcome” in advance.  But enough dilly dallying — let’s get to the good stuff.

I suggest beginning this feast with a nice glass of sparkling grape juice, since no student reading this is old enough to drink alcohol.  But you can put it in a nice wine glass (that’s what I always do).  Next, have a piece of bread (or two).  I personally love Sister Schubert’s Yeast Rolls, but a nice French loaf is swell as well.  After this, you are adequately prepared for the real food.  Beef brisket braised in red wine, Palace Potatoes, macaroni and cheese (of the best variety), cornbread stuffing, and Granny Kathleen’s chocolate pie follows.

Beef brisket braised in red wine is the only way to eat beef brisket, in my humble opinion.  The Burgundy and Worcestershire sauces and tomato paste come together to form a sultry, rich, unique flavor that complements the tender brisket perfectly.  The smooth, creamy sauce and the textured meat taste absolutely magnificent together.  And, this sauce from the gods also goes perfectly with mashed potatoes if you have any of it left over.

Moving from the succulent brisket, we come to the Lady’s Cheesy Mac. This, my friend, is no ordinary macaroni and cheese.  It is mac and cheese on steroids.  Unlike most macaroni cooked on the stove, this is baked in the oven, which browns the cheese on top. This provides a delightful diversity of textures.  The crunchy top layer and the soft, melted inside are perfectly suited.  The cheddar cheese and the sour cream serve to make this classic dish especially creamy and smooth.

After this culinary delight, we come to Palace Potatoes.  This is quite possibly the best dish of them all.  Don’t be frightened by the ingredients.  Just because you can practically feel your arteries clogging as you savor its richness doesn’t mean you shouldn’t eat it.  I would advise you to view consumption of Palace Potatoes as an experience.  This may sound silly.  It isn’t.  This is serious stuff, Summiteers.  As you eat Palace Potatoes, you are transported to a rich and buttery paradise.  You may, in fact, find it difficult to stop eating them.  I know I do.  (Who says all good things have to come in moderation?  Not me.)  But stop you must in order to save room for cornbread stuffing and Granny Kathleen’s chocolate pie.

Cornbread stuffing may sound like an interesting choice for a Christmas Day feast.  I have never questioned it, because it is part of the Livingstone tradition.  I would ask you to do the same.  Cornbread stuffing has never been my favorite meal.  It’s a bit of an underdog compared to these other dishes.  However, I pay it its due respect because in the Livingstone home, stuffing is somewhat of a long-serving dish.  I can’t remember a holiday without it.  It’s fluffy and soft, which is nice.  And who doesn’t love cornbread?  But really, I view this as more of a speed bump.  It slows you down before the grand finale.  The grand finale, of course, being Granny Kathleen’s chocolate pie.

This, my friends, is one of the most prized Livingstone recipes ever to have existed.  And if my Granny Kathleen were still alive, she would probably hunt me down for publishing it.  However, I feel the need to share this with you.  This chocolate pie is no ordinary chocolate pie.  It is the champion, the MVP of them all, if you will.  This is why the recipe I include below calls for enough ingredients for two pies.  You simply will not be able to stop after one slice, and neither will your family and friends.  So, sit back, take a bite, and let your taste buds transport you to chocolaty bliss.  After all of these dishes, and only after all of them, are you permitted to terminate this feast of all feasts.  You may encounter obstacles; you may doubt your ability to persevere; you may feel as if you cannot make it through one more dish.  But you can, my friend, you can persevere.  And persevere you must.

Brisket of Beef Braised in Red Wine

Yield: 16 servings

Ingredients

  • (1) 4-5 lb. lean beef brisket
  • Seasoned salt
  • 4-5 medium onions, chopped
  • 3 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
  • 1 bottle (750ml) red Burgundy wine
  • 1 cup water
  • 3-4 Tbsp. tomato paste
  • 1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
  • Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Directions

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees F.  Sprinkle the brisket generously with seasoned salt, and place it fat side up in a heavy roasting pan or kettle that can go into the oven.  Roast uncovered for 25 to 35 minutes or until browned.  Sprinkle the onions evenly over the top of the meat.  Stir together the garlic, Burgundy, water, tomato paste, and Worcestershire sauce.  Pour the liquid around the meat and cover the pan.  Lower the oven temperature to 325 degrees F. and continue cooking for 4 hours or longer until very tender.

Lift the meat from the liquid, and allow it to rest for 20 minutes before slicing.  Meanwhile, use a slotted spoon to transfer the onions to a blender or food mill, reserving all the pan juices.  Process to a smooth sauce, and add just enough of the reserved liquid to thin to the desired consistency.

To serve, carve the meat across the grain.  Arrange the slices on a warm platter, and spoon sauce over them to coat evenly.  Serve extra sauce on the side.

This recipe may be cooked several days in advance.  Cool the meat to room temperature, wrap, and refrigerate.  It may be sliced when cold, arranged in serving dish, and covered with sauce.  Reheat at 325 degrees F. for about 45 minutes or until hot.

Palace Potatoes

Yield: 8-10 servings

Ingredients

  • 8-10 large potatoes
  • 4-8 tablespoons of butter cut into pieces (DO NOT SUBSTITUE WITH MARGARINE)
  • Seasoned salt to taste
  • 2 cups of heavy cream

Directions

Boil the potatoes in water for 20 minutes or until almost done.  Drain, cool, then peel and cut them into ⅛th inch slices.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  In a 13x9x2-inch baking dish, layer one-third of the potato slices, one-third of the butter, and a sprinkling of seasoned salt.  Repeat this two times.  Pour the heavy cream over top and bake for one hour or until the potatoes are tender and the top is golden brown.  Let your taste buds transport you to paradise.

The Lady’s Cheesy Mac

Yield: 6 to 8 servings

Total Time: 1 hour, 5 min

Prep: 10 min

Cook: 55 min

Ingredients

  • 4 cups cooked elbow macaroni, drained
  • 2 cups grated cheddar cheese
  • 3 eggs, beaten
  • ½ cup sour cream
  • 4 Tbsp. butter, cut into pieces
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup milk

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Once you have the macaroni cooked and drained, place in a large bowl and while still hot add the cheddar.  In a separate bowl, combine the remaining ingredients and add to the macaroni mixture.  Pour macaroni mixture into a casserole dish and bake for 30 to 45 minutes.  Top with additional cheese if desired.

Cornbread Stuffing

Ingredients

  • 1 stick of butter, melted
  • 1 cup dried onion
  • 1½ cup diced celery
  • 2 teaspoons of salt
  • 1½ teaspoons sage
  • 1 teaspoon of thyme
  • 1½ teaspoons of pepper

Cornbread mix

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  After cornbread mix has been mixed, sauté the butter, dried onion, diced celery, salt, sage, thyme, and pepper.  Add to the cornbread mix.  Bake for one hour and serve warm.

Granny Kathleen’s Homemade Chocolate Pie

Yield: 2 pies

Ingredients

  • 2 deep dish pie crusts, baked and cooled
  • 2 cups of sugar
  • 2 12-oz. cans of evaporated milk
  • 6 Tbsp. of cocoa
  • 6 tablespoons of all-purpose flour
  • 5 eggs
  • A dash of salt
  • 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
  • ½ stick of butter

Directions

Sift cocoa, all-purpose flour, and salt.  Put in a large pot.  Add milk, eggs, butter, and vanilla to the dry ingredients.  Stir until the mixture is thick (this may take a little while).  Pour the chocolate mixture evenly into the two pie crusts.  Refrigerate.  Top with whipped cream and shaved chocolate.  Serve cold.

Homemade Whipped Cream

Yield: 2 pies worth

Ingredients

  • 1 pint of heavy whipping cream
  • 5 tablespoons of powdered sugar

Directions

Place bowl and beaters into the refrigerator or freezer until they are very cold.  Put one pint of heavy whipping cream into the bowl, and add the powdered sugar.  Start the beaters on a low setting, and begin to beat the mixture.  Every few minutes, move the beater up to a higher setting.  Do this until the beaters are on their highest setting and the mixture is completely whipped.  Distribute evenly over the pies.

Christmas in America: Roots and Traditions

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Kaitlyn Thornton Abbott

In today’s society, we are surrounded by holiday cheer.  ABC Family hosts their “25 Days of Christmas” special, Christmas trees and lights go up, and once the peppermint mocha hits Starbucks, you know it’s Christmas time.  The holiday season, in my opinion, is the best time of year.  People seem to generally be in a more giving mood — after they move past Black Friday, that is.  But everyone seems to have a different idea of what exactly Christmas is or what it entails.  Every family has a different variation of traditions.  For example, in my family, we always go to the Christmas Eve service at my church and afterwards celebrate with my mother’s side of the family.  Christmas Day, we have our own little Christmas, and then go to dinner and celebrate with my dad’s side of the family.  But for us, as a nation, our traditions usually go hand-in-hand with our religion.  As previously stated, my family and I go to the Christmas Eve service our church offers.  But what are the origins of the holiday we’ve come to know as Christmas?

All around the world, Christians are celebrating the holiday surrounding Jesus’s birth.  Christianity celebrates Christmas on the foundation Christ was born of the virgin Mary.  Mary was living in Nazareth of Galilee and was engaged to be married to Joseph, a Jewish carpenter.  An angel visited her and explained to her she would conceive a son by the power of the Holy Spirit.  She would carry and give birth to this child, and she would name him Jesus.  At first Mary was afraid and troubled by the angel’s words.  Being a virgin, Mary questioned the angel, “How will this be?”  The angel explained the child would be God’s own Son and, therefore, “nothing is impossible with God.”  Humbled and in awe, Mary believed the angel of the Lord and rejoiced in God her Savior.  While Mary was still engaged to Joseph, she miraculously became pregnant through the Holy Spirit, as foretold to her by the angel.  When Mary told Joseph she was pregnant, he had every right to feel disgraced.  He knew the child was not his own, and Mary’s apparent unfaithfulness carried a grave social stigma.  Joseph not only had the right to divorce Mary; under Jewish law she could be put to death by stoning.  Although Joseph’s initial reaction was to break the engagement, the appropriate thing for a righteous man to do, he treated Mary with extreme kindness.  He did not want to cause her further shame, so he decided to act quietly.  But God sent an angel to Joseph in a dream to verify Mary’s story and reassure him his marriage to her was God’s will.  The angel explained the child within Mary was conceived by the Holy Spirit, His name would be Jesus, and He was the Messiah, God with us.  When Joseph woke from his dream, he willingly obeyed God and took Mary home to be his wife, in spite of the public humiliation he would face.  Perhaps this noble quality is one of the reasons God chose him to be the Messiah’s earthly father.  Joseph too must have wondered in awe as he remembered the words found in Isaiah 7:14, “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel” (NIV).  At that time, Caesar Augustus decreed a census be taken, and every person in the entire Roman world had to go to his own town to register.  Joseph, being of the line of David, was required to go to Bethlehem to register with Mary.  While in Bethlehem, Mary gave birth to Jesus.  Probably due to the census, the inn was too crowded, and Mary gave birth in a crude stable.  She wrapped the baby in cloths and placed him in a manger.

Hanukkah is a Jewish holiday celebrated for eight days and nights.  It starts on the 25th of the Jewish month of Kislev, which coincides with late November-early December on the Gregorian calendar.

In Hebrew, the word “Hanukkah” means “dedication.”  The name reminds us this holiday commemorates the re-dedication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem following the Jewish victory over the Syrian-Greeks in 165 B.C.  In 168 B.C. the Jewish Temple was seized by Syrian-Greek soldiers and dedicated to the worship of the god Zeus.  This upset the Jewish people, but many were afraid to fight back for fear of reprisals.  Then in 167 B.C. the Syrian-Greek emperor Antiochus made the observance of Judaism an offense punishable by death.  He also ordered all Jews to worship Greek gods.

Jewish resistance began in the village of Modi’in, near Jerusalem.  Greek soldiers forcibly gathered the Jewish villages and told them to bow down to an idol and then ate the flesh of a pig — both practices forbidden to Jews.  A Greek officer ordered Mattathias, a High Priest, to obey their demands, but Mattathias refused.  When another villager stepped forward and offered to cooperate on Mattathias’ behalf, the High Priest became outraged.  He drew his sword and killed the villager, then turned on the Greek officer and killed him, too.  His five sons and the other villagers then attacked the remaining soldiers, killing all of them.  Mattathias and his family went into hiding in the mountains, where other Jews wishing to fight against the Greeks joined them.  Eventually they succeeded in retaking their land from the Greeks.  These rebels became known as the Maccabees, or Hasmoneans.

Once the Maccabees had regained control, they returned to the Temple in Jerusalem.  By this time it had been spiritually defiled by being used for the worship of foreign gods and also by practices such as sacrificing swine.  Jewish troops were determined to purify the Temple by burning ritual oil in the Temple’s menorah for eight days.  But to their dismay, they discovered there was only one day’s worth of oil left in the Temple.  They lit the menorah anyway and to their surprise the small amount of oil lasted the full eight days.  This is the miracle of the Hanukkah oil celebrated every year when Jews light a special menorah known as a Hanukkiyah for eight days.  One candle is lit on the first night of Hanukkah, two on the second, and so on, until eight candles are lit.

Kwanzaa, a less celebrated holiday but nonetheless renown, is another major holiday celebrated around Christmas time.  The name “Kwanzaa” is derived from the phrase matunda ya kwanza, which means “first fruits” in Swahili.  Each family celebrates Kwanzaa in its own way, but celebrations often include songs and dances, African drums, storytelling, poetry reading, and a large traditional meal.  On each of the seven nights, the family gathers and a child lights one of the candles on the Kinara (candleholder), then one of the seven principles is discussed.  The principles, called the Nguzo Saba (“seven principles” in Swahili), are values of African culture that contribute to building and reinforcing community among African-Americans created by Dr. Maulana Karenga.  Kwanzaa also has seven basic symbols that represent values and concepts reflective of African culture.  An African feast, called a Karamu, is held on December 31.

The candle-lighting ceremony each evening provides the opportunity to gather and discuss the meaning of Kwanzaa.  The first night, the black candle in the center is lit, and the principle of umoja/unity is discussed.  Day 1: Unity/Umoja: to strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.  Day 2: Self-determination/Kujichagulia: to define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves.  Day 3: Collective Work and Responsibility/Ujima: to build and maintain our community together and make our brothers’ and sisters’ problems our problems and to solve them together.  Day 4: Cooperative Economics/Ujamaa: to build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.  Day 5: Purpose/Nia: to make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.  Day 6: Creativity/Kuumba: to do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.  Day 7: Faith/Imani: to believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.

Many other traditions unique to a certain area in the world exist, but these three are the biggest players.  Other traditions we see in America find their roots throughout other cultures, though.  For example, Ireland, like most countries, has a number of Christmas traditions all its own.  Many of these customs have their root in the time when the Gaelic culture and religion of the country were being suppressed, and it is perhaps because of that they have survived into modern times.  The candle in the window is a prime example of this: the placing of a lighted candle in the window of a house on Christmas Eve is still practiced today.  It has a number of purposes, but primarily it was a symbol of welcome to Mary and Joseph as they travelled looking for shelter.  The candle also indicated a safe place for priests to perform mass; during Penal Times this was not allowed.  A further element of the tradition is the candle should be lit by the youngest member of the household and only be extinguished by a girl bearing the name “Mary.”

Christmas is a glorious holiday celebrated all around the world, although not necessarily under that name.  Christmas itself is not as much a holiday as it is a state of heart and mind.

Where Are They Now?

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Christopher Rush

As part of our year-long wrap-up party, and in honor of our 10th issue, we thought you might be interested in getting a brief update on some of the students who helped make Redeeming Pandora over the years.  This issue we hear from first season’s Emily Grant and second season’s Lia Waugh.

Emily Grant

I am currently a student at Christopher Newport University.  A Chemistry major and a Leadership minor, I spend my time roaming the halls of the science building, procrastinating on writing my lab reports, and avoiding working on papers about the multiple theories of Leadership.  A sophomore, I currently live with former Summit students Julie McIlhaney and Emma McNally.

Lia Waugh

I’m working fulltime at Tidewater Orthopedic Associates Physical Therapy clinic.  I take the patients through their exercises, do different treatments on them (Cold Laser Therapy, Ultrasound), and love every part of it.  My coworkers and boss are great people, and everyone gets along very well and has fun working together.  I can’t think of a more rewarding job than having a patient come in having not been able to walk and being able to watch them progress and walk (and more).  I love that I’m able to directly impact people’s lives, even if it’s just with a smile and making them feel better.  My dream is to end up in the missions field, whether it is medical missions or not.  I just want that incredibly badly.  I do night classes at Thomas Nelson and have not been mugged or shot yet.  It’s not as bad as people think; the work is actually really hard.  But I love my classes; the more I study Biology, the more my love for God deepens.  So that’s where I am!  Eagerly waiting to see where else God leads me.  Even though I’m only a couple of months into college, I’m in awe of seeing how God has used some of my darkest hours to make me into the person He wants me to be.  He truly does make beautiful things out of the dust.

Piracy!

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Jared Emry

Online piracy has been a subject of heated debate throughout the world for the past several years.  Governments around the world have attempted to legislate against online piracy with little success.  The most famous legislation in the United States was the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, but it failed after a widespread protest from many major corporations.  Wikipedia even went so far as to temporarily blackout the English version of their site in protest to the legislation.  The legislation is meant to be greater enforcement of the copyright law.  The government views copyright infringement as a serious crime punishable to twenty years in prison, but millions of people worldwide continue to pirate.  Even with the mass proliferation of copyrighted material, serious critiques of the law as a whole are scarce.  It is time for a critique of the copyright law.

Copyright was first instituted in 1710 in Britain in order to protect authors from having the content in their books stolen without being paid royalties, and it has since come to cover almost any form of expression or media.  Copyright law makes the most sense for reference books, like dictionaries or concordances.  The reason is these reference books often could not be produced if they would later be able to be reproduced freely.  However, copyright only makes sense for reference books, and these reference books are the only significant justification for the law.  Copyright law didn’t enter the United States of America until 1890s.  The idea of copyright is a relatively recent phenomenon.  The right over how one’s work is copied is a recently invented right and is not directly protected under the Constitution.

Sometimes it is assumed copyright is a moral issue and breaking the law is piracy, plagiarism, or theft; however, this is not the case.  When the copyright law is broken, it is not broken for a profit.  A modern definition of piracy is to infringe on copyright law, but the word piracy has a connotation of stealing and reselling something for a profit.  Online piracy does not have the same connotation, because it rarely involves reselling or profit making.  While it may still be considered piracy, it is not the same, and it seems it is only wrong if copyright is moral.  The distributers of the pirated material aren’t pirating for money, just reputation.  When people say online piracy is wrong, they meant to say it is theft.  Online piracy isn’t theft.  It isn’t theft, because it isn’t taking money from the copyright owner’s pockets.  Hypothetically, if I pirate something online, it probably means I would go without it if I couldn’t pirate it.  If someone does not want to spend money on something, they probably won’t.  Whether or not it is available for piracy they wouldn’t be getting their money, because the pirate wouldn’t see it as worth the money.  Online piracy is also used by potential buyers to see whether or not they like what it is they might buy.  Many potential buyers will illegally try the product to test its worth.  In this case, online piracy merely acts like quality check.  If the product is worth the price, it is bought.  Scenarios like this also have a secondary effect on the wallet of the person who created the pirated item, or the originator.  Many pirates are also potential buyers who wouldn’t buy the program if they couldn’t test it out.  This concept can best be seen in the recent shutdown of one of the Internet’s most popular sites, Megaupload.  After Megaupload was shutdown by the government, box office revenues declined.  In the end, piracy generated more income for the originators.  Theft normally doesn’t give profit to the victim, which by itself implies online piracy isn’t theft!  The copyright law is shown here to be harmful to the originators.  Also, online piracy isn’t plagiarism, because it rarely involves claiming that someone else’s work is one’s own.  Online plagiarism is a completely different topic, but many people mix it in when arguing for copyright laws.

Copyright law harms both parties most of the time and is often the essence of the law being divided against itself.  Firstly, it allows for unnaturally high prices of goods which in turn cause fewer consumers.  Fewer consumers mean the person’s ideas do not travel around as far or as fast.  An artificial bubble occurs that allows second-hand dealers in ideas to exist and prosper.  Economically speaking, a forced scarcity is imposed by the copyright law.  F. A. Hayek stated, “I doubt whether there exists a single great work of literature which we would not possess had the author been unable to obtain an exclusive copyright for it.”  Quite simply, the copyright law does not provide any incentive for original work.  There often arises cases in which the original writer too often be forgotten as a footnote, especially in nonfiction.  The forced scarcity has never been shown by any study to benefit society as a whole.

There is a simple illustration between forced scarcity and real scarcity.  Imagine a typical candy store.  It has a certain and definite amount of candy in it, and once the candy is eaten, it cannot be replaced until the next shipment.  In this candy store, if one was to take a piece of candy without paying, it would be theft.  In this candy store there is real scarcity, so it costs the owner of the store to replace it, and it deprives him of what he deserves for the candy.  Now imagine another candy store almost identical to the previous one; however, now all the consumers have the ability to infinitely duplicate each piece of candy after purchase and do what they want with those duplicates.  In this second store, the only scarcity is in the human imagination.  Several customers would buy some candy, copy it, and hand out duplicates in a variety of ways.  Unfortunately, a third party called a government steps in and legislates duplication is illegal without a license from the shop owner.  The owner sees less people copying and  more of those previous copiers buying and assumes his business is doing better in this false scarcity.  However, his candy is reaching a smaller crowd of people, and thus he is actually having less customers than what he could have, and he receives less of a profit from them.  This illustration may have a few shortcomings, but it does provide an adequate view of the economics behind the false scarcity.  The false scarcity not only causes the shopkeeper to lose profit, it causes the entire society to be impoverished.  Copyright law is not about candy, though; it is about ideas.  Copyright law keeps society intellectually impoverished.  Also, wouldn’t the originator who really cares about the ideas he or she is proposing in their work want their ideas proliferated?  Even if they make less virtual money through proliferation, their ideas would reach more people.  It is only virtual money, because it is merely a theoretical sum based off flawed assumptions.

There are also great flaws in the copyright law.  In America, the copyrights prior to 1972 on music won’t expire until 2065, long after the creators and their children are dead.  That means it will take 177 years for the earliest American copyrights to expire.  Not only will the copyrights keep the music out of the public domain, it causes a greater chance much of the music will be forgotten and possibly even lost.  The 1972 copyrights were only given 95-year copyrights.  Copyright law prohibits all audio preservation as illegal.  Preservation only happens because the law is not strictly enforced and people are breaking the law.  Also, the audio preservation laws apply to more than just music, such as speeches and everything else audio-recorded.  This potentially means one might not be able to listen to a J. F. Kennedy or Martin Luther King Jr. speech, because one would need a license to listen.  In essence, the copyright law has the ability to censor almost all forms of expression.  The only thing copyright needs to control speech and thought is stricter enforcement.  The copyright pirates deserve quite a bit of thanks for helping to preserve media (whether or not it is their intention).  The piracy often allows originator’s legacies to be formed by the proliferation of their ideas and preservation of those ideas.  Which is better for the artist?  To have a little extra temporary pocket money that in itself is just virtual numbers based off flawed assumptions?  Or to have a greater chance of impacting more people, having their product last longer and be remembered longer, and possibly create a bigger legacy for themselves?

The infringement of copyright law is probably the hardest so-called “crime” governments face in the realm of enforcement.  Online piracy is by nature nearly impossible to eradicate.  The current idea behind stopping online piracy is by having the Internet service providers, like Cox or Verizon, to block pirate sites with their proxies.  SOPA was meant to legislate this concept and was rejected by major corporations because of how a strictly-enforced copyright law could be used.  Facebook, Wikipedia, Twitter, and many other companies rejected the legislation because it would allow all their sites to be potentially blocked if any of their users posted copyrighted material without a license.  The corporations lobbied Congress to keep it from passing.  However, if new legislation exempts their companies, they will gladly accept, because it would bring them all closer to monopoly.  New legislation is reappearing even though the majority of Americans disapprove of this entire genre of legislation.  The U. N. even has a resolution meant to do the exact same thing as SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, and other legislation.  Even though many governments attempt to pass this legislation, the efficacy of such legislation has never been proven.  The United Kingdom passed legislation that forced ISPs to block the notorious Pirate Bay.  However, the day after the ISPs blocked the site, Pirate Bay had a massive increase of traffic from the United Kingdom.  Approximately two million more UK users accessed the Pirate Bay by bypassing the proxies; the problem still has not been resolved.  Also, whenever a piracy site is taken down by a government, a backlash occurs.  These backlashes are typically denial of service attacks on government websites.  After Megaupload was shutdown, Anonymous launched massive attacks against many government sites and all major media corporations who badmouthed Megaupload.  Also, in response to their own shutdown, Megaupload ironically hired actors from Universal Studios to create a video defending them.  The cost of these backlashes and lawsuits must be large, which shows yet another flaw in the copyright law.  The copyright law is almost exclusively enforced for the people with the money, and the average Joe can’t afford to protect against lawsuits from large corporations.

The copyright law is inherently flawed, and enforcement always has lead to more trouble.  It also is unpopular and causes many economic problems in any developing society.  It continues to impoverish all people and reduce profits.  Regardless, copyright law is a dangerous weapon that opens up many excuses for frivolous lawsuits.

Sources

Hayek, F. A. Individualism and Economic Order. Chicago, 1948, pp. 113-14.

Hayek, F. A. Fatal Conceit, 1988, p. 35.

Peukert, Christian and Jörg Claussen. Piracy and Movie Revenues: Evidence from Megaupload. 22 Oct. 2012.  Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2176246 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2176246

Man’s Need for a Savior as Reflected in Movies

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Nicole Moore Sanborn

Over the past few months my mom and I have indulged in watching a set of superhero movies.  As I watched, I could not help but notice a key thematic element.  The theme of man’s overwhelming need for a savior seemed to be a reoccurring aspect of the movies we watched.  This theme presents itself primarily in princess and superhero movies, where someone or something tends to need saving.  With the exception of very few, each movie in these archetypes clearly presents man’s helplessness and despair without a savior.  The archetype also appears in other movies to be discussed in this article.

Every girl loves a good princess movie, right?  Wrong.  Many girls do not like the fact in nearly every princess movie, the girl requires the aid of a prince to either break a spell or save them from whatever predicament they are in.  Many girls do not like this theme and archetype, because it subordinates the girl to require a man’s assistance.  Either way, the realization of man’s need for a savior has sprinkled itself into these princess movies.  I am basing this article off of the Disney princess movies, not on the original fairy tales.

In Cinderella, Cinderella is trapped living under the dictatorship of her stepmother and two step-sisters.  If the Fairy Godmother had not arranged a feasible way for her to attend the royal ball, Cinderella’s life would have remained static.  Had Cinderella not gone to the ball, left her shoe, and proved to the prince they danced at the ball, she would not have gotten married.  Cinderella needed saving from her condition.  The Fairy Godmother, and later the prince, stepped in and saved her.  The Fairy Godmother saved her night (through creating the means for Cinderella to attend the ball), and the prince fell in love with her, ultimately saving her and removing her from her predicament into a life of royalty and comfort.  While the Bible does not guarantee us a life of comfort, God brings us where He wants us and sends us certain places to do His work.  This is similar to the Fairy Godmother sending Cinderella to the ball where she met the prince.

In Sleeping Beauty, Aurora can only be awakened by the prince’s kiss.  If the prince had not defeated the evil queen in dragon form and eliminated the monstrous cage of brambles engulfing the castle, Aurora would have remained asleep.  The only way she could be awakened and the spell broken was if Prince Charming kissed her.  Aurora needed outside assistance to bring her out of her predicament and change her life.  She needed a savior: Prince Charming.  Christ brings us out of our previous predicament of being slaves to sin and apart from God by giving us new life, making us slaves to righteousness and justifying us with God, as Paul says in Romans.  In doing so, Christ brings us out of our previous predicament and changes our lives forever.

Beauty and the Beast presents a different type of princess movie: Belle provides outside assistance to her father and the Beast as opposed to needing outside assistance for herself.  Belle travels to the castle to save her father but becomes imprisoned by the Beast.  The only way the Beast will release her father is if she breaks the curse and falls in love with him.  In doing this, Belle not only saves her father, but she also breaks the curse the Beast was under and saves him.  Belle also restores beauty and order to the palace.  Belle’s father and the Beast both require outside assistance from Belle to be removed from their predicaments.  God restores beauty in our chaotic and sinful world as Belle helped restore beauty in the castle.  Christ breaks our curse of being slaves to sin and releases us from the prison of sin we were once in before He saved us, similar to how Belle saves the Beast and her father in Beauty and the Beast.

Mulan is another classic Disney princess movie.  Mulan sacrifices herself, paying no heed to the rule against women joining the army.  She sacrifices herself for her feeble father, the only male in the family, because she did not want him killed in battle.  The army discovered Mulan was a woman and banished her (instead of killing her, the traditional Chinese custom).  If this had not occurred, she would not have gained the intelligence necessary to save China.  Through Mulan’s actions, the Chinese army defeated the Huns and her father was saved from going to war.  Similar to Christ saving humanity, Mulan saves China as well as her father.

Superhero movies completely embody the idea and theme of man’s need for a savior.  First, let’s take a look at the word “superhero.”  Merriam-Webster’s New World Dictionary defines “super” as “to a degree greater than normal; higher in rank or position than, superior to; and, greater in quality, amount, or degree than, surpassing.”  The same dictionary defines “hero” as “any man admired for his courage, nobility, or exploits, especially in war; and, as any man admired for his qualities or achievements and regarded as an ideal model.”  Combining these definitions, “superhero” can be defined as “a man greater in quality, amount, or degree than and surpassing other men, who is admired for his courage and nobility.”

In Marvel’s Avengers, only the band of heroes, specifically The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Black Widow, Hawkeye (after he is released from Loki’s spell), Captain America, and Thor, with their combined abilities, can defeat Loki’s army and recover the powerful Tesseract.  Without this band of heroes, Loki would have taken over the world and used the Tesseract for sinister purposes, ultimately conquering earth.  Although this parallel seems extreme, please bear with me.  Just as only this particular band of heroes can save earth from the villain, only Christ has the power to defeat Satan and win us over, providing us a way back to God.

The Incredible Hulk is a slightly different example of man’s need for a savior as reflected in movies.  After the experiment on Bruce Banner goes wrong, the people in charge attempt to capture and kill him.  The authorities fear his condition and want to avoid the slaughtering of innocent civilians.  However, in their efforts, the fatal error of genetically altering one of their men is made, and he, in the end, becomes a greater threat than the Hulk (Bruce Banner).  Only the Hulk has the strength and ability to defeat the monster due to the genetic altering (as a result of Gamma radiation) that took place in both of them.  The men in charge require outside assistance to save humanity from the new monster they created, and Bruce was the only one capable of finishing the job.  Christ is the only one who can bring us back to God through his death on the cross.  He is the only one who can finish the job to restore us.  Without Christ, we would be lost, just as the people would have been lost without Bruce.

In Captain America: The First Avenger, Steve Rogers, a weakling, is not cleared for service in World War II.  By choice, driven by his desire to fight, he is genetically altered into a “supersoldier.”  The serum is lost after Rogers is transformed, foiling the plan to create an army of genetically-altered supersoldiers designed to win the war.  Captain America becomes the only one strong enough to defeat the Red Skull, the all-powerful leader of HYDRA (the bad guys).  Without Rogers’s alteration, multiple soldiers would have been lost.  Rogers led a rescue mission to save a group of soldiers, including Bucky, his best friend.  Without him, the rescue mission would not have been successful, nor would the Red Skull have been defeated, as he was the only one capable of doing the job.  Once again, Christ is the only one capable of restoring us.  Only the son of God can bring us back to God; Christ sacrificed everything for us.

In Thor, Thor is sent to earth to learn humility.  However, Loki remains and betrays their father.  It is only after Thor learns humility that he can return to save his people.  Without Thor sacrificing the Rainbow Bridge, his only way to return to Earth and see the girl he loves again, his people would be lost.  Thor, after being sent to learn humility, sacrifices his desires for the good of his people.  The Biblical parallel is not quite the same in this example.  Christ did not have to learn humility, as He is perfect.  However, He did humble himself to live as a human and die on the cross for our sins.  Christ sacrificed all after humbling himself.  Christ sacrificed His life, while Thor simply sacrificed not seeing the girl he loved again, making the parallel more difficult to draw.  Both sacrificed out of love: Christ’s love for us; Thor’s love for his father and people.  Thor’s people required his assistance to break the Rainbow Bridge and restore order; humanity required (and requires) Christ’s assistance to redeem us.

A couple of other movies that employ man’s need for a savior include The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe as well as The Lord of the Rings trilogy.  Once again, these examples are based on the movie adaptations of the original books.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe parallels easily with man’s need for a savior, as C.S. Lewis was a Christian when he wrote the book (the basis for the movie).  It is a parallel of the Bible.  The White Witch represents Satan and Aslan represents God.  Edmund betrays Aslan, just as we betray God through our sin (the origin of our sin nature being the fall of mankind in Genesis chapter three).  Aslan dies on the stone table to buy Edmund back from the White Witch.  Edmund is saved, and Aslan is resurrected.  This clearly parallels our betrayal of God and Christ redeeming us (or buying us back) from our sin nature through His crucifixion.  Aslan’s death on the Stone Table and his resurrection represent Christ’s death on the cross and His resurrection.  Thus, man’s need for a savior is purposefully embodied in this example.

In The Lord of the Rings trilogy, only Frodo can take the ring and get rid of it once and for all.  The lust for the ring’s power is so strong only Frodo can resist it (while he does succumb to the lust for power, he is not wholly defeated).  The journey to save everyone and burn the ring can only be accomplished by, well, himself.  In the same way, Christ is the only one who can save us.  Without His death and resurrection, we would still be separated from God due to our sin.

In each of the above examples, the characters cannot fix their problem by themselves.  They need an external aid to redeem them of their problem and fix the situation.  Similar to the above examples, we cannot fix our sin.  We cannot redeem ourselves; there is no possible way for us to do enough good deeds to make ourselves right with God.  Only Christ can redeem us and fix our problem.  These movies reflect man’s helplessness as well as the fact man is void without God.  These characters reflect man’s need for someone (an external source) to reach out and save them.  This theme is something I stumbled upon through my enjoyment of these films, and drawing parallels between these movies and my faith was enjoyable.  I hope you, the reader, thought it enjoyable as well.  Man knows he is incomplete, but many choose to turn away from the fact we are helpless without Christ, an external source, aiding us and saving us.  Movies reflect the idea man needs an external aid, and I hope this look aided the way you view movies in the future.

Sources

Merriam Webster’s New World Dictionary

Personal experience