Christmas day. Bright and Sunny in Southern California, with barely a hint of a chill in the air. We watched some movies, I leafed through a couple of gift books, R. Crumbs Genesis was one of them. Crumb is an absolutely brilliant artist that I have admired since the hippie days of the 60s. Love the guy's work. I have one of his original comic books around here somewhere. There are no limits to his imagination and no borders on taboos. He did an episode years ago featuring Jesus Christ in a modern setting and some of it I am sure would be totally offensive to Evangelical Christians. But in my view, the work reflected the true spirit of the Revolutionary Hippie Radical Jesus. Screw the Evangelicals.

My Republican Sister in Law sent a big coffee table book featuring the headlines of newspapers from WWII. I am kind of a WWII freak, having been a little child during that era. I am also a Civil War freak. They kid me around here with my interest in Adolph Hitler. Hitler was a fascinating guy, a seriously mentally ill individual who got hold of the levers of power of a country with a dangerous military. The result was the deaths of some 15 million people. Who wouldn't be fascinated by that? Or it could be argued he was never mentally ill, just thoroughly evil. Or both. Mentally ill and evil. What a combination.

Anyway.

We had one of those spiral cut hams from Trader Joes. And some wonderful whole wheat bread from the La Brea Bakery. Great Christmas day sandwiches. And hard cider. And some chocolates. My son spent part of the day watching some new horror flicks. We began watching War of the Roses on cable, but then the cable went out, so we did other things, listened to music and the like. It was a good Christmas day. We sitll have some tamales we got from a legendary East L.A. Mexican restaurant where every Christmas, crowds gather for their great Christmas tamales. You have to stand in line for 20 minutes or more just to get a few tamales to take home. We do that every Christmas.

I haven't been paying a lot of attention to the news. I guess it's good that we got a health bill in the Senate. Now it remains to be seen what the reconciliation will be like. I hope we get a decent bill. Those Republican bastards ought to be ashamed of themselves. I have this theory that some part of the Neanderthal DNA remains in some Homo Sapiens individuals even today. And those who have it are Republican knuckle draggers. Republicans are simply stupid and mean. They ignore facts and their own delusionary reality leads to a mean-spirited result for the rest of us. A perfect example is the health care debate. How could anyone in his right mind oppose measures to assure that people have access to good health care? Really, you have to be stupid to believe that good health care is a bad thing. And you have to be mean to want to deny it to everyone.

But it remains to be seen just how good the final health care bill will be. If it is just a giveaway to the insurance companies, then a pox on the House and the Senate for caving in to the Neanderthals.

I mentioned at the beginning of this piece that it was a beautiful day. So peaceful and quiet outside. It was as if some kind of peace blanket had fallen over all the world. I just stood for a while on our little street on the hill and zoned out on the silence. It was a trancendental moment. Christmas day is always a special day.

Gotta go.