Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Blog

What Christmas in Wales or Anywhere Is Really All About

By Megan Lloyd

“One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.”

“All the Christmases roll down toward the two-tongued sea, like a cold and headlong moon bundling down the sky that was our street; and they stop at the rim of the ice-edged fish-freezing waves, and I plunge my hands in the snow and bring out whatever I can find…”

“Always on Christmas night there was music. An uncle played the fiddle, a cousin sang ‘Cherry Ripe,’ and another uncle sang ‘Drake's Drum.’ It was very warm in the little house. Auntie Hannah, who had got on to the parsnip wine, sang a song about Bleeding Hearts and Death, and then another in which she said her heart was like a Bird's Nest; and then everybody laughed again; and then I went to bed. Looking through my bedroom window, out into the moonlight and the unending smoke-colored snow, I could see the lights in the windows of all the other houses on our hill and hear the music rising from them up the long, steady falling night. I turned the gas down, I got into bed. I said some words to the close and holy darkness, and then I slept.”  So writes Dylan Thomas in his A Child’s Christmas in Wales, originally written for radio. In what became a short story, Thomas captures the reminiscences and remembrances of many Christmases and at times no real Christmases, a piece full of memory and imagination, perhaps what Christmas in Wales or anywhere is really all about.

My family in Wales continues to celebrate much like the characters out of Thomas’ story. Lots of songs, food, coal fires, and uncles make up our Christmases. Oh, and crackers. We have picture after picture of everyone sitting around the Christmas table enjoying their Christmas goose and wearing a paper crown. To celebrate Boxing Day, (December 26, originally celebrated as a day to give gifts to tenants, employees, and the poor) my family again rolls out the food, no crowns this time, and hangs out, glad for another day off. They may sit and sing and certainly recall past holidays, thinking about favorite gifts and favorite relatives no longer here.

As Dylan Thomas’ story begins--was it six days of snow when he was twelve, or twelve days when he six--he captures not only Welsh Christmas tradition but universal Christmas tradition. The memories mingle, fade and often are recreated into something more special that never was. In Wales, in the U.S., or anywhere, we, too, plunge our hands into the snow of Christmas memory and pull out whatever we may find. May your handfuls of memories be joyous and full of wonder. Nadolig Llawen a Blwyddyn Newydd Dda.

Megan S. Lloyd is associate professor at King's College in Wilkes-Barre, PA, and author of "Speak It in Welsh": Wales and the Welsh Language in Shakespeare.

California’s Proposition 93 May Have a Leveling Effect

by Rick Farmer

If approved by voters California’s Proposition 93 may level the playing field between the Assembly and the Senate. In 1990 Californians imposed term limits on members of the state legislature. Those limits prevent incumbents from seeking re-election after serving six years in the Assembly or eight years in the Senate and the limits are lifetime.

While term limits vary greatly among the states, California’s are some of the most restrictive in the country. Most states allow eight years in each chamber, and they only restrict consecutive terms rather than lifetime service. States that have lifetime limits generally restrict service to twelve years.

Proposition 93, set for a vote February 5, 2008, significantly realigns California’s state legislative term limits. It proposes that the limit become twelve years lifetime. On the surface this would seem to reduce the lifetime limit from fourteen years (six in the Assembly and eight in the Senate) to twelve years total. However, the practical effect likely will be much more experience in the Assembly.

The 1990 law, Proposition 140, pushed many Assembly members to run for the Senate. The result was an experienced Senate juxtaposed to a very inexperienced Assembly. This experience gap produced several problems specific to the Assembly. For example in an effort to build some leadership continuity, new Speakers tend to come from the freshman class. The Assembly is at a clear disadvantage when their rookie leadership initially engages negotiations with the more experience Senate. Another experience gap occurs with legislative staff. Assembly members, leaving for the Senate, often take their staff with them. This leaves the Assembly office with a freshman member and inexperienced staff assistance.

The effects can be easily seen in the functioning of committees. A major purpose of committees is to screen legislation before it begins to consume the resources of the general membership. In the California Assembly this function has largely broken down. Since the implementation of six year term limits a much higher percentage of bills have proceeded to the Senate. However, in the more experienced Senate committees continue to screen bills.

By allowing both chambers of the legislature to have members with twelve years of experience, Proposition 93, will change the dynamic of the California Legislature. Many Assembly members will choose to serve their full twelve year careers in that body. In fact, the choice to gain seniority in the Assembly or become a freshman with limited prospects in the Senate will be a strong inducement for many members to retain their current seat. Ultimately, the leadership in both chambers is likely to be more experienced than today and on par with one another.

Proposition 93 will not eliminate all of the effects of term limits, but it may level the playing field between the two chambers. The Assembly may begin to function better and it may be in a much stronger position relative to the Senate.

Rick Farmer is director of committee staff at the Oklahoma House of Representatives and a fellow at the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron, and co-editor of a brand new book Legislating Without Experience (published by Lexington Books).

Ron Paul’s Presidential Campaign: A Libertarian Dimension?

By John F. Welsh

The presidential campaign of Texas congressman Ron Paul has received considerable attention from the national media in recent weeks because of the success of his online fundraising efforts, his victories in many straw polls of Republican organizations around the country, and his performance in the nationally televised debates of Republican candidates. The cable news channels, which had been particularly dismissive of his ideas and candidacy, are now willing to include discussion of Ron Paul, although he is still not, in their parlance, a “top-tier” candidate.

Despite the media’s promotion of its self-assigned authority to legitimate and anoint viable presidential candidates and political tendencies, there is growing prairie fire of dissatisfaction with the “top-tier” candidates in both national parties and an antagonism toward the mainstream approaches to the political issues confronting the United States. Much of the dissatisfaction is clearly rooted in frustration with the indolence and incompetence of the Bush administration, especially its failures with the Iraq war and an increasingly unfocused War on Terror. However, a considerable amount of this antipathy goes beyond George W. Bush and is directed toward the national political class as a whole, including the liberal Democrats, neoconservative Republicans, and the religious right, who have set the policy agenda in this country for at least the past three decades, but who have also collectively demonstrated that they cannot govern the country effectively.

What unites these otherwise disparate political actors in the governing elite is their fundamental belief in the unconstrained use of the power of the state in the achievement of public policy objectives, whether these include the redistribution of wealth, the management of political speech, or the imposition of religious definitions of legitimate marriages. Our national political culture has become collectivist and statist. Our individual problems and challenges are transformed into policy issues and the federal government, especially, is the presumed vehicle for solving them.

Ron Paul is an attractive presidential candidate to many Americans because the libertarian dimension of his platform is a welcome alternative to the absolute commitment to collectivism and statism by the political class in the United States. Ron Paul’s campaign and his performance in the Republican presidential debates have interjected some life into an otherwise dismal political ritual because many of his ideas pose serious questions about the appropriate role of the state in society. Paul has also challenged the notion that the federal government is able to address the multifaceted crisis confronting the United States. A large component of Ron Paul’s appeal is the libertarian trajectory of many of his ideas.

Consequently, many libertarians are delighted with the attention and support Ron Paul has received in recent weeks, much of which is evident in the success of his fundraising. Other libertarians are skeptical of his candidacy, or hostile to it, because of specific policy positions he has taken, such as his pro-life stance on abortion and his “border security first” position on immigration.

While most libertarians particularly like his opposition to the Iraq War, many question whether Paul’s positions adequately reflect a libertarian perspective. In short, the concern is that the totality of Paul’s ideas and proposals do not sufficiently differentiate his libertarianism from the nativist or paleo-conservative tendencies within the Republican Party. Pat Buchanan’s support for Paul’s candidacy only lends credence to the concern that Paul is better described as a paleo-conservative than a libertarian. Much of the discussion about Paul’s candidacy that has occurred at LeftLibertarian.org reflects this general discomfort among some libertarians with Paul’s candidacy. The prevailing viewpoint at LewRockwell.com is that Paul’s candidacy provides a profound opportunity for both America and libertarianism.

Beyond the concerns with some of Paul’s policy perspectives, there are also some significant structural or organizational sorts of questions that Paul’s candidacy poses about the relationship between libertarianism and the political system in the United States. While the pundits on the cable news channels are concerned with Paul’s electability and the extent to which the Republican Party can accommodate libertarianism and still appeal to its conservative base, libertarians should be concerned with the extent to which their philosophy can meld with the Republican Party without compromising the fundamental principles of libertarianism and, thereby, relinquishing its identity as an alternative political philosophy and movement? Is libertarianism destined to become nothing more than one philosophic tendency safely tucked away within the Republican Party? If so, what happens to its potential as an oppositional philosophy and a movement devoted to the radical transformation of the social structure and culture of the United States?

A more radical libertarian and individualist perspective suggests that voting and participation in the democratic political process is much more of a surrender of sovereignty than an expression of it. If so, the more significant questions pertaining to Ron Paul’s campaign for the presidency of the United States are not the appeal of his policy positions nor his electability in 2008. Instead, the more significant issues pertain to the long-term consequences for the struggle for individual liberty. Is the struggle for individual liberty promoted or inhibited by efforts to elect a president who believes in some libertarian ideas? The focus on presidential politics within the Republican Party tends to detract from and undermine the interest in developing libertarianism as an oppositional social movement so that it can effectively challenge collectivism and statism in politics, culture, and everyday life in the United States.

 
John F. Welsh is the author of After Multiculturalism: The Politics of Race and the Dialectics of Liberty.