Making the rounds

The Edinburgh Evening News rightfully ponders the pointlessness of modern celebrity -- apparently someone named Nell McAndrew visited the troops in Kuwait but found the camp accommodations icky and wanted to stay back at her Kuwait City hotel. Says the News: Nell is a perfect example of the celebrity monsters we have created. Whole TV series have been artfully woven around discovering why so many sad people all over Britain make heroes and heroines out of other sad people whose greatest ambition is to live their dysfunctional lives in the glare of publicity ... As the troops pointed out she can't sing, dance or tell jokes so exactly how she was planning to entertain them and boost their morale I can't imagine. But Nell didn't put herself up there in the glossy mags, at the showbiz parties and on the celebrity circuit - we did. I use the word "we" loosely because I have never, except for work-related reasons, bought a copy of Hello-type magazines or cared for one minute what the people in them wore or how they decorated their "lovely homes" (usually with ghastly drapery and cheap, faux, curly-legged, French furniture). Why does anyone else care? Exactly. Why in the wide world does anyone care?

Feeling charitable? William Dennis on NRO says how about giving to old dame alma mater? He must have went to school a long time ago. Here is how he describes college nostalgia: Perhaps right now you are wondering whether you should cut the college another check on top of the already generous donations you have made over the years. After all, you had a terrific time there as an undergraduate. You worked hard and played hard in college, and got the foundation for a professional life that has taken you far. There you met your soul mate for life. You still follow the football team and go to class reunions. And you are flattered by all the invitations from the college president to serve on advisory councils for this and that, and to take the alumni cruise to the Greek islands. Why, you even have fond memories of several old professors, long gone from the scene, who tried to lead you through the intricacies of the Federalist Papers, Shakespeare, Aristotle, and Edward Gibbon.

Pray tell, what school was this and when? Ok, let's break this down against my own experience lo' those 10+ years ago at a good Catholic liberal arts school. (1.) Well, I did enjoy myself, worked and played reasonably hard, and made friendships that endure to this day. (2.) Undergraduate education did not lay the foundation of my professional life as a professor, other than liking certain profs I had and today emulating their style and approach. The curriculum was frankly unsatisfying and I could often be found browsing in the library reading books I should have been learning in class. How odd that I teach American history, yet I never took an undergraduate American history class. (3.) I met my wife in grad school. (4.) We didn't have a football team (a pathetic fact that makes me envious of those who actually follow college sports -- I was always say, why bother?) and I have yet to go to a class reunion. (4.) The college president won't be asking for my input any time soon, and I can't afford any school sponsored trips -- do they even have them? (5.) I did read the Federalist Papers at college, but not Shakespeare, Aristotle, or Gibbon -- can you believe that?

For all this, I have never given money to my alma mater because I am frankly afraid of what they will do with it. At the last Homecoming I attended (what, eight years ago?), the library had a display of gay and lesbian literature for the alums to admire. Maybe this is why I didn't read Shakespeare -- maybe I'll donate a collected volume of his plays. Although, I'd probably find it at the annual book sale soon after.

Maybe Scrooge was right. Here is the classic defense of that idea. And here is another, spiced with an appalling contemporary story, on NRO.

And how the Christmas season will be celebrated by New Hampshire Episcopalians. Who ever would have thought some would flee to Massachusetts for spiritual succor?