“Doctor, are you a party to this militaristic nonsense?”

“I'm not a party to any kind of nonsense, your Grace.”

— The Duke of Forgill and the Doctor, in “Terror of the Zygons”

#DoctorWho #quote #quotation

The point of A Christmas Carol isn't the salvation of Scrooge's soul. That's secondary. Frankly, we don't know what happens to Scrooge's soul. It might be that the chains you forge in life remain with you always.

The point is that Tiny Tim doesn't die.

That, in microcosm, is the difference between the religion practiced by many people and truly living a good life. You'll notice that Dickens doesn't send Jesus to Scrooge to tell him he's being a bad man. There's not much about Christianity in A Christmas Carol, really. The Spirits aren't angels. And they don't show Scrooge that his place should be giving his money to the church and praying for salvation.

A Christmas Carol is a worldly tale of what might happen to Scrooge in this life, not the next. His salvation, if it can be called that, is found not in faith but in action. We're never treated to a homily on the true meaning of Christmas being a baby in a manger. We see Christmases Past, Present, and Future as people observe them. The future for Scrooge may be bleak, but it is still Christmas. In fact, one could make the point that only by showing Scrooge the real-world consequences of his actions can his actions be changed. If he needed to hear about the Hell that awaits the rich man, Marley told him that at the outset.

But why save Scrooge? A wretched old miser if ever there was one. Sure, the story is directed at people who are in similar need of salvation, but the end of the story doesn't make it clear that Scrooge achieves salvation. He just doesn't die hated and alone.

No, the Spirits change Scrooge not for himself but to save Tiny Tim, and by extension the Cratchits as a family. And then, by further extension, all the other poor people who will be saved by Scrooge's change of heart. But Tiny Tim is the start. To save even one life is blessed.

So when people ask why the Spirits put so much effort into changing Scrooge, who doesn't deserve it, remember how the story ends. Tiny Tim doesn't die. Dickens wants you to know that in no uncertain terms. He stresses it. Tiny Tim, who did NOT die.

The lesson you should take from A Christmas Carol is to keep your Tiny Tim alive however possible and worry about theology later.

Has there ever been a reported case of a staff mutiny in a pub leading to the cancellation of a celebrity booking in the UK? Has J.D. Vance just made history?

Swanky restaurant managers may turn folks away if they don’t think they’re posh enough…but staff refusing to turn up for shifts because they won’t serve a celebrity is not something I’m familiar with reading in the British press.

#Vance
#USPol
#Cotswolds

https://www.thedailybeast.com/staff-mutiny-forces-pub-to-turn-away-jd-vance/

Mondragon Corporation is the world's largest worker owned coop. Profits are primarily allocated to the worker-members' capital accounts and reinvested in the coops. The highest paid executives are typically paid, at most, around 3 to 9 times as much as their lowest paid workers, compared to the average of about 300 times in the US. They employee about 70,000 people, mostly in Basque Country and Spain. They own banks, factories (auto parts, construction, etc), retail stores, including a large grocery store chain and a chain of gas stations, a university, and R&D centers.

They are proof that you can find success by taking care of your employees. They are proof that federations and co-operatives work. They are a powerful example of democratic economic organization.

https://www.mondragon-corporation.com

#Socialism #coop #Mondragon

InventWood is about to mass-produce wood that’s stronger than steel

https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/12/inventwood-is-about-to-mass-produce-wood-thats-stronger-than-steel/

#news #tech #technology #building #wood

A Century Ago, Pioneering Astrophysicist Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin Showed Us What Stars Are Made Of

The trailblazing Harvard scientist, who documented the dominance of hydrogen and helium in stars, is still inspiring researchers today

By Elizabeth Landau

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/a-century-ago-pioneering-astrophysicist-cecilia-payne-gaposchkin-showed-us-what-stars-are-made-of-180986193/

Stellar Atmospheres is available at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/73996

#books #astrophysics #womeninStem