Scrooge

Mitchell Atencio 12-09-2022

A scene from 'The Muppet Christmas Carol,' directed by Brian Henson. Entertainment Pictures / Alamy

The 1992 classic is full of wonders you can’t find anywhere else: Michael Caine starring in a children’s movie, a ghost of Christmas future that haunts me every time I consider splurging on frivolities, and a drum set at a Victorian England Christmas party. But the movie isn’t just a fun, Muppet-y take on Charles Dickens’ classic novella; it’s also a compelling screenplay with heart-warming, humorous songs that offer a radical Christmas message of “cast down the mighty … send the rich away empty.”

Joe Kay 11-25-2013
MT511/Shutterstock

Becoming more like Scrooge might not be so bad. MT511/Shutterstock

Scrooge is convinced that he has earned all that he has. His pile of money? It’s all that matters to him, and he believes that he built it all by himself. There’s no reason to show gratitude to anyone else.

Be thankful? Bah, humbug.

Could that be one of the reasons we’ve turned Thanksgiving into just another shopping day? We don’t recognize the gifts, so we don’t recognize the giver.

Duane Shank 12-22-2011
 Sen. Jim Demint (L) and Ebenezer Scrooge (R)Photos via Wiki Commons,http://bit.

Sen. Jim Demint (L) and Ebenezer Scrooge (R) Photos via Wiki Commons,http://bit.ly/Collage by Cathleen Falsani for Sojourners.

Sen. Jim DeMint recently released a plan to cut the federal deficit with $4.2 trillion in spending cuts. And guess what he wants to cut? 

Seventy percent of the cuts would come from safety net programs that assist low-income people, including eliminating the earned income-tax credit and child tax credit.

Even an analyst for the American Enterprise Institute objected, saying, "It's comprised completely of spending cuts and no tax increases, but then targets the lower-income programs while sparing the big middle-class programs. They could have designed a spending-cut program that was more balanced …”

The news brought to mind a parable from the mid-1800s.

In the opening scene of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge is approached by two earnest gentlemen. "At this festive season of the year, Mr Scrooge,'' said the gentleman, taking up a pen, ``it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.''

Charles Gutenson 10-08-2010
It is very difficult to observe the current political landscape and not conclude that the process has seriously broken down.
Disney's new high-tech, 3-D animated version of Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol, already a box office smash well before Thanksgiving, is a film that comes with high expectations.