Author Archives: Mark M. Meinero

Economy

WE NEED A RAISE

The median monthly rent in the United States, as of 2023, is $1,348, according to the Census Bureau (assuming Musk and his rodents haven’t been screwing around with the data).

If you had a minimum wage job and devoted your entire paycheck – 100% we’re talking, sans vacation, and assuming no taxes are taken out – you’d be short $108 every month. 

Also: heat, electricity, food, transportation and clothing would have to appear magically, since you’d have no money left for anything besides your landlord.

The national minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. It has not risen in 15-1/2 years. Remember all that inflation everyone complained about the past couple of years? It ain’t because people getting the minimum wage are getting rich – makes you wonder who actually is causing prices to rise.

In fact, they keep falling back, making their lives more difficult. In the process, because people getting the minimum wage aren’t getting raises, it allows employers to limit the raises they give workers making a little bit more. “You should be grateful you’re getting $10 an hour because I could be paying you $7.25” is the attitude we’re looking at here.

Somehow, most politicians forgot that the people doing the least desirable jobs in our country might be well-served getting a little more money for doing them.

Now, to be fair, a majority of states and territories have minimum wage rates above the national mandate – the highest being Washington, D.C.’s $17.50. But a lot of states have minimum wage rates at the national average, below the national average or even no minimum wage at all.

It fails to take into consideration the fact that people have lives outside their jobs. That they’re supporting themselves and want to build the kind of financial foundation that allows them to realize their dreams.

Businesses thinks that’s not their problem. Being successful is. But if a business can’t make it without paying the people powering it a living wage, maybe that business needs to rethink what it’s doing and how.

A living wage in 2025 America being something in the vicinity of $20 an hour.

Oh, my goodness, that’s inflationary. That’s what the conservatives – the so-called “job creators” – will say. But, again, we had inflation without anyone – especially getting in the minimum wage category – a raise. 

Not only should the minimum wage allow people to actually make a living earning it, but it should also be indexed according to inflation. In other words, a rise should come just about every year – not every 15-1/2 and counting.

This is not a radical concept. Twelve states and Washington, D.C., all have annual minimum wage adjustments. Three of those states – Alaska, Missouri and Montana – voted for Trump three months ago. We do it for Social Security – and employers seem to able to pass on price increases whether or not they raise workers’ wages.

Now a lot of you are thinking “With all the crap going on since TrumpMusk took over, it seems like raising the minimum wage is a low priority.”

Stop thinking like that.

We should have learned by now that you can’t beat something with nothing. Since the Reagan years, Democrats have had to come in and clean up messes left by Republican presidents.

Let’s stop doing that. Let’s advance an economic agenda that benefits the people who somehow vote against their interest and see Trump as a hero. Let’s offer a better path, actual help for the problems they need solved.

Americans – especially young people and those working the thankless jobs that pay the least – need to be able to afford to live. A program to raise the minimum wage and provide a universal basic income, as I suggested two weeks ago, might go a long way toward remedying the economic anxiety millions face.

It would have the added benefit of making the heads of Trump and the Republicans who enable him spin.

If you get a chance, call or write your representative, your senator, the White House and tell them Americans need a raise.

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COME ONE, COME ALL

Trump promised his minions mass deportations. 

So why is anyone surprised that the topic of conversation in the United States this week is mass deportation?

The stories of ICE raids in schools and workplaces are heartbreaking and cruel. But just as important, what’s going on is totally in stupid territory and not in any way in the best interest of the United States.

There’s a feeling of screaming into the void. You can tell people their rights and protest all you want. But a plurality of Americans gave Trump a victory and he believes he has a mandate to do this crap.

So here’s what I think is the best way to respond to this BS:

To the people who want to come here from Guatemala and El Salvador, from Haiti and Cuba, from China and Myanmar, from Rwanda and Congo, from Syria and Somalia, there should be one word – albeit in a different language for each.

WELCOME!

The only people we should stop from coming into this country are the ones who want to avoid going through one of the legal doors – I’d be suspicious of their motive in coming here. But for everybody who comes to a border crossing – people fleeing gang violence, political oppression and/or crippling poverty – I think we should tell them to come on in.

I think that’s the right response to Trump.

That might seem crazy. The sentiment among his supporters is these are people leeching off American prosperity. 

They’ve been stoked into this sentiment by decades of xenophobia. There are strains throughout American history and they’ve been applied to all kinds of newcomers. They never seem to go completely away.

The latest strain cropped up around the turn of this century. It was stoked by people like Lou Dobbs, who spent every night on his CNN broadcast proclaiming that America’s borders were broken and that unwanted people were taking American jobs.

And, of course, the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, exacerbated fears that people were coming into this country to destroy it. Forget that the terrorists came into this country legally. Forget that their gang leader was a citizen of a supposed ally, Saudi Arabia. 

As far as the stokers were concerned, it was the woman trekking hundreds of miles in brutal conditions trying to get in via a boxcar in 110-degree weather or across desert land in the Southwest who was the “real” threat.

It was – and is – bullshit. Because we found ways to exploit them. We used their desperation to put them in jobs citizens didn’t want to do, pay them what we thought were miserable wages and hold the threat of deportation over their heads if they complained. And we did little to improve conditions in the homelands of these folks, forcing them to flee or die.

It was a situation that needed resolution – the “illegal” border crossings were a contrivance, because people felt the need to get here somehow. And there were people in both parties who understood that – who came up with ideas to help resolve the manufactured crisis.

But the gurus of right-wing power madness had other ideas. Immigration was a gift that kept on giving – fear-mongering as a recruitment tool. As a political strategy.

Trump and the Fox News klan latched onto this nonsense and exploited it brilliantly.

The people who believe in humanity – that would be us – always play this game on their turf. We seem to think that there’s a problem because they tell us there’s a problem. So we try to find a way to placate the radicals when all this is their way of gaining and maintaining power.

Here’s what we want:

We want everybody who wants to come here to come here. We want people who are willing to take the jobs Americans don’t want to do – fruit picking, meat packing, lawn mowing, burger frying – to take the jobs Americans don’t to do. If people are desperate to escape oppression and poverty – and are willing to do anything to make their lives better – we should be their champions.

It makes no sense to create this bizarre system that forces people to use desperate measures to get here. What Trump is doing now enables the coyotes – the people who extort the tired and poor, and make them indentured servants. He’s not hurting MS-13, he’s making it more powerful.

And instead of this nonsense of blackmailing Latin American countries into taking people rounded up by Gestapo wannabes on the streets of our cities, we should work with those countries to improve conditions and allow people to live their best lives in their own homeland.

But those who want to come help us – to make America truly great? Let ’em in. Let them help us build a better country. 

A strong country,  a country that calls itself the most powerful in the world, that calls itself the world’s beacon, isn’t afraid of Honduran 4-year-olds. It embraces them, it educates them and gives them comfort and safety. And then when they succeed, it’s our success as well.

I’m here because a century ago Benito Mussolini was a prick in Italy. My wife is here because 75 years ago Mao Zedong was a prick in China. There are millions of us who can tell that story, from every land on this planet. We’ve worked together to create a nation that – at its best – captures the world’s imagination. 

Because we’re not all the same. And a few more in our situation, wherever they’re from, can help.

That’s what we need to push for. Double down, not double over.

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FREE MONEY

Last summer, in my happy ignorance of thinking there was no way Trump could return to office, I was stuck at a Met game sitting next to a couple of his adherents.

It was a Met game, so you would hope they’d be focused on seeing the Amazins win.

But, nah, why would they focus on that? More than sufficiently lubricated by strong beverage, they began spewing the mantra of the indignant:

There are people getting free stuff!

They spent the whole game complaining about various groups who were getting things they perceived they weren’t. Forget that they were sitting in one of the more expensive sections of Citi Field – and could apparently afford spending a ton on booze. They screeched “These people” – and there was strong language that the people to whom they referred were not of pale complexion – are getting giveaways of money and cellphones and whatever else from Joe Biden and the rest of the Democratic elite.

Alas, they prevailed in November and we are now three days into this go-round. And instead of lamenting what happened, I’m focused on what we should do.

And that is give free stuff to everybody.

Actually, it’s not stuff. It’s money. Cash. 

It seems like a good time to figure out how to initiate some form of universal basic income (UBI) in the United States.

There are several ways to do UBI. But basically, the idea is to give everybody money on a regular basis. The standard idea would be $1,000 a month. It would go to every person in a household, which means if you and your spouse have two kids, that would be an extra $48,000 a year in family income.

And it would go to you no matter your status. Employed or unemployed. Husband or wife. Parent or child.  Billionaire or living hand-to-mouth. 

What would that extra money provide? 

Obviously, if you’re unemployed, it would provide you with some income. (Although it’s likely unemployment benefits might be better – in New York, weekly unemployment pay goes up to $500.)

If you’re working two jobs to make ends meet, maybe you can quit the one you like least. Or you can buy time to get a better job. UBI begins to compensate women for staying at home with their kids. It is a way to help families build the kind of generational wealth so many can’t afford. 

Andrew Yang, when he ran for the Democratic nomination in 2020 and before he lost his common sense, made UBI a cornerstone of his campaign. His argument was that the tech revolution is chewing up jobs faster than it’s creating them – and that giving everyone money would soften the blow for unemployed families and the rest of the community.

There have been several small efforts at UBI around the world. The results are generally positive – people receiving a steady supplement are significantly happier than those who don’t.

It is, of course, a form of socialism. Although a kind of socialism that some doctrinal conservatives seem OK with.

In fact, there is one place in the United States where a form of UBI has been in effect for more than 40 years. It is not a hotbed of liberal thought like California or Massachusetts.

It’s Alaska, one of the most politically conservative states in the union. Every resident of the state get a check from the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend – paid for by the revenue generated from the production of oil and gas in the state. 

Last year, each Alaskan received $1,702. You and your spouse have two kids – that’s $6,808 just handed to you.

The thing is that Alaska addresses the issue that opponents would flag instantaneously: How do we pay for this? In this case, oil companies are paying to deplete the state’s natural resources and the money is going to people.

It’s likely a UBI program would require an increase in government revenue of about 75%. And right away, critics would scream about imposing an at least 50% tax increase on the American people. Nobody wants that.

So the task facing anyone who thinks UBI might be an idea whose time has come is daunting: paying for it. Is it an effort to get the wealthy to pay a larger share of the burden after they backed Trump in order to get even more tax breaks? Or are there creative ways to generate the revenue: a national lottery, leasing fees from government land?

The idea is to have an idea – to have more than one. Finding ways to improve our lives needs to be the focus, because our warnings about what a horror Trump is went unheeded by a plurality of our countrymen.

So let’s see if CBI is something that we can push and advance – something you can be certain is not in the interest of selfish bastards like Trump and his tech bro friends. 

Because everyone likes getting stuff – if only to pay for another scotch-and-soda in the 6th inning. MAGA types might be less indignant if they’re getting it too.

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MAKE AMERICA GREATER

There are just four days left in the Biden administration and it is my intention to enjoy each one as a gift.

A decent, hard-working man – perhaps a bit too old for the job but still good at it anyway – graced us from noon ET on January 20, 2021 to this coming Monday at noon. Like every other presidency, Joe Biden’s wasn’t perfect. But it came as close as any in my lifetime.

Joe Biden guided us gently out of the gloom of the COVID-19 debacle inherited from the guy who’s replacing him. They might be a pain in the butt, but all those highway construction projects you see are making our roads – along with the rest of our infrastructure – more suited to the century we’re now a quarter of the way into.

He stood for Ukraine when Vladimir Putin got frustrated by waiting for his imperial dreams to come true. He combatted climate change and showed respect for people who have been traditionally belittled in American society.

The American economy is the strongest in the world. He managed to blast America’s way out of the pandemic-induced recession and then brought the growth lower with a brief spike in inflation.

That spike, however, did in both him and Kamala Harris. And so we get Trump again for four years – assuming the blowhard makes it to age 82.

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Both Joe Biden and Barack Obama spent way too much of their presidencies cleaning up the messes left by their predecessors.

Biden, of course, had the aftermath of the pandemic. Obama faced both the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and an American military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I suspect just about everyone reading this and liking it agrees there will be an equal or worse clusterfuck to deal with four years from Monday.

And yet, that’s the mistake we make and the other side doesn’t.

We concentrate on fighting them. They fight us – don’t get me wrong – but they also develop new, crueler, stupider ideas to foist on both the left and the cucumbers who voted for them in November. 

There will be a lot of angst to go around. But part of their gameplan is to frustrate us – to make us concentrate on their latest perverse idea or vendetta.

Right now, you’re seeing it with the wildfires in Los Angeles. How California is a failed liberal experiment and the disaster is due to a combination of its godlessness, diversity and economic initiatives. Just check out some of the comments from Wyoming Sen. John Horsesasso.

It’s meant to drain our energy. And it has to, at least to some extent. You can’t claim to be a decent human being and then deny aid to Los Angeles, or just uproot millions of people living and working here peacefully because they didn’t get the documents you demand. Or tell women they risk prison or worse if they try in any way to end an unwanted or dangerous pregnancy.

But we need to be better this time. And the way to do that is to think about what we want to do to make America greater.

See, I think Peruvian restaurants and Hmong gymnasts and Somalian-born soldiers make this country great. Not McDonald’s or Walmart or Tesla – or not by themselves, anyway. 

And it certainly is not a hateful convicted felon who is absolutely clueless about what it takes to lead an amazing land.

So we need to advance our agenda. To come up with ideas we think will improve our country and, maybe with it, the world. 

They don’t have to be popular now. Some absolutely won’t be. But we need to advance the case so that we can sell them from conviction and evidence. And begin the process of educating and converting some of the just shy of 50% of American voters who actually chose Trump over a really smart, energetic woman.

Over the next five weeks, I’m going to put forward some ideas I’ve thought about as ways we can show how we’re looking toward 2100, not 1900.

The ideas:

— Universal basic income: This is what Andrew Yang promoted when he ran for president in 2000, and then got weird. 

Both liberals and conservatives have reasons to like this idea. But Trump and his supporters will see it as free money (that they don’t think they’re getting) and squawk.

— Police reform. I bristle every time I see a car with one of those black versions of the American flag and the blue stripe in the middle. As if policing in this country should go unquestioned and unfettered. 

But when you see three or four cops together, do you feel safer? Or nervous? And do the answers depend on what you look like? Frankly, few things are in more need of improvement in this country than how we police ourselves.

— Immigration reform. Trump and his minions don’t want to reform immigration. They want to abolish it – unless you can make a considerable donation to the GOP after you get here. The question of how we treat people coming here, for more than four centuries, is one of our greatest dilemmas. 

We should aspire to be better than that – this doesn’t seem like that intractable a problem if we come up with creative and humane solutions.

— Getting around. It’s believed one of Trump’s first executive orders will be to maximize oil production and end credits for electric vehicles – the short-sighted, idiotic “drill, baby, drill” mantra.

Let’s get past both those forms of transportation – there have been few innovations in creating new ways to go places compared with communication technology. Let’s encourage imagination.

— Kindness. Mean will be in power starting Monday. Mean will be the default approach of the White House, Congress and Supreme Court. Mean will drive the stories you see on the news and the attitude of the plurality. If you don’t believe that, explain why a house near me still flew its “Fuck Biden” and “Fuck Kamala Harris” flags as late as New Year’s Eve. 

We have to create new, innovative ways to be kind – to look out for people who are pariahs to the MAGAs. Kindness is our not-so-secret weapon for making America greater – a task that will be easier once we get past Trump and his ilk.

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DECONGESTIVE

Big changes usually happen over time – years or decades.

Which is why New York’s imposition of congestion pricing interests me so much. That and the fact that I live in the suburbs north of the city, where the pitchforks glisten and children listen to hear adults whining in the snow.

Congestion pricing – if you’re not aware of it, you probably don’t care, but I’ll describe it anyway – is a toll on vehicles entering the area of Manhattan from Battery Park to 60th Street. That includes such places as Times Square, Chinatown, Greenwich Village, Wall Street and the World Trade Center. Cars pay $9 in peak periods and $2.25 off peak.

The purpose is twofold. New York’s mass transit system desperately needs upgrading and repair. Legislators, mainly from rural and suburban areas, never fund the system adequately. So this will raise money for the work that needs to be done.

The other purpose is to relieve the unbearable congestion on Manhattan streets. Motorized vehicles were an afterthought for the city fathers of the Big Apple. So we have gridlock on many streets and the accompanying pedlock for people who have to walk around the areas. 

It’s cool that NYC is trying something so different to the American experience. I can’t think of too many changes so quickly imposed – except for the pandemic when everything was shut down and most everyone was forced to stay at home.

It’ll take a few months of analyzing the data to see if congestion pricing is successful in reducing traffic, whether that helps the air quality and if the tolls are raising the money as expected.

But congestion pricing is already considered an abject failure and an insult by the people who live here in the suburbs.

The primary reason is that they want things to stay the same. It’s great for them. They drive down to Manhattan, look for street parking to avoid paying for those $50 garages, and go door-to-door with impunity.

Pedestrians are not their problem. Foul air is not their problem. Rundown subways and clogged bus lanes are not their problem.

Suburban commuters are goaded by the lame politicians they elect. As with other things in this era, they stoke anger about things that are unfamiliar or seem hostile to the status quo.

The idea that New York might impose congestion pricing has been around for at least a decade. But the only response legislators and executives in the suburbs conjured was lawsuits. That was the plan – we’ll sue the city and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and just the threat will force them to back down.

It didn’t work. Now what they’re hoping is that Trump, after he takes office on the 20th, will work some kind of magic to get rid of the plan.

It’s lazy, stupid  – and typical for the fatasses who worm their way into office around here.

What should they have done?

I’m not denying their right to employ pet lawyers at taxpayer expense to adjudicate a grievance. But maybe, just maybe, while they were doing that, they could have come up with actual plans to help the people they represent adapt to the new reality.

Was there any effort by New Jersey or the New York suburbs to develop alternatives to driving to midtown? Free bus service, either to the city or to the commuter rail stations outside it. New park-and-ride lots – and repromotion of existing ones – to encourage car pooling or to offer shuttles to the zone. Setting up offices in the zone to promote alternatives and provide information about congestion pricing.

No. The knee-jerk solution is the courthouse. Sue the city into submission. Don’t adapt to the reality, obliterate it.

Now, I also don’t want to let this seem as though I’m putting a halo on the people who support congestion pricing. Yes, I think it’s takes some gumption to implement a plan like this. Bravo.

But maybe, just maybe, the proponents could have made people more aware of the alternatives to driving. Yes, we know about the subway, suburban buses and commuter rail. How about creating satellite parking lots near rail stations to encourage using the train? What about using all these abandoned or nearly abandoned strip malls and shopping malls to provide commuter assistance services?

And what about expanding the use of water transportation – in a zone surrounded on three sides by rivers and a bay – to get people to where they need to be quickly and more efficiently?

One other thought: 

When I was walking through Midtown just after Christmas, I would count the cars at every crossing and multiply by $9. There were hundreds of dollars at every intersection, thousands – maybe even millions – of dollars over the course of a day.

It would be cool if, every day or every few days, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority disclosed how much money it took in – and then announced what, specifically, that money will be used for.

If it takes $350,000 to repair an escalator at Grand Central Station, tell people that the receipts for January 9 will be used for that. (I have no idea if that figure is even close, but I use it as an example.)

Let people see specifically what the money is being used for and there’s a chance you might at least shut up some of the numbskulls who keep saying the authority won’t spend the money on improvements.

That would be an out-of-the-box idea. Just like congestion pricing.

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GOOD THINGS THAT END

Jimmy Carter’s passing reminds us that human lives aren’t eternal – even ones as worthy of going on forever as the 39th President’s.

Carter died Sunday at the age of 100, the longest-living American president. That’s a nice fact, but here’s a nicer one – he appears to have been a genuinely good person. He was honest – perhaps too much for American politics – and saw the future when others found it safer to stay in the past or present.

Because his opponents – on both the left and right – found it convenient, the narrative they painted was of a failed presidency. 

His firm stand on human rights and only tepid support of the corrupt Shah of Iran was seen as leading to the Iranian Revolution, 

In turn, that was seen as leading to the taking of American hostages at the embassy in Tehran and a largely unwarranted surge in oil prices. 

And that in turn led to some of the worst inflation in my lifetime. Which resulted in the election of Ronald Reagan.

That all sounds really bad. But Carter got what we would now call “trolled” a lot. 

He was not popular with the Washington establishment – to be fair, he was a bit haughty about it, but there was certainly some justification. His focus on human rights ticked off the Arab nations, right-wing dictators in Latin America and the Soviets. And once the U.S. right – Reagan et al. – and the left – Ted Kennedy et al. – ganged up on him, he was finished.

But Carter saw climate change and the energy crisis coming. He established diplomatic relations with China and negotiated the Camp David accords that still keep the peace between Israel and Egypt.

More important, he didn’t talk to the American people as though they were idiots. His August 1979 address to the nation – often called the “malaise speech” – is perhaps the bravest any American president ever delivered. 

But by telling the American people that there might be something wrong with them, he opened the door to opportunistic types who knew they could curry favor by pandering. (see Trump, Donald J.)

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The timing of Carter’s death seems like quite a coincidence. It’s three weeks before Trump’s inauguration – just in time for Carter’s family to avoid having Trump play a major role in the commemoration of a man he belittled for decades.

Instead, a eulogy will be delivered by President Biden, who was among the first major political figures to support Carter’s long-shot 1976 presidential run. (It also says a lot about Carter that the man he defeated for the presidency, Gerald Ford, will eulogize him through a letter written before he died.)

That’s a reminder that another good thing that’s ending, unfortunately, is Biden’s presidency.

The Biden and Carter presidencies share a lot. They both inherited a mess from a disreputable Republican predecessor. Biden got the mishegas Trump left because of his botching of COVID. Carter came on in the aftermath of Richard Nixon’s resignation in disgrace following Watergate, something the more honorable Ford couldn’t overcome.

Both men confronted a fanatical and fantastically well financed assault from the far right. Carter contended with the so-called “Moral Majority,” the slime such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. For Biden, it’s the megabillions of Elon Musk and other would-be oligarchs seeking favor from their bought-and-paid-for candidate.

The final thing the two men share is that their presidencies being appreciated more than 40 years after the fact. Carter’s vision and humanity is coming to the fore now that he’s no longer around to accept the accolades. 

That, I’m afraid, is what will happen to Joe Biden. Americans blamed him for higher gas prices and whatever it was they were paying for a dozen eggs. It didn’t matter that the supply chain problems that produced the inflation came as a result of Trump’s COVID failure.

In the process, Biden not only rebuilt the economy, but managed – along with the Federal Reserve – to cool its overheating without inflicting a recession on this country. He actually get the funding for thousands of project to rebuild the nation’s infrastructure.

Biden stood steadfast behind Volodymyr Zelensky and the people of Ukraine when threatened by Vladimir Putin – who seems to be Trump’s hero. And while he couldn’t get out of the trap Putin, Iran, Netanyahu and Trump set for him in Gaza, he never stopped trying to get a fair solution and an end to the horror – his critics notwithstanding.

Joe Biden – in fact, probably you and I – won’t be around when historians realize how lucky we were to have a man of such compassion and intelligence as our president. That’s little comfort as 2024 ends.

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If my GOOD THINGS THAT END headline seems a little off to you, I understand.

The proverb is “all good things must come to an end.” I’m guessing its intended meaning is that you should appreciate what you have when you have it.

But while that might apply to vacations in Hawaii, a bowl of chocolate chip ice cream, and the presidencies of Jimmy Carter and Joe Biden, it doesn’t – it can’t – apply to everything.

Caring about the other people in our world. Compassion for the sick and needy. Encouraging dreams and hard work. Civility. Diversity. Generosity. Creativity. 

Democracy.

In the eight weeks since the election, I’ve taken the first breather from news in my 70 years. I’ve avoided social media except for wishing good tidings to friends and family – and sharing my thoughts about holiday music. I refused to let the latest outrage, the chaos meant to consume and disable us, spoil my holiday season with friends and family.

Now, it’s time to reengage. We have less than three weeks until we are mandated to give the White House back to its desecrator. It’s time for the fight of our lives.

Because there are many good things about America that can never be allowed to end.

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HOLIDAY SONG COUNTDOWN – DEC. 25 (2 OF 2)

“(WHEN IS) HANUKKAH THIS YEAR” – 1ST NIGHT OF HANUKKAH

Hanukkah is always the same day in the Hebrew calendar – the 25th day of the month of Kislev.

But since that’s a lunar calendar, it never falls on the same day in the Gregorian one. So figuring out when to wish our Jewish friends a Happy Hanukkah is often a challenge.

In 2024, Hanukkah begins on the night of December 25 – tonight if you read this when it’s posted. And it’ll run all the way into the first two days of January.

This song, by the alternate rock band Mêlée, captures the calendar confusion as well as the joy of a festival that celebrates lighting the way in the darkness.

Happy Hanukkah!

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HOLIDAY SONG COUNTDOWN – DEC. 25 (1 OF 2)

“GOD REST YE MERRY, GENTLEMEN” – CHRISTMAS DAY

The last Christmas song in this year’s countdown is this old English carol whose origin isn’t known for sure.

Some say it dates back to the 16th century. Others place it in the 1700s.

It’s one of those songs that’s in every holiday songbook, but doesn’t particularly make anyone’s favorite list. It’s nice, but somewhat innocuous.

Except that the Kiwi composer John Metcalfe has created a version that’s interesting. It has become my favorite version of this song.

And it’s a good way to wish you all a wonderful Christmas Day and a better-than-expected 2025.

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HOLIDAY SONG COUNTDOWN – DEC. 24

“FELIZ NAVIDAD” – CHRISTMAS EVE

The best version of this Jose Feliciano song I ever heard isn’t recorded – unfortunately.

It was performed on December 24, 2010, at my family’s Christmas Eve celebration.

Every year, my father would give a toast as he celebrated the gathering of his family. That gathering meant so much to him – he and my mother viewed us as their greatest achievement, and Christmas Eve was the manifestation of that.

Instead of his usual toast, he began to sing “Feliz Navidad.” He made up words as he went along, mixing in Spanish, English and – because he was my father – Italian.

It was magical, if not particularly loyal to the original.

And, as I look back on it, it was a gift. He knew that he was beginning to disappear into the world of Alzheimer’s – and this little song was his way of saying goodbye to us. He would live another six difficult years, but this was his last real chance to tell us how much he loved us.

To me, the songs of this season are not mere words and music. They have a power to evoke memory and remind us of what’s great about life. When they do that, they make the friends and family we love immortal – at least as far as we’re concerned.

So Jose Feliciano’s version will suffice. I’m grateful to him for it – for inspiring my father to wish us a Buon Natale from the bottom of his heart.

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HOLIDAY SONG COUNTDOWN – DEC. 23

“FRUITCAKE” – 2 DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS

There are bad silly Christmas songs that needn’t consume any of our time.

And then there’s “Fruitcake.”

It was recorded by the Superions in 2010, a good year for Christmas comedy. The group was a side project of B-52’s lead singer Fred Schneider, recording an entire album called “Destination…Christmas.”

“Fruitcake” was the most promoted track, released as a single in September and made available on iTunes when it used to give away those free songs at Starbucks.

As for the namesake item, I wouldn’t think this applies to a decent Italian panettone. I think it’s more about one of those things you get from mail order that breaks your teeth if you bite into it.

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