This will be the last Christmas that my mother is with us. She found out after Thanksgiving that she has small cell cancer in the lungs/liver/and brain. She is going down hill rather fast and all we can do is make her as comfortable as possible. However, as easy as it would be to be upset and bitter about her illness my family is focusing on the positive aspects of her life and what a great mother she has been to her sons, a wonderful wife to my father, and timeless friend to her students and members of the community.

This poor writer can't see the good in the world around him. Of course things are boring at times and not the way we want them. But we have the opportunity to enjoy our lives, our friends, and help those in need. Screw this worthless piece of dung. Let him lead his poor pitiful life and let us enjoy ours.

http://thelazytriath...

It just shows that the New York Times staff has a series of mental disorders that are commonly treatable, but they do not take the responsibility to do so. Can some doctor out there please give Mr. Jamieson a prescription of Prozac and a few weeks of counsiling sessions, so he can in fact have a Merry Christmas?

Also he is off his meds.

He sounds like your typical leftie. To him everything good is a lie or a scam.Things like hope and generosity and facing adversity are for suckers.To him no one in the world can truly be good and he revels in watching who tries to be torn down because that is one less reminder of his own lack of moral fiber.He is awash in his own unhappiness and can't stand to see someone else be happy.

What a jerk.

For an absolutely frightening look into the mind of a NYT editor.  This is truly a "bass-ackwards" type of human being we're seeing....Mr. Jamieson.......how can he possibly get any analysis or opinion "on-target" with his newspaper, when he's 180 degrees wrong about this movie?  It's ridiculous to even rebut his cluelessness about the movie.......a movie that's insightful about childhood feelings, adult love and responsibility, the American spirit and family...it's warm and character-building on just about every level.  For Jamieson to feel the way he does, and be brazen enough to shout it out to readers, is frightening.  No wonder page A1 of the NYT is a national disgrace.  The stories never capture true reality.  They only attempt to convey the liberal world-view, which is too often 180 degrees opposite from the true reality of news, as well as the history of our country. Good God, the NYT can't even correctly analyze or report on the decline and meltdown of their own city and state.

As the New York Times.  And the City Editor is his right hand crank, extolling the current philosophy of the new president and his countless minions: 

Wonderful? Sorry, George, It’s a Pitiful, Dreadful Life

And they plan on making the rest of us, our children and grandchildren, eat that awful sandwich too!  Truly pathetic. 

"The future is not set.  There is no fate but what we make for ourselves."

michaelyon-online.com

This is a typical lib perspective, the idea that any life lived according to more conservative principles should be perfect.  Any evidence of imperfection, to the left, is confirmation that the right is off-base.  Show a lib one religious person, who happens to be amoral in some way, and this is verifiable proof to him that all religion is hypocritical.  So, George Bailey has some problems in his life, as we all do, and this discredits the whole message conveyed in the film--one of self-sacrifice, generosity and the importance of every life.  A person like Jamieson does not dislike a place like Bedford Falls as much as he fears it.  He fears that maybe, just maybe, Bedford Falls is a better place than Pottersville after all; and this would discredit what Jamieson himself is all about.

On the face of it, this is a horribly depressing film. It deals with some of the most toughest times this country went through outside of the Civil War, the Great Depression and WWII. It did not do that well on its release because the country had just finished going through this difficult time.

   But it is not near a bleak as Wendell Dumbass makes it out to be. George HUMILIATED his bride to be? George was EMASCULATED because he could not join the fight in WWII? Harry is a slick self-obsessed jerk? George again treats Mary CRUELLY? George flies into a RAGE? Decades of anger BOILS to the surface? George EXPLODES at his family. Oh horseshit, do shut up Wendell.

   Wendell Dumbass completely, I mean completely, fails to mention what made this movie the classic it is - It's enduring theme of sacrifice. Sacrifice for family, community and country. The dark depressing nature of the film is a pebble. The themes of love, sacrifice, and hope are the BRICK that is slammed on that pebble.

   Nice of Wendell D. to completely miss the brick huh?

   What made Pottersville so bad was not the rampant vice that is happening around George when he visits. It is the fact that all the people he touched in some way are even worse off in this alternate life. The people he gave loans for their homes live in a slum. The pharmisist becomes an alcoholic after killing a child. The owner of the bar loses his business. His brother and a transport full of soldiers DIE! George's mother is much worse off after losing her son, husband, and livelihood when Uncle Billy loses the Building and Loan. His wife is a spinster and his children are never born! That is why the alternate town is so much worse. Wendell the dumbass completely misses the point!

   Oh, and no, George would not have gone to jail. The money was lost not embezzled you friggin moron! Plus it was really nice of you to add all the conjecture about what happens after the movie finishes. Here is some of my own. Maybe the manufacturing base in Bedford Falls might have stayed if we did not have stultifying 90% and 70% taxes rates that Kennedy and Reagan had to bring down. It was nice of you to also completely disregard that our economy has moved from an industrial base to a service based economy. This appears to be the norm.

   Ernies vacant stare made your girly friend cry? Dear lord. Grow a pair! 

Sincerely,

a Veteran of a 1000 psychic wars.

Clearly those people with whom this cretin from the NY Times would be more comfortable were incredibly awash in misery. So I guess since misery loves company, he's trying to get in amongst his people.

Fun is defined by the people you spend it with. I could be out in the middle of a Playboy party with the hottest bachelors in the middle of an ocean cruise, but it wouldn't be much fun unless I had made a true connection with someone else. That's all there is. 

I am totally outraged, thanks to this article. This has got to be one of the Top Ten best movies. I like this movie so much, it feels like family. I was extremely upset with TIME magazines disgraceful cover depicting the Iwo Jima flag raising as a tribute to going green(raising a tree). TIME is soon to be gone, and so will the NYT. Iwo Jima's Memorial will never vanish, nor will George Bailey. Yes Virginia, there is a God and Clarence!

The movie in a way acts as a Rorschach test.  The times article reveals the chasm which separates them  not just from conservatives but a large majority of Americans from the left.   In fact the same chasm separates the hard left from a majority of Democrats.

  Our only real hope of a working electoral majority is to help some of that majority to understand how at odds their party and their party's surrogates have become with their own moral vision of  life.

What can one expect from a depraved soul like Mr. Jamieson. I wonder how he has the will to live each day.

After reading this story and all of the comments that followed, I posted an off-topic discussion in the forum for those of us that are not as hard-hearted and cynical as Jamieson.  I was hoping that people would share their stories from holiday seasons past and present that show us what the nature of the holidays are all about...giving, sharing and human kindness.

Despite this trying-to-be-snarky brat's efforts to "modernize' the values of society into his warped vision, I insist on watching several movies every Christmas season - without which it just doesn't seem right:

"It's a Wonderful Life"

"A Christmas Carol" (there's no perfect version - they all have their attributes and flaws - but I currently favor the Patrick Stewart version from a few years ago)

"Holiday Inn" (I like it's combination of hominess and sophistication over the more gooey "White Christmas") I just bought the (gasp) colorized version for the sake of novelty...

"Come to the Stable"

"The Bishop's Wife"

How about others?

UPDATE: Oh, come on, folks! Surely you have some sentimental favorite Christmas movies you can list to help combat the smart a** cynicism of the NYT editor.

Most of the reader comments in Jamiesons article agree with him that it`s a dark, cynical, depressing movie.

It may be hard to find, but give the subtitled Japanese animated movie "Tokyo Godfathers" a try.  Inspired by, but not a remake of, the western "Three Godfathers", it tells of a trio of Tokyo street people finding an abandoned infant on Christmas eve and caring for it until New Years day as they search Tokyo for the parents.  It becomes a quest for redemption for the 3 main characters and many of the people they meet on the way.  Like "It's a Wonderful Life" it uses darkness to emphasize light.

An amazingly Christian movie from a non Christian nation.

  The beauty of It's A Wonderful Life is that the movie shows how much of an impact the average person has on the people around them.  That their lives really do matter and no matter how hard life might be at the time, they have a very wonderful life compared to how things would be if they were never born.  

     What I always took from the movie is that we are all connected in this world.  We are like pond skaters on the water.  Every move we make send out ripples and affect those around us.  Sometimes it affect others for the good, sometimes for the bad.  I suspect that Wendell Jamieson realized that his ripples affected people not for the better and he is  disapointed to find out that no one would miss him if he was never born.Perfect Demotivator for the Obama Administration

http://www.despair.com/government.html