Merry Christmas to All

Something is missing in my neighborhood this year. There are few outdoor Christmas lights and decorations. In other neighborhoods, many houses are still brightly decorated, but not in mine.

It wasn’t terribly long ago that most homes in my neighborhood were decorated. But not anymore.

As I drove down a dark street near my home the other evening, my thoughts recurred to a Christmas in a suburb just North of Chicago. We moved there in December of 1948. I was in second-grade at the time.

I can still vividly recall my mother’s younger brother, Dan, coming to our home, at mom’s request about a week before Christmas. He came to put up multi-colored outdoor lights on the evergreens in front of our front bay window, and up the trellis that supported the roof over our front porch — in the zero-degree weather. Mom had noticed that our home was the only home on our block without lights. She loved the lights. It was her way of saying “Merry Christmas!” to our neighbors, including those down the block that we had yet to meet.

A couple nights later, the weather grew milder and mom decided we should all see the lights in the more affluent section of our village, on the other side of Cicero Avenue. I can still recall the avenues with bumper-to-bumper traffic. It looked as if everybody on the northside of Chicago had the same idea. Some homes seemed to have 1000 of the old 9-volt colored lights.

The streets of “the Towers” were vibrant and beautiful.

Near the end of our tour, we came upon the Allgauer Home — the home of Gustav “Gus” Allgauer of restaurant fame. His home was ablaze with lights. The large two-car garage had been converted into a living Nativity set. Mary and Joseph and the shepherds were neighbors in costume. Sheep and a donkey, if I recall correctly, and a camel played themselves. Christmas carols played softly in background.

In the years that followed, my brother Tom and I replace Uncle Dan as mom’s outdoor Christmas light putter-uppers. I loved putting the lights up and seeing the house and our neighborhood homes decorated for Christmas. We did it every year as long as we lived there.

And so did the neighbors. I can still recall colored lights shining through the 18-inches of snow, dumped by the “Great Christmas Eve blizzard” of 1950.

The Allgauers also continued to decorate, but a bit more modestly. The animals made no return appearance. It seems there were complaints from the various neighbors — or perhaps the Grinch — about the animals partying and celebrating into the wee hours of the night, and even until the dawn.

Since buying my first home in the Quad Cities, I have maintained mom’s custom of outdoor Christmas decoration. It’s been our way of saying, “Merry Christmas” to the neighbors I know, as well as those whom I have never met.

May our lights, and the others, remind you of the real reason we celebrate Christmas.

First Published in the Moline Dispatch and Rock Island Argus on December 18, 2022. 

Copyright 2022, John Donald O'Shea

The Mainstream American Press — a Press Unworthy of its Name

I always trusted that American newspapers, radio and TV would be our foremost and staunchest defenders of our First Amendment’s guarantees of Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press. It appears that I was terribly naïve.


I always thought that American press hated the thought of government censorship and prior restraints. Here again, I was dead wrong!


I always thought that the American press would scream “bloody murder” at any government attempt to suppress coverage of news unfavorable to the government or a particular political party. It appears, I was a fool.


Instead, a huge segment of the American press — including this newspaper — seems to be operating on the premise that “If it’s not reported, it didn’t happen!”


By way of background, in 2020, Twitter admittedly, and Facebook and Google, in all probability, at the urgings of agents of the U.S. Government conspired and colluded to deny the American people information about the “Hunter Biden laptop story” — information that could possibly have changed the results of the 2020 Presidential election. Had that now admittedly truthful information been made public, and further and fully investigated by an honest and vigilant press worthy of its name, a few thousand voters in three key states might have voted for Trump instead of Biden. Sadly, we will never know.

Would it have made a difference to the voters had they known that in Hunter Biden’s dealings with Communist China, that Hunter was demanding 10% for the “Big Guy?” Who else other than candidate Joe Biden could the “Big Guy” have been. What else could “10 held by H for the big guy” have meant?


The New York Post reported on the story. Whether the New York Post’s story was truthful was for the American people to decide; not for political operatives in the U.S. government to decide.


This information was suppressed on numerous dishonest, make-weight premises: it was hacked, it was “Russian election meddling,” “it was disinformation,” “it was misinformation,” “it was false,” etc.


The problem with all these justifications,” is that the First Amendment provides that Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech or freedom of the press. The determination of whether a story is “hacked, Russian meddling, disinformation, misinformation or false” is left exclusively to the American people — not to the U.S. government!


The government of the United States has no power to censor political speech. Censorship is not one of the “express powers” granted to any of the three branches of the U.S. Government.


Indeed, the U.S. Supreme Court has long ago held that all three branches of the government are expressly prohibited by the 1st Amendment from abridging freedom of speech or the press.


In the 1857 Dred Scott case, the U. S. Supreme Court held that if Congress lacked constitutional power to do something, it could not delegate that non-existent power to any creature of government., such as a territorial government or agency.


I know of no federal court case that states that where the U.S. government is expressly forbidden to do something under the 1st Amendment — such as abridging free speech or free press — that it can evade that 1st Amendment’s prohibition by acting through private individuals or private corporations. If that’s the law, the 1st Amendment is a dead letter.


And that brings me to the crux of this op ed — the refusal of the mainstream media — including this newspaper — to report on the release of Twitter’s internal emails by Elon Musk — emails that Musk has given an independent journalist, Matt Taibbi, relative to the Hunter Biden laptop.


Remember, that at this point in time, even the NY Times has conceded that the Hunter Biden laptop story it true.

On December 2, 2022, Taibbi released the first thread of Twitter emails. You can read them yourselves — but sadly not in this newspaper.


The First Amendment grants the government no power whatsoever to impose a ”prior restraint” to prevent the American people from seeing a story, and from forming their own judgment as it’s truth or falsity. It is for the American people, and not the government, to decide whether the account is Russian meddling, disinformation, misinformation, or utter falsehood. In America, given our First Amendment, whether the information is meddling, disinformation, etc., is a question to be determine in the “public forum” — the “marketplace of ideas.” The premise of the First Amendment is that if the people hear all sides of the issue, they will come to the correct judgment. There is no other rule consistent with the operation of a democratic republic.


The suppression of speech — especially political speech — is the hallmark of totalitarian government — of Hitler, Stalin, the Castro brothers, the Chinese Communists ….


The mainstream media has a duty to let the American people see what their government and its agents have done to emasculate the 1st Amendment. So does this newspaper.


And what is more chilling, is that this may be but the “tip of the iceberg.”

First Published in the Moline Dispatch and Rock Island Argus on December 11, 2022. 

Copyright 2022, John Donald O'Shea