Fifteen Things That Caught My Eye: Jimmy Lai, Down Syndrome in the U.K., and More

1. Bill McGurn on his godson, the remarkable Jimmy Lai:

Simply put, Jimmy is making what may be his last stand for truth. The larger prosecution narrative is that Jimmy is selling out China to the West. But Jimmy has never, for example, advocated independence for Hong Kong or Taiwan and has always insisted protests must be peaceful.

All he asks is for the world to hold China to its promises. This is precisely the threat to China’s narrative, under which no Chinese could ever desire freedom or protest Beijing on his own. It isn’t unlike what is now being said about the protests on the mainland: It’s all the work of the CIA.

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By insisting on his innocence, Jimmy Lai knows he has surrendered any hope for leniency. But he is showing that a man can live as a free person, even in a Chinese prison, as long as he refuses to lie. Hong Kong’s Communist-backed authorities have yet to realize that he’s no longer really on trial. They are.

2. Ed Condon: The Vatican objects, but does China care?

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6. Americans are choosing to be alone. Here’s why we should reverse that.

The percentage decline is also similar for the young and old; however, given how much time young people spend with friends, the absolute decline among Americans age 15 to 19 is staggering. Relative to 2010-2013, the average American teenager spent approximately 11 fewer hours with friends each week in 2021 (a 64 percent decline) and 12 additional hours alone (a 48 percent increase).

These new habits are startling — and a striking departure from the past. Just a decade ago, the average American spent roughly the same amount of time with friends as Americans in the 1960s or 1970s. But we have now begun to cast off our connections to each other.

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10. Robert Royal: Having and Not Having

Joseph of Arimathea was a rich man, but he used his riches to provide a burial cloth for Jesus and placed the body in a tomb cut in the rock, which must have cost a bit in ancient times. It was the common folk who were tricked into calling for Jesus’ crucifixion.

As Alexander Solzhenitsyn said repeatedly: good and evil do not run through social classes, but the middle of every human heart.

Our situation in the developed world today calls on Christians to look on our unprecedented wealth and to respond to both the material and non-material poverty of others with greater imagination than ever. The poor among us are materially rich by historical standards. And the uncountable government programs that provide food, shelter, medical services, etc. make it harder to know where to help, and where aid might be wasted or even counterproductive.

But all the more reason in this season to resist the Black Friday spirit and find new ways to follow the Holy Spirit. Wise as serpents, gentle as doves.

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12. The New York Times discovers the wonderful Chosen: “Jesus Christ, Streaming Star”

(I’m not sure I’d describe Jesus in it as “a roving therapist,” though.)

“The Chosen,” a TV series about the life of Jesus, pulls off a crowd-funded miracle: a hit with a Christian fan base that is breaking into the mainstream.

13.  Also the New York Times: An Israeli Schoolboy Died in the West Bank. To Find His Body, Foes Joined Forces.

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15. Journey with these six saints during the season of Advent