As protesters are everywhere being evicted from parks and other public spaces by representatives of officialdom, I’m reminded of a cynical technique we recognize at a university with which I am familiar as the holiday surprise. When the university administration does something to which there is sure to be “principled” opposition, the action is announced on the eve of a holiday.

Now is the perfect season for the series of evictions that is taking place around the country. People’s minds are preoccupied with holiday matters, with shopping and the festivities that go with whatever holidays they may be celebrating. Nobody wants to give much attention to politics, particularly not to its grittier aspects. Thus, public opposition to the use of force against peaceful protesters is rendered less likely by the press of holiday cheer.

The death of a friend and colleague surprised us on Thanksgiving day. He was Donald G. Brennan, former dean of SLU’s graduate college and of the College of Arts and Sciences as well. Don was much loved. He had served Saint Louis University as a dean for more than twenty years, and it isn’t true as his obituary claims that he stepped down at the end of his career in order to return to teaching. He did return to teaching; that much is true. But the graduate college that should have borne his name no longer exists; albeit one suspects that it will soon be reconstituted with a new dean whose popularity will not threaten a university president whom students call Il duce.

At Don’s funeral the college church was packed with better than a thousand souls to celebrate his life. The line the evening before at the visitation had stretched all the way down the aisle and out the church doors for four hours as people came to pay their respects.

Don represented Saint Louis University at its best. He was in every way a Christian gentleman and a serious lover of the academy in which he had come up. His career had been distinguished and honorable. It’s good that such an outpouring of affection and respect as came to him in death should solidify public remembrance of his life.

In downtown Saint Louis, in Keiner Plaza where the Occupy protesters were evicted last week, a Christmas tree now stands festooned with lights and other stuff. What message that tree symbolizes, given its history, is another of the many ironies of this season of holiday surprises.