President Bush sat down with Fox News’ Brit Hume yesterday:
HUME: Is he here to stay as far as you are concerned?
BUSH: Yes. End of my term is a long time, but I tell you, he is doing a heckuva good job. I have no intention of changing him.
"Brownie, you’re doing a heckuva job."
Rather than making wisecracks (like I do), a blogger from New York gives serious thoughts on The War On Christmas thing. I’ve boiled it down, but you should read the whole thing:
Yes I know; you’re sick of this subject. Me too. But here I go…
I’m a New York Jew; a life long Democrat and a card carrying member of the ACLU. Much of the time I’m very disappointed in the Democratic party, but at this moment it’s better than the alternative. I don’t believe in all of the ACLU’s causes, but I believe that everybody has a right to be represented.
But when I read blogs that blame the ACLU and/or minority groups for taking Christ out of Christmas, I have to say that as a Jew I, and most Jews, want you to celebrate Christmas….
I don’t think I believe in G-d but I respect people of any religion who truly believe. If I were to feel that I was in any way denying you the ability to pray, I would feel that I have failed as both a person and a person who does worship The First Amendment. I don’t care about the manger in the courthouse. But understand something else. I care greatly that church and state stay separate…
Separation of church and state is built into our Constitution. If you understand the history of Jews in America, you will understand why we care so much about The First Amendment. It’s not just a symbol of our freedom, but a tool that is used to preserve every Americans right to keep church and state separate. Here are two quotes by Fran Quigley, Executive Director, Indiana Civil Liberties Union
For example, the Alliance Defense Fund celebrates the season with an "It’s OK to say Merry Christmas" campaign, implying that the ACLU has challenged such holiday greetings. (As part of the effort, you can get a pamphlet and two Christmas pins for $29.)
The website WorldNetDaily touts a book claiming "a thorough and virulent anti-Christmas campaign is being waged today by liberal activists and ACLU fanatics." The site’s magazine has suggested there will be ACLU efforts to remove "In God We Trust" from U.S. currency, fire military chaplains, and expunge all references to God in America’s founding documents. (Learn more for just $19.95) . . .
Of course, there is no "Merry Christmas" lawsuit, nor is there any ACLU litigation about U.S. currency, military chaplains, etc. But the facts are not important to these groups, because their real message is this: By protecting the freedom of Muslims, Jews, and other non-Christians through preventing government entanglement with religion, the ACLU is somehow infringing on the rights of those with majority religious beliefs.
So, as pointed out, there is no "War on Christmas". It’s just a fundraising gimmick from religious outfits.
Anyway, out blogger then goes on to quote the up-in-arms religious fundies who don’t believe in separation of church and state, and then addresses them directly:
Just understand that we’re not your problem. You are. If a person can find G-d in a concentration camp, any American can find G-d anywhere. It’s up to you to put Christ back in Christmas, not us…
Merry Christmas; Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Winter Solistice. I will call this season whatever you want me to call it as long as The First Amendment remains intact. And I will always be grateful to the USA for allowing my family to live as full citizens for over a century. Grateful but I will never feel less an American than you do. And I thank G-d for organizations like the ACLU that make sure I will always be a full American.
Touche.
The American Family Association, a James Dobson group, is fond of instigating boycotts against companies for, well, anything that gets their panties in a bunch. And they usually lose. As the Carpetbagger Report explains:
The AFA launched a nine-year boycott of Disney, for example, during which time none of the group’s demands were met and the company enjoyed a surge in profits. The AFA also launched boycotts against Crest toothpaste, Volkswagen, Tide detergent, Clorox bleach, Pampers, MTV, Abercrombie & Fitch, K-Mart, Burger King, the Carl’s Jr. hamburger chain, Kraft Foods, Mary Kay Cosmetics, Old Navy stores, NutriSystem, and American Airlines. Late last year, the AFA went after the movie "Shark Tale," because the group believed the movie was designed to brainwash children into accepting gay rights. Then, it was American Girl dolls. Then it was Target for its lack of the word "Christmas" in its advertising. The whole thing is pretty embarrassing, but the AFA just keeps doing it.
So AFA boycotts, the object of the boycott ignores the AFA, and life goes on.
But for some reason, when the AFA threatened a boycott against Ford last June, demanding that Ford stop advertising in gay-oriented magazines like The Advocate, Ford folded like a cheap deck of cars.
According to the AFA and media reports over the past two weeks, in order to avoid a boycott from the extremist gay-hating organization, Ford allegedly agreed to:
1. No longer run ads promoting Jaguar or Land Rover in the gay press.
2. No longer support gay events or organizations.
3. Continue running Volvo ads in the gay press, but no longer tailor those ads to the gay community (i.e., in the future such ads would be the same ads that are run in the mainstream media, rather than the crafting the ads to appeal to a gay readership).
This caused a bit of an uproar, not only in the gay community, but among anybody interested in civil rights.
Happily, as reported by AMERICABlog (who has trumpted this issue for a few weeks now), "Ford addressed and resolved each of our three concerns regarding the above":
1. Ford announced that it will continue to support gay organizations and gay events in the coming year and beyond.
2. Ford is going to run advertisements in the gay media NOT ONLY promoting the Jaguar and Land Rover brands, but the ads will promote ALL of Fords brands, by name, including Jaguar and Land Rover.
3. Ford states unequivocally that it will continue to tailor its ads for the specific audience it is trying to reach, and then goes one step further. Ford challenges us to keep an eye out on their upcoming ads in order to verify that they will in fact be tailored.
There is no other way to read this than that Ford did the right thing. Whether or not an agreement was reached with the American Family Association – and the AFA has a record of crowing about such "victories" when no such victory occurred (sounds a lot like our president) – Ford has rectified the real or perceived problem, and the AFA has been shown to have no clothes (other than a very rusty chastity belt).
You can thank Ford via this online form. Or, if you want, you can pray for the AFA.
A year ago, at a Quaker Meeting House in Lake Worth, Fla., a small group of activists met to plan a protest of military recruiting at local high schools. What they didn’t know was that their meeting had come to the attention of the U.S. military.
A secret 400-page Defense Department document obtained by NBC News lists the Lake Worth meeting as a “threat” and one of more than 1,500 “suspicious incidents” across the country over a recent 10-month period.
“This peaceful, educationally oriented group being a threat is incredible,” says Evy Grachow, a member of the Florida group called The Truth Project.
“This is incredible,” adds group member Rich Hersh. “It’s an example of paranoia by our government,” he says. “We’re not doing anything illegal.”
Of course you’re not doing anything illegal. You’re just doing things anti-American. Like, you know, opposing the President. Go back to Russia, you commies!
Listing of other surveilled activities available here (PDF format).
If Bob Novak is right, I think Fitz needs to subpoena POTUS. From the News-Observer:
Newspaper columnist Robert Novak is still not naming his source in the Valerie Plame affair, but he says he is pretty sure the name is no mystery to President Bush.
"I’m confident the president knows who the source is," Novak told a luncheon audience at the John Locke Foundation in Raleigh on Tuesday. "I’d be amazed if he doesn’t."
"So I say, ‘Don’t bug me. Don’t bug Bob Woodward. Bug the president as to whether he should reveal who the source is.’ "
(1) So, last Friday, Bill O’Reilly had the following talking points, as summarized on his website:
Banishing the words ‘Merry Christmas’ is simply disrespectful to people who celebrate that federal holiday. In Wisconsin, an elementary school changed the name of ‘Silent Night’ to ‘Cold In The Night.’ In Plano, Texas, a school told students they couldn’t wear red and green because they are Christmas colors. That’s flat-out fascism. If I were a student in Plano, I’d be a walking Christmas tree after that order. Talking Points understands that you know what is going on here.
In yesterday’s post, I pointed out how the Plano Texas story is untrue.
And now, we address the alleged "rewriting" of Silent Night:
Ridgeway Elementary didn’t change the lyrics to “Silent Night.” What they did was perform a 1988 copyrighted play called “The Little Tree’s Christmas Gift.”
That play actually contains numerous songs about Christmas, including the grand finale, an audience-led group singing of “We Wish You A Merry Christmas.” The play’s creator, Dwight Elrich, happens to lead the New Covenant Singers of Bel Air Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles.
In fact, “The Little Tree’s Christmas Gift” has been performed in several churches, including the Oakwood Forest Christian Church in Kingsport, Tennessee, the St. Anthony Parish School in Des Moines, Iowa, and St. Mark’s Episcopal Church of Abeline, Texas.
So why are the Silent Night lyrics changed in “Little Tree’s Christmas”? Because the play is about a small, lonely Christmas tree that is told it is “too scraggly, it will never sell.” That character sings the revised lyrics — “Cold in the night, No one in sight, Winter winds whirl and bite” — in a scene lamenting his sad state. The rewording has absolutely nothing to do with “secularizing” the song.
So what’s the bottom line? There is no war on Christmas!
(2) Via Bobharris.com, here’s a snapshot of a page from Fox New’s webpage. There are 11 "holidays", ten of which are circled (Fun time: find the 11th one! Click the picture to blow it up). And the word "Christmas" does not appear once.
Why does Fox News hate Christmas?
(3) Speaking of Fox News re: War on Christmas, don’t miss this letter from a former Fox News producer. Here’s excerpts:
Make no mistake about it: Fox is on a mission. Its slogans say, "Fair and Balanced" and "We Report, You Decide." But in the six years that I worked there, what I heard most from Fox management were mission statements — about turning things around, taking news back from the liberals, and giving "middle America" a voice long denied it by the "east coast media elite." In other words, using its news report to bring about change — in the media and, ultimately, in the direction of American culture….
But what really separates Fox from the competition is its unabashed use of religion as a divisive weapon. Common sense — and common courtesy — have long dictated that personal religious beliefs be kept out of news reporting unless the story at hand involves religion. But on Fox, it’s not uncommon for an anchor to raise the issue of a guest’s religion, or lack thereof, a propos of nothing…
So, again, it’s no wonder this "War on Christmas" (now in its second successful year) is a production of Fox News Channel — the very network that has made accusation, recrimination and confrontation the gold standards of cable "news," and whose personalities have fashioned a self-serving "war" out of whole cloth, thanks to … a shameless management willing to use even Christmas for its own political ends.
(4) If Jesus were alive today, how would he take action against all those horrible atheists who are trying to destroy Christmas?
Maybe he would do something like these guys:
Joel Krupnik and Mildred Castellanos decked the front of their Manhattan mansion this year with a scene that includes a knife-wielding 5-foot-tall St. Nick and a tree full of decapitated Barbie dolls. Hidden partly behind a tree, the merry old elf grasps a disembodied doll’s head with fake blood streaming from its eye sockets.
No one answered the family’s door to explain on Tuesday, but Krupnik told the New York Post it was a statement about the commercialization and secularization of Christmas.
"Christmas has religious origins,” he said. "It’s in the Bible. Santa is not in the Bible. He’s not a religious symbol.”
Merry Christmas, Saint Nicholas!
(5) The War on the "War on Christmas" goes international!
A department store Santa on his way home for the night was beaten up by stressed-out Christmas shoppers in Germany.
Stefan Stettler, 31, from Wiesbaden, was still in character and chatting to other passengers while waiting for his train home.
Police say two men, allegedly stressed after a full day’s Christmas shopping, lost their patience when asked to "tell Santa what they want for Christmas".
The men took Stettler’s sack of presents and beat him over the head with it, breaking his fingers as he tried to protect himself.
(6) Shakespeare’s Sister’s mother’s bible study group expresses surprise to learn that the word "holiday" is derived from "holy day". It’s sad, but not surprising, how uninformed religious people are about, you know, religion.
Here’s the stats so far:
$204.4 billion: The cost to the U.S of the war so far.
2,339: Allied troops killed
15,955: US troops wounded in action
98: U.K troops killed
30,000 : Estimated Iraqi civilian deaths
0: Number of WMDs found
66: Journalists killed in Iraq.
63: Journalists killed during Vietnam war
8: per cent of Iraqi children suffering acute malnutrition
53,470: Iraqi insurgents killed
67: per cent Iraqis who feel less secure because of occupation
$343: Average monthly salary for an Iraqi soldier. Average monthly salary for an American soldier in Iraq: $4,160.75
5: foreign civilians kidnapped per month
47: per cent Iraqis who never have enough electricity
20: casualties per month from unexploded mines
25-40: per cent Estimated unemployment rate, Nov 2005
251: Foreigners kidnapped
70: per cent of Iraqi’s whose sewage system rarely works
183,000: British and American troops are still in action in Iraq.
13,000: from other nations
90: Daily attacks by insurgents in Nov ’05. In Jun ’03: 8
60-80: per cent Iraqis who are "strongly opposed" to presence of coalition troops
"In Plano, Texas, a school told students they couldn’t wear red and green because they are Christmas colors. That’s flat-out fascism. If I were a student in Plano, I’d be a walking Christmas tree after that order. Talking Points understands that you know what is going on here."
Plano District Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Bill Otto:
"The school district does not restrict students or staff from wearing certain color clothes during holiday times or any other school days," noted Dr. Otto, who said that the school district’s attorney has requested that Mr. O’Reilly retract the statement.
Dr. Otto said that our attorney requested of Mr. O’Reilly that, in the
future, he ask his fact checkers to do a more thorough job of confirming the facts before he airs them.
Heh.
And in related news, here’s Sam Seder on CNN, debating with Bob Knight of the Culture and Family Institute (moderated by Kyra Phillips):
SEDER: Listen, as far as the war on Christmas goes, I feel like we should be waging a war on Christmas. I mean, I believe that Christmas, it’s almost proven that Christmas has nuclear weapons, can be an imminent threat to this country, that they have operative ties with terrorists and I believe that we should sacrifice thousands of American lives in pursuit of this war on Christmas. And hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money.
PHILLIPS: Is it a war on Christmas, a war Christians, a war on over-political correctness or just a lot of people with way too much time on their hands?
SEDER: I would say probably, if I was to be serious about it, too much time on their hands, but I’d like to get back to the operational ties between Santa Claus and al Qaeda.
PHILLIPS: I don’t think that exists. Bob? Help me out here.
SEDER: We have intelligence, we have intelligence.
PHILLIPS: You have intel. Where exactly does your intel come from?
SEDER: Well, we have tortured an elf and it’s actually how we got the same information from Al Libbi. It’s exactly the same way the Bush administration got this info about the operational ties between al Qaeda and Saddam.
…
Yes, well, Kyra, I mean, listen, I would like Bob to tell me who is the person who has been offended by someone saying Merry Christmas to them? I’ve never met that person.
I don’t celebrate Christmas. But if someone says "Merry Christmas" to me, I either think, well, it’s a little bit odd, it’s like me saying happy birthday to you on my birthday, but no one cares.
But I will tell you this, as we wage the war on the war on the war on the war on Christmas on our radio show. News Corp., Fox News, those people who have started this entire war on Christmas mean, fake war, they’re having a holiday party.
President Bush saying "Happy Holidays." Tokyo Rose, Laura Bush, saying "Happy Holidays" to her dogs in the video, I’m sure you’ve seen it. I mean, these are the things that we should be talking about when we are waging this war in Iraq, we should be equating it to the war on Christmas.
What else would Bob Knight have an opportunity to do, how else would he get on television if he wasn’t pretending to be attacked.
KNIGHT: This would be funny except it is serious to a lot of people who have seen their faith cleansed from the public square systemically.
SEDER: Are you suggesting, Bob, that someone can’t celebrate Christmas in America? Tell me about the person who can escape the celebration.
…
SEDER: I do agree with Bob. I think what should happen is companies should calculate how much money they’re getting from people who are celebrating Christmas and provide exactly that much amount of Merry Christmas, because that is exactly how I would want any type of religious holiday to be celebrated.
…
SEDER: Hannukah is not a high holiday. Our high holidays are Rosh Hashanna and Yom Kippur, which I’m sure Bob has been protesting why there are not more Yom Kippur sales or Rosh Hashanah sales during those holidays. Why shouldn’t there be, right Bob?
…
SEDER: Bob, have you ever protested Martin Luther King Day not being celebrated. Do you resent when people don’t say "Happy Martin Luther King Day" a month out in advance?
…
PHILLIPS: Bob, I’m going to let you have the final thought.
KNIGHT: OK. You know, when the Nazis moved into Austria in 1936…
SEDER: Oh, that’s offensive, Bob, to raise Nazis.
KNIGHT: They immediately removed from the schools. You can read about it in…
PHILLIPS: Hold on, Sam. Let Bob make his point. Let Bob make his point. Go ahead, Bob.
KNIGHT: You can’t even let me speak. Can you? You’re so…
Maria Trapp wrote the story of the Trapp singers that’s in "The Sound of Music," and she said she sent her kids to school after the Nazis took over. And they came home and said mama, we can’t say the word Christmas anymore. It’s now winter holiday.
I think that ought to disturb people…
SEDER: Kyra, that’s offensive.
KNIGHT: …that we’re moving toward that kind of attitude in this country.
SEDER: The Puritans also outlawed Christmas. The founding fathers of this country would fine you in Massachusetts if you celebrated Christmas in the beginning. So don’t talk about Nazis, Bob. I think that’s really inappropriate.
Why do you have to bring hate to this Christmas and holiday season? That’s so sad, Bob.
KNIGHT: Well, let’s go to the Soviet Union then too. They had grandfather frost.
Well, it’s the truth. You ought to read the book yourself, and maybe you’ll change your mind.
SEDER: It’s just sad that you have to raise Nazis when you’re talking about Christmas and the holiday season. And we all know that Christmas actually, Tannenbaum, it’s a German holiday. Bob, I’m really, really disappointed in you.
KNIGHT: I’m sorry to disappoint you, but if you can’t understand the force of history…
SEDER: To bring up Nazis, Bob.
KNIGHT: I’m not calling you a Nazi.
SEDER: Oh, who you calling Nazi? Who are you calling a Nazi, sir?
KNIGHT: I’m not.
And finally, from The American Street:
[ed. note: this is a reprint of the famous 1897 column from the national review online. we think it is as relevant to today’s issues as it was back then]
we take great pleasure in answering at once the communication below, expressing at the same time great gratification that its author is numbered among the friends of nro:
“i am 8 years old. some of my liberal friends say there is no war on christmas. they say it’s just another code-word-filled wedge distraction to keep us from discussing real issues like iraq, the deficit, the patriot act, katrina and the administrations abysmal record on human rights. papa says, ‘if you see it on the internets, it’s so.’ please tell me the truth, is there a war on christmas?”
virginia o’scamlon
virginia, your liberal friends are wrong. they have been affected by the secularism of a secular age. they do not believe except what michael moore tells them. they think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their godless minds.yes, virginia, there is a war on christmas.
it exists as certainly as lesbian feminazi’s who want to abort all the babies in the world exist, it exists as certainly as communist jewish pinkos who want to force children to worship satan in the schools exist. alas! how dreary would the world be if there were no war on christmas! it would be as dreary as if there were no loofas or falafels. there would be no unquestioning faith in republicans, no pollack jokes, no unfettered greed to make tolerable this tenuous economy. the eternal light with which childishness fills the american dream would be extinguished.
not believe in the war on christmas! you might as well not believe in the war on terror. you might get your papa to hire men to watch all the malls during december to catch godless communists trying to force people to say “kwanzaa hannukah ramadan,” but even if you didn’t see anybody try to wrestle christ away from the true believers at the gap, what would that prove? nobody ever sees secular heathens actually try to drink the blood of christian children, but that is no sign there is no war on christmas. the most real things in the world are those that neither logical men nor rush limbaugh can see. did you ever see jesus ride a dinosaur? of course not, but that’s no proof that he didn’t. nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are available only to the truly faithful, who shall delight in watching their enemies be smitten down in flames when the lord takes his rightful place in the mall.
you tear apart a david brooks argument and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the most evil liberal, nor even the united strength of all the hateful secularists and the aclu and all godless jews who ever lived could ever tear apart. only undying allegiance to talk radio, complete loyalty to fox news and our beloved leader, george w. bush, can push aside that curtain and view the eternal joy of the beauty of the faithful, rejoicing by god’s side as the evil-doers burn in torment, including those who watch the daily show and listen to al franken.
is the war on christmas real? ah, virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real.
no war on christmas? thank god it lives forever and ever, as long as filthy multi-culturalistic pedophiles want to keep christ out of the malls in december. a thousand years from now, virginia, nay, 6,000 years from now, because the earth itself is only 6,000 years old, the war on christmas will continue to make glad the heart of neocons all over.
The University of Kansas professor who was planning to offer a course entitled "Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies", withdrew the course after getting beaten up by two religious fundamentalists.
He also quit his post as chairman of the University of Kansas religious department.
Except he didn’t quit. He was forced to resign.
This is 1984.
You gotta love the graphic on the cover of this week’s Newsweek. More here.
That’s my advice. First of all, you’ve got this whole "intelligent design" thing that they’re trying to foist into the school curriculum.
Now there’s this, a kid gets suspended from school for speaking Spanish:
Kansas City, Kan., resident Lorenzo Rubio is upset that his son, Zach, was suspended from the Turner School District’s Endeaver School for two days.
He is even more upset that the reason Zach was suspended was not for fighting or causing trouble, but for speaking Spanish at lunchtime with his friends.
"My son called me on Monday and said he had been suspended for speaking Spanish," Rubio said. "I could not believe it. I went to the school and spoke to Mrs. (Jennifer) Watts and asked her if this was school policy. She told me, ‘no,’ but said ‘We are not in Mexico, we are not in Germany.’"
Watts refused to comment to The Kansan.
However, Bart Swartz, executive director of certified personnel for Turner, said Superintendent Bobby Allen was apprised of the situation immediately and met with Rubio.
"As soon as the superintendent found out the student was suspended, the superintendent notified the student that he could come back to school," Swartz said. "We do not stand behind suspending students for speaking foreign languages."
Zach and a friend were told not to speak Spanish in the lunch area on Monday. As he left to go to his class, he started speaking Spanish again to his friend and was told again not to speak Spanish on the way to class. About 45 minutes later, he was sent back to the office by his teacher for speaking Spanish to a classmate in a classroom. Zach was then told to call his father because he was suspended from school for the rest of the day and on Tuesday for non-compliance. A "reasonable" request to not speak Spanish at school, signed by Jennifer Watts, the principal of the school, was written on a disciplinary referral dated Monday.
In addition to the reason for suspension, Watts also wrote, "This is not the first time we have asked Zach and others to not speak Spanish at school."
Zach, a junior at the Endeaver school, an alternative school in the district, is American born and proficient in English and Spanish. He said he often speaks Spanish to his friends, in his home when they come over to play video games, at the mall, and places outside of school.
Allen said he was told by Watts that Zach was being disruptive and it is important that the teachers be able to communicate and know what the students are saying. He said there are programs in place for staff at Turner that focus on cultural and ethnic sensitivities and he has spoken to staff about what is acceptable conduct at the school. He did not say why Watts has not complied.
Foreign languages is a required course at the school, Swartz said. In fact, the school offers French and Spanish to its students.
Regrettably, this graphic from Pryor’s website is no longer true.
