That Good Night - United States

Christmas: To The Roots

Sun, 19 Dec 2004 14:00:45 -0800

To hear Bill O'Reilly (a jerk) speak about how "Christmas is under attack," and "liberals are trying to take the Christ out of Christmas," you'd think that Christ had something to do with Christmas in the first place. I don't want to spend a lot of time on this, but the barest minimum of research will teach you that early Christian missionaries had a choice in dealing with popular solstice celebrations. They could either suppress them or put a veneer of Christianity on top of them and let the celebration continue. Wisely (for them) they chose the latter. The perception of Christmas today reflects that thin veneer. Merely scratch the surface however, and it becomes apparent that most Christmas traditions are decidedly un-Christian. This holiday is a holiday celebrated with gluttony and excess in all forms. To be honest, that's pretty much it, and that's what has persisted. Just look at the mall for proof.

Going back to O'Reilly's comment, I think it's true that a lot of people are trying to take "Christ out of Christmas," but I think that people who are actively trying to do such a thing think of it more as "getting Christ back out of Christmas." At the same time, I think the growing and rapidly accelerating departure of Christmas, at least in America from Christianity is less an intentional agenda and more a natural progression of a holiday, which has been exceptionally hard for the Church to Christianize, back to its roots. Shoddy religion symbolism irritates me, particularly that which relies on an english sun/son pun. The fact that a lot of Christmas parades and Christmas paegents have become "winter festivals" under the guise of sensitivity to other religions screams their pagan origins openly.

We Americans are northern hemispheric people, and we feel the same undefined desire to celebrate the corner of the year as those who came before us in the dark, cold winters. Maybe the departure of Christ from Christmas has been inevitable ever since they slapped him on it in the first place. The fact of the matter is that Christmas is a not-so-important Christian holiday. Easter is far more important and compelling. Maybe Christ never really had anything to offer for Christmas in the first place.

I will even admit that O'Reilly is partly right about Christmas being under attack. It is, but that's because all religious expression is under attack from a source I didn't even think of until it hit me over the head. Atheists have their own fundamentalists, and I think that they're equally as dangerous as the Christian, Muslim and Jewish fundamentalists we're accustomed to dealing with.

Bill O'Reilly: Jerk

Wed, 08 Dec 2004 08:33:58 -0800

O'Reilly to Jewish caller: "[I]f you are really offended, you gotta go to Israel"
Source: Media Matters

Check out the link to media matters and read the exchange. Bill O'Reilly and Randi Rhodes have a lot in common, and it's the fact that they'll talk over people without listening to them. No matter what the caller is saying, they'll jump in and proceed to knock down straw men left and right.

It sells. It's entertaining when you agree with them, but infuriating when you don't. The caller has a legitimate point, that christmas is too much in schools now, but that isn't addressed. Instead the culmination of the discussion is: "if you don't like it, then leave."

It's like a special variation on Godwin's Law, and from now on any person who uses "if you don't like it, then find another country" in an argument shall be considered to have lost the argument.

Abstinence Now

Mon, 06 Dec 2004 19:43:35 -0800

The idea of abstinence-only education reminds me of the Simpsons episode where the Springfield cat-burglar leads the town on a false treasure hunt, using the diversion to escape prison. At the end of the episode, several characters have dug themselves into a hole looking for a buried treasure that's not there. Otto says, "how are we going to get out of here?" and Homer says "We'll dig our way out!"

Millions of dollars are thrown at abstinence-only education, and then it's proven, again and again and again, even when we already knew, that it doesn't work, and the response is to throw still more money into abstinence-only education.

"We'll dig our way out!"

Contraception and STI prevention are important things to learn, and I'll never understand the culture of people who deliberately misinform and ignore these issues. Abstinence-only education leads to teen pregnancy, and it leads to sexually transmitted infections. Supporting abstinence-only education means supporting unwanted pregnancies and STIs. How did that get to be so popular?

My parents didn't give me a lot of instruction in this area. Basically, they handed me a book and said, "RTFM." It's a good thing I was able to get everything I needed in school. Believe me, I was relieved, because having that conversation with my parents would have been mortifying.

I learned some important things. Sex can be a deadly weapon. I know because I've known people who died of AIDS. It can screw up your life. I've known people who dropped out of school, never to return because they got pregnant at 14. And I know why I've never had to deal with either of those, and it's because I know to get tested periodically. I know every kind of contraception and STI prevention method under the sun and I think I could proficiently use any one of them. I know that I should ask about a person's history, and I learned how to do it sensitively. But none of that knowledge has ever made any difference in when, where, how or why (although definitely 'with whom') to have sex.

I've never been a subscriber to the 'waiting' ideology (refer to The Onion article titled "Horribly Awkward First Sexual Encounter 'Worth The Wait' For Newlyweds"). Personally I think it blows the whole thing way out of proportion, and who needs that? But even those who think it is important can benefit from those tools. Why does the right-wing political climate support all kinds of weapons, except those that work?

I'm All For Freedom Of Speech, But...

Wed, 01 Dec 2004 16:26:11 -0800

Ever notice that people who begin a sentence with "I'm all for freedom of speech..." seldom are for freedom of speech? They're just using the phrase as a shield. It's like saying 'I can't be a hateful bigot, I have some gay friends.' As an experiment, I did a Google search for "i'm all for freedom of speech but." My search turned up 729 hits including the following:

I'm all for freedom of speech, but...

...this is the wrong time to be having those antiwar demonstrations, with the troops over there.

...I don't want to pay for it.

Sunday Hike And Meditation

Sun, 21 Nov 2004 14:52:26 -0800

"The aircraft at this site is an F-101B "Voodoo" Interceptor of the 75th Fighter Interceptor Squandron at Dow AFB, Bangor [ME].
In the early morning hours of Tuesday, April 11, 1961, Capt. Vernal Johnson and Lt. Edward Masaitis were returning from an active air defense intercept off the coast in a freezing rain storm with zero visibility. The aircraft got too low on approach and struck this mountain."
Let it remain as a memorial to these two officers and all those who gave their lives in the service of their country in the Cold War era.

Apparently, aircraft hulks such as this one aren't even that rare around active Cold War air bases. It was the beginning of the jet era and the limits of men and machines were in the early stages of discovery.

A World Of Coat-Hangers and Baseball Bats?

Sat, 20 Nov 2004 21:57:54 -0800

I think it'd be a great idea to outlaw abortion so we can make sure that this becomes much more widespread:

Two Michigan teens may face charges after they allegedly used a baseball bat in an attempt to abort a fetus.

"Without getting graphic, it involved a baseball bat and at some point the child was miscarried and that brings us to where we're at now," said Macomb County Prosecutor Eric Smith.

No charges have been filed, but Smith said the two teens may face charges as serious as manslaughter.

A Government-Religion Parallel

Thu, 18 Nov 2004 15:03:43 -0800

As I've said before, I find that the signal/noise ratio on DailyKos is getting rather low. However, there are still gems to be found:

For someone who has no concept of government of, by and for the people, the Constitution of the United States appears to be an incomprehensible jumble of competing powers. To read it, one wonders how anything could ever be accomplished under such an unwieldy system: One group makes the laws that the other is required to execute, while a third determines what is true to the original intent in modern context, yet each is constantly pushing to expand it's powers, while the others push back. It is not until we put it into the context of the time and place that we understand how the document came into being, and why it says what it does. Fortunately we have and "Oral Tradition" to guide our understanding: The Federalist Papers. We also have the Declaration of Independence as well as the many letters and other writings of the people who wrote the Constitution. Without them, it would be easy to misconstrue the Constitution.

The Organized Religion Mafia

Mon, 15 Nov 2004 15:27:33 -0800

The U.S. Presbyterian church has received a letter threatening to set fire to Presbyterian churches "while people are inside" in response to "anti-Israel and anti-Jewish attitudes." These so-called attitudes are defined here as "divestment from corporations supporting the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. (WCAX - TV)"

So an independent organized religion makes a decision of conscience about where they want their money, and every member of that organization receives a death threat from some petty, small-minded thug?

The Scorched Earth Left

Thu, 04 Nov 2004 10:02:49 -0800

Over the past few months, I have found the diaries and comments on DailyKos becoming increasingly unreadable. I wasn't one of the initial readers of the site, but I definitely remember when it was still running on MovableType. I lurked for several months and finally registered and began contributing in the fall of 2003. All of my diaries and most of my comments are gone and I've long ago lost trusted user status.

Now when I try to read the site, it mostly makes me nauseated. It began a few weeks ago with a long and stupid thread railing against "Team America: World Police." I have not seen the movie, but the complaints were all about how the movie made more fun of liberals than it did conservatives. We're talking about the creators of South Park here. Get a grip. It got me thinking that there are definitely a lot of people on the left who are just as humorless as they're made out to be (which, ironically, is a very common theme in Parker/Stone work).

Fast forward to election night. There were, and still are some truly awful things being said including "Now I hope that there's a draft so all of the young people who didn't vote can go and die in Iraq -- they deserve it," "boycott the military," "I'm moving to Canada," "the northeast should secede," etc. There were a lot of thoughtful comments too, but I got very tired of wading through the rampant hatefest that is slowly taking over the site.

I know that a lot of people are unhappy with the result of this election. I am too, but as I have already written, I've made my peace with it. I believe that there were probably voting "irregularities," but I have no trouble recognizing that Bush won this time, which wasn't true after 2000. Bush won and he won squarely if not fairly. So I'm not joining the crowd of malcontents who are going to insist for the next four years: "Not MY President." I recognize that I took part in a process that elected Bush and therefore I elected Bush. When decisions are made in committee, the entire committee is responsible for that decision, not just the people who supported the final outcome.

Bush's myriad failures over the past four years have hurt this country greatly. But I can't sit around for the next four years watching him continue to fail just so I can continue to say "I told you so." There are parts of his agenda that I will bitterly oppose. Many of these are social issues that the government has no place attempting to legislate. Many of these are foreign policy issues that I consider arrogant and unwise. However, there are also things that I believe he must be successful at. If his failures are harming us, then we must find ways to be successful and I'll come right out and say that it is unpatriotic to wish for failure in Iraq, or on the economy, or anything else just to sit there feeling schadenfreude.

I still do not support Bush, and will continue to call BS whenever I see it, but I care an awful lot more about the success of America the country than I do about stoking my own righteous outrage at Bush's handling of it.

Today's Nugget Of "Wisdom"

Tue, 26 Oct 2004 19:59:11 -0700

Documents Reveal Gaps In Bush's Service As President

Tue, 28 Sep 2004 20:19:34 -0700

{ed -- Every once in a while, The Onion is so on the nose that it deserves to have one of its articles perpetuated as being true. This is one of those articles.}

Documents Reveal Gaps In Bush's Service As President

According to Rocklin, the most damning documents were generated at roughly one-day intervals during a period beginning in January 2001 and ending this week. The document's sources include, but are not limited to, the U.S. newspaper The New York Times, the London-based Economist magazine, and the well-known international business and finance record, The Wall Street Journal.

"We're fairly confident that these so-called 'news stories' will turn out to be partisan smear tactics," DeLay said. "I wouldn't be surprised if all 11 billion of these words turn out to be forgeries. For thousands of reporters, editors, and government officials to claim that Bush compromised the security and fiscal health of this nation is not merely anti-American, but also dangerous."

You heard it here first, the so-called "fake" news outlets have already surpassed the traditional media in journalistic integrity. The man is going down.

Conservatism is Treason

Wed, 04 Aug 2004 19:16:51 -0700

Google's adwords, in its infinite wisdom, has placed an ad for "Conservative Stickers" in my adwords panel. Who knows how their context sensitive placement of ads works, but it apparently has some bugs.

Anyway. One of the stickers on this site reads "Civil War Before Kerry." If I'm not mistaken, they're threatening to wage war on the United States if they don't like the outcome of the election. If so, I hope that they're convicted of treason. Treason is a capital crime. To paraphrase the clinically insane Ann Coulter: we should put them to death so that conservatives know that they, too, can be killed.

The Absurdity of "Fairness"

Fri, 30 Jul 2004 12:37:47 -0700

According to many fundamentalists who view their bible as an infallible, historically accurate recording of the word of God, the world was created, by God's hand, a bit less than 6,000 years ago. Despite the fact that this is demonstrably untrue (we have objects, records and evidence of things much older than 6,000 years), in the interest of "fairness", it is taught in some schools as a "theory" equal to the "theory" of evolution.

Since I'm a charitable guy, I'll treat them both as theories. There's two things that everybody knows (or should know) about testing hypotheses: 1)Unless you're talking mathematical theorems, you can never "prove" a hypothesis, only support it with evidence, but 2)All it takes is one piece of contradictory evidence to invalidate a hypothesis.

Anti-Ice Cream Burning Amendment

Wed, 28 Jul 2004 19:59:06 -0700

From the Lexington Herald-Reader via The Apostropher.

A former grocer set fire to 30 pints of Ben&Jerry's ice cream to protest Ben Cohen (the Ben of Ben&Jerry's) calling George W. Bush a liar.

Cohen was no less bemused than you might imagine:

Alanis Morrisette Should Have Crammed This Into Her Stupid Song...

Mon, 26 Jul 2004 04:41:12 -0700

...and this actually is ironic, unlike anything she did put in there. I guess the tree felt threatened by all of the "inappropriate touching."

Environmentalist Dies After Being Crushed By Tree

Note: Edited to correct incorrect attribution of song authorship.