Culture Wars. TownHall.com has some comments on Christmas.

Here is a jew defending Christmas.

For starters, it seems that a school in Como has edited out the name "Gesu" (Jesus) and replaced it with the word "virtu" (virtue) in its choir's renditions of Christmas hymns. Which rhymes and everything, but falls flat. Also, the province of Vicenza has canceled its annual contest for the best nativity scene in the schools of the province. Then there's the elementary school in the northern Italian city of Treviso that has decided to nix its traditional Christmas pageant depicting the birth of Christ in order to present a dramatic, um, Virtumas presentation of the adventures of Little Red Riding Hood.

[...]

I don't get it -- and I'm Jewish. If "taking offense" is the issue, isn't eradicating the commemoration of Christ's birth -- and the universal ideal of peace on earth -- equally as likely to make Italian Catholics take offense?

[...]

"It is the perfect example of how not to respect the presence of different people, in this case our Muslim brothers, by annihilating our own identity," said Bishop Agostino Marchetto, head of the Vatican's department for migrants. "Are we losing our minds?" asked government Reforms Minister Roberto Calderoli. "Do we want to erase our identity for the love of Allah?"

Here's another jew who likes Christmas:

I enjoy Christmas decorations -- and Christmas music, and the upbeat Christmastime mood -- and I say that as a practicing Jew for whom Dec. 25 has no theological significance at all. I have never celebrated Christmas, but I like seeing my Christian neighbors celebrate it. I like living in a society that makes a big deal out of religious holidays. Far from feeling threatened when the sights and sounds of Christmas surround me each December, I find them reassuring. They reaffirm the importance of the Judeo-Christian culture that has made America so exceptional -- and such a safe and tolerant haven for a religious minority like mine.

[...]

But there is nothing inclusive about silencing the 90 percent of Americans who celebrate the birth of Jesus. Christians, after all, have freedom of religion, too -- and that freedom shelters my faith no less than it does theirs. Christmas is a blessing for all Americans. May yours be filled with joy.

Plus Charles Krathammer:

The attempts to de-Christianize Christmas are as absurd as they are relentless. The United States today is the most tolerant and diverse society in history. It celebrates all faiths with an open heart and open-mindedness that, compared to even the most advanced countries in Europe, are unique.

Yet more than 80 percent of Americans are Christian and probably 95 percent of Americans celebrate Christmas. Christmas Day is an official federal holiday, the only day of the entire year when, for example, the Smithsonian museums are closed. Are we to pretend that Christmas is nothing but an orgy of commerce in celebration of ... what? The winter solstice?

I personally like Christmas because, as a day that for me is otherwise ordinary, I get to do nice things, such as covering for as many gentile colleagues as I could when I was a doctor at Massachusetts General Hospital. I will admit that my generosity had its rewards: I collected enough chits on Christmas Day to get reciprocal coverage not just for Yom Kippur, but for both days of Rosh Hashana and my other major holiday, Opening Day at Fenway.

But is seems that none of this assault on Christmas is real. It is just a fascist plot cooked up but evil conservatives:

They said liberals are out to destroy Christmas. Cobbling together a few anecdotes (unsupportable attacks are always anecdote-based), they managed to imply a vast anti-Christian conspiracy bubbling just under the belly of America, and pushed that frightening implication into the minds of millions of Americans just in time for the holiday season.

Conservatives must constantly attack others (and focus on "morality") to keep hidden their own true agenda, which is no less than a return to the world of Scrooge & Marley, Inc. They're working to bring about a return to Robber Baron feudalism, with a stable, rich, and powerful ruling class, and an impoverished, frightened, and politically impotent working class.

I don't think that this is an anti-Christian conspiracy but there are several factors at work. One of them is the ACLU. This organization used to understand that it was possible for the government to acknowledge religion without advancing it. Currently though, they are on an anti-religion bent. Their web site lists these items under Religious Liberty:

ACLU Applauds Appeals Court Decision Striking Down Florida School Voucher Program (11/12/2004)
MIAMI – The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida today hailed a federal court ruling that the state’s school voucher program is unconstitutional because it allows tax dollars to be spent on religious schools.

Most private schools are affiliated with churches in some way. As long as the vouchers allow you to decide which school (including secular ones) will get your money there should be no conflict.

Pentagon Agrees to End Direct Sponsorship of Boy Scout Troops in Response to Religious Discrimination Charge (11/15/2004)
CHICAGO – In response to a religious discrimination lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, the Defense Department today agreed to end direct sponsorship of hundreds of Boy Scout units, which require members to swear religious oaths, on military facilities across the United States and overseas.

The religious aspect is the same as the Oath of Allegiance - there are a few references to God. The scouts themselves are not a religious organization by any measure. Also, as long as other groups are allowed to meet on military facilities there should be no conflict.

Pennsylvania Parents File First-Ever Challenge to “Intelligent Design” Instruction in Public Schools (12/14/2004)
HARRISBURG, PA—The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and attorneys with Pepper Hamilton LLP filed a federal lawsuit today on behalf of 11 parents who say that presenting “intelligent design” in public school science classrooms violates their religious liberty by promoting particular religious beliefs to their children under the guise of science education.

Ok, this one I agree with. I have read a lot of Intelligent Design literature and it is the worst kind of junk science.

Anyway, the ACLU is openly hostile to any form of religion anywhere near the government. They represent a small minority but it has a cascading effect. Officials fear lawsuits so they make pre-emptive strikes against Christmas. Worse, they go beyond what is required.

It has been established that Christmas Trees are legal on government property. There is no actual religious significance. No problem there except for the name which is why they are now "Holiday" trees or "Giving" trees.

Even that isn't enough for some activists.

The holiday season also heralds the annual return of Scrooge and the Grinch. Or, as they're known in Bellevue, Wash., these days, Sidney and Jennifer Stock.

The Stocks are atheists who want Bellevue's city council to remove the Christmas tree from the lobby of City Hall. Since "it is impossible for everybody's religious belief to be displayed and non-religious belief to be displayed," Sidney Stock told reporters last week, "no religious beliefs [should] be displayed."

People like these give atheists a bad name. They also scare public officials.

So a few angry activists are part of the problem.

The other part of the problem is well-meaning liberals. They don't hate religion but it makes them nervous and they don't think much of the religious. Look at the post election map with the red states forming "Jesusland". For that matter, look at how often American fundamentalists are compared with the Taliban.

Not only is this group nervous about Christmas but they assume that a lot of other people are also (jews, Moslems, pagans, atheists, etc.). To be fair to this group, they try to bury Christmas as far as they can.

Adding to this are retailers. No one wants bad publicity or controversy (except maybe Virgin Mobil) so they go with the blandist ads they can. There is no ill-will here, just a desire to reach the widest audience that they can.

BTW, if you wanted to celebrate Chrismahanukwanzakah, it's too late, it was December 13.


Keith Olbermann reappears. It seems that he is on vacation again but, unlike his November vacation when he was updating his blog daily, this time he hasn't been making any entries. Like a groundhog in February, he stuck his nose out long enough to check current voter fraud allegations then went back to hibernating.

Probably the reason he hasn't been diligent about updating his blog is that the news is bad - at least for conspiracy buffs. He admits that there is nothing to the Hocking County, Ohio story (I wrote about this yesterday). He does tack on a lame attempt to show problems in Ohio:

But the real impact in Hocking is the simple fact that a computer technician had access to the voting equipment in violation of the Ohio Secretary of State’s controversial extension of the “canvassing period.” Simply put, according to Kenneth Blackwell, nobody should’ve been allowed to dust the machine, let alone replace a battery or parts, except under extremely controlled circumstances.

Thus the evidence of a “fix” in Hocking is almost nil. The evidence of holes in the security of the voting system big enough to drive a full-sized scandal through, is conclusive.

No it isn't. This appears to be the only place where a technician had unsupervised access, this access was to the machine that counts the votes, not to the ballots, the machine was tested at least twice before being used, and there was still an uproar over it. Find a second instance before you cry scandal, Keith.

Olbermann also briefly covers the case of the Florida programmer who said that he had been hired to write a program to change vote totals. Skipping over the fact that this guy was never near a real voting machine, Olbermann admits that he qualifies as a disgruntled employee - he has threatened his former employer in writing before.

Olbermann has several other points in his column. I will cover a few:

Fascists are Leftists:
[...]For anybody else just joining us here in the real world, here’s the story so far: the Fascists started in Italy, with Benito Mussolini. They— and the Germans that followed them - were an ultra-conservative political party that opposed (and later jailed and killed) leftists. The German ones even went to war against a Communist state, suggesting that the use of the term “Socialism” in their official party name was almost ironic in intention.[...]

Fascisism as practiced by Mussolini included government take-over of major industries - an action still known as socializing an industry. Socialism and communism are often equated but they were distinct in the 1930s and 1940s. There is often conflict between two related philosophies. Just look at the religious wars following the reformation. Also, both the fascist and communist movements were accompanied by expanding territorial interests that were a major factor in the war.

And this one:

The American media has a liberal bias:

I think we can pretty much put this one to bed.

The mainstream media has so tiptoed around the voting irregularities stories that it’s deflated any reasonable belief that there are swarms of reporters bypassing facts to substitute their own agendas. Instead of a circus, the Conyers “voting forums” have received tepid coverage.

Had there been a reversal of the poles in this political equation, of course, the impenetrable Sean Hannity would be in his 49th consecutive day of broadcasting without sleep, and by now would’ve already announced that Democrats from Outer Space had stolen the election.

This guy has a prime time news show on a cable news channel. He uses it to publicize these conspiracy theories plus he posts them to msnbc.com. He is allowed to do all of this but his bosses aren't liberal?

This is where the liberal media story always gets confused. An overwhelming majority of the press dislikes George Bush and wishes that he had lost. This leads them to slant stories. It does not obligate them to cover stories when there are no facts. So far the whole case for voter fraud comes down to the insistence that the exit polls must have been correct therefore the vote was fixed. Here is the Ohio lawsuit. You can see it for yourself. There are no facts here.

Olbermann himself has quoted Zogby as saying that 20% of the population would not accept the result of the election no matter which way it went. Given that, why does Olbermann listen to the 20%? Is it because he is one himself?

For a little balance, see what Joe Scarborough has to say.

First, it's time we face up to the ugly truth about the mainstream media outlets covering this war.

The fact is that newsrooms across America and Europe are filled with reporters and editors who loathe George Bush that they would rather see him lose in Iraq than see America win.

[...]

Since when did promoting Jeffersonian democracy equate to the spread of American hegemony?

Since George Bush launched this war instead of, say, Bill Clinton.

Isn't it remarkable that we never heard terms like “American imperialism” or “US hegemony” or “unilateral war” when former President Bill Clinton launched military strikes against Haiti, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Sudan, or Iraq?

Can you remember 'The New York Times' or CBS News or any other mainstream media outlet taking President Clinton to task for his wars in the Balkans?

Speaking of Haiti, Maxine Waters who I mentioned yesterday is one of the members of the Black Congressional Caucus who bothers me with their inconsistency. In the 1980s, Greneda was taken over by a military junta backed by Cuba and the USSR. Reagan invaded and restored democracy. In the 1990s, Haiti's elected government was overthrown and Clinton invaded to restore it. Earlier this year, rebels took over Haiti again and Bush did not invade.

Given all of this, either it is alright to invade a neighboring country to restore its democratically elected government or it is not. If it is ok then Reagan and Clinton did the right thing. If it is not ok then Bush did the right thing.

So which way did the CBC go? Both ways. It was wrong for Reagan to invade, it was correct for Clinton to invade, and Bush should have invaded.