Jingo bells

Oh, no — more hysteria over Christmas from Bill O’Reilly, joined now by Gretchen Carlson, the blinkered bigot host of some other Fox program. The dialog is hilariously stupid.

Billo blows it early, claiming that Christmas marks “the birth of Jesus Christ, which is what the holiday is based on”, which is simply not true. Midwinter festivals have a long history predating Christianity, and Christianity simply coopted this one, right down to the date and many of the pagan traditions that go with it. The name is taken from Christianity, but so what?

Then the two begin a duet of historical revisionism. Carlson is upset because public spaces contain a multitude of different displays, and she complains that her children won’t be able to see “the thing I was able to see growing up”, which seems to be a complete lack of diversity — the only displays she remembers seeing as a child were entirely Christian, and to her this is a good thing.

Billo claims “there was no controversy over Christmas … everybody said Merry Christmas”, again as if this were a good thing, and completely ignoring that this controversy is one he invented. Yes, people said “Merry Christmas”, and they also said “Happy Holidays”…and we still do. Even atheists.

I like Carlson’s next suggestion, made while completely oblivious to what she is saying: “People can have their right to free speech, just don’t pick December 25th to do it”. Right. You can speak freely, except on 25 December, and, ummm, the days around Christmas, which nowadays spans the period from shortly before Halloween to sometime around New Year’s Day. And Easter is off limits, too. And St Crispin’s Day. And Shrove Tuesday. And Pentecost Sunday. Oh, and the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus…

Oh, OK — you get 3 hours of free speech on the second Tuesday in July, at 2am, as long as you don’t say it anywhere outside of your house. And only if you have a house — no poor people.

Billo makes a prediction: “They’re going to try to revoke the federal holiday … you can’t have a federal holiday based on religion”. The first part is wrong, the second part is right. You can’t have the state endorsing a religious holiday. However, atheists aren’t at all interested in revoking our midwinter holiday, and I haven’t heard of anyone lobbying to get the day off the calendar. We also have a clear-cut court decision from the federal judicial system, Ganulin v. United States. O’Reilly is going to be pained to learn this, but legally, he isn’t getting Christmas off because he’s a Christian. It’s a secular holiday in the US.

Courts have repeatedly recognized that the Christmas holiday has become largely secularized. …By giving federal employees a paid vacation day on Christmas, the government is doing no more than recognizing the cultural significance of the holiday.

For those who think human bones would make a great gift

Here’s an interesting new blog, Moneduloides, that seems to have an emphasis on human evolution, if you’re into that sort of thing, and it currently has a short list of good texts for Christmas presents. <moan> I’ve done absolutely no Christmas shopping at all this year, so if the economy tanks and my family hates me, it is all my fault. I just have to get out from under this stack of grading first.

New Advent podcasts

If you haven’t been keeping up with the New Humanist Advent Podcasts, there are many new ones since I last mentioned them: Ben Goldacre, Martin Rowson, Chris Addison, Ben Miller, Andrew Collins, , Eddie Izzard, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, and Laurie Taylor. I do have to mention that Eddie Izzard totally stole my suggestion of celebrating Isaac Newton, and turned it into a weird ramble about how intelligent people have bad parties where there is no bathing and no shagging going on. I think I am horribly offended, even if it is true that very few parties that I’ve attended have involved bathing or shagging. Perhaps I’m not really offended, but just moderately worried that I’ve missed out on a lot of very fun parties.

First they came for the mad scientists…oh, hey, that’s me!

Man, it’s getting to the point where a fellow can’t even build a death ray or an island fortress shaped like a skull without someone getting pissy about it. Take this account, for instance, of a few people just playing around with skeletons and lab coats:

A group of students had their ‘Mad Scientist’ party brought to an abrupt end when police mistook them for terrorists.

The private party, held in Hackney, north London, was organised by a group of friends dressed in white laboratory coats and wigs, who put on a display of theatrical ‘experiments’ to entertain guests.

But when police entered the building for a routine check in the early hours of Sunday morning, they discovered scientific debris and plastic skeletons and mistook it for terrorist paraphernalia or drug-making equipment.

Caretaker of the property, Richard Watson, 29, was arrested under The Anti-Terrorism Act and questioned while the entire area was evacuated and roads cordoned off with police tape.

He said: ‘I was handcuffed and put in the back of the police van for over an hour while the bomb squad and drugs team came down.

‘There was a ridiculous amount of police there. Every time I looked out of the van I could see a new group of them swarming around.’

Three fire engines and three ambulances were also called to the scene as Mr Watson was searched and interrogated.

Note to self: clean up debris in basement soon.

Shoes for Christmas

Lots of people complained that throwing shoes at the president was an act of violence, and therefore beyond the pale of what should be allowed. I think they’re wrong, that it’s a harmless expression of naked contempt, and that there ought to be more contempt expressed towards this president, but let’s compromise. No throwing shoes. How about politely handing them to him?

The Rude Pundit had a brilliant and obvious idea.

This morning, the Rude Pundit decided to honor the efforts of Muntader al-Zaidi, the Iraqi shoe-tosser, by taking out a raggedy old pair of sneakers, putting them in a Priority Mail shipping box, helpfully provided by the United States Post Office, and shipping them to President George W. Bush at the White House. He included a note that read, “This is a farewell kiss from the American people, you dog.”

Since throwing objects at the president is generally considered a crime, the Rude Pundit figures sending shoes to Bush is a small, good thing, a gesture of contempt that has context. Sweet Christ, at this point, there should be giant sacks of shoes heading to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC, 20500, like letters to Santa.

None of you can have any objections in principle to that, I should hope. Let us all make our own small protest and send George W Bush a little Christmas present, a polite version of an upraised middle finger, and box up some old shoes and send him a deluge of metaphorical and symbolic disgust.

It would also be nice if the shoes were at least serviceable, so maybe the White House could follow up with one last decent act by donating them to the needy.

Alternative suggestion! I really like the idea mentioned in the comments. Since the shoes won’t actually be seen Bush and will probably be thrown out, cut out the middleman and do this:

  • Donate a pair of shoes to the local charity of your choice.

  • Send Bush a postcard, stating, “A pair of shoes has been donated to the needy in your name. This is a farewell kiss from the American people, you dog.”

Simple, cheap, and it gets the message across just as well, while also doing something good.

Tycker du att skolor bör hålla sina avslutningar i kyrkan?

About half* my ancestry is Scandinavian — equally split between Sweden and Norway — and one of the nice things about the Christmas holidays is the reconnection with family and tradition, so it’s only appropriate that I urge you all to crash a Swedish poll. It’s asking, Do you think schools should hold their commencement ceremonies in church?. So far, I’m shocked to see that secular Sweden is answering 69% “Ja” — is there some sneaky plan to get in there and desanctify the church, is the poll being mobbed by a religious minority, or (more likely, from my experience growing up with swarms of Swedes) is it just that they don’t give a damn, a building is a building?

Whatever the reason, get over there and rösta.

*Don’t ask about the other half. Classic American mongrel I-don’t-know-whatsis, mostly diverse North European.