More dysfunctionality:
Prayers Replace Parties to Mark 2004’s End

PARIS (AP) — For Sweden’s prime minister, celebrating New Year’s after the Asian tsunami felt “completely wrong.” Paris, its gay heart heavy with the tragedy, draped black cloth along a favorite haunt for romantic reveling - the Champs-Elysees.

Yes, without a doubt, celebration at this point in time seems completely wrong, and that’s understandable.

“We are still mourning. Let’s pray together and hopefully God will not give us another disaster.”

But THIS is the part that always fucking kills me. Why pray, unless it’s for some clear purpose: “Please, God, please don’t kill us”? That’s not something you say out of love, for chrissake.

This story was bound to come out sooner or later, I guess:
Faiths ask of quake: “Why did you do this, God?”

“This is an expression of God’s great ire with the world,” Israeli chief rabbi Shlomo Amar told Reuters. “The world is being punished for wrongdoing — be it people’s needless hatred of each other, lack of charity, moral turpitude.”

Pandit Harikrishna Shastri, a priest of New Delhi’s huge marble and sandstone Birla Hindu temple, told Reuters the disaster was caused by a “huge amount of pent-up man-made evil on earth” and driven by the positions of the planets.

Azizan Abdul Razak, a Muslim cleric and vice president of Malaysia’s Islamic opposition party, Parti Islam se-Malaysia, said the disaster was a reminder from god that “he created the world and can destroy the world”.

Sheikh Ibrahim Mogra, a leading British Muslim cleric from Leicester in England said: “We believe that God has ultimate controlling power over his entire creation. We have a responsibility to try and attract god’s kindness and mercy and not do anything that would attract his anger.”

In all seriousness, shit like this really makes me sad. It’s analogous to a kid who’s completely dysfunctional, where his parents are just totally abusive, but the kid always comes back with, “No, those beatings were bad, and I know I’m bleeding, but I must’ve done something wrong. I’ll be better next time.” Only in this case, it’s worse, because there are no parents. Now that’s REALLY fucked up. It connects up to that story from The Onion way back. But at least with that story, there was simply detachment and a complete absence of thought, as opposed to this stuff from Reuters, which seems to be complete self-loathing.

Welcome to Nihilism, Inc.

The Albany Times-Union has run back-to-back stories about moderately high-level NY State employees who have faced clear retribution for looking into and complaining about the way in which the “Governor’s Prayer Breakfast” has been pushed, handled, and supported within the structure of the state government. But it’s all voluntary, of course. Read State worker gets $82,789 for no work and State worker tells of scrutiny if you’re interested.

As we pause during Saturnalia to recognize the virgin birth of Christ, let us not forget how much we should all be thankful for:

Asia Quakes’ Tsunamis Kill Nearly 10,000

The rush of tsunami waves brought sudden disaster to people carrying out their daily activities on the ocean’s edge. Sunbathers on the beaches of the Thai resort of Phuket were washed away. A group of 32 Indians - including 15 children - were killed while taking a ritual Hindu bath to mark the full moon day. Fishing boats, with their owners clinging to their sides, were picked up by the waves and discarded. […] Tidal waves leveled towns in Aceh province on Sumatra’s northern tip. An Associated Press reporter saw bodies wedged in trees as the waters receded. More bodies littered the beaches.

Let’s all give thanks, shall we?

Nice little ditty on: The True Spirit of Xmas: How 4/5 of the Country Became an Oppressed Minority

The stratagem is so perverse as to be almost admirable: Take a holiday associated with sentiments like peace and goodwill, mix in some well-intentioned attempts to acknowledge it in an inclusive way suited to a pluralistic society, and then use the combination to generate fear, divisiveness, and high ratings. But whether we’re impressed or appalled by that cynical ploy, whether we’re gearing up for Christmas dinner or just a post-Ramadan pig-out, we can all breathe a little easier knowing that the anti-Christmas “jihad” is no more real (sorry kids) than Santa Claus. Happy holidays.

The article’s about xmas, but I’d say it also works for xianity in general. Lots of links to follow, so it’ll take a bit to go through. (By the way, and for the record, it was actually very nice to see the ALCU defending the kid’s right to distribute those religious candy canes. Yes, the same rights that we treasure so much end up defending those religious kids with their candy canes. Duh. Call me crazy.)

In “Merry fucking Xmas, part II”, I mentioned in passing a piece from the Washington Post by E. J. Dionne Jr. called Peace on Earth? Not with this season’s Christmas wars. It’s a good bit, by a Xian, but sensible and worth a read. A few tastes:

The Christmas wars seem hotter this year. Listening to conservative talk shows and watching the lawsuits fly around, you’d think there’s a conspiracy to block celebrations of the birth of Jesus Christ. Politicians who speak of “the holidays” instead of “Christmas” now face angry Christian protests… Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and nonbelievers, meanwhile, insist that government should not push the faith of the majority into the faces of those who do not share it… [this] view is now being dismissed as “political correctness,” an increasingly meaningless phrase invoked to attack any point of view that conflicts with conservative preferences. If respecting the rights of religious minorities is “political correctness,” that makes Thomas Jefferson and the First Amendment “politically correct”… There is something defective about a religious tolerance open to every expression of religion except for the faith of those who believe most passionately… But such respect cannot come at the expense of the rights of those who are not Christian. At the personal level: What in the world is “Christian” about insisting on saying “Merry Christmas” to a devout Jew or Hindu who might reasonably view the statement as a sign of disrespect? At the level of government: Is it really “Christian” for a religious majority to press its advantage over religious minorities, including nonbelievers?… The great Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr wrote that “the chief source of man’s inhumanity to man seems to be the tribal limits of his sense of obligation to other men.” I fear that in these Christmas debates, Christians are behaving not as Christians but as a tribe: “We will pound them if they get in the way of our customs and rituals”… Tribal behavior is antithetical to the spirit of peace and good will. In this season, we ought to be taking the most expansive possible view of our obligations to others.

I don’t agree with every word. But not bad, for one of “them”.

There’s some talk in the air about wishing “Merry Xmas”, from the bullshit of Rush Limbaugh to some good sense at the Washington Post. So I’ll give my two cents.

I don’t celebrate Xmas; it’s a Xian holiday marking the mythical birth of their mythical messiah, and so it’s not my holiday. I don’t object to the Xians celebrating; they can celebrate what they want. And although I wish we non-Xians would establish our solidarity in not celebrating their religious holiday, I understand and mostly don’t condemn non-Xians who decide under pressure of family ties or their own personal history to embrace “secular” Xmas.

Although here in New York, people are more likely to do “Happy Holidays” (thanks no doubt to the fact that we have more Jews here than in most of the country), I still occasionally get a “Merry Xmas”. I’m not offended; it’s usually offered in a spirit of at least faux warmth. On the other hand, since it’s clearly offered with the presumption that it’s my holiday too (unlike, say, when I wish someone a Happy Darwin Day), I usually try to be pleasant but also correct the faulty assumption. So, my stock answer is “Not my holiday, actually; but thanks anyway.” Sometimes the person seems slightly flustered and perhaps a tiny bit embarrassed at this, which seems like a mostly healthy reaction. Rarely do they seem at all huffy. Sometimes they ask me about Hanukkah.

But now that I’m the father of a 5-year-old, we get a little different taste: People ask my son if he’s “excited for Santa to come” or some such thing. This I actually do find annoying. In fact, when the family went to a local restaurant for supper last Saturday, my son got two of these inquiries. He has, in fact, been taught that the appropriate answer is “We don’t celebrate Xmas.”

And when he gives this answer, it’s clear the person who asked is embarrassed. I’d like to think it’s because they’ve just been given a little remedial lesson in inclusiveness by somebody who still likes a sippy cup, and sometimes it is. But come on, folks, think a little. I know you’re trying to be nice to my son. But unless you just think we’re monsters for not doing Xmas (and you probably wouldn’t, if we were Jews instead of Atheists), you’ve got to be able to recognize that saying to a kid what amounts to “looking forward to all those presents? oh, what’s that, you don’t get those? you poor deprived child!” isn’t making his life happier. Aside from the whole creepiness of the imaginary old fat guy who sneaks into your house through the chimney in the middle of the night story, it’s really not very decent of you to ask a 5-year-old to think about the ways he might be excluded from something like this.

So shut the fuck up. If a kid is talking about Xmas, or wearing a Santa hat, or whatever, fine. But asking random small children how excited they might be about the pile of loot that comes to all good kids on Xmas morning is pretty insensitive.

Another year, and we’ll have taught him to say all that.

Media Matters for America has a nice piece on some idiocy from CNN’s Lou Dobbs (CNN’s Dobbs: “Happy Holidays” “exclude[s] everyone who is celebrating Christmas). Apparently, Macy’s has decided to use “Happy Holidays” and “Season’s Greetings” rather than “Merry Xmas” in their advertising. Here in New York, the only thing that should seem odd is that this was in any way a change. After all, New York is hardly perfect, but is probably about as good as anywhere in the U.S. about not being completely blindly Xian-centric. But, as MMfA points out,

Lou Dobbs, host of CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight, joined up with FOX News anchors and conservative commentators who have alleged that Christmas has been imperiled by Macy’s department stores’ use of the phrase “Happy Holidays” in its advertising… Dobbs claimed that Macy’s department stores are “exclud[ing] everyone who is celebrating Christmas” by using the phrase “Happy Holidays.” Dobbs then questioned the merit of using “Happy Holidays,” asking CNN business correspondent Christine Romans: “[W]hat other holidays are we celebrating right now?” Finally, Dobbs concluded that Macy’s is “wrong” in assuming “Happy Holidays” encompasses Christmas… Dobbs made his comments directly following a report by Romans, in which she quoted a statement by Macy’s which conveyed the company’s desire to be inclusive of “all religious and ethnic celebrations.”

Read the on-air exchange he has with Romans; just summarizing doesn’t quite capture the nastiness of tone.

So, now, it’s not enough to make “the holidays” be Xmas and the holidays those few non-Xians might have that are close enough on the calendar generously be included (”oh, we’ll count Jew and Muslim holidays too, if they’re close enough to the Real Holiday”); now we have the backlash against even this minimal amount of inclusiveness and embracing of diversity.

The Xmas message for the rest of us: “Fuck you and your heathen celebrations; wish me a Merry Christmas or nothing at all, motherfucker.”bangla gai mp3 aami gaankhan mp3 aamiraan mp3 vrouwen alleaana dobara mp3enna mp3 aanantumhare aanch mp3aandre mp3 rieuaane wala mp3 Map