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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
 Posted - 11/27/2006 : 19:22:51
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Last year I made a list of "shitty and less shitty things about the holidays" and posted it to my blog and here. A somewhat sanitized version has been posted to my website for my records (I am a teacher at a PreK through 8th grade school, so can't be too naughty) which can be read here: http://www.paintedprimate.com/words/crappy_holidays.html
I decided to make this a tradition apparently, since today as I went to post to my blog and out came a flurry of holiday sarcasm.
I have once again chosen to torture all of you here, too, with this year's rant. Happy mutha fuckin' holidays ya'll!
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Well, here we are again, plunged right down into the depths of the season of darkness and light.
That's right, the season of beautiful snow and life-threatening ice;
The season where we get to visit our loving families... as long as we're willing to fork out enough dough for a plane ride or endure driving in wicked weather and traffic;
The season of giving, and the season of gimme gimme gimme!
The season where Americans go forth and buy mostly cheap, unwanted presents for others and then spend three times as much on stuff for themselves;
The most spiritual of seasons - in other words - as Bart Simpson once put it: "the one time of year when people of all religions come together to worship Jesus Christ."
The season where conservative Christians eagerly anticipate, and liberal Christians and secularists dreadfully await the rantings of the likes of Bill O'Reilly regarding the fabled War on Christmas;
The season where I must once again make an important decision:
a.) Celebrate the Winter Solsice, a naturalistically-based holiday which allows me to feel connected with cultures all around the earth and through time, and also causes me to be associated with Goddess-worship and pentagrams.
b.) Celebrate HumanLight (http://www.humanlight.org), the atheist Kwanza, a holiday just for Humanists, invented by the group in NJ 6 years ago. A holiday where I can affirm my true beliefs while simultaneously feeling divisive and rather like a great big ball of cheese (port wine?)
c.) The Anti-Claus, Tom Flynn (Do a search on amazon for "The Trouble With Christmas), is right, just close my eyes, plug my ears, and pretend it isn't there.
My, sarcasm in overdrive. Naughty, naughty. Santa will likely skip my chimney this December 25th.
But what the hey, I'm long beyond desires for My Little Pony and Strawberry Shortcake dolls.
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"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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Edited by - marfknox on 11/27/2006 19:27:38
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 11/27/2006 : 21:41:35 [Permalink]
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Very fine, Marf!
I'm not sure if I believe in Agnostica, Dave.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 11/27/2006 : 21:56:04 [Permalink]
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Oh, cheer up. Christmas is the one time of year when we get to pretend that war, hunger, and homeless people don't exist!
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 11/28/2006 : 20:29:26 [Permalink]
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Dave wrote: quote:
You forgot that Agnostica starts in just 17 days.
Oh fer Pete's sake!
Humbert wrote: quote:
Christmas is the one time of year when we get to pretend that war, hunger, and homeless people don't exist!
The one time of the year? |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 11/28/2006 : 21:15:55 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by marfknox
The one time of the year?
Well, I meant the one time of year when we're helpfully inundated with catchy jingles and slightly alcoholic holiday drinks to dull the guilt, obviously. 
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 11/28/2006 21:17:21 |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 11/28/2006 : 21:42:56 [Permalink]
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My favorite things about Christmas:
The thrift stores are full of Christmas ornaments that I can buy for a buck or two and sell on EBay for $20 to a couple hundred, (even though I keep buying and not getting around to selling so the clutter is growing).
I like the lights.
I like the smell of the tree in our house and I collect a few of those cool ornaments for myself.
I talk to my brothers more than the rest of the year.
After the 21st the days are getting longer (yeah, summer's coming).
Things I don't like:
The clutter is growing and I can't buy stuff in the thrift stores until I sell some of the stuff I already bought.
My invoices all have to get out before everyone's end of the year budgets are done (which is why I'm wasting time here?).
I still get cards from people I never get around to sending any back to and I stress over it every year (you'd think I would just send them?).
Putting the lights up and taking them down.
It gets dark too early.
It's less fun to walk the dogs in the rain.
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard
USA
4907 Posts |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 11/29/2006 : 03:21:33 [Permalink]
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My belief in the Supreme Being, embodied primarily as Santa, goes way back before I understood what that distant concept of God and Jesus was about.
Santa Claus, along with the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny, were my holy trinity, a trio who actually did stuff, unlike that God creature.
Being a good boy most of the year would inevitably get me toys from Santa. The Tooth Fairy was a reliable magical merchant, who could be counted upon to exchange any old worn out baby tooth for a solid dime, with which I could buy a soda pop to get a start on the next tooth. The Easter Bunny was a bit different: He or she required nothing at all from me, only that I find the eggs and candy that he/she laid, and eat them. I always thought there was something a bit unsanitary about eating stuff that came out of a bunny's bottom, but such notions never stopped me.
Santa, though the hardest to placate, was the definite superior. He knew if I'd been bad or good, so I was good for Santa's sake. Heaven had nothing to do with it.
The smell of evergreen still brings back warm memories of dreamingly looking forward to Christmas morning.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 11/29/2006 : 05:14:35 [Permalink]
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As I have a fairly large, white, and untrimmed beard, and a beer belly, I am usually asked to be Santa Clause. I usually snarl back, whilst sliding my hand into the pocket where I carry my pistol, that there is no way I'm going to be a fat, spying pedophile in a red suit. I ain't jolly enuff; go lay it on somebody who is!
On the day before Black Friday (how aptly named!), I had a cheap space heater go tits-up. Went to Wal-Mart to buy a new one. Discovered something I already knew but hadn't thought about: they got too much crap in there! Their aisles between all the crap are rendered so narrow that it's impossible to get around another person. This wouldn't be so bad but for people stopping to shoot the shit with friends. In the middle of the freakin' aisle, every freakin' time -- Wal-Mart should hire freakin' traffic cops with truncheons!
There will be at least three houses in the county to catch fire from people trying to burn Christmas wrappings, amongst other trash, and probably a couple more from electrical overloads and shorts in half-assed light displays.
The highway traffic will become horrendous as people, not satisfied with their own food, drive to someone else's house to devour theirs. All too often, their victims are their own parents and grandparents.
The ERs will be inundated with food poisoning complaints that turn out to be mostly over-indulgence.
Those same ERs won't have a lot of time to deal with the pig-outs because they'll be too busy trying to save mangled motorists, reeking of alcohol, who thought they could get on the interstate and run with Earnhart.
A certain number of children will become monocular due to Christmas-gift, BB gun accidents.
Bill O'Reilly, et al, will bore us to distraction whining about The War on Christmas. But they just might have a point, there...
There will be the annual scandal of missing monies and general pettifoggery in the Salvation Army.
Oh, how I yearn for that glorious night when I finally get Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in the jack-light.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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moakley
SFN Regular
USA
1888 Posts |
Posted - 11/29/2006 : 06:47:36 [Permalink]
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Io Saturnalia
quote:
After brushing aside inconvenient facts such as the bible's own accounts placing the birth of Jesus in the spring
WTF. Is anyone familiar with where this is mentioned? This link is more in line with what I read in a book by Joseph Wheles "Is It God's Word"
quote:
When Zekharya (Zechariah) was ministering in the temple, he received an announcement from God of a coming son. The eighth course of Abia, [1 Chronicles 24:10; Apostolic Writings: Luke 1:5.] when Zekharya was ministering, was the week of Sivan 12 to 18. If Zekharya's promised son Yochanan (Yochanan (John) the baptizer) were conceived soon thereafter, then Yeshua's conception, which was six months later, would be late Chiselev to early Tevet, near Chanukah (the Feast of Dedication); His birth would thence be at mid Tishri (October), the Feast of Sukkoth (Tabernacles).
Not that that matters much now. |
Life is good
Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned. -Anonymous |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 11/29/2006 : 07:26:02 [Permalink]
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When chimney smoke hangs still and low
Across the stubble-fields of snow
When angry skys reach down to seize
The sorry blackened bones of trees
In the dead of winter
When the silent snow birds come
You're my sweet maple sugar, honey,
Hot buttered rum
When dreary Christmas decorations
Line the streets and filling stations
And dime store centers can't disguise
Their empty heads and empty eyes
In the dead of winter when
The tinsel angels come
You're my sweet maple sugar, honey,
Hot buttered rum
When gloves boots and woolen parkas
Bring cold comfort to the heart
And bitter memories freeze the tongue
And songs of love are left unsung
In the dead of winter when,
If springtime never comes
You're my sweet maple sugar, honey,
Hot buttered rum
-- Tommy Thompson
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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