Cozy

Well the semester is finished as far as classes go, meaning that I've been able to spend more time at my apartment. After having seen _Rent_, I was moved to put up Christmas lights around my window. They've made my place even cozier. I've got some papers to grade, which I will probably start looking at tomorrow. All very exciting, but at least the semester is winding down!!

Additional insight

To add to what I mentioned yesterday, this piece makes a very cogent point.

And to clarify, I'm not saying that people aren't acting like there's a war on Christmas. I'm sure loads of people out there are getting really bent out of shape about a store wishing them Happy Holidays. That said, the piece from the Times seems to indicate that early in the twentieth century, there was already a notion of a war on Christmas, yet it was one that had some kind of economic perspective. To paraphrase a very smart man, I think history is repeating itself here; that first war seems tragic while this new one, in my mind, is a farce.

The War

Sorry I haven't posted for so long. It's been quite an exhausting period since I wrote last.

I'm just writing to remind all of you that the so-called War on Christmas is just a giant hoax. A friend from Roanoke recently told me about controversy in that town regarding signage that said "Happy Holidays." People got all frustrated over it, demanding, because they were in a religious majority, that it should use the word Christmas.

As long as we've got the current form of capitalism, Christmas is going to be a big deal, but it's not going to be about Christmas as a religious holiday per se. Any event would do, really, just as long as it keeps us shopping. The real opposition to Christmas is not tolerance, secularism, and "happy holidays" signs, but capitalism itself. If people really wanted a meaningful Christmas, one that was actually based on considering the religious background for the holiday, they'd go without gifts and lavish food, maybe toning down the decorations to some modest wreaths and trees.

This isn't going to happen. Right now, the apparent war is simply another attempt to distract everyone from the fact that people are dying in Iraq, that Bush and his entire administration refuse to come clean about multiple falsehoods, and that our country is dependent on oil in a way that is increasingly dangerous and unstable.

Sorry to be so preachy, but I've had it!