Linking The War On Christmas To The Economic Crisis

Ken AshfordEconomy & Jobs & Deficit, Right Wing Punditry/Idiocy, War On ChristmasLeave a Comment

I would call this "overreaching".  From the Wall Street Journal, columnist Daniel Henninger writes:

This year we celebrate the desacralized "holidays" amid what is for many unprecedented economic ruin — fortunes halved, jobs lost, homes foreclosed. People wonder, What happened? One man's theory: A nation whose people can't say "Merry Christmas" is a nation capable of ruining its own economy.

Uh… come again?

One had better explain that.

Yes, one better had, sir.

Now, I will spare you the forest into which that Mr. Henninger drags his readers.  Basically, he talks about the economic crisis and its roots, which he lays at the feet of borrowers, lenders and "secularized shamans" operating in a moral-free, greed-above-all-else environment.

Except for the "secularized shamen" (on which I'll plead ignorance), I'll grant Mr. Henninger's premise with regard to the moral-free world of high finance.

Finally, he brings it home:

What really went missing through the subprime mortgage years were the three Rs: responsibility, restraint and remorse. They are the ballast that stabilizes two better-known Rs from the world of free markets: risk and reward.

Yes, I'm with you….

Responsibility and restraint are moral sentiments. Remorse is a product of conscience. None of these grow on trees. Each must be learned, taught, passed down.

Okay, still with you….

And so we come back to the disappearance of "Merry Christmas."

Bam!  You lost me.  Come at me again.

It has been my view that the steady secularizing and insistent effort at dereligioning America has been dangerous. That danger flashed red in the fall into subprime personal behavior by borrowers and bankers, who after all are just people. Northerners and atheists who vilify Southern evangelicals are throwing out nurturers of useful virtue with the bathwater of obnoxious political opinions.

Wow.  So borrowers and bankers are Northerners and atheists who vilify Southern evangelicals?  Any data on that?  (And isn't that kind of an "obnoxious political opinion"?)

And assuming that's true… that relates to saying/not saying "Merry Christmas" how?

The point for a healthy society of commerce and politics is not that religion saves, but that it keeps most of the players inside the chalk lines. We are erasing the chalk lines.

Look, pal.  Religion isn't the ONLY thing that keeps players "inside the chalk lines".  Believe it or not, one CAN be an atheist AND a moral person.  By the same token, one can be religious AND corrupt as hell.

But even granting that premise, is failure to say "Merry Christmas" really "erasing the chalk lines"?   Is this man suggesting that had the checkout girl at K-Mart been allowed to say "Merry Christmas" instead of "Happy Holidays", greedy Wall Street bastards would have shown responsiblity and remorse and not been so get-rich-quick?  Seriously?

I wondered if Mr. Henniniger had gone off the deep end, and then the final sentence of his editorial came along:

Feel free: Banish Merry Christmas. Get ready for Mad Max.

Yes, he means that Mad Max.  In his view, that's what will happen to the world if we stop saying "Merry Christmas" (which, by the way, isn't remotely likely to happen).

Oogedy-boogedy.

On Recounts

Ken AshfordElection 2008Leave a Comment

Minnesota Public Radio has a great photoessay/poll giving particular actual examples of the kind of issues faced by election judges when it comes to determining ballot results on hand recount.

Here's an example, called "The Arrow":

Arrow 

Who gets the vote?  Franken, Coleman, or nobody/indeterminable?

Of course, in the real world, one's decision would be governed by this Minnesota state statute as a guide to determine voter intent.  While it is helpful, it is, in many ways, not helpful enough.

Here's another, called "The Confusion":

Confusion 

MPR informs us:

The Coleman campaign kept this ballot from going into the 'Other' pile. They argued that while the voter filled in the bubble next to Dean Barkley, the voter had intended to vote for Coleman because of the small dot inside Coleman's bubble.

Hmmm.  I don't know about that.

Anyway, I don't envy these election judges.

Waxman In

Ken AshfordEnergy and Conservation, Environment & Global Warming & EnergyLeave a Comment

Dingell is out and Waxman is in as Energy And Commerce Chair.  That may seem like inside-politics baseball, but it is kind of a big deal. This is a huge victory for environmentalists. TPM has the details:

Dingell, who first entered the House way back when Eisenhower was president, had been the head Democrat on this committee ever since 1981.

But many of the more liberal members over the years came to view him as too friendly to Michigan's auto industry and hostile to environmentalists — especially on issues like climate change and carbon limits.

It also shakes up Congress' seniority system and is yet another sign that the political momentum is squarely in the camp of aggressive Dems. Waxman played a lead role in staking out a far more aggressive stance towards the Bush administration than many other more cautious Dems would take.

The willingness to address the global warming crisis could be the single most important change ushered in by the Obama administration – and now with Waxman taking over from Dingell, the prospects for real action just got that much closer to realization. 

Prop 8 To Be Reviewed By CA Supreme Court… And The Lord Weighs In

Ken AshfordGodstuff, Sex/Morality/Family ValuesLeave a Comment

No, really.  He did.  The Lord submitted a 40 page amicus brief (PDF) speaking through one of his servents, I guess.

My favorite section:

After a night full of dreams, before dawn on November 11, 2008, before I woke up in the morning, the Almighty Eternal Creator ordered me, saying "You explain to them the consequences that follow each and all of their actions. Once they understand, they will listen!"

These two matters (gay-lesbian and abortion) are just a couple of many major cases where people are exercising their free-will rights for wrong purposes. This has gone on for a hundred-thousand years and has contributed heavily to extreme weather, global warming, financial crisis, recession, global hatred, lying, violence, war and murder, serious sickness and diseases – often for the purpose of gaining rights for wrong purposes, power and money.

As the court might say, duly noted.

[NOTE:  The California Supreme Court is reviewing the constitutionality of Prop 8 for what are essentially procedural defects, or so is the claim.  Basically, amendments to the California Constitution can be put on the ballot if petitioners obtain the required number of signatures (this is how Prop 8 got on the ballot).  Revisions to articles and amendments already in the California Constitution can be put on the ballot only if two-thirds of the legislature approve.  The issue is whether or not Prop 8 constitutes an amendment or a revision.

Also, the California Supreme Court seemed to indicate that it would address the thorny issue about what to do with same-sex couple who already have been legally married under California law]

The Password For Today Is “Oogedy-boogedy”

Ken AshfordGodstuff, Sex/Morality/Family Values2 Comments

Lot of fallout from the Kathleen Parker article yesterday, which I wrote about here.

Especially this part:

To be more specific, the evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP is what ails the erstwhile conservative party and will continue to afflict and marginalize its constituents if reckoning doesn't soon cometh.

While unsure about what it means, many on the right have taken offense with "oogedy-boogedy". 

Over at NRO's The Corner, Jonah Goldberg, having delivered what he believed to be a smack-down of Parker (you can determine for yourself), writes:

What aspects of the Christian Right amount to oogedy-boogedyism? I take oogedy-boogedy to be a perjorative reference to absurd superstition and irrational nonsense. So where has the GOP embraced to its detriment oogedy-boogedyism? With the possible exception of some variants of creationism (which is hardly a major issue at the national level in the GOP, as much as some on the left and a few on the right try to make it one), I'm at a loss as to what Kathleen is referring to. Opposition to abortion? Opposition to gay marriage? Euthanasia? Support for prayer in school?

Far be it for me to guess what Kathleen Parker meant by the "oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP", but my guess is as good as Jonah's.  And I don't think it was a reference to the religious aspect of their beliefs (since Parker already mentioned that), but the fear-mongering.

As in "Oogedy-boogedy! They're coming to get you!" — with "they" being the homosexual cabal, or the immigrant hordes, or whatever suits the particular purpose of the religious right on any particular day.  Kevin Drum neatly sums it up nicely:

There will always be plenty of votes for a culturally conservative party. That’s not the problem. The problem is the venomous, spittle-flecked, hardcore cultural conservatism that’s become the public face of the evangelical wing of the GOP. It’s the wing that doesn’t just support more stringent immigration laws, but that turns the issue into a hate fest against La Raza, losing 3 million Latino votes in the process. It’s the wing that isn’t just a little skittish about gay marriage, but that turns homophobia into a virtual litmus test, losing 6 million young voters in the process. It’s the wing that isn’t just religious, but that treats belief as a precondition to righteousness, losing 2 million secular voters in the process. It’s the wing that isn’t just nostalgic for old traditions, but that fetishizes the heartland as the only real America, losing 7 million urban voters in the process. It’s the wing that goes into a legislative frenzy over Terry Schiavo but six months later can barely rouse itself into more than a yawn over the destruction of New Orleans.

Now, the GOP didn’t lose all those votes solely because of their embrace of cultural victimhood. It was a Democratic year, after all, and the economy worked against them too. Still, exit polls suggest they had already lost most of this ground by 2006, and the economy had nothing to do with it back then. Conservative gains after 9/11 may have masked the problem for a while, but fundamentally these are voters who saw the Republican Party turn into a party of rabid identity politics and turned away in disgust. It’s probably cost them (so far) about 10 million votes, and in an era where 53-47 is considered a big victory, that’s a helluva deficit to make up elsewhere.

A party that merely wants to move more slowly and more deliberately than liberals in the cultural sphere wouldn’t have lost all those votes. But the real-life GOP, a party whose primary association in much of the public mind is with revulsion toward gays, immigrants, urban elites, and the non-churchgoing, did. That’s oogedy-boogedy.

And, as if on cue, a case-in-point reveals itself, courtesy of the religious right organization, America Family Association and their DVD "They're Coming to Your Town":

10000122 Residents of the small Arkansas town of Eureka Springs noticed the homosexual community was growing. But they felt no threat. They went about their business as usual. Then, one day, they woke up to discover that their beloved Eureka Springs, a community which was known far and wide as a center for Christian entertainment–had changed. The City Council had been taken over by a small group of homosexual activists.

The Eureka Springs they knew is gone. It is now a national hub for homosexuals. Eureka Springs is becoming the San Francisco of Arkansas. The story of how this happened is told in the new AFA DVD “They’re Coming To Your Town.”

One of the first actions of the homosexual controlled City Council was to offer a “registry” where homosexuals could register their unofficial “marriage.” City Council member Joyce Zeller said the city will now be promoted, not as a Christian resort, but a city “selling peace, relaxation, history and sex.”

AFA’s “They’re Coming ToYour Town” documents the story of how and why this happened. And how homosexual activists plan to do the same in other towns.

That's oogedy-boogedy.

That said, you do kind of have to admire the graphic they use (see above) — a town going up in gay flames.

UPDATE:  Oh, lookie! I found a promotional video for the DVD.

Anyway, I took a gander at the Eureka Springs website, expecting to find it strewn with pictures of leather-clad men in tights and gay bars, and well, I don't know what exactly, but that kind of thing.  I mean, now that the gay cabal has taken over and all.

But no.  It actually looked kind of nice.  With all kinds of festivals.

Including this one.

Well, I guess the gay zombie hordes haven't spread their gay all over that little town yet.

But they WILL!

OOGEDY-BOOGEDY!

BELATED THOUGHT:  A cynic might say that AFA uses oogedy-boogedy to sell their DVD at $24.95.  But that doesn't have a ring of truth, does it?

UPDATE:  John Cole has a list of particulars

UPDATE:  Publius has a different take on "oogedy-boogedy", arguing that it represents liberals' fear of social conservatism, and not the reverse, as I argue.  Interesting reading and thoughtful discussion in the comments.

“The Plan” by Jack Handey

Ken AshfordRandom MusingsLeave a Comment

The plan isn’t foolproof. For it to work, certain things must happen:

—The door to the vault must have accidentally been left open by the cleaning woman.

—The guard must bend over to tie his shoes and somehow he gets all the shoelaces tied together. He can’t get them apart, so he takes out his gun and shoots all his bullets at the knot. But he misses. Then he just lies down on the floor and goes to sleep.

—Most of the customers in the bank must happen to be wearing Nixon masks, so when we come in wearing our Nixon masks it doesn’t alarm anyone.

—There must be an empty parking space right out in front. If it has a meter, there must be time left on it, because our outfits don’t have pockets for change.

—The monkeys must grab the bags of money and not just shriek and go running all over the place, like they did in the practice run.

—The security cameras must be the early, old-timey kind that don’t actually take pictures.

—If somebody runs out of the bank and yells, “Help! The bank is being robbed!,” he must be a neighborhood crazy person who people just laugh at.

—If the police come, they don’t notice that the historical mural on the wall is actually us, holding still.

—Any fingerprints we leave must be erased by the monkeys.

Read the whole thing.

“Like Seeing A Guy Show Up At The Soup Kitchen In High-hat And Tuxedo”

Ken AshfordEconomy & Jobs & DeficitLeave a Comment

More on the symbolic faux pax carried out by the CEOs of the Big Three automakers, who flew into D.C. on luxury corporate jets so that they could beg for a bailout at taxpayer expense:

"There's a delicious irony in seeing private luxury jets flying into Washington, D.C., and people coming off of them with tin cups in their hands," Rep. Gary L. Ackerman (D-N.Y.) advised the pampered executives at a hearing yesterday. "It's almost like seeing a guy show up at the soup kitchen in high-hat and tuxedo. . . . I mean, couldn't you all have downgraded to first class or jet-pooled or something to get here?"

The Big Three said nothing, which prompted Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) to rub it in. "I'm going to ask the three executives here to raise their hand if they flew here commercial," he said. All still at the witness table. "Second," he continued, "I'm going ask you to raise your hand if you're planning to sell your jet . . . and fly back commercial." More stillness. "Let the record show no hands went up," Sherman grandstanded.

Avast Ye, Mateys!

Ken AshfordRandom MusingsLeave a Comment

I don't care how many times I read about piracy in the news — and it apparently is becoming a serious problem — but I just can't make my head NOT think about, you know, real pirates.

Pirate 

Pirates003

“Secret” White Supremists Not So Secret Anymore

Ken AshfordRaceLeave a Comment

I don't know much about British politics, but apparently the British National Party is a whites-only supremist nationalist facist party there.  They spout Holocaust denial nonsense — you know the type (hopefully, not well).

Anyway, their rather expansive secret membership list is no longer "secret" having been made available for download here and here. The list includes BNP members who are also parliamentary candidates, and well, everyone apparently.

For amusement, go to this website and watch the membership freak out in the comments; things like: "I can't believe it. I own a PC retail outlet and this could ruin me, It makes me want to puke on my shoe."

Worlds-smallest-violin 

Pictured above:  World's Smallest Violin

Okay, NOW The Presidential Election Is Over

Ken AshfordElection 2008Leave a Comment

Although not "official" yet, Missouri has finally finished counting its ballots, all 2.9 million of them, and McCain has 3,632 more votes than Obama.

So make Missouri red.

Final EV count:  Obama 365, McCain 173.

Obama still "smucked" him, as we used to say on the playground.

Note:  Missouri has picked the victor 25 times out of the past 26 times, and every time since 1956.  But they picked the loser this time, so you can trash that canard "As Missouri goes, so goes the nation…"

Giving Up On God

Ken AshfordElection 2008Leave a Comment

There's been a few of these around, but conservative columnist Kathleen Parker's WaPo column on why the GOP should turn its back on the religious right is good reading:

As Republicans sort out the reasons for their defeat, they likely will overlook or dismiss the gorilla in the pulpit.

Three little letters, great big problem: G-O-D.

I'm bathing in holy water as I type.

To be more specific, the evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP is what ails the erstwhile conservative party and will continue to afflict and marginalize its constituents if reckoning doesn't soon cometh.

Simply put: Armband religion is killing the Republican Party. And, the truth — as long as we're setting ourselves free — is that if one were to eavesdrop on private conversations among the party intelligentsia, one would hear precisely that.

The choir has become absurdly off-key, and many Republicans know it….

…[T]he GOP has surrendered its high ground to its lowest brows. In the process, the party has alienated its non-base constituents, including other people of faith (those who prefer a more private approach to worship), as well as secularists and conservative-leaning Democrats who otherwise might be tempted to cross the aisle.

Here's the deal, 'pubbies: Howard Dean was right.

It isn't that culture doesn't matter. It does. But preaching to the choir produces no converts. And shifting demographics suggest that the Republican Party — and conservatism with it — eventually will die out unless religion is returned to the privacy of one's heart where it belongs…

Suffice it to say, the Republican Party is largely comprised of white, married Christians. Anyone watching the two conventions last summer can't have missed the stark differences: One party was brimming with energy, youth and diversity; the other felt like an annual Depends sales meeting.

Ouch.  That's gonna leave a mark.

She has some choice words for Palin too, praying to God that Palin, for the sake of the GOP future, falls off the political map.

As a Democrat, I hope Parker's prayers go unanswered.  Nothing would please me more than the Republican Party, headed by Palin, continuing to embrace the far (religious) right for the next several election cycles.

Naturally, the so-called "base" isn't happy with Kathleen Parker's editorial.  Over at Townhall, they starkly state "she's wrong", adding that:

John McCain and the Republicans didn't lose because of the religiosity of some of the party's base.  They lost because Barack Obama managed to lure millions of religious voters away from the GOP — in no small part by emphasizing his personal faith in God.

Curiously, the link they provide tends to support Parker's thesis.

Over at NRO's The Corner, increasingly becoming irrelevant in political discourse because of its embrace of the religious right, editor Katherine Lopez offers her retort, amounting to nothing more than "I love Kathleen, but she's stupid and possibly influence by her new boyfriend".

I suspect Kathleen Parker's email box will be flooded with religious right wing attacks, ironically proving her point.

We’re All Sinners

Ken AshfordGodstuffLeave a Comment

A church marquee tells us why:

I like this:

CNN's Rick Sanchez reported on a church marquee that reads "America we have a Muslim president. This is a sin against the Lord." Mark Holick is pastor of The Spirit One Christian Center in Wichita, Kansas where the sign is being displayed.

Holick told KSNW, "The main point of the marquee is to cause the Christians to understand he is not a Christian, Again, they will call me and they will tell me that he's not a Muslim because he is a Christian. That's not the point. The point is he's not a Christian."

Uh, then it is the point, Pastor Holick.