Letters to the Editor
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pagan but Christian
I am a semi-lapsed Catholic, and I "get" that 99% of "Christmas" is either pagan, or completely godless consumerism. But were I Jewish, I wouldn't want a Christmas tree in the house, even if w called it a Solstice tree.
It would be as weird as my Catholic family having a seder with the haggadah and the seder plate and the "Next Year in Israel!" chanting.
No matter how hollowed-out the tradition has become, non-Christians celebrating Christmas is "playing house" with someone else's religion. It's kinda creepy to me.
Honestly, I don't know what to think of Irving and Winter Wonderday. It seems like everyone is happy, and it certainly doesn't impact my life, so it's none of my business. The family has created their own tradition, and it brings them closer together at a time of the year when most interfaith families are pulled in different directions. (I'm a little sad that the songs seem to "dis" Santa, though: picking on Christmas seems a little Freudian-slippery to me, as well as, petty).
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Even on Xmas
Salon is obsessed with those scary Jews.
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Chicken waddles
A large number of editors have learned that Salon thinks chickens have waddles. This is not true. Ducks waddle; chickens have wattles. For many, this may be an inconsequential point, but for an editor it can lead to 24 hours of pun wars. Especially if she's on an active Listserv comprising many, many editors.
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JenniferC has an excellent point ... and so do many of other posters
Many of the posters who disagree with Noxon have excellent points.
Is it telling that the editor's choice letters have essentially the same tone of amused agreement and empathy with the author of "Irving the Snowchicken"? Being Canadian, I feel a degree of sympathy in regards to cultural anxieties around tolerance, but there must be better way to endorse diversity than by succumbing to the nonchalant "whatever works" cultural relativity expressed by many in response to Noxon's snowchicken. Isn't such nonchalance missing the point entirely by simply sidestepping (and dismissing) cultural and religious differences?
Personally, I think the "new tradition" Noxon has invented to celebrate the season is somewhat soulless; perhaps the far-fetched absurdity of the snowchicken says more about the uncompromising stance of his wife vis-à-vis her beliefs in this "interfaith relationship"- and of course, Noxon's own starwars-satisfied version of culture and religion- than anything else. Maybe I just don't roll that way, but Irving the Snowchicken doesn't seem very 'magical'; and it surely doesn't represent any kind of interfaith conciliation. On the contrary, it seems a touch desperate and a bit pathetic.
Is 'tradition' the right word here? Secularism aside, doesn't the atomism encouraged by individualism-as-highest-order ultimately destroy the idea of culture, which is after all, a shared experience by definition? Does respect for difference mean erasing and replacing all traditions with ever more vacuous and caricatured expression on the one hand, or increasingly idiosyncratic and individualistic manifestations on the other?
That said, lauralagassa's posting is probably the most diplomatic, intelligently tolerant verdict on Noxon's 'inventive' solution. As liberal humanists, lefties and wannabe radicals, at least we can all agree that commercialism is the crassest cultural expression of all.
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Chicken this: I was in NAM!
You're wasting time on this nonsense when at least 3,897 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
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My cock is also magical
And fills pants with wondrous surprises.
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Don't Google "Goatse"
This is a sophmoric internet trick.
Goatse is an extremely disgusting picture of a naked man spreading his anus with his hands. It is quite disturbing, and certainly would get you in trouble if you had it on your computer screen at work.
People try to trick others into seeing it. Unless you're into that sort of thing, I advise you to avoid it.
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thanks ken, but google got there first and with wiki, warned me off
ANOTHER reason to ban the use of "Anonymous". all it does is attract trolls and agents provocateur(s).[yes, that's what i think this one was]
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a quibble
Juliebird said: "No matter how hollowed-out the tradition has become, non-Christians celebrating Christmas is "playing house" with someone else's religion."
Overall I happen to agree with her and personally act with this in mind. However, in this particular case, why is it okay then for Mr. Noxon to be a participant in (or at least be present during) his family's Jewish ceremonies when he does not share that faith, but it would be false if his Jewish wife "played house" with a tree? We can't just eliminate everything. Be sensitive, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
As a "hard agnostic" raised in a religion-free home, you would have to pry my tree from my cold, dead hands. It's my memory tree, with ornaments celebrating events and travels throughout my life. It has nothing to do with Christianity or even solstice, although I wouldn't be above using paganism as an argument. It's a chance to relive memories and connect with my childhood, and I would not give it up for anyone.
Oh, and for all the people commenting on his family not being truly interfaith, that was exactly the point of his joke they brought the "faith" part and he brought the "inter."
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Lighten up, people! It's Christmas!
As much as I love Salon, the commenters drive me crazy. Why does every article have to become fodder for the negative, the critical, and those who assume the world revolves around them?
If it's not "this writer is not interfaith--I know, because my experience is different and therefore more valid," it's "the writer's view of Christmas is wrong--I know, because my opinion is different and therefore correct."
Oh, and let's not forget the obligatory "Why are you writing about this inconsequential fluff when there's a war on and people are suffering?"
This is a charming piece about one man's attempt to bring a little fun and magic into the lives of his children. Happy Winter Wonderday, Noxon family!
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TO: K erfourth
Sometimes there are columns written which are just so much total senseless bullshit.
This one was one of the bullshittiest of them.
If you google that 'goatse", you get what you might be mistaking as something relly ugly when it's goreedgo's "dear president" or some other such piece of reeking excrement.
The one thing about the author's blathering I found funny was actually sort of symbolic.
He uses a chicken and, of course, it's representative of his being henpecked by his own PBFH.
Garbage in/garbage out like this crap make me even more comfortable with no having a family to tolerate this week.
BTW-MY PBFH was~Psycho Bitch From Hell.
I find the jews who neurotically have to broadcast their jewness all over the place about as self confident and legitimate as those asscloens who have to get themselves noticed after they score a touchdown.
So you're jewish, so what?
So you scored a touchdown, so what"
Get on with YOUR life, not with MINE.
Moving on to something worthwhile~~~~~~~