Letters to the Editor
-
Keillor can kiss my Jewish ass!
I'll accept my people being called 'legalistic', althought the claim that Jewish religion is entirely legalistic has overtones of anti-Semitism, as if Judaism is a spiritual dead end, being just a code of odd laws about pork and funny hats.
But 'humorless'? Cracker, please.
If Keillor doesn't want to hear my complaints about being excluded from Christmas, he can stuff a latke in his earhole. My real complaint is not being excluded from Christmas but the ubiquity and inanity of Christmas and the association of the celebration of Christmas with Americanness. This may be a culture dominated by Christians (and a bang up job you all have done with it, too. Thanks for Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, lunchables, and the largest income gap betwen rich and poor in the modern industrial world.) but it is not a "Christian culture" such that others are not part of America, with no stake in Americanness.
Besides, for Keillor to ask Jews to stop complaining makes it seem to me as if he doesn't know any Jews. If Almighty God, the Creator of the Universe, couldn't get Jews to put a cork in it, what chance does he think sugar cookies and sappy songs have?
-
If it sounds like anti-Semitism and it walks like anti-Semitism.....
"There are people who feel "excluded" by Christian symbolism and are offended by the manger and the angels and the Child, but there have always been humorless, legalistic people. Complaint is an American art form, and in our time it has been raised to an operatic level. To which one can only say: Get a life. When you go to France, you don't expect a stack of buckwheat pancakes for breakfast or Le Monde to print box scores. You're in France. Now you're in America. It's a Christian culture. Work with it."
You can say it, but that doesn't make it true, Garrison. You can trade on all your avuncular charm, but hatred of people not like you is still hatred, even if you dress it up in faux Christian mythology. This bullshit essay is not at all different from the Falwells and Dobsons who preach hatred and mysogyny in the name of Jesus the Christ. Sad how you mention all the trappings of the holiday but fail to demonstrate even a rudimentary understanding of Jesus's message; whether or not he existed is beside the point.
I'm all for go along to get along, for taking a less legal stance and a more "let's talk about our differences" approach. But your essay stands exactly alongside anything Bill O'Reilly spews, and outdoes him for pure hatred. You, sir, are simply Fox News with better writing...the most dangerous kind of a racist, simply because you don't have a clue as to your true nature.
-
Brought to you by the Jewish People...
Umm, ok, I like string lights and egg nog as much as the next person. However, let's not forget it was the Jews who invented this whole wacky idea of celebrating light in the middle of the winter. It's called Hanukkah. Take back the light!
http://the-thinking-mom.blogspot.com
-
"It's a Christian Culture"
Ah, Garrison! In some ways, I envy folks who live in Minnesota, and that's not sarcasm; it's a fact. In some ways, it's so comfortable and so much easier to be in a more monochrome, more uniform culture. I've been there, and it can be like a warm blanket, and that's a fact. There are down sides, absolutely, and I'm not so arrogant as to think that Garrison Keillor is unaware of them, but there are some genuine up sides as well.
But still, at the risk of sounding curmudgeonly, "humorless, and legalistic," I sincerely hope that Mr. Keillor considers this:
Jews.
Just that. Jews. That simple. (I find it funny that in late December the country goes from being a "Judeo-Christian country" to a "Christian country," but I digress.) Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and other folks, too; but I happen to be a Jew.
Look: I have don't give a rip what other folks do this time of year. What does bother me is that, every year in late November I can either "get a life," "work with it," and celebrate a holiday that is (let's face it) totally at odds with my beliefs, or I can be sneered at by (usually well-meaning) folks like Mr. Keillor because I'm not . What a great choice; I can be a jerk, or an apostate. Oh boy!
I'm glad lots of folks get joy out of this time of year. Really. I don't mind. I don't particularly like the fact that I'm totally inundated with it everywhere I go, nor do I like that my kids are given Christmas-related projects at school every year (Christmas carols in music class; Santa drawings in art class, etc. etc.), but I do my best to roll with it. But every year there's someone like Keillor, who feels it their duty to lecture those of us stick-in-the-muds who have the temerity to feel that Christmas is a religious holiday for the religion of which they are not the member of, and how we sure have a lot of nerve not celebrating with the majority. How dare we!
Well Garrison, enjoy your Christmas goose, your egg nog, your ugly sweaters, and getting tinsel in your hair; I wish you all the best, and I mean that most sincerely. But do please consider that there are those of us out there who are not celebrating Christmas, not because we're lawyers, or humorless, or un-American, but because we're simply not Christian, and don't think it's right. We're not being nasty or obnoxious; we're just being Jews (or Muslims or Buddhists or Atheists or Hindus or whatever). Cut us a little slack, man. Have some compassion--isn't that supposed to be one of the spirits of the season? And wish us a l'shauna tova come our new year; it's only fair.
-
Venite, Venite in Be-eth-lehem!
Merry Christmas! Who are you Christmas-haters? Cool it, please. Garrison Keillor is on your side, but he likes Christmas. Christmas is the last thing guys like Garrison would fight about.
Please save your nastiness for nasty presidents, vice-presidents, and such. Pecem in Terris! Goodwill!