Baby on Board, Part 2

Sensitivity, it's the latest thing, hipper than Selfie sticks and Yoga pants -- but wait, can a truly sensitive, aware and totally hip person wear them?  I wouldn't bet on it, at least not on a University campus where everyone's skin is more sensitive than a Canadian after a long day on a Florida beach.

A yoga class at the University of Ottawa has run into trouble, even though you'd think otherwise, it being a class designed to benefit disabled students.  Yoga you see belongs to a victimized culture, one that has  like countless others

"experienced oppression, cultural genocide and diasporas due to colonialism and western supremacy,"   

Now I know better than to predict by extrapolation, but this isn't an isolated thing.  Everyone on campus at least is searching for protection from something,  Everyone assumes the right never to feel uncomfortable, a right never to feel a lack of warm, cuddly and maternal protection from the slings and arrows of  freedom of the press, freedom of speech and apparently freedom of religion -- and yes, Yoga is a religion and as such no one should espouse any teachings from it if they're not victims of British colonialism.  No, don't ask me to explain because then I'd have to explain a lot of  Liberal Shibboleths that make just as little sense. Just accept that the copyright on truth belongs to the victims  and aren't we all?

Now if I can't practice yoga because India was a British colony over 60 years ago, I certainly can't espouse anything I like about Christianity because Christians have been persecuted victims, at least to hear them tell it. So sorry, I can no longer celebrate Christmas.  I can't even be a thug because Thugee is an Indian religion. I can't be a Pundit for the same reason.  I can't carry a 20 dollar bill because Andrew Jackson was a racist and I can't tolerate a building at Princeton named for Woodrow Wilson because he was also a racist and I'd just feel uncomfortable, you know, attending that racist school.  If anything makes me uncomfortable, I have the right to be protected from it, don't I? In this safest and most comfortable world?

I have a right to demand the press doesn't cover my protests. I have a right to demand satisfaction if I hear lyrics that make me uncomfortable on a jukebox or radio. No that isn't hyperbole, it's a true story nor am I indulging in unfair reductio.  This thing started out absurd -- as absurd as the presumed right to be protected from the unpleasantness of the truth, of history or other people's version of the truth. It's kind of the the ugly stepchild of  Stand Your Ground laws because if your interpretation, your methodology, your opinion varies from mine, I have the right to attack you with all the authority victimhood confers.

Ridiculous?  Of course but, the momentum is large and we have a whole lot of pretend Liberals who will support such claims to inviolable protective custody -- so, as the saying goes, if you can't lick 'em, join 'em.   Here's my manifesto:   I don't want to see any Churches or Crosses or hear any talk of "Christ."  Too many people have been victims of Christian aggression and persecution.  I have the right to be protected from words like "old" and "Senior" for obvious reasons. That goes for many other epithets as well,  It makes me feel marginalized.  What about the names of States and Cities taken, like the land itself, from indigenous peoples?  Indiana?  That's racist!  Washington?  He was a RACIST!

I demand racist signatures  be deleted from any and all US documents and laws including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution..  I demand that the US flag be removed and banned since it's flown over so many atrocious acts and conditions.  I demand that the Ten Commandments and any references to Hebrew prophets and practices be removed from all churches and writings and from Sunday schools:  cultural genocide, actual genocide, oppression and diasporas, don't you know.  The racist teachings of Martin Luther must be banned and Catholic Churches of all sorts make me feel uncomfortable and have to go.  You might want to get a snack or something, This is going to be a very long list.

But really, you have to agree on my inherent right to suppress, to expunge, to ban, to inhibit and deny any and all things, all records, all personages, all artifacts, all opinions and certainly all of  history if it in any way lowers my self esteem and makes me feel uncomfortable, don't I?  I have a right to be protected!

Donald Trump and Another Fictitious Claim...

Rational Nation USA
Purveyor of Truth

Donald Trump, perhaps one of the least honest bloviating blowhards in the 2016 republican presidential fields adds to his list of fear mongering lies. His recent claim that thousands and thousands of Muslin in Jersey City cheered on 911 when the World Trade Center came down is a flat out lie.

All of us are aware that Islamic jihadist in the middle east cheered when the WTC collapsed, but there is absolutely no truth to the statement made by Trump. The Donald is playing the politics of fear as he appeals to the low intelligence and low information people who flock to hear his BS. For the Donald it is not about truth, it never gas been. Rather it all abut the Art of the Deal and winning, no matter what it takes.

Donald Trump lacks the ethical standards the howler monkeys claim Obama lacks. Yet when Mr. Lying Trump spews his BS the low intelligence and low information folks not only look the other way they swear he's telling the truth and hi poll numbers climb a bit more.

The Donald has shown he lacks the ethical and moral standards to lead our nation. As the democratic party machinery and H.R. Clinton consider the possibility of facing Trump in the general they must be salivating at the prospects.

Finding myself thinking of an acronym to describe The Donald's character it took all of one second, POS.

From The Washington Post

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: You raised some eyebrows yesterday with comments you made at your latest rally. I want to show them, relating to 9/11.

STEPHANOPOULOS: “You know, the police say that didn’t happen and all those rumors have been on the Internet for some time. So did you misspeak yesterday?”

TRUMP: “It did happen. I saw it.”

STEPHANOPOULOS: “You saw that…”

TRUMP: It was on television. I saw it.

STEPHANOPOULOS: “…with your own eyes?”

TRUMP: “George, it did happen.”

STEPHANOPOULOS: “Police say it didn’t happen.”

TRUMP: “There were people that were cheering on the other side of New Jersey, where you have large Arab populations. They were cheering as the World Trade Center came down. I know it might be not politically correct for you to talk about it, but there were people cheering as that building came down — as those buildings came down. And that tells you something. It was well covered at the time, George. Now, I know they don’t like to talk about it, but it was well covered at the time. There were people over in New Jersey that were watching it, a heavy Arab population, that were cheering as the buildings came down. Not good.”

STEPHANOPOULOS: “As I said, the police have said it didn’t happen.”

— Exchange on ABC’s “This Week,” Nov. 22, 2015
This column has been updated.

This exchange demonstrates the folly of trying to fact-check Donald Trump. Even when confronted with contrary information — “police say it didn’t happen” — he insists that with his own eyes he saw “thousands and thousands” of cheering Arabs in New Jersey celebrating as the World Trade Center collapsed during the Sept. 11 attacks.

Trump has already earned more Four-Pinocchio ratings than any other candidate this year. He is about to earn another one.

Find the complete article and video BELOW THE FOLD.

Via: Memeorandum

Sizing Up Trump

By (O)CT(O)PUS

Donald's the man who can grab any bull by the horns and run with it. There's no teapot in a tempest he can't handle.  Donald's the MAN!  In Trump, we trust.

When other candidates were grasping at straws that broke the camel’s back, only Donald came out like a horse on fire. You can always count on him to drive off the bridge when we come to it, and burn that bridge when we cross it.

Donald will watch terrorists like a hawk and catch them cold turkey with their pants down. But just in case it’s deja-vu all over again, he’ll line up all foreigners in alphabetical order by size, then make them clean hotel rooms and wash your underwear.

If terrorists cut the water supply, he’ll never let any celebrity well run dry. He’ll bring on a flood of cats and dogs in droves like gangbusters wearing combat galoshes. Better to light a candle in the dark than to curse the clowns who screw in light-bulbs.

Donald Trump will defeat all enemies with snowballs from Hell raining hot air down the mountain with a full head of steam.  He will drive our ship of state across the road where chickens come home to roost and never let ISIS or any crisis mushroom into a can of worms.  If the shoe fits, it’s probably on the wrong foot.

Never again will we be stuck between a rock and a frying pan, and no more beating around the Bushes!  He will turn every outhouse into a White House and make America grrr8 again!

The Donald always has an ace up his hole and hits the wall running.

Aux Etats Sunni

(Note: This article was originally posted on August 31, 2014 - almost a year and half ago.  Please note the play on words:  Aux Etats Uni is French for the “United States;”  Aux Etats Sunni is a reference to “Sunni States” — almost an acronym for ISIS.  Both are pronounced exactly the same.)

By (O)CT(O)PUS

Let us recall this quote from the film classic, Lawrence of Arabia:

“So long as the Arabs fight tribe against tribe, so long will they be 

a little people, a silly people - greedy, barbarous, and cruel …”

Arabs or Americans?  Sometimes I wonder which of the two are the little people, the silly people. If anything, Americans are a meddlesome people - provincial, opinionated, and arrogant; yet exceptionally ignorant of Middle Eastern culture and history.

How many Americans recall the coup that overthrew Mohammed Moseddegh, the first democratically elected leader of Iran?  In 1953, our own CIA aided and abetted the British in toppling a nascent democracy over access to Persian oil. “A cruel and imperialistic country” stealing from a “needy and naked people” were the words spoken by Mosaddegh at the International Court of Justice in the Hague. These words have informed Middle Eastern attitudes for more than half a century.

Does terrorism represent the face of Islam? Not according to the highest religious authority of Saudi Arabia, who said: “Extremist and militant ideas and terrorism which spread decay on Earth, destroying human civilisation, are not in any way part of Islam, but are enemy number one of Islam, and Muslims are their first victims” (The Grand Mufti Sheik Abdulaziz Al al-Sheik).

Not according to the highest religious authority of Egypt, who said: “An extremist and bloody group such as this poses a danger to Islam and Muslims, tarnishing its image as well as shedding blood and spreading corruption” (The Grand Mufti Shawqi Allam).

Not according to the Egyptian military, which overthrew the government of Mohamed Morsi and bans the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood. Nor the monarchy of Saudi Arabia, which banished al-Qaeda, whose affiliated groups now operate in remote regions of Yemen and North Africa. Yet, how many Americans pay attention?

Consider the impact of successive Western interventions in the Middle East over time starting with European colonialism.  Shall we forget vainglorious wars over spheres of power and influence -- and access to Middle Eastern oil.  As colonial empires crumbled in the aftermath of WWI, European powers gave little thought to the historical schism between the Shiite and Sunni branches of Islam.  Britain drew borders around rival ethnic enclaves and formed artificial nation states - thus creating a recipe for future volatility.

Failing to take these historical antecedents into account, America blundered into an occupation of Iraq that worsened an already unstable situation. In short order, the American regency of Paul Bremer swept away a long established order. Regime change brought in a new Shiite government that promptly disenfranchised and persecuted the Sunnis. Thus began a cycle of sectarian conflict and civil war – rife with insurgencies, ethnic militias, car bombings, kidnappings, massacres, and more. The American misadventure triggered a chain reaction leading directly to the rise of ISIS.

A headline de jour fails to capture the broader perspectives of history. What our news media never told us: Every bungled misadventure by a Western power has upset the fragile status quo and upped the ante on radicalism and savagery.

We broke it. Now our loyal opposition party exhort us to fix it. How ironic!  Ethnic and religious divisions of the Middle East mirror our partisan divisions at home, as the current state of the debate in Washington demonstrates:

A war-weary American public says: “No more boots on the ground.”  Neo-conservatives in Congress demand military action. 

Iraqi President al-Maliki oppresses the Sunnis and creates a window of opportunity for ISIS. Republicans blame the crisis on the president. 

Al-Malady refuses to sign a Residual Force Agreement; Republicans blame the president. 

Our military says ISIS cannot be defeated without a Syrian incursion. Last year, a GOP dominated Congress failed to reach a military authorization agreement.

Follow the trail of duplicity amongst our allies in the region: ISIS trades Syrian oil for money and arms with our NATO ally, Turkey.  Our military maintains vital strategic strike capabilities at al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, Ali al Salem Air Base in Kuwait, and al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates.  Yet, the wealthy citizens of Qatar, Kuwait, and the UAE underwrite radical jihadi groups throughout the Middle East -- from al-Qaeda to ISIS.

How can the enemy of your enemy be your friend when you can no longer distinguish enemies from friends?

Meanwhile, partisans in Congress criticize the President over an honest admission: “We don't have a strategy yet” for dealing with the 'existential threat' of ISIS.  Perhaps the time is long overdue to rethink the complexities, duplicities and past failures -- to avoid another national repetition compulsion -- before we blunder yet again into another Middle Eastern abyss.

I give up

I know the election is still a long way off, but maybe it's not too soon to give up on the idea of Democracy in America.  The ISIL assault on Paris seems to have benefited the Idiot Trump, as though we needed to be reminded that a simple-minded barrage of simple minded bravado is always popular whenever we're reminded that we're not the undisputed masters of the Universe.  Keep 'em out, Throw them out, build a wall and bomb them to dust 'cause we're all about "freedom."

In fact just when I was beginning to think this hair-Club horror was about to make the country snap out of it's boozy delirium and come to it's alleged senses, a new Bloomberg Poll seems to remind us that Republican dementia  progresses apace. Trump is seen as the one best able to deal with the kind of terrorists the French efficiently rounded up and killed in a couple of days, Trump with his total lack of experience or knowledge in any distantly related matter.  Perhaps the public subscribes to the Maoist notion that one learns from doing and education is meaningless. Perhaps the public doesn't like to be reminded that things are never simple and easy to deal with and it takes more than a massively ignorant blowhard to blow away our problems. Perhaps stupid people are just more confident in stupid people, I don't know.  I give up.

Anyway the wimpy, effeminate, quiche eating,  French, Nancy Boy  we mocked not long ago for telling us Saddam didn't have nukes or the ability to make or deliver them, doesn't seem so cowardly now, does he  -  or as inept as we are.

But it's not all Trump, apparently the idiots think Carson has a better personality for the job although most of us have still to discern  one  at all behind the deadpan and the weird emotionless tone of voice he uses to tell us lies and complain it's our fault when he's shown to be more ignorant that anyone who has ever run for public office.

No, I think it's time to give up. We're not a viable nation, forever snatching disaster from the jaws of success, ever unable to tell a charlatan, a phony, an incompetent from a leader.  This guy lacks the experience because he was only a Senator and a Harvard Law graduate - but these guys who have never held office?  Mavericks!  The guy who tells an assailant not to shoot him but shoot the other guy?  How brave under fire!  The guy who inherited a real estate business and couldn't pass a citizenship test?  Presidential!  He will just fire our enemies!

Forgetabout it. There's only so long you can support a family member who keeps screwing up.  If the world were a family, America would be living in the attic and fed through a slot in the door.  I'm tired of  it.. I want to go live in one of those hollow pyramids before  we start putting people in boxcars and behind walls and nuking Canada. There's nothing left to save here.

Cheating Death and Daesh

French philosopher and writer Vincent Cespedes is urging the young people of the New Millenium to embrace "a new form of resistance" in the wake of the Paris terror attacks.  He says:

To be human is to say, ‘No, I will not commit evil in the name of a seductive fantasy.’ To be human is to say, ‘I am like you,’ when someone else is suffering.  Even if I do not agree with your ideology, with your discourse, to be human is to say, ‘I suffer on the inside if you are suffering on the inside,’ out of pure human compassion.’

It may appear counter intuitive to those who demand retribution, but the inevitable backlash that follows every tragedy will merely feed the narrative of Daesh (aka ISIS) in their ambition to drown the world in blood and madness.

Reactionary rhetoric, discrimination and persecution, exploiting fear to advance a partisan agenda, all while ignoring the larger humanitarian crisis … these are dangerously counter-productive as well as immoral.

For my part, I will be busy in the weeks ahead organizing “Compassion Vero Beach,” an event that will hopefully bring Christians, Humanists, Jews, Muslims, and Unitarians together in the spirit of peace and harmony. 

Just a simple "Meet and Greet" where people can socialize and rediscover their common humanity, thus far I have several local congregations on board.  My community needs a positive message to counter the hate speech in our midst.

Wish me luck. 

Eating my words

Sometimes you have to eat words. Sometimes you're pleased to do it.  Whether it with a roar or whisper, nonetheless I'm hearing condemnation of the slaughter of French innocents from Islamic leaders.  Perhaps it's been there all along, perhaps it's been under reported, but I hear decent Muslims speaking out.  Let's hope it helps, let's hope someone listens and decides not to become a jihadist. Let's hope it gets so loud no one can hear ISIS through the din.

Let's hope

Back to the Past

"No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death: and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short."

Hobbes' horror, Reagan's utopia.

One mythopoeic tendency in American political rhetoric is to long for a better time in the past that America needs to return to -- and will,  if only we elect the illiterate who flunked Middle School history and knows nothing about economics, law or foreign affairs.   Things always used to be better and there was always a golden age, from Eden to Jerusalem, to Rome, to La Belle Epoch. Nearly every period in the past is caused to have some redeeming factor that makes us long for it nostalgically.  In our imagined past, we were  or would be heroes with opportunities, not peasants with none.


I'd love to confront the political blowhards promising to make us a "great Nation" again because I seem to have missed that period of greatness and it may be that times we look wistfully back to as "simpler" seemed pretty damned horrific at the time.  I even sometimes doubt the premise that I had more freedom back when where you could eat, where you could sleep and with whom were tightly controlled.  Gender and race meant an awful lot to the government and your neighbors in our great nation.  I must have had my eyes closed to that period of peace and tranquility when the certainty of nuclear annihilation hung over us like a patient etherized upon a table,  Hung like some lynched teenager in a land where you can't pass anti-lynching laws because of the Klan's influence in Congress and thousands of us died every week, killing millions for "our freedoms." --. but oddly, even though at any moment we are the greatest and best and most powerful and glorious nation that ever was or will be, it always used to be better.  The best of times is so tightly bound to the worst of times, they are one and the same.

Maintaining this fiction must be important to the people who teach us history and ethics and government policy because much, if not most, of what they say depends on framing, distorting, editing, redacting and inventing a past where there were no taxes or regulations and thus all businesses succeeded, everyone was free and prosperous  and Christian except for the lazy, and often at night, when the old folks were at home, the "darkies" were gay.

It's not to say that Americans and America haven't done great things, it's to say that they had nothing to do with that parallel myth: the ever more restrictive and regulatory government with ever increasing taxes hindering growth, individual success and that ubiquitous aspiration we call, in our narcissism,  the American Dream.  Gee, I'd like things to be better.  How exclusively American.  Golden age?  It musta been before my time, and my Father's and his.

But of course we have Trump, we have Carson, we have Bush as pretenders to power (and pretenders to being qualified) and they're all going to repaint and re-gild that shining city on the hill by building a moat around it. A shining mansion maintained by serfs, barefoot and pregnant and like the survivors of Bush's shock and awe, thanking God for their freedom as they starve in the dust.

There were times though.  the times of our desultory flirtations with confidence and a view to great things.  We've had our per astera ad aspera days that led to feats the world had never been able to do and isn't it interesting how the good old days shamans want to prevent that happening again?  Back to the the past, to the golden age. It hangs in the air at our "debates"  but the meaning is 'abandon hope,' Arbeit macht Frei, God's in his heaven and the future is in the past.

Happy Holidays! (2015 edition)

Apparently, novelty candidate Donald Trump and some random Youtube pastor have decided that the annual "War on Christmas" is starting again: this time, it's because Starbucks changed their cups to plain red (which is particularly stupid, since what Starbucks removed from the cups wasn't Christian imagery; it was just random snowflakes, reindeer, and other secular decorations).

But as usual, the cries of "they can't say 'Merry Christmas' anymore!" are also going up. (I particularly like Trump's quote: "If I become president, we're all going to be saying, 'Merry Christmas' again. That I can tell you." Because he thinks that's a law he can pass? And people complain that OBAMA is a "dictator"?)

But, you know, "happy holidays" is actually a valid thing to say for the rest of the year. It isn't that there's a war on Christmas - somebody seems to have forgotten that there are other holidays.

For example, today was Veteran's Day. Speaking as a veteran, fuck you if you're ignoring it in favor of something a month and a half away. (The British call it "Armistice Day." If you happen to be Canadian, it's called "Remembrance Day" - same thing, just more polite.)

If you happen to be Hindu, this whole week is a celebration, based around Diwali (most of the festivals have different names in different parts of India, since they have a cubic buttload of languages in that country). You missed Dhanteras on Monday, but today is specifically Diwali, the "Festival of Lights," which spiritually celebrates the victory of light over darkness, knowledge over ignorance, good over evil, and hope over despair. It's a big-ass party, and you're missing out on it just because you're too small-minded and provincial to move out of your comfort zone.

It also happens to be Kali Puja, where the remembrance of Kali sets you free from evil, both within yourself and from the world around you. So there's that. And then tomorrow, the fourth night of Diwali, is called Govardhan Puja, when Krishna defeated Indra by benchpressing the Govardhan hill. (Seriously - look it up.)

And then, on the fifth day of Diwali, we have Bhai Dooj, which is all about celebrating the bonds between brother and sister. (It's a little bit sexist, to be honest - the sister is supposed to cook the brother's favorite food, and it's all about the duty of a brother to protect his sister, and a sister's blessings for her brother. But, hey, if they aren't yelling at each other? That's a bonus right there.)

Then, this Sunday (November 15th) through Wednesday morning (the 18th, if that math is a little hard for you) , we have Chhath Puja, which is thanking the Sun god for his blessings (and maybe getting a little spiritual cleansing in, at the same time). It's famous for being the holiday when Hindus bathe themselves in the waters of the Ganges and epidemiologists have heart attacks.

The day after that, November 19th, is the Great American Smokeout. Not really a holiday, but since my mom smoked herself to an early grave, I support it. So there it is.

And for Pete's sake, we haven't even made it to Thanksgiving, people! How can you bitch about "taking Christ out of Christmas" when you're ignoring "Giving Thanks"? (And for my own little part in the War on Christmas, Santa needs to haul his fat jolly ass back on the other side of Thanksgiving, where he belongs!)

Advent begins on November 29th, too. You're going to bitch about ignoring Christmas, but all you do with Advent is pull pieces of chocolate out of a calendar?

For that matter, both the Christian tradition and our secular friends have a whole flood of holidays throughout the month of December, as I've covered before. Feel free to review some of them if you're curious.

Among the Buddhists, the 8th of December will be Rohatsu, or Bodhi Day. (Rohatsu literally means "8th day of the 12th month," incidentally.) It commemorates the day that the Buddha (Siddhartha Gautauma, or Shakyamuni) achieved enlightenment. Traditions vary amongst Buddhist sects, but usually include meditation, study of the texts, chanting the sutras, or simply performing kind acts toward others.

Now, Chanukah this year will run from sunset on Sunday, December 6, through Monday, December 14, 2015. This should be moderately important to Fox "News" watchers, since they like to trumpet the importance of the "Judeo-Christian tradition." Weirdly, the "Judeo" half of that seems to fall to the wayside a lot.

Which means that they'll also be ignoring the fast of the Tenth of Tevet (in Hebrew, עשרה בטבת‎, or Asarah Be'Tevet), which happens to fall on December 22 this year. It commemorates the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, and among observant Jews, it's a day of fasting from dawn until dusk, with a small service at the end of the day.

Most interestingly, to me at least, December 24th (Christmas Eve to most Americans) has a special meaning this year. It also happens to be Eid Milad ul-Nabi, the Sunni celebration of the birth of the Prophet: the Sunni celebrate it on the 12th day of Rabi' al-awwal (the third month in the Islamic calendar); the Shia celebrate it on the 17th of Rabi' al-awwal. (If you're curious, some sects of Islam, particularly the Wahabbi, consider the celebration itself to be bid'ah, an unnecessary religious innovation.)

Depending on where you are in the world, the observance can be anything from a solemn ceremony to a carnival atmosphere, and can include anything from an exchange of gifts to doing charitable work.

So you see, there are plenty of holidays to come through the end of the year. And with about 3 out of every 10 customers not being Christian (and even among the remaining 70%, there being a lot more than just Christmas to be observed), obviously, it's only reasonable to say "Happy Holidays!"

Gimme Shelter

The quote "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel" is attributed to Samuel Johnson and I have no reason to doubt that or its truth. These days we have to examine a number of things that now inhabit that foul habitat of 21st century Patriotism, like extreme politics and extreme religion and extreme dishonesty -- and in a year like this, at the beginning of another election cycle and the Christmas season, the Star Spangled Blather begins to stink the place up.

Take Donald Trump, always struggling to be first in line, he's thrown the first pitch of the annual War on Christmas season this year by preaching against the Starbucks Christmas coffee cup,  which is now simply red and without the type of commercial Northern Winter and Sears Roebuck iconography some religious Christians despise. I'm surprised actually to find Starbucks turning out something that close to tasteful and without a pseudo-European name, but the Donald assumes he can take that simple red cup and work you into a lather of religious outrage by explaining it all the Fox way. It's War on Christmas time once again and pretending that anyone ever told you not to say Merry Christmas is the lie behind the tyrannical  agenda  of legally requiring you to be not only a Christian but an ignorant, paranoid and militant one.

It takes a certain kind of malignant mendacity to insist that Starbucks Hates Jesus and a certain kind of unbalanced mind to believe it, but believers gotta believe, don't they -- and we're a nation of outrage addicts, not too particular about veracity. But Christmas in America wouldn't be Christmas at all without the imaginary war on it and Donald Trump wouldn't be the ruthless sociopath without the contorted, contradictory lies that make up his campaign. I won't give him credit for inventing it. Actually pious Christians invented antipathy to Christmas a long ago and Christmas has been banned periodically by Christian leadership, both here and abroad. There's nothing new under the sun or under the comically bad hairdo for that matter.

Americans and American business have been in love with the holiday for a century or more and in fact much of our Christmas iconography and tradition has been authored by big corporations to sell product. That bothers the "put Christ Back in Christmas" crowd no end. But drink your $20 Frappomachiadohalfcaffventi in a plain cup or a Merry Christmas Santa cup and you'll piss someone off, whether they think Jesus the Barrista or Jesus the Christ is being disrespected. Trump is playing both sides and playing against anything that resembles freedom of anything. Hardly anyone is buying his Crappuchino of course, red cup or otherwise, but Trump is not afraid to work the bottom of the barrel or any other deep, dark and fetid place, and the media are not hesitant to give it all the publicity it can.

In our America, religion and patriotism are one and the same refuge of more than one scoundrel and no Republican Patriot would dare give himself that flag-kissing title without bufoonicating about Jesus the conservative billionaire and his ever present "liberal" enemies. It's expected. Patriotism entails positing a mythical past greatness that needs to be returned to. A past which entails a return to military swagger, Religious authority, isolationism, xenophobia, repression, racism and a forced ethnic "purity" which means a Christians First Nation and Christian rule and Biblical Law and above all, a Snowman on your paper coffee cup. That, in fact seems to be the only consistent theme among any likely GOP candidate in recent years. A foolish consistency you might say, as it requires you to hate the commercialism of Christmas and the non-commercialism of Christmas equally. It's a sacred holiday, but don't call it a holiday, and if you go through a minute without saying Merry Christmas from September through New Years eve, you hate Jesus.

Trump threatens not to renew Starbucks' Trump Tower lease  - (just now after how many years?) He suggests we boycott them and promises that if he's elected we'll all be saying Merry Christmas. That's a sure thing of course because we are doing that already and have been for as long as I can remember. Christmas is the most celebrated holiday in the US and a large part of our economy depends on us continuing to do so.  How can we not notice that the Donald has no commitment to  freedom of worship or of speech?  In what bizarre world is this patriotic?  The USA of course.

Atheists say Merry Christmas, Jews and Muslims say Merry Christmas and I say Merry Christmas in full knowledge of it's pagan origins, all external to the Christian canon. I think that peace and compassion and good will are better symbols, even in a hypocritical world than animals with light-up noses and trees from the Boreal forests. Acknowledging the dignity of the poor, showing affection toward children - these make it worthwhile to me. They have nothing to do with Trump or the politics of hate, fear and arrogance he preaches.

Yes, you greedy old grinch, I'll be saying Merry Christmas on December 25th,  but not to you or because of you,  pissing on the people who follow other religions and those who really love Christmas for their own reasons and acknowledge it in their own way:  the kids, the grandparents and the people who like pretentious coffee in plain cups. Pissing on those who preach year round goodness for goodness' sake.  If there's anything good about the religion you pretend to, you're stepping on it. If there were laws against hate speech, you'd be spending the holiday in jail and if there really is a hell with punishment for sin, we'll all be drinking eggnog while you lie howling.