Sunday, December 17, 2006
Steyn on Christmas Buzzkillers
Although the 'Assault on Christmas' is generally a Fox News network shtick, Mark Steyn does an admirable job on the same subject. Money quotes:
Now it's true there are Jews who don't dig Christmas. There was some story out of Seattle the other day about a rabbi who objected to the "holiday trees" at the airport and threatened a lawsuit unless they also put up an eight-foot menorah. So the airport goes, "Oh, dear, you're threatening a lawsuit? OK, we'll take down the trees." And in an instant the trees were history. Not "history" in the sense of a time-honored tradition legitimized by its very antiquity. But "history" in the sense of the contemporary American formulation of something you toss in the landfill in the interests of "diversity."
So then the rabbi and his lawyer are reeling under a barrage of negative publicity and suddenly it's their chestnuts being roasted on the open fire. "Whoa," they say. "Why are we the bad guys? We love Christmas trees. What made you think we had anything against Christmas trees? Just cuz we threatened to launch a gazillion-dollar lawsuit? What could be more American than that?" In Newsweek, Rabbi Marc Gellman managed to miss the point and deplored the "cowardly response" of the airport. But what "cowardly response"? Instead of going to court and almost certainly losing, they raised the stakes, put the plaintiffs on the defensive and forced them to call off the dogs. The "holiday trees" are now back.
Everyone who knows Rabbi Bogomilsky says he's an affable fellow, he doesn't want to Scrooge up anybody's Christmas, he's an all-around swell guy. No doubt. But in the week when the president of Iran hosts an international (and well-attended) Holocaust Denial Convention (which simultaneously denies the last Holocaust while gleefully anticipating the next one), this rabbi thinks it's in the interests of the Jewish people to take legal action against "holiday" decorations at Seattle Airport? Sorry, it's not the airport but the plaintiff who's out of his tree. An ability to prioritize is an indispensable quality of adulthood, and a sense of proportion is a crucial ingredient of a mature society.
This isn't about religion. Jesus is doing just fine in the United States. Forty years of ACLU efforts to eliminate God from the public square have led to a resurgent, evangelical and politicized American Christianity unique in the Western world. What the rabbi in Seattle and the cops in Riverside are doing is colluding in an assault on something more basic: They're denying the possibility of any common culture. America is not a stamp collection with one of each. It's an overwhelmingly Christian country with freedom of religion for those who aren't. But it's quite an expansion of "freedom of religion" to argue that "those who aren't" are entitled to forbid any public expression of America's Christian inheritance except as part of an all-U-can-eat interfaith salad bar. In their initial reaction, Seattle Airport got it right: To be forced to have one of everything is, ultimately, the same as having nothing. So you might as well cut to the chase.
I think I could survive a diatribe against me by Ann Coulter, but I'd hate any of my silliness to come to the attention of the Canadian-American with the British accent.
Now it's true there are Jews who don't dig Christmas. There was some story out of Seattle the other day about a rabbi who objected to the "holiday trees" at the airport and threatened a lawsuit unless they also put up an eight-foot menorah. So the airport goes, "Oh, dear, you're threatening a lawsuit? OK, we'll take down the trees." And in an instant the trees were history. Not "history" in the sense of a time-honored tradition legitimized by its very antiquity. But "history" in the sense of the contemporary American formulation of something you toss in the landfill in the interests of "diversity."
So then the rabbi and his lawyer are reeling under a barrage of negative publicity and suddenly it's their chestnuts being roasted on the open fire. "Whoa," they say. "Why are we the bad guys? We love Christmas trees. What made you think we had anything against Christmas trees? Just cuz we threatened to launch a gazillion-dollar lawsuit? What could be more American than that?" In Newsweek, Rabbi Marc Gellman managed to miss the point and deplored the "cowardly response" of the airport. But what "cowardly response"? Instead of going to court and almost certainly losing, they raised the stakes, put the plaintiffs on the defensive and forced them to call off the dogs. The "holiday trees" are now back.
Everyone who knows Rabbi Bogomilsky says he's an affable fellow, he doesn't want to Scrooge up anybody's Christmas, he's an all-around swell guy. No doubt. But in the week when the president of Iran hosts an international (and well-attended) Holocaust Denial Convention (which simultaneously denies the last Holocaust while gleefully anticipating the next one), this rabbi thinks it's in the interests of the Jewish people to take legal action against "holiday" decorations at Seattle Airport? Sorry, it's not the airport but the plaintiff who's out of his tree. An ability to prioritize is an indispensable quality of adulthood, and a sense of proportion is a crucial ingredient of a mature society.
This isn't about religion. Jesus is doing just fine in the United States. Forty years of ACLU efforts to eliminate God from the public square have led to a resurgent, evangelical and politicized American Christianity unique in the Western world. What the rabbi in Seattle and the cops in Riverside are doing is colluding in an assault on something more basic: They're denying the possibility of any common culture. America is not a stamp collection with one of each. It's an overwhelmingly Christian country with freedom of religion for those who aren't. But it's quite an expansion of "freedom of religion" to argue that "those who aren't" are entitled to forbid any public expression of America's Christian inheritance except as part of an all-U-can-eat interfaith salad bar. In their initial reaction, Seattle Airport got it right: To be forced to have one of everything is, ultimately, the same as having nothing. So you might as well cut to the chase.
I think I could survive a diatribe against me by Ann Coulter, but I'd hate any of my silliness to come to the attention of the Canadian-American with the British accent.
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 8:53 AM 
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Rog,
I am changing the subject, or perhaps returning to a recent subject, under the thinly veiled guise (Have you ever seen a heavy veiled guise? I suppose that once a guise becomes heavily veiled it is no longer "veiled" but "draped".) of ideas for Christmas gifts(Gasp! I mean Holiday gifts) for someone like you or Doug Sundseth, who are interested in the subject of war.
Although it may seem from my comments that my sole sources of information are NPR and the NYT, this is not true. I am addicted to the Food Network to the extent that my younger daughter has on more than one occasion suggested an intervention may be desirable, if not necessary, and I gain valuable incite, I mean insight, from the Comedy Channel, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report in particular. But I digress.
This week's NYT Book Review contains 14 reviews on books whose subject is war, including Robert Fagles newly released tranbslation of "The Aeneid"; Frederick W. Kagan's "Finding the Target: The Transformation of American Military Policy"; and Max Boot's "War Made New:Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History, 1500 to Today" which I think Doug would enjoy.
Back to The Daily Show. The other night John Stewart sat down w/ Rajiv Chandrasekaran, the former Baghdad bureau chief of the Washington Post. His book, "Imperial Life in the Emerald City" is reviewed in this week's NYT Book Review. The book tells the bureaucratic story the first year of American occupation following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
No matter what portion of the political spectrum you occupy, this book will explain, in part, why Iraq is as screwed up as it is and how the Coalition Provisional Authority under L. Paul Bremer III made it that way.
I will quote the review only once: "To begin with, the C.P.A.'s recruitment policies would have shamed Tammany Hall. Loyalty to George W. Bush and the Republican Party was apparently the prime criterion for getting work at the C.P.A."
The Book Review also contains a review of Ian W. Toll's "Six Frigates:The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy" which confirmed my initial idea that I must give this book to my father.
Perhaps most interesting is the Symposium on the inside cover of the back page in which 11 authors, including Victor Davis Hanson and Anthony Swofford, identify their 2 favorite books on the subject of war.
Enjoy. Cheers.
T
I am changing the subject, or perhaps returning to a recent subject, under the thinly veiled guise (Have you ever seen a heavy veiled guise? I suppose that once a guise becomes heavily veiled it is no longer "veiled" but "draped".) of ideas for Christmas gifts(Gasp! I mean Holiday gifts) for someone like you or Doug Sundseth, who are interested in the subject of war.
Although it may seem from my comments that my sole sources of information are NPR and the NYT, this is not true. I am addicted to the Food Network to the extent that my younger daughter has on more than one occasion suggested an intervention may be desirable, if not necessary, and I gain valuable incite, I mean insight, from the Comedy Channel, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report in particular. But I digress.
This week's NYT Book Review contains 14 reviews on books whose subject is war, including Robert Fagles newly released tranbslation of "The Aeneid"; Frederick W. Kagan's "Finding the Target: The Transformation of American Military Policy"; and Max Boot's "War Made New:Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History, 1500 to Today" which I think Doug would enjoy.
Back to The Daily Show. The other night John Stewart sat down w/ Rajiv Chandrasekaran, the former Baghdad bureau chief of the Washington Post. His book, "Imperial Life in the Emerald City" is reviewed in this week's NYT Book Review. The book tells the bureaucratic story the first year of American occupation following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
No matter what portion of the political spectrum you occupy, this book will explain, in part, why Iraq is as screwed up as it is and how the Coalition Provisional Authority under L. Paul Bremer III made it that way.
I will quote the review only once: "To begin with, the C.P.A.'s recruitment policies would have shamed Tammany Hall. Loyalty to George W. Bush and the Republican Party was apparently the prime criterion for getting work at the C.P.A."
The Book Review also contains a review of Ian W. Toll's "Six Frigates:The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy" which confirmed my initial idea that I must give this book to my father.
Perhaps most interesting is the Symposium on the inside cover of the back page in which 11 authors, including Victor Davis Hanson and Anthony Swofford, identify their 2 favorite books on the subject of war.
Enjoy. Cheers.
T
# posted by 
: 1:22 PM
: 1:22 PM
I thank you for turning me on to the food network. I love Alton Brown and I'm growing an infatuation for Nigella (or at least something is growing when I watch her). I'm able to avoid Iron Chef and anyone live.
I think Englishman John Keegan is great on war as is the late William Manchester (really anything he writes is worth reading). I'm about halfway through James Webb's "history" of the Scots-Irish, he's a jerk but his book is interesting. See you, bud.
I think Englishman John Keegan is great on war as is the late William Manchester (really anything he writes is worth reading). I'm about halfway through James Webb's "history" of the Scots-Irish, he's a jerk but his book is interesting. See you, bud.
Some books I've read recently or am reading now that I particularly like:
Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, James D. Hornfischer (A detailed examination of Taffy 3's engagement with the Yamato battlegroup at Leyte Gulf.)
An Army at Dawn, Rick Atkinson (The first book of a planned trilogy covering the history of the US Army in WWII.)
Savage Wars of Peace, Max Boot (A history of the small wars in US history. Given Tony's suggestion of War Made New, this is probably not all that useful, but there you go.)
I've also heard very good things about The Naval War of 1812, by Theodore Roosevelt, which can be found on Project Gutenberg here.
BTW, I almost bought a copy of Six Frigates on Sunday, but decided to wait until after Christmas for the Great Gift Card Sacrifice.
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Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, James D. Hornfischer (A detailed examination of Taffy 3's engagement with the Yamato battlegroup at Leyte Gulf.)
An Army at Dawn, Rick Atkinson (The first book of a planned trilogy covering the history of the US Army in WWII.)
Savage Wars of Peace, Max Boot (A history of the small wars in US history. Given Tony's suggestion of War Made New, this is probably not all that useful, but there you go.)
I've also heard very good things about The Naval War of 1812, by Theodore Roosevelt, which can be found on Project Gutenberg here.
BTW, I almost bought a copy of Six Frigates on Sunday, but decided to wait until after Christmas for the Great Gift Card Sacrifice.
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