Why are there homeless veterans? (I confess: I have much more love for the vets than for the troops.)
Is Charlie Kirk feeding homeless vets today? JK! He and his cohort enable the actual abuse of vets anyway so feeding vets today doesn’t even begin to make up for the harm he and his have done and are doing.
And as a not-Xtian, I am very confused by the idea of celebrating the birth of a god who allows a shit ton of self-professed followers to shit on him in the name of him. OTOH, I’m convinced that Jesus retired and put Mammon in charge without telling anyone. In which case, why Xmas other than to goose consumer spending?
The kids’ mom died the day after Christmas’04, the day of the great Sumatran Tsunami, from refusing to return to the hospital that had treated her shittily three weeks before. After returning from unlocking my daughter’s keys from her car some 20 miles away at her job, I found her dead of a massive stroke. The cat was still curled up on the bed and “Law and Order” on the tube...After a futile attempt at resuscitation, and calling 911, I hurled the tree into the yard. The kids and I weren’t much into celebrating.
And my mom was born on Christmas (which might explain her messianic tendencies), her sister Mary Jane called her little baby Jesus..She died right after the election, asking “we didn’t elect that awful man?” Dad, born on Nov 24, and usually we have his birthday celebration on Thanksgiving, avoid the trappings of Christmas..and Mary Jane died Last Christmas Eve. She was as close to a fairy godmother as a county kid might ask..
But...as I’m a large, white haired bearded guy, who folks seem to recognize as mostly harmless and generally benign, folks say “you’d make a good Santa.” It’s an acting gig: it’s fairly lucrative, and, unless the child it terrified by the overlarge guy in fur trimmed red velvet, I’m making kids happy: or dog owners: several wanted me to hold their pups doe a picture with Santa...
And listened to Johnathan Winter’s “A Christmas Carol” and “Santaland Diaries”: and will rank up the Ellington/Strayhorn “Nutcracker” in a few..
And apropos of the War on Christmas, one of the best war stories ever (by commenter wjts over at Lawyers, Guns and Money):
I was serving with General Dawkins’ V Corps during the 2005 offensive, back when the fighting was thickest. ‘Twas the night before Christmas, and I was a green 2LT in the 3rd Agnostic Cavalry Regiment (“the Screaming Huxleys”). We were resupplying outside of the New Harbour Mall in Fall River, MA when the order came down: we were going to clear Santa’s Village. Resistance was purportedly light: two companies of ELF (Elf Liberation Front) irregulars reinforced with a few 88mm candy canes.
If any of us had known what was in store, we would have scurried back to the People’s Republic of Cambridge as fast as our little legs would have carried us.
Bravo Company secured Santa’s Workshop without meeting any serious resistance. Alpha and Charlie companies moved into the Gingerbread Village and Mrs. Claus’s Bakery, figuring that nothing was amiss. That’s when all non-existent hell broke loose.
Instead of two companies of ELF irregulars, we were facing a full division of NORPOL armored infantry supported by a brigade of flying reindeer and two batteries of self-propelled 155mm howitzers firing a deadly mix of APM (anti-personnel – marzipan) and HECOAT (high-explosive chocolate orange anti-tank) rounds. The CO didn’t cotton onto what was happening until the third time the reindeer strafed our positions by which time most of Alpha Company and all of Charlie Company had been turned into so much Christmas mince. My company, Delta, was in reserve, and we got hustled up to the Toys R Us outside of the Gingerbread Village six hours into what should have been a two-hour milk run. The captain had orders to reinforce the remnants of Alpha Company in the village itself, but as soon as he saw what we were up against he knew that wasn’t likely. My platoon was ordered to move forward to probe the NORPOL positions in and around the Cinnabon. We moved forward yards at a time, and things seemed to be fairly calm.
As we rounded the Best Buy, though, we got hit with a vicious hail of gumdrops and 75mm gingerbread cookies. Kelly, Bieluczyk, and De Falco all lost their lives on HDTV Ridge. After a brief firefight, we managed to secure the DVD section and were preparing to move on Audio Accessories. Just then, a snow globe came rolling down the aisle. My platoon sergeant – Duchac – jumped from behind a display of Gilmore Girls box sets and smothered it with his body.
In my dreams, I still see the tiny little faux snowflakes tearing into his chest.
SSGT Michael Duchac saved the lives of 38 good atheists that day. We pushed past the NORPOLs investing the Cinnabon, and held the left flank of the front through 48 hours of counterattacks, ultimately allowing the 7th Atheist Armor (“the We’d Call Ourselves ‘Lucky 7th’ if the Idea of ‘Luck’ Wasn’t an Attempt to Impose a False Sense of Supernatural Order on a Wholly Material and Stochastically Indifferent Universe 7th”) to roll up the pro-Christmas forces holding Santa’s Village. It didn’t come easy, and it didn’t come cheap. So remember this holiday season – in the War on Christmas, all gave some but some gave all.
I was at the grocery early yesterday morning. Figured I would get the last minutes out of the way early before the shitshow started. I had everything on my list except one item. I looked in the usual places and I even asked the Dairy department manager. No Luck.I called my wife.
"They are out of Roka Blue"
Roka Blue is a faux cheese substance made by Kraft. Along with another Kraft faux cheese substance, Olde English , and a block of cream cheese, Roka Blue is a key ingredient in a dish we refer to as "Cheese Ball" which is more of a "Mostly Cheese Substance(in spite of a big chunk of cream cheese)(what's in cream cheese anyway? Betcha there's no cream. I think it's just a block of pure cholesterol) Dip". I've been eating this stuff all my life and I've never seen it formed into a ball. It sits in a bowl and you dip your Triscuit or Wheat Thins. The Kraft cheese substances involved come in a small glass jar which is always saved because it is indestructable and makes makes a nice juice glass, My wife and I both grew up in homes where the "Cheese Ball" was a "Holiday Favorite" as the checkout magazines are want to call it. I gotta admit, in spite of all the dodgy ingredients, it's not entirely bad. I goes well with that pink chablis box wine the inlaws always have at their holiday soiree - three glasses of which make you look at them fondly and see them as family rather than the racist nazi christian fucks they really are. For some families, the phrase "Twelve Days of Christmas " refers to how long it will be before you finally poop after sucking down a pound and a half of "cheese ball" with a box of Triscuits and a half gallon of box wine while watching bad on Christmas Day.
"No Roka Blue" " None, I even asked"
Did you ask the right person?"
"I asked the dairy department manager"
"Is it even a dairy product?"
"Does anyone really know what time it is?"
"What?"
"Obscure reference. And the answer is no."
"No what?"
"No, I won't go check at Walmart. "
"Even if I call?"
" Not happening"
Pause
"It's like Jesus was never even born"
Somehow I think this explains how we've been married over 40 years.
We were cleaning out my Mom's place after she died and found a whole kitchen cupboard of little Kraft juice glasses. She also had a copy paper box full out in the garage.
Being a postal worker definitely gives one mixed feelings about Christmas! Long hours, stupid management, people sealing envelopes and packages with everything from bandaids to double-sided carpet tape, and glitter. So much fucking glitter! Anyway, warmest wishes, Roy.
And thanks for all you do for us. There is an emerging sentiment that holidays should be simpler than they are - as in, (1) spend time with people you want to spend time with and (2) if anyone has a problem with that, STFU. Thank you for giving voice to that.
Last oh 10 years: Nov. 15, a doom related to descending dark, cold, wet clime we have here (usually) sets in. 12/1: the run up to Christmas adds, lately, a strong indifference if not out and out despair, then angst. 12/20: it alls breaks, I assemble what passes for those near me acceptable decoration and, the last few years, gifts w/ a tiny of thought behind them. Overall, I don’t know why we do it. But right now, before everyone arrives, and I start cooking, it’s kind of nice. Merry Christmas!
So the War on Christmas in this country actually started with our first fundies, the Puritans in Massachusetts who denounced the merry making associated with the holiday so I've long looked at the modern fundies' fake umbrage about "Happy Holidays" with utter derision. Also, Christmas didn't become a national holiday until 1870 so it seems our Xtian theocrats were pretty lazy for a long time. I worked in ICUs and ERs every Christmas from age 19-21 because I was low man on the nursing totem pole. Could have been worse actually. Our family celebrates Christmas in the get family together and have a great meal and presents side of things. But rightwing Christians have kind of ruined the spirituality of the holiday for me.
I realize it's not very Christmasy and in a small, distant way I feel kinda sorta bad about it, but honestly, I really hope that Charlie Kirk gets an itchy runny sore on his junk that won't go away.
I've always been ambivalent about Christmas, identifying with Charlie Brown's despair over commercialism, if not his spiritual awakening. Growing up it was an excuse for my mother to start early, macerating her brain in Christmas Cheer (vodka taking pride of place before eggnog in our home) and pick fights over past grievances, many predating my birth, enumerating the family's failings in a slurred, but detailed denunciation, like a pickled Jeremiah. Later, after a friend tried to replace Mom's alcoholism with Jesus, she mutated into a mixture of thunderin' fundie and mean drunk, and Christmas became an occasion for her to prosecute a rhetorical jihad against her agnostic children.
After I got married my indifference to the holiday (which could transform into open hostility if anybody pushed me to "get into the spirit") was an annual point of contention, since my wife loves it and wanted to share the joy. Eventually we developed our own secular traditions (a signature cocktail, a turkey dinner, and a screening of Mystery Science Theater 3000's "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" episode) and all was well. In fact, I began to look forward to it.
This holiday season is a tough one, as the year is ending on a series of clanging, discordant notes, like a cowbell bouncing down the basement steps. We had to leave our home of 20 years because my wife can no longer work due to a degenerative nerve ailment, and because her mother (who was the vector that infected my wife with her own love of Christmas) now requires round-the-clock care, and our number came up in the nursing rotation. So we spent Thanksgiving packing, donating, or trashing most of our belongings and moving to a depressed and depressing desert town. And just to "heighten the stakes" as Hollywood producers say (not that this pitch for a Christmas flick would appeal to Lifetime or Hallmark; granted, it's about cosmopolitans who leave the big city to learn simple homespun values in small town America, but lacks the requisite young, rich, pretty people), this year my sister's family took a last ditch, long-postponed trip to Europe, and I agreed to help by dog sitting. So my wife shared Christmas Eve dinner with the lovely and cheerful home healthcare worker who comes in twice a week to bathe my mother in law, while I spent it with Paul Newman (or at least with his frozen pizza). So my patience with War on Christmas complaints from people who can't be arsed to live by the Beatitudes in daily life but wax wroth about a birthday party with insufficient trace amounts of Messiah is transparently thin this year.
However, reading the post and comments over my coffee have supplied cheer where before there was none, so Merry Christmas guys, whatever that means to you.
Yes, and the closer was awesome!
I’ll bite:
Why are there homeless veterans? (I confess: I have much more love for the vets than for the troops.)
Is Charlie Kirk feeding homeless vets today? JK! He and his cohort enable the actual abuse of vets anyway so feeding vets today doesn’t even begin to make up for the harm he and his have done and are doing.
And as a not-Xtian, I am very confused by the idea of celebrating the birth of a god who allows a shit ton of self-professed followers to shit on him in the name of him. OTOH, I’m convinced that Jesus retired and put Mammon in charge without telling anyone. In which case, why Xmas other than to goose consumer spending?
You can see what I’m confused.
The kids’ mom died the day after Christmas’04, the day of the great Sumatran Tsunami, from refusing to return to the hospital that had treated her shittily three weeks before. After returning from unlocking my daughter’s keys from her car some 20 miles away at her job, I found her dead of a massive stroke. The cat was still curled up on the bed and “Law and Order” on the tube...After a futile attempt at resuscitation, and calling 911, I hurled the tree into the yard. The kids and I weren’t much into celebrating.
And my mom was born on Christmas (which might explain her messianic tendencies), her sister Mary Jane called her little baby Jesus..She died right after the election, asking “we didn’t elect that awful man?” Dad, born on Nov 24, and usually we have his birthday celebration on Thanksgiving, avoid the trappings of Christmas..and Mary Jane died Last Christmas Eve. She was as close to a fairy godmother as a county kid might ask..
But...as I’m a large, white haired bearded guy, who folks seem to recognize as mostly harmless and generally benign, folks say “you’d make a good Santa.” It’s an acting gig: it’s fairly lucrative, and, unless the child it terrified by the overlarge guy in fur trimmed red velvet, I’m making kids happy: or dog owners: several wanted me to hold their pups doe a picture with Santa...
And listened to Johnathan Winter’s “A Christmas Carol” and “Santaland Diaries”: and will rank up the Ellington/Strayhorn “Nutcracker” in a few..
And apropos of the War on Christmas, one of the best war stories ever (by commenter wjts over at Lawyers, Guns and Money):
I was serving with General Dawkins’ V Corps during the 2005 offensive, back when the fighting was thickest. ‘Twas the night before Christmas, and I was a green 2LT in the 3rd Agnostic Cavalry Regiment (“the Screaming Huxleys”). We were resupplying outside of the New Harbour Mall in Fall River, MA when the order came down: we were going to clear Santa’s Village. Resistance was purportedly light: two companies of ELF (Elf Liberation Front) irregulars reinforced with a few 88mm candy canes.
If any of us had known what was in store, we would have scurried back to the People’s Republic of Cambridge as fast as our little legs would have carried us.
Bravo Company secured Santa’s Workshop without meeting any serious resistance. Alpha and Charlie companies moved into the Gingerbread Village and Mrs. Claus’s Bakery, figuring that nothing was amiss. That’s when all non-existent hell broke loose.
Instead of two companies of ELF irregulars, we were facing a full division of NORPOL armored infantry supported by a brigade of flying reindeer and two batteries of self-propelled 155mm howitzers firing a deadly mix of APM (anti-personnel – marzipan) and HECOAT (high-explosive chocolate orange anti-tank) rounds. The CO didn’t cotton onto what was happening until the third time the reindeer strafed our positions by which time most of Alpha Company and all of Charlie Company had been turned into so much Christmas mince. My company, Delta, was in reserve, and we got hustled up to the Toys R Us outside of the Gingerbread Village six hours into what should have been a two-hour milk run. The captain had orders to reinforce the remnants of Alpha Company in the village itself, but as soon as he saw what we were up against he knew that wasn’t likely. My platoon was ordered to move forward to probe the NORPOL positions in and around the Cinnabon. We moved forward yards at a time, and things seemed to be fairly calm.
As we rounded the Best Buy, though, we got hit with a vicious hail of gumdrops and 75mm gingerbread cookies. Kelly, Bieluczyk, and De Falco all lost their lives on HDTV Ridge. After a brief firefight, we managed to secure the DVD section and were preparing to move on Audio Accessories. Just then, a snow globe came rolling down the aisle. My platoon sergeant – Duchac – jumped from behind a display of Gilmore Girls box sets and smothered it with his body.
In my dreams, I still see the tiny little faux snowflakes tearing into his chest.
SSGT Michael Duchac saved the lives of 38 good atheists that day. We pushed past the NORPOLs investing the Cinnabon, and held the left flank of the front through 48 hours of counterattacks, ultimately allowing the 7th Atheist Armor (“the We’d Call Ourselves ‘Lucky 7th’ if the Idea of ‘Luck’ Wasn’t an Attempt to Impose a False Sense of Supernatural Order on a Wholly Material and Stochastically Indifferent Universe 7th”) to roll up the pro-Christmas forces holding Santa’s Village. It didn’t come easy, and it didn’t come cheap. So remember this holiday season – in the War on Christmas, all gave some but some gave all.
(By wjts, December 2014
I was at the grocery early yesterday morning. Figured I would get the last minutes out of the way early before the shitshow started. I had everything on my list except one item. I looked in the usual places and I even asked the Dairy department manager. No Luck.I called my wife.
"They are out of Roka Blue"
Roka Blue is a faux cheese substance made by Kraft. Along with another Kraft faux cheese substance, Olde English , and a block of cream cheese, Roka Blue is a key ingredient in a dish we refer to as "Cheese Ball" which is more of a "Mostly Cheese Substance(in spite of a big chunk of cream cheese)(what's in cream cheese anyway? Betcha there's no cream. I think it's just a block of pure cholesterol) Dip". I've been eating this stuff all my life and I've never seen it formed into a ball. It sits in a bowl and you dip your Triscuit or Wheat Thins. The Kraft cheese substances involved come in a small glass jar which is always saved because it is indestructable and makes makes a nice juice glass, My wife and I both grew up in homes where the "Cheese Ball" was a "Holiday Favorite" as the checkout magazines are want to call it. I gotta admit, in spite of all the dodgy ingredients, it's not entirely bad. I goes well with that pink chablis box wine the inlaws always have at their holiday soiree - three glasses of which make you look at them fondly and see them as family rather than the racist nazi christian fucks they really are. For some families, the phrase "Twelve Days of Christmas " refers to how long it will be before you finally poop after sucking down a pound and a half of "cheese ball" with a box of Triscuits and a half gallon of box wine while watching bad on Christmas Day.
"No Roka Blue" " None, I even asked"
Did you ask the right person?"
"I asked the dairy department manager"
"Is it even a dairy product?"
"Does anyone really know what time it is?"
"What?"
"Obscure reference. And the answer is no."
"No what?"
"No, I won't go check at Walmart. "
"Even if I call?"
" Not happening"
Pause
"It's like Jesus was never even born"
Somehow I think this explains how we've been married over 40 years.
We were cleaning out my Mom's place after she died and found a whole kitchen cupboard of little Kraft juice glasses. She also had a copy paper box full out in the garage.
Merry Christmas, Roy!
Being a postal worker definitely gives one mixed feelings about Christmas! Long hours, stupid management, people sealing envelopes and packages with everything from bandaids to double-sided carpet tape, and glitter. So much fucking glitter! Anyway, warmest wishes, Roy.
And thanks for all you do for us. There is an emerging sentiment that holidays should be simpler than they are - as in, (1) spend time with people you want to spend time with and (2) if anyone has a problem with that, STFU. Thank you for giving voice to that.
Merry Christmas, Roy!
Last oh 10 years: Nov. 15, a doom related to descending dark, cold, wet clime we have here (usually) sets in. 12/1: the run up to Christmas adds, lately, a strong indifference if not out and out despair, then angst. 12/20: it alls breaks, I assemble what passes for those near me acceptable decoration and, the last few years, gifts w/ a tiny of thought behind them. Overall, I don’t know why we do it. But right now, before everyone arrives, and I start cooking, it’s kind of nice. Merry Christmas!
So the War on Christmas in this country actually started with our first fundies, the Puritans in Massachusetts who denounced the merry making associated with the holiday so I've long looked at the modern fundies' fake umbrage about "Happy Holidays" with utter derision. Also, Christmas didn't become a national holiday until 1870 so it seems our Xtian theocrats were pretty lazy for a long time. I worked in ICUs and ERs every Christmas from age 19-21 because I was low man on the nursing totem pole. Could have been worse actually. Our family celebrates Christmas in the get family together and have a great meal and presents side of things. But rightwing Christians have kind of ruined the spirituality of the holiday for me.
Yeah, well, fuck Wednesday too.
I realize it's not very Christmasy and in a small, distant way I feel kinda sorta bad about it, but honestly, I really hope that Charlie Kirk gets an itchy runny sore on his junk that won't go away.
Merry Christmas Charlie !
Asshole.
I've always been ambivalent about Christmas, identifying with Charlie Brown's despair over commercialism, if not his spiritual awakening. Growing up it was an excuse for my mother to start early, macerating her brain in Christmas Cheer (vodka taking pride of place before eggnog in our home) and pick fights over past grievances, many predating my birth, enumerating the family's failings in a slurred, but detailed denunciation, like a pickled Jeremiah. Later, after a friend tried to replace Mom's alcoholism with Jesus, she mutated into a mixture of thunderin' fundie and mean drunk, and Christmas became an occasion for her to prosecute a rhetorical jihad against her agnostic children.
After I got married my indifference to the holiday (which could transform into open hostility if anybody pushed me to "get into the spirit") was an annual point of contention, since my wife loves it and wanted to share the joy. Eventually we developed our own secular traditions (a signature cocktail, a turkey dinner, and a screening of Mystery Science Theater 3000's "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" episode) and all was well. In fact, I began to look forward to it.
This holiday season is a tough one, as the year is ending on a series of clanging, discordant notes, like a cowbell bouncing down the basement steps. We had to leave our home of 20 years because my wife can no longer work due to a degenerative nerve ailment, and because her mother (who was the vector that infected my wife with her own love of Christmas) now requires round-the-clock care, and our number came up in the nursing rotation. So we spent Thanksgiving packing, donating, or trashing most of our belongings and moving to a depressed and depressing desert town. And just to "heighten the stakes" as Hollywood producers say (not that this pitch for a Christmas flick would appeal to Lifetime or Hallmark; granted, it's about cosmopolitans who leave the big city to learn simple homespun values in small town America, but lacks the requisite young, rich, pretty people), this year my sister's family took a last ditch, long-postponed trip to Europe, and I agreed to help by dog sitting. So my wife shared Christmas Eve dinner with the lovely and cheerful home healthcare worker who comes in twice a week to bathe my mother in law, while I spent it with Paul Newman (or at least with his frozen pizza). So my patience with War on Christmas complaints from people who can't be arsed to live by the Beatitudes in daily life but wax wroth about a birthday party with insufficient trace amounts of Messiah is transparently thin this year.
However, reading the post and comments over my coffee have supplied cheer where before there was none, so Merry Christmas guys, whatever that means to you.
Let's all celebrate Christmas the way baby Jesus intended: by owning your lib relatives. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/12/24/team-trump-wants-you-own-liberal-snowflakes-your-family-christmas-party/
Happy Holidays to everyone reading this!