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FREETHUNK BOOK!
The Complete Edition
By Jeff Swenson
160 pages, Jam-Packed
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"JUGS, BEAVERS and EXPLODING BALLS"
by Jeff Swenson
First Cynic Comic Strip
collection now in print.
2004-2005
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| THE IDIOT BOX: WAR ON CHRISTMAS Matt Bors knows the real war is at home. MattBors.com |
| You have to hand it to Bill O' Reilly. Love him, hate him--the guy knows how to market himself. He practically started this entire myth about The War on Christmas. There's no war. Only changing attitudes as to how to market Christmas to a diversifying American Public. As a business man it would be really stupid of me to tell my Jewish customers Merry Christmas instead of Happy Hannukah and if I had a steady flow of nonReligious customers why would I risk a debate on religion if I uttered Merry Christmas? "Happy Holidays" is a decent, nonoffensive compromise. If I knew that every person coming into my store was a Christian than I'd definitely use their holiday phrase of "Merry Christmas" but that is very unlikely. In public schools and publicly owned arenas we also have to make compromises and if Christians want to insist that Christmas is not secular but is a literal, holy event than why should they be surprised when public officials insist that there be no nativity scenes or biased greetings towards any one religion? Again Happy Holidays is a decent compromise. If Christians treated the Holiday more like the myth that it is than I don't think it would be such a controversial issue to tell the Baby Jesus story in schools--similar to relaying Greek Mythology. It is because they are so insistent that it is true that they are the ones who cause the conflict. For most Americans this is a nonIssue. Christmas, regardless if Christ is in the name, has become a secular holiday of shopping, eating, and made for TV movies about how Santa really exists (and how all the parents are idiots for not believing). The War on Christmas is simply a reprisal of the same fear of what Christians did to Pagan holidays in the past; they took over it. I'm sure the pagans felt like their was a war on their holiday too. And just as the Christians took over the Winter Festivals, so shall a secular American public take over their Holiy Holiday and fill it with stories of Frosty the Snowman and the Big Red Guy until Baby Jesus is drowning in unrelated traditions and no longer is taken seriously. |