musing minds

New Line Cinema wanted to sponsor the German American Chamber of Commerce of the Midwest’s Christkindlmarket at Daley Plaza in Chicago with their movie “The Nativity Story“. They were to give $12,000 to the presenters and play clips from the movie on some TVs set up at the Christkindlmarket. The City of Chicago felt that that would be too much Nativity at the Christmas Market. You see, there is already Nativity scene at Daley Plaza, as well as a Christmas tree. And vendors at the Christkindlmarket sell items that relate to the Nativity. Sure, there’s also a Star and Crescent and a Menorah, but the City didn’t want to seem to endorse one religion over another. They also didn’t want to “… be insensitive to to the many people of different faiths who come to enjoy the market for its food and unique gifts…(Jim Law, City of Chicago, Mayor’s Office of Special Events)”

This is a Christmas Market. The Christmas Market takes place from Thanksgiving until Christmas. The vendors sell Christmas items. If it wasn’t for Christmas, there wouldn’t be a market. If it wasn’t for the Nativity of Christ, there wouldn’t be a Christmas. “The many people of different faiths who come to enjoy the market for its food and unique gifts” are aware that it is a Christmas Market. If they were easily offended by Christmas, if they felt ‘excluded’, they probably wouldn’t be there.

Is Mr. Law aware that some food vendors at the Christkindlmarket are selling pork products? Should those be banned because they might offend someone’s religious dietary requirements? No. The vendor should just be aware that he or she could be losing some sales to those who keep Kosher or Halal.

Every day sushi bars are losing sales to me. But that’s because I am just not interested in sushi. I wouldn’t be patronizing the ‘All Liver, All The Time’ restaurant. (funny though, I like braunschweiger liverwurst, I just can’t stand regular liver-and-onions type liver).

We can’t expect to be all things to all people. We can’t even be all things to some people.

There’s talk that non-believers could feel excluded from the market if there’s too much Christ in it.

You know, when my Jewish friends wish me a Happy Hanukkah, I don’t feel excluded at all. I feel included instead. I feel happy that they wish to include me in their celebration of the Festival of Lights.

People sort themselves into all sorts of groupings every day. They sort themselves according to many different criteria. Some criteria may be related to religion, some criteria may be related to ethnicity, some criteria by ancestry, some by education level or income level or political affiliation.

Each and every one of us is different. We have different interest, talents, skills, and beliefs. Even within major religious groups there are many different sub-groups, each with its own particular belief set. We can not include everyone in everything. It is not possible. We can’t make everyone the same — see Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut — it just won’t work.

How do you decide which “same” to pick? Do you disable everyone equally to “even things out”, or do you euthanize everyone who isn’t “perfect”? Who decides what’s “perfect”?

Can you imagine a world where everyone has the same things, the same income, the same job, the same family, the same looks, the same everything? Even subdivisions try to alleviate some of the sameness of their house plans by not putting two of the same plan on adjacent lots. They also offer different “elevations” or facades so that all the houses built from Plan A won’t look exactly the same…

It’s definitely a delusion to think that multi-culti and inclusion are the cure all of all that’s wrong with the world. Trying to make everyone the same won’t cure anything at all. And it never would happen. Some would always end up staying out of it. “Someone has to run things”, they’d say, “someone has to be in charge.” Those who bitterly complain about the differences between the “haves” and “have nots” will be quite surprised when the middle goes away. When the High comprises 1% and the Low comprises 99% and there is no middle at all…

Laura Lee notes that she usually starts decorating for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving, but that this year she hasn’t gotten around to it.

I am hereby giving her one. Anyone else who needs one or knows someone who needs one is welcome to use the little envelope icon on the bottom of this post to email the post, or you can just right-click on the image, choose View Image from the pop-up menu, and print the resulting page to give to someone… {then use your browser’s back button to come back here!}
[Update: in IE7 right-click and choose Print Picture…]
Have Fun!

Right Click and Choose View Image

My personal thought is that your child should go to his or her neighborhood school. The school that the student can walk to. The school where the neighbors go.

If you live in a homogeneous neighborhood then you will probably have a homogeneous school.

If you live in a diverse neighborhood then you will probably have a diverse school.

A child was denied a place in his neighborhood school because he was white and by going to that school he wouldn’t maintain the diversity that the school board was attempting to maintain.

In my school district, all the children go to the same school for kindergarten. There are five elementary schools (1st-6th), one middle school (7th-8th), and one high school. Children are generally assigned to their “neighborhood” elementary school unless the child is registered late and there is no more room at the closest school. If a child lives within 1.5 miles of his/her neighborhood school, the child walks, otherwise the child is bussed. In our district children aren’t assigned by race or first language spoken at home.

I think that’s the proper way. People segregate themselves all the time. The school districts say that some of this “self segregation” is caused by affordable housing or lack thereof. That may be so. But people still have a choice of where to live. People could choose a more diverse neighborhood. They can choose a more homogeneous neighborhood.

The school districts in the cases before the SCOTUS want to balance the number of white and black students at the schools even though some students may spend an inordinate amount of time traveling from home to school and then back again. The school districts maintain that diversity is more important for the early grades, kindergarten, first, second grade. This means that a 5-, 6-, or 7-year-old may be spending from 1-1/2 to 3 hours daily on a bus. That seems a high price for the child to be paying.

You’d also think that parents might want to make that decision for themselves.

Update: I just heard one woman (on Fox) from the protests today at SCOTUS saying “we can’t return to segregated schools”.

That reminded me. Weren’t segregated schools specifically designed that way? Weren’t children bussed to a school for ‘their color’ no matter where they lived? Isn’t this almost the same in reverse?

Quite a while back I read St. Patrick’s Gargoyle by Katherine Kurtz. The story of a Gargoyle named Paddy for the Church in Dublin that he guards, stolen alms basins and a roughed up verger, and the desecrated grave of a Knight returned from the Holy Land.

The gargoyles of Dublin meet once a month, on a moonless night, to discuss what’s happening with their various charges (the churches) and what may be happening in the city. The gargoyles explain (both to one another and Paddy to a human, Francis Templeton – an elderly Knight of Malta who helps him out – that gargoyles were once avenging angels. In the Old Testament avenging angels were seen frequently, but they aren’t around in the New Testament.

Templeton sees Paddy’s reflection in the black door of a Rolls Royce…

Reflected briefly in the car’s polished black door, just as his visitor ducked back into the sheltering shadow of the shutters, was not a darkly menacing shadow-shape laced with fire, but the stern, majestic figure of an armored warrior, with a diadem of stars across its noble brow and dark pinions sweeping from powerful shoulders to trail rainbows behind. And what its strong hands were cradling to its armored breast was not a radiator mascot but a tiny winged cherub.

“Oh”, Paddy said apologetically, as Templeton gave a wondering little gasp, slack-jawed with awe. “I guess your car door’s a black mirror. You weren’t supposed to see that. That’s the only way mortals can see us in our true form — unless, of course, they’ve really pissed us off. Then you don’t wanta know. Like I said we used to be avenging angels.

“Not anymore, though. We don’t get to kick ass like we did in the old days. The Boss has mellowed a lot, since the days when He was a Old Testament God. I think it started when His Son joined the Firm. The Son was human for a while, you know, so He’s inclined to be a little softer on sinners.”

The advent of Christ does obviate the need for avenging angels. The Old Testament God punished. After God gave us his Son, there was no need for avenging angels. Through Christ, we are forgiven and saved. Let us remember this as we come into this most Holy season.

Merry Christmas to one and all.

cross posted at The Anchoress

Today the Little Guy is making snow angels and the Shih Tzu is shorter than the snow…

Minneapolis radio station KDWB‘s host Dave Ryan asked if people would trade a baby for a PS3. He didn’t expect that he would have any takers. He was mistaken.

The station received many calls offering to trade a baby for the PS3 system.

The station started with just the offer: trade a baby (for a while) for a PS3. Then, after they received such a high response, they started an “auction” to get the youngest baby for the longest time… The parents were told that they could not check up on the welfare of the child and they were also told that the station did not have a child safety seat for the car.

These parents were still willing to trade their child. The “winner” was a one month old baby for three days (no children or PS3’s were traded).

Fox News played a recording of one mother this morning. She said she had a one month old baby named Alex that she would trade for a PS3. The host asked if the baby’s father agreed. She said he was right there with her. The host asked how old she was. She said she was 22. The host said that Alex was probably her first baby then. She said the baby was her third.

Trading your child to strangers for a period of time for a video game system. What is this world coming to?

cross posted at The Anchoress (where I am guest posting for the weekend – Thank you Anchoress!)

This election followed a typical outcome in the sixth year of a presidency. Based on historical patterns it appears the Dem win was average to a little below average – particularly given the fact that if they take the Senate it will be by a hair.

Historical patterns notwithstanding, is there any doubt that the media played a huge role in this election? Consider the following:

Iraq was a “major” issue to most voters. Given that Iraq is on the other side of the planet, the only source of information for most is through the news, and for many busy folks the only source is regrettably a perusal of the headlines of the day. The coverage was constant stories of failure. Isolated incidents of U.S. military abuse received round the clock coverage while stories of real life heroism (of which there were many) were ignored. Every terrorist bombing made the headlines, but stories like the re-irrigation of the Marsh Arabs were ignored. When milestones were surpassed (like the daily output of oil, or the electrical grid standards) they were ignored where previously those respective “failures” were the stories of the day. To be sure there was chaos. But there was also redevelopment, and normalcy, in many areas of Iraq. As for history, the media slowly but inevitably erased any Democrats’ involvement in the decision to go into Iraq such that, in the end, it was Bush’s decision, and Bush’s decision alone. The support for the invasion by many democrats was erased from the public record.

Only one side of America’s most important story of our times was told. In an election where outcomes have come down to each vote, there can be no doubt that such one-sided coverage affected the election. The “Vietnam formula” whereby the media abuses its position by taking sides in an armed conflict is alive and well.

Welcome Radio Equalizer readers! Please have a look around while you’re here.

Just watching Fox and a Democratic strategist was chastising Republicans for attacking Kerry, since he’s……………get this…………not even on the ballot in this election.

Meanwhile Kerry, and the rest of the Democratic party, continued with their attacks against Bush throughout the day.

In other news, a man convicted of murdering his parents plead with the court for mercy, arguing that he’s had to deal with the hardships of becoming an orphan.

That, my blogging friends, is chutzpah.

Don’t believe Kerry’s actual words, he says. Rather, we are to believe his after-the-fact nonsensical characterization. You see, he was actually referring to Bush.

Let’s put this in context, shall we: There Kerry was, offering guidance to the young bright minds around him, admonishing them to work hard, study well, lest they one day …………………… become president of the United States and engage in bad foreign policy?????

Alllllrightythen.

If you aren’t, DJ Drummond has the future if the Democrats win this election cycle.

Be afraid.

Vote GOP November 7^th