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October 04, 2007
This Is Where It Gets Ridiculous
Halloween ISN'T religious, unless you're...well...into Samhain rituals. That would be about.0000002 percent of the population.
Parents in Oak Lawn sounded off Tuesday night about what they see as an assault on traditional American celebrations. At issue is whether Halloween and Christmas celebrations are insensitive to school children who are Muslim.
Ask any fundamentalist Christian in our redneck o' the woods~ they lose their minds over it EVERY frickin' year, trying to equate it to devil worship, with which it has JACK (o-lantern) to do. And why they write pitiful, bombastic bullsh*t letters to our local rag. Screeching screeds about having to explain these horrible, terrifying decorations that heathen merchants put out earlier every year to their frightened/confused/under assault from demon forces young-uns. ("Mommy!!! It's a pumpkin?!? What would Jesus DO...?!?!?!?" See how stupid it sounds?) I guess maybe it's too cold to stand outside McGuire's waving bibles and shrieking threats about hell, so they turn to tamer assaults. Which is ALSO why they get shot down time after time. Halloween's secular, it's FUN, it's boatloads of scary make believe. It's...
The MOST WONDERFUL Time of the Year!!
Fight about Christmas if you have to have a religious throwdown ~ it, at least, has those connotations. But be forewarned. Much to the dismay of traditionalists everywhere, Christmas has also become a day, a SEASON, for the masses, however many fights rage over keeping the 'reason for the season'. In my humble, tree worshipping view, if ever Christ's vision was fully realized, it's by the arbitrarily selected December 25th. How we spend the weeks surrounding it, how we treat our fellow man during it, how we feel during the close of autumn and in the sparkling birth of winter. We feel good. We feel disposed to kindness and bon homie, be we black, orange, green, white, purple, Jew, Baptist, Catholic, agnostic, Druid or whatever, and wherever our origins If we're here, we feel good. 'Can't help yourself' feel good. I don't see that same sense of inclusion permeate the very air at any other time of year, in any other religion or any other celebration.
We feel good. When Ramadan, Eid or insert-Islamic-ritual-of-your-choice has that same effect on EVERYone, we'll discuss it. So far I haven't seen any evidence they want to share the love.
Posted by tree hugging sister at October 4, 2007 09:28 AM
Comments
When do they have time to educate students if they're running around accommodating?
I have a friend who's a school librarian at a public elementary school and she said once she made the mistake of putting a picture of a jack o'lantern in the window of her library. A Jehovah's Witness student (or more likely his/her parents) complained and she had to take it down.
As someone who could possibly be branded one of those "traditionalists" (but I will never make my kids dress up as saints for Halloween), I might roll my eyes during some parts of the "Winter Concert" but I don't think I'd chain myself to the door/call it evil/demand a separate concert.
Posted by: Kate P at October 4, 2007 11:42 AM
Hmmmmm.
1. I have great respect for religions. However *religious people* sometimes I want to take a very big and dirty stick to.
2. The holidays we have, are the holidays we've got. Don't like it? Who cares? Want to complain? Call 1-800-555-1212.
3. One aspect of Islam that doesn't seem to inviting is the tendency to pray while kneeling crammed up against one another ass to nose.
Must be a bitch if you're behind "Windy Mohammed".
4. I view schools as the prime opportunity to teach kids the value of dealing with stuff they don't like. That's why I advocate lots of dodgeball, brussel sprouts for lunch, surprise English tests and no hot water anywhere.
This whole "let's make learning fun!" is just full of idiotic nonsense. Learning isn't meant to be fun. Learning is about learning, not enjoying it.
Posted by: memomachine at October 4, 2007 12:17 PM
Reality is rapidly becoming determined by those who have the least grasp thereof.
Listen up - if you are the touchiest person in the whole bloody zip code, then the trouble is YOU, not US. Your fwagile widdle mind will not improve if it bruises at the merest brush of Something Different. You will be much happier in the long run by insisting less on your own way in everything. Other people do happen to have good ideas occasionally, ya know.
Posted by: nightfly at October 4, 2007 01:18 PM
All these squabbling folks just need to get together in the spirit of brotherhood and sing…
It's Mr.Hankey, the Christmas Pooh,
He Loves Me, I Love You,
There from my parent's glee he loves you,
Even if your a Jew!
Sometimes he's nutty,
Sometimes He's corny,
He can be brown or brownish-green,
but if you eat fiber on Christmas Eve,
He might come to your your town.
He's Mr.Hankey the Christmas Pooh,
He Loves me...I LOVE YOU!!!!
(Might as well. It's no more ridiculous than the issue itself.)
Posted by: Gunslinger at October 5, 2007 06:58 AM