It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like … Fox New’s Puffed-up Phony War on Christmas
All you need to know that the War on Christmas is hogwash is to walk out your front door.
I dunno know about you but I live in Texas, where tacky whoop-te-do is considered an art form. My entire street is lit up like an oil refinery. On clear nights we can be seen from the damn moon.
You cannot go into a store without hearing elevator Christmas tunes and the hawking of wares nobody on this planet really needs. Well, unless they are shiny. If they are shiny, then you really need them. I even have shiny house shoes. I know, eat your heart out.
Back to Fox News: their latest fake WOC story comes from Georgia. Yes, Georgia – Queen of the Bible Belt.
Fox News’ Todd Starnes accused a Georgia elementary school of “confiscating” Christmas cards in an effort to stifle religious expression, prompting outrage from residents and threats of corrective legislation from Georgia lawmakers. But according to the school district, Starnes’ allegations are completely false.
There is a tradition of teachers bringing a copy of the Christmas card they send out to share with other teachers. They are displayed for the teachers to see. That display was moved to the teacher’s lounge this year due to safety concerns and, boy howdy, is the principal flippin’ mad about the Fox News story. Apparently, it has interrupted the school day.
Unfortunately, today the school was terrorized by an intentional and vicious dissemination of untrue information that disrupted the good work going on inside. Fox News Radio Commentary Host Todd Starnes, acting on misinformation that neither he, nor his media outlet corroborated with the school system or Baker, misreported a story about student Christmas Cards being removed from the school. Baker did not receive any questions from the local community either.
The Atlanta Journal Constitution got in on the act, too. They describe a “school that obviously has no problem with Christmas trees. Or holiday artwork by students. Or Christmas cards. No one has been asked not to say “Merry Christmas.””
Moving one Christmas card display does not a war make. Even if it’s Hitler.
Fox News = Faux News = Phoney news…….mouthpiece of the Repugnant Party = try anything to get a vote.
1The Star of Bethlehem would be paler than a weak comet if any celestial observation was attempted during Christmastide. The light pollution is spectacular this time of year.
It is more helpful to put Christ back in Christians than to worry about stuffing the Good Lord into the Winter solstice.
2Now I know I ain’t a Lawyer or nuthing, but Bubba, can’t this irresponsible “Reporter” be charged with something for putting those little Georgia children in the middle of a trumped up cross burning?
3In a clip used on the Daily Show, Panderer Palin states that she loves the commercialism cause it helps spread the Lord’s message.
4So the Repugs aren’t so worried about Christmas per se, it’s the War on Christmas Business (the bottom line) that gets them raving mad.
I must correct my previous quote from Sarah Palin. “I love all the commercialization at Christmastime because it spreads Christmas cheer.” She was not concerned at all about Christ’s message.
5Once upon a time someone flew off the handle about something during a campaign. A phone number was proferred and called and remarkably that someone went back to the easy chair on the handle. Yup. I was amazed that actually happened right in front of my human eyes. The flying off the handle never happened again on my watch. Did the Flyer learn something? Maybe. Did it last long and make a life change? Nahhhhh. RWNJ went back into business after awhile. Sigh.
6As an atheist who has, of course, been a prime mover in the horrendous War on Christmas, I am officially declaring victory and going home.
Christmas, as celebrated in our mass culture, is an orgy of materialism and excess. It is used as an excuse for divisiveness and hate.
If my goal really were to corrupt a Christian spiritual holiday I would have won without lifting a finger the day that Christmas stuff went on sale before Halloween.
7That is just plain lazy. Even John Stewart doesn’t have to invent the stories he reports on his self-described fake news show. Fox News should change their name to… Sloth News? Possum News? At least get the animal they represent right.
8I wonder how many of those Christmas tunes would rate on the newly invented (just this minute by yours truly) “Handel’s Messiah” scale. Up at the high end of the scale you can find “For Unto Us a Child is Born” right next to “And the Glory of the Lord Shall be Revealed” while the lower end is currently occupied by Elmo and Patsy’s classic rendition of “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer”.
In the same vein, the tacky lights that are heartily approved of my Home Owners’ Associations and feature contests to designate the street with the most decorations and lights (my neighbors hated us because we never put up so much as a single fake candle in a window so our street could never win). Are the lights showing Nativity scenes or Frosty the Snowman in an inflatable snow globe? If there is a Nativity scene, does Joseph have that “What am I doing? Why am I here?” expression that he wears in so many of those Madonna and Child paintings in the MFAH? (No, not that Madonna although that would be an interesting scene to put on your lawn some year.)
9The fact that Todd Starnes deliberately caused these people to be harassed by his winged monkeys is enough for me to wish him to spend a Happy Holiday having to listen to Sarah Palin reading her “book” on tape in an endless loop, while Ted Nugent sings one the worst ear-worm carols – “Have a Holly-Jolly Christmas” – for the rest of the month.
10Fox News is the home of the War on Truth 24/7/365.
Good Grief.
11Lorraine you hit the ball out of the park!
12Personally, I think the Republicans are the war on Christmas, what with cutting food stamps, going after Social Security and Medicare, wanting to impeach the President for wanting the hungry to be fed, the homeless to be housed, the naked to be clothed.
If they want to “put the Christ back in Christmas” as they say, they’re going to have to do what Jesus said to do…about 180 degrees from the course they’re flying on those imaginary reindeer.
13Just finished a sweet little book called “Charles Dickens: The Man Who Invented Christmas”. A wonderfully entertaining and researched book about the history of Dickens and his masterpiece “A Christmas Carol”.
Pertaining to this post, there’s a section on the history of Christmas which is rather enlightening. In short, Christmas was NOT a big holiday in Dickens’ time. The section pertaining to the Massachusetts Bay Colony tells of them actually outlawing the celebration of Christmas! Take that piece of info Mr. O’Reilly and stuff it!!
I really do suggest that you get this book from the library (or wherever) and read it. You can do it in a day. It’s not big. BUT it pulls the rug out from the histrionics Fox uses to push their “War on Christmas” agenda.
14In other War On Christmas news today … House GOP members have now approved the inclusion of religious greetings in official letter that they mail to their constituents. Religious messages in official correspondence have previously been banned, but now they’re allowed because House Republicans think they should be able to say “Merry Christmas” to their constituents at taxpayers’ expense. And of course they hasten to add that these religious greetings can also be “Happy Hanukkah” or “whatever”. (Yeah, because there are so many Jewish and “whatever” Republican congressmembers in office right now.):
Roll Call: House members can include “Merry Christmas” in franked mail
15http://www.rollcall.com/news/house_members_can_include_merry_christmas_in_franked_mail-229458-1.html
Don A, best story I’ve read about tacky lights is Charlotte Macleod’s “Rest You Merry.” Single prof at small college lives on U-shaped street with many other profs, and they all decorate the place to death at xmas except him. He’s nagged and nagged about it. Finally he snaps and puts up in each window the most leering Santa face he can find, strings a few miles of lights flashing purple and orange, and sets an endless tape loop of “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” “All I Want For Christmas is My Two Front Teeth,” and “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer.” Then he locks the house and leaves for a week.
16Rhea, and he didn’t even leave a plate of cookies outside? Sheesh. That is the limit.
17