More Austin, War on Christmas, etc.

Just getting into the “War on Christmas” mood.

Joel Stein has an interesting article about this, here is a bit of it:

THERE IS A WAR on Hanukkah. I know this because, even by late last week, I had absolutely no idea it was Hanukkah. Usually my grandmother sends a card, or the radio plays that Adam Sandler song, or one of those Chabad people in a Mitzvah tank picks me out on the street as Jewish and hands me candles, causing me to worry that I’m balding and short and my nose is too big. Apparently, disseminating self-loathing is a mitzvah.

War is a zero-sum game, so when Christmas is winning, Hanukkah is losing. Crumbling under pressure from conservatives, Wal-Mart, Macy’s, Target, Kmart, Walgreens and Kohl’s dropped “Happy Holidays” and brought back their “Merry Christmas” campaigns. The Seattle airport put back its Christmas trees after removing them last week when a rabbi complained. That controversy never would have happened if Gentiles simply realized that absolutely no one ever listens to rabbis. If we did, kids who went to Hebrew school would actually speak Hebrew.

Meanwhile, as Christmas piled up victory after victory, the city of Fort Collins, Colo., refused to display a 9-foot-tall menorah next to a Christmas tree in its town square. Instead, it sits in CooperSmith’s Pub & Brewing. There’s nothing sadder than watching a 9-foot-tall menorah drink away its pain.

These should be good times for Hanukkah and the Jews. After all, the Christmas story offers nothing besides a guy who erases all our sins, but the tale of Hanukkah centers on a magical, super-efficient oil that causes an eightfold decrease in carbon emissions. [...]

Until Hanukkah gets its proper respect, we’re pulling our singers from Christmas albums. No more Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, Neil Diamond, Barry Manilow. You’ll quickly find you don’t have many entertainers of your own when you’re at Banana Republic listening to that one Kristin Chenoweth album over and over.

You have deployed your most annoying Gentiles against us: John Gibson and Bill O’Reilly. So forget Al Franken. Once we find the alley that Pauly Shore is sleeping in, he’ll be singing the dreidel song outside your house. We’ll force storeowners to greet you with a “Happy Hanukkah” — and not the secular version but the one with the “Ch” in front and all the accompanying spittle. We’re also going to shoot you. Us Jews hear war, we take it seriously.

In the same spirit, my sister sent me a Holiday Card from MoveOn.org.

On a personal note, I swam outdoors in Deep Eddy Pool when the air temperature was a crisp 45 degrees F.

I did 30 x 100 (3 lenghths of the 100 foot pool) on the 2; I mixed in one length of fly on 5 of these. My feet darn near froze. And, for some reason, swimming in cold water gives me a wierd feeling in my stomach; I get bloated and have to pee. I then racewalked 2 miles to get the feeling back into my feet; things had warmed up by then.

Austin, December 2006

I haven’t decided on what workout to do; perhaps some sort of run or walk and maybe a swim at Deep Eddy Pool. We shall see; the leg is feeling somewhat better.

I looked like an idiot in picking the Ducks to beat the Cougers; BYU won easily 38-8.

So take what I say with a grain of salt: previously, I predicted Troy to win tonight’s bowl game against Rice. Troy has won 6 of its last 7, and has a narrow loss to Florida State (24-17) on its record. Rice has won 6 of its last 7 as well, against slightly stiffer opposition and has beaten Tulsa (a bowl team) though it has gotten blasted 52-7 by Florida State. Rice started off with losses to bowl teams Houston, UCLA (both close), then huge losses to Texas and Florida State.

Rice is also rated 8 points higher (69.95 to 61.97) in the USA today power polls.

Nevertheless, new bowl teams often don’t play well, especially when they are expected to, and I’ll stick with the Trojans to cover the spread and upset the Owls.

Last night I stayed on my boxing kick. Remember George Foreman, the guy who sells those grills? (Yes, I love mine) He was a pretty good boxer too, both before and after.

Here is George Foreman, defending his title against a good fighter (Ken Norton). Watch the whole thing; it doesn’t last long:

Now, here is George Foreman part two, in 1995 against Michael Moorer. Note how short his knockout punch is:

winning the title at 45? I guess that I have no excuse at 47.

A comment prior to getting out there:

Representative Virgil Goode of Virginia sent out an obnoxious, xenophobic letter to his constituents the other day:

When I raise my hand to take the oath on Swearing In Day, I will have the Bible in my other hand. I do not subscribe to using the Koran in any way. [...]

I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America…

As long as I have the honor of representing the citizens of the 5th District of Virginia in the United States House of Representatives, The Koran is not going to be on the wall of my office.

Of course, he refused to admit that he was wrong:

A congressman said Thursday that he will not retract a letter warning that unless immigration is tightened, “many more Muslims will be elected” and use the Quran to take the oath of office.

Republican Rep. Virgil Goode (news, bio, voting record) triggered angry responses from a civil rights group and some colleagues with a letter this month to constituents concerned about a decision by Rep.-elect Keith Ellison of Minnesota, the first Muslim elected to Congress, to use the Quran when he is sworn in.

“I will not be putting my hand on the Quran,” Goode said at a news conference Thursday at the Franklin County Courthouse.

Goode, who represents Virginia’s 5th Congressional District, said he is receiving more positive comments from constituents than negative.

“One lady told me she thinks I’m doing the right thing on this,” he told Fox News. “I wish more people would take a stand and stand up for the principles on which this country was founded.”

Goode also told Fox News he wants to limit legal immigration and do away with “diversity visas,” which he said let in people “not from European countries” and “some terrorist states.”

In his letter, Goode wrote that strict immigration polices are necessary “to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America.”

“The Muslim representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran,” he wrote.
[...]

Rep. Rahm Emanuel (news, bio, voting record), an Illinois Democrat who is Jewish, said Thursday that he hoped Goode would meet with Ellison, saying he would “see what I saw: a good American with good values of a different faith who’s trying to do right by the people he represents.”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations had asked Goode to apologize, saying the remarks sent “a message of intolerance that is unworthy of anyone elected to public office.”

Ellison was born in Detroit and converted to Islam in college.

His decision to use the Quran at his ceremonial swearing-in next month prompted criticism from conservative talk radio host Dennis Prager. The American-Islamic relations council has called for Prager’s removal from the board of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Anyway, though I often get disgusted with my fellow Democrats, I’ll never in a million years be a Republican because of things like this. Bigotry is perfectly acceptable on their side.