Christmas is a big day on my baby’s momma’s side of the family, and my baby’s no exception. I got my wakeup call at a relatively humane 7AM to join Katie for the unwrapping, and patient girl that she is, she even gave me the time to shower. I can’t be sure if she really liked all her gifts, because she’s always politely appreciative regardless, but by far her favorite present was the one she unwrapped last week: a kitten.
I cooked them breakfast, cleaned up, gave the dog a run, and now I’m getting ready to head off and embrace my Jewish heritage for a couple hours: I’m going to the movies: Sweeney Todd. (And yes, it is possible to be a huge Sondheim fan without being a great big faggot like Dan Savage.) Afterwards I’ll head up to the ex-in-laws for Christmas dinner and yet another round of gift unwrapping.
I hope the rest of you are enjoying your holiday, or at the very least, enjoying time-and-a-half holiday pay.
Merry Christmas, Goldy!
Merry Christmas Everyone!
I am sure the gifts you receive will you change your life for the better.
Merry Christmas, everyone! (Including you fascist goatfuckers!)
Merry Christmas HareLip!
PuddyBuddy and Piper and the rest of you Republican/Christian values trolls. Answer this: do you believe your President when he says “we do not torture”? Do you think Jesus Christ born on this day believes your President when he says “we do not torture.”? Do you, as supporters and enablers of President George W. Bush, feel responsible at all for his lies and torture and killing and budget deficits?
You won’t answer these questions of course. Because who wants to admit they support lies and torture and killing and budget deficits.
A Christmas tale, just for Goldy:
There once was a little old Jewish lady who traveled to a large midwest city to visit her family. The trip was to be a surprise, so she headed for a nice downtown hotel, schlepped her bags up to the check-in desk, and said, in her thick New York accent, “I should like to, please, rent a room.”
The young man behind the desk took one look at her, and said, “I’m sorry, ma’am, but we’re all booked up right now.”
The little old lady said, “That’s OK. I vait,” and she schlepped her bags over to a chair in the lobby to sit and wait.
Some time later, the little old lady schlepped her bags back up to the check-in desk and said, “I see people checking out. I see people checking in. I think maybe now you got a room. I should like to, please, rent a room.”
The young man behind the desk said, “I’m sorry, ma’am, but we really don’t have a room. We’re all booked.”
The little old lady said, “It’s OK. I vait,” and schlepped her bags back to the chair in the lobby.
This scene was repeated a couple of time until an exasperated young man behind the desk finally said, “Look, ma’am, but my boss refuses to rent rooms to you people. Please go somewhere else.”
The little old lady, peering over half-lens glasses and waggling her finger at the young man asked, “Do you know why Christ was born in a manger?”
The young man said, “No, ma’am, I don’t.”
To which the little old lady, still peering over her glasses and waggling her finger, replied, “Because some damn goyyah son-of-a-bitch like you wouldn’t rent his mother a room!”
St. Nick in the Big City
By JOHN ANTHONY McGUCKIN
Published: December 25, 2007
ST. NICHOLAS was a super-saint with an immense cult for most of the Christian past. There may be more icons surviving for Nicholas alone than for all the other saints of Christendom put together. So what happened to him? Where’s the fourth-century Anatolian bishop who presided over gift-giving to poor children? And how did we get the new icon of mass consumerism in his place?
Well, it’s a New York story.
In all innocence, the morphing began with the Dutch Christians of New Amsterdam, who remembered St. Nicholas from the old country and called him Sinte Klaas. They had kept alive an old memory — that a kindly old cleric brought little gifts to the poor in the weeks leading up to the Feast of the Nativity. While the gifts were important, they were never meant to overshadow the message of Jesus’s humble birth.
But today’s chubby Santa is not about giving to the poor. He has had his saintly garb stripped away. The filling out of the figure, the loss of the vestments, and his transformation into a beery fellow smoking a pipe combined to form a caricature of Dutch peasant culture. Eventually this Magic Santa (a suitable patron saint if there ever was one for the burgeoning capitalist machinery of the city) was of course popularized by the Manhattanite Clement Clarke Moore published in “A Visit From St. Nicholas,” in The Troy (New York) Sentinel on Dec. 23, 1823.
The newly created deity Santa soon attracted a school of iconographers: notable among them were Thomas Nast, whose 1863 image of a red-suited giant in Harper’s Weekly set the tone, and Haddon Sundblom, who drew up the archetypal image we know today on behalf of the Coca-Cola Company in the 1930s. This Santa was regularly accompanied by the flying reindeer: godlike in his majesty and presiding over the winter darkness like Odin the sky god returned.
The new Santa also acquired a host of Nordic elves to replace the small dark-skinned boy called Black Peter, who in Christian tradition so loved St. Nicholas that he traveled with him everywhere. But, some might say, wasn’t it better to lose this racially stereotyped relic? Actually, no, considering the real St. Nicholas first came into contact with Peter when he raided the slave market in his hometown and railed against the trade. The story tells us that when the slavers refused to take him seriously, he used the church’s funds to redeem Peter and gave the boy a job in the church.
And what of the throwing of the bags of gold down the chimney, where they landed in the stockings and little shoes that had been hung up to dry by the fireplace? Charming though it sounds, it reflected the deplorable custom, still prevalent in late Roman society when the Byzantine church was struggling to establish the supremacy of its values, of selling surplus daughters into bondage. This was a euphemism for sexual slavery — a trade that still blights our world.
As the tale goes, Nicholas had heard that a father in the town planned to sell his three daughters because his debts had been called in by pitiless creditors. As he did for Black Peter, Nicholas raided his church funds to secure the redemption of the girls. He dropped the gold down the chimney to save face for the impoverished father.
This tale was the origin of a whole subsequent series of efforts among the Christians who celebrated Nicholas to make some effort to redeem the lot of the poor — especially children, who always were, and still are, the world’s front-line victims. Such was the origin of Christmas almsgiving: gifts for the poor, not just gifts for our friends.
I like St. Nicholas. You can keep chubby Santa.
John Anthony McGuckin is a professor of religious history at Union Theological Seminary and Columbia.
Next Article in Opinion (8 of 19) »
http://bravenewfilms.org/blog/.....mes?play=1
Have a Cool Yule, Folks!!!
Merry Christmas, Goldy!
Sounds like Katie has a dad who loves her, and that says a lot; she’ll grow up to be a good woman who makes a positive difference in the world.
She has to…she’s a cat person – dogs have owners, cats have staff.
The Piper
Merry Christmas all, or Season’s Greetings as you prefer.
Here’s a nice Christmas present for us liberals:
“THE CIA chief who ordered the destruction of secret videotapes recording the harsh interrogation of two top Al-Qaeda suspects has indicated he may seek immunity from prosecution in exchange for testifying before the House intelligence committee.”
http://timesonline.co.uk/tol/n.....087293.ece
Personally, I don’t care what they do to al Qaeda terrorists, but if it is proved they tortured even one innocent person, they should hang for it.
On the sucky little rival blog, Eric Earling entertains his readership (what there is) with a blow-by-blow account of his futile efforts to buy a can opener NOT made in China.
Earling explains he doesn’t want to help pay for China’s naval construction program. Of course, he never mentions the Americans put out of work by imported can openers. No, the only thing he’s worried about is his consumer dollars going to the Chinese military.
It’s so, well, wingnut.
Of course, Republicans don’t give a damn about American workers. They don’t care if some guy in Hoboken, New Jersey who used to run a stamping machine in a factory that made can openers is spending this Christmas in a homeless shelter. They’re only worried about whether China gets a navy. If they do, we’ll have to go to war against them, because we can’t have that now can we. Of course, a war against China will create enlistment opportunities for ex-factory workers, so that might be a good thing for the working class.
As for me, I don’t work anymore. I live like a Republican now. I sit on my fat rabbit ass all day posting on HA. Working doesn’t pay, you see. Congress doesn’t want you to work. That’s why they tax wages twice as much as free money. By “free money” I mean money people don’t work for. Congress wants you to get money by inheriting it or winning at the stock market game. If you get money without working for it, that’s good! But if you have to work for money, then you’re immoral. At least, Republicans think so. Therefore, working is punished.
I don’t work! I’m never going to work or produce anything again. From now on, I’m going to live off the land, like Republicans do. I put capital in the stock market and get back more than I put in. I get favorable tax treatment for doing this. And I do no work, and produce nothing! Frankly, I think this system is nuts, but it’s the system we have and I just go with the flow.
Today may be Christmas in your house, but every day is Christmas in the Rabbit Family’s burrow! You may go back to work tomorrow, but I’ll be sitting here on my ass waiting for the mailman to bring my dividend checks. Those get favorable tax treatment, too, because I didn’t work for them and they’re not wages. Only work is punished by our government, and since I don’t work, I’m home free!
I really should put out some milk and cookies for the poor mailman trudging through all this snow. After all, he’s going to get flogged when he fills out his 1040.
@15 Correction, that was Don Ward who wrote the “My Adventures In Target’s Can Opener Department” piece.
Well, I suppose even Herman Melville started modestly.
Am I the only one who’s worried about how the Bushevik regime has compromised our national security by sending our can opener manufacturing jobs to China? I mean, if there’s a war with China, how the fuck are we going to open cans? We’ll all fucking starve before the Bushies get around to winning the war.
Hey Piper, Helpless Loosie asked another of his same stupid questions in #6.
The answer hasn’t changed because it’s CHRISTmas.
Too bad Helpless Loosie can’t read.
Merry CHRISTmas.
Pelletizer (TM): Since rabbits can’t read no need to wish you a Merry CHRISTmas. But in case you are human, Merry CHRISTmas.
Where is the URL for the company in Hoboken, NJ who moved their stamping operation to China in the 70s or 80s when you guys had control of Congress?
Helpless Loosie (TM) last night you said you were turning a new leaf. Today we see the same tired rants.
What happened, you slept on it?
Puddypud! Why are you, and The Piper, afraid to state publicly whether you believe Bush tortures or not and whether or not you support torture? I notice that the rabbit has no problem clearly stating his beliefs on the subject.
You prefer to attack the messenger with some stupid demands rather than express your opinion on the issue. Yet on all other subjects-how you and Piper go on and on and on.
Who would Jesus torture Puddypud? Who would Jesus bomb Peeper?
Just a few links to stories tying Bush to torture. These will make you proud to be a Republican with those wonderful traditional Republican/Christian values. If nothing else watch the video at this first link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mp4vLBvU1bA
U.S.: Did President Bush Order Torture? (Human Rights Watch, 21-12
http://www.hrw.org/english/doc.....nt9925.htm
Bush Approved Torture Techniques
http://www.informationclearing.....le7524.htm
Look how the SOB stutters in that video. This lying bastard Bush has said that Jesus Christ is his favorite philosopher. If he wasn’t a religious wacko comparable to the worst of the fucking Taliban he would fear going straight to hell-I’m assuming he wasn’t lying when he said Jesus was his favorite philosopher-and I would never assume George W. Bush, Puddypud and Piper’s president, wasn’t lying.
Bush says his lawyers looked at what he is doing and said it was lawful. His fucking lawyers told him anything he does is lawful if he says so. He is the fucking king of the world!
Do you support torture Puddy? Tell us how you feel Puddy! Aren’t you a little embarrassed when you see that corrupt incompetent lying wacko stand there and lie through his teeth?
Do you support torture Puddy?
Pissed Puddle and Poop Pile:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....78182.html
Why are Liberals so Afraid of Baby Jesus?
He was America’s first born again president. He was deacon of a Baptist church that — during his bid for presidency — he had to sever his membership with because they would not allow blacks to become members.
Shades of Huckabee.
Shades of Romney.
But I’m talking about Jimmy Carter [emphasis mine] who was then, as he remains now, a hero of the liberal fringe. The far left has no problem with Carter’s faith, and never feared that he would be more of a theologian than politician.
And yet…
I just love it when the Moonbat!s attack… each other.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....69772.html
Here’s a Washington Post story from 12-9-07 about Bush’s use of torture and -you’ll love this Puddy-the lack of meaningful opposition from Democrats who were briefed on it.
“The CIA last week admitted that videotape of an interrogation of one of the waterboarded detainees was destroyed in 2005 against the advice of Justice Department and White House officials, provoking allegations that its actions were illegal and the destruction was a coverup.
Yet long before “waterboarding” entered the public discourse, the CIA gave key legislative overseers about 30 private briefings, some of which included descriptions of that technique and other harsh interrogation methods, according to interviews with multiple U.S. officials with firsthand knowledge.”
DO YOU SUPPORT TORTURE PUDDY?
My attempt at embedding a link failed above-here it is.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....01664.html
Puddy Do You Support Torture Puddy?
Jimmy Carter and Gays and I suppose you will get around to the Clintons and immigrants here shortly Puddy, but my question Puddy is do you support torture Puddy?
Are you a Christian Puddy? Do you have Christian values Puddy? Do you have Republican values Puddy? Who would Jesus torture Puddy?
Did Carter torture Puddy? And if he did does that make it OK for Bush to torture Puddy?
Puddy! Why are you afraid to state your views about toture Puddy? You have opinions on every other subject under the sun. It’s ok to oppose torture Puddy. Of course it does creat a moral situation for you doesn’t it Puddy. With you supporting a war criminal like Bush who tortures human beings.
Or maybe you do support torture Puddy. Which makes sense for you as a Bush supporter. But then it’s a problem for you if you’re a Christian, ain’t it Puddy? I mean who would Jesus torture Puddy? Who Puddy? Who?
Here are some images of waterboarding Puddy to help you make up your mind. If the link doesn’t work just google waterboarding images.
http://images.google.com/image.....8;ct=title
And Piper all those comments above asking Puddly if he supoorts torture apply to you also. As a supporter of george W. Bush, you like puddy make it possible for him to klie and torure and kill and run up deficits for your grankids to pay off. do you support torture Piper?
Pissed Puddle and Poop Pile:
You know the stakes for any answer. Can you meet them Helpless Loosie (TM)? Until then talk to the hand…
@20 I’m a nativist. I worship the Great Mother Rabbit Spirit. May She smile on you and yours today. But only today; the Christmas truce ends at 12:01 AM and tomorrow it’ll be business as usual on this blog.
OK … who didn’t turn off the BOLD?!
Pissed Puddle and Poop Pile:
Maybe you should figger out how to close a bold 24/7.
Maybe you should stop typing gibberish 24/7!
Maybe you should return to your rathole 24/7!
@24 “This lying bastard Bush has said that Jesus Christ is his favorite philosopher.”
Well, that’s what happens when people who can’t comprehend above the first grade reading level have to get their religious education from a comic book.
Pelletizer (TM): Pissed Puddle and Poop Pile can’t close bolds.
@25 Anyone who listens to what a lawyer says deserves to have a lawyer.
@27 Huckabee’s religion isn’t a problem, but everything else about Huckabee IS a problem.
Puddinghead will now explain how Huckabee’s firing of the state police chief for refusing to block the investigation of Huckabee’s son for lynching a dog reflects Christian values. Won’t you, puttybutt? Pud … ? Are you there … ?
Puttybutt also will explain how Huckabee’s pressuring the parole board to release a rapist who subsequently murdered two women, and then lying about his role in this killer’s release, qualifies him to be president. Er, puddy, are you still here? Do you have anything you want to say?
I guess he left.
Huckabee is very likely going to perform the useful service of knocking Romney out of the race so our nominee gets to run against either Rompin’ Rudy or Flipping McCain.
@43 I notice you can’t either.
If torture isn’t wrong why are they so sneaky about it?
I’ve got a feeling one hell of a lot of Republican lawyers are going to get disbarred after this administration is history and all the dirty laundry comes out of the closet.
Wherever some sort of shit is going on in this regime, Republican lawyers are mixed up in it. And they’ve gone to great lengths to hide those lawyers’ involvement.
Why? Because you not only get kicked out of the bar for giving the kind of legal advice these Republican lawyers have given to Bush and Cheney, you go to jail for it.
Puttybutt just doesn’t want to answer questions today. I bet if he’ll sing if we waterboard him, though.
Hey putty! How long do you think YOU would last on the waterboard before you started talking? 3 seconds? Naw, I don’t think you’re good for 3 seconds.
Hey puddy! Would you have supported Osama’s mom getting an abortion?
Knowing what you know today, I mean?
Somebody get a bucket of water.
We’re gonna get answers from puddinghead one way or another.
Roger Rabbit says:
If torture isn’t wrong why are they so sneaky about it?
12/25/2007 at 8:16 pm
Because of the trial lawyer/pussified democrat complex. Next question.
I turned off the bold.
It’s Christmas, guys. Why not take a break from the sniping? I mean, Jesus. (Literally.) Save it. The issues won’t go away.
You too, Roger.
Geov …
Hmmm .. maybe foks here should remember the historic significance of Christmas before complying with your calming advice? Can anyone tell me when the holiday was seen as a festival of peace?
Certainly not in early Christianity as the holiday did not begin until 200-300 years AD. When Xmas did begin, Christianity had become a warlike, exclusivist state religion. The now Romanized religion busily conducted pogroms against other religions and even againjst its own divergent opinions.
I suspect this is a MODERN idea, maybe beginning with Luther’s excision of the Church from the State.
It is a beautiful idea. Imagine a holiday where everyone is supposed to love each other .. or even more, where the majority, the christian majority, is supposed to love the rest of us!
Imagine that?
Nahhhhh.
Wingnuts, the bell tolls for thee:
Karl Rove failed miserably. It’s the Dem’s turn now and for a long time to come. Two progressives’ opinion. (My take: sure if the Dems don’t screw the pooch and progressives follow through and primary out the blue dog corporate sycophants.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....01415.html
Rudy has fallen just about to the bottom of the well.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12.....liani.html
From New Hampshire, Pandering Mitt? What a phony baloney!
http://www.concordmonitor.com/...../712230301
Uh oh a Huckabee fan disses that fat gasbag. “Honestly because Rush doesn’t think for himself.” LMAO!!!
http://marcambinder.theatlanti.....rushbo.php
Is Mike taking cues from Mitt? At least with war-mongering theocrats he is. Conservative Catholics will not approve.
http://www.reuters.com/article.....23?sp=true
Ron Paul second guesses honest Abe. Talks in the present tense! Sounds about right. Note to PuddyIdiot: I do NOT support this guy but I don’t think he’s racist or at least he doesn’t mean to be. Hey sometimes fringies just can’t help themselves.
http://edgeofthewest.wordpress.....pationist/
Ahhhh. Poor Frances is crippled and offended by congressional oversight. What have you got to hide Fran?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12.....tml?ref=us
Poor Porter. Chimpie and Duck!’s hatchet man never knew what hit him.
http://www.latimes.com/news/na.....ome-nation
Geov: A liberal can’t change his spots.
They snipe 24/7-365.
Puddles – what’s your point? Torture schmorture. Why are you obsessed with how we treat this enemy? My only regret is that al Qaeda detainees are not being made to suffer even more than they already are. Whatever we are doing to them is far too humane. If we kiss them on the forehead before bed time and give them cookies and milk, they will not be impressed. That will not cause them to be kind to our troops when captured. The Geneva Convention means absolutely nothing to them. They do not recongnize nation states, international conventions, human rights of any kind, in fact the concept of human rights is completely lost on them. These are the kind of people who we should be going Mengele on. Experimentation that you wouldn’t do on animals is fitting for these people. The possibilities are endless!
Pelletizer (TM) I put forth my rules for answering Helpless Loosie (TM) rant. Go to the http://www.horsesass.org/?p=4009
link. Look near the end for the Puddy answer. You’ll also see Pissed Puddle and Poop Pile can’t close links correctly there either.
He needs remedial XML help.
Oh a round up of the GOP’s losing field wouldn’t be complete with this:
GENERAL PETRAEUS. PLEASE, PLEASE SAVE OUR COUNTRY. YOU’RE THE ONLY ONE. OUR OTHER GUYS SUCK TOTALLY.
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH…. PLEASE, PLEASE RUN FOR PREZNIT…
http://www.nysun.com/article/62017
LMAO!!!
Clueless Gooberfool@65: Time’s a wasting and you need to prove your values in http://www.horsesass.org/?p=4013
The world awaits your incoherent rant!
Socialized medicine:
Could we please have some more sociailized medicine?
I won’t let Daddy die: Girl of six raises £4,000 for life-saving drugs the NHS won’t provide
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pag es/live/articles/news/news.htm l?in_article_id=490001&in_page _id=1770
Hey Pee-Dookie…
Who would Jesus kill…
Who would Jesus TORTURE, for that matter…
…as we know he was REAL big on that kinda stufff..
You fucking loser.
Rujax!: Sinners who reject Him Rujax! So why do you hate and reject Him?
Why do you care? You are a hater.
When Jesus comes in the clouds of glory, you’ll still be a hater!
RE:RE: 69. Jesus had allot of powers most of us don’t. We do know that Muhammad raped 9 year olds and his followers murder men, women and children without remorse so maybe pouring water over some of these sick fucks and watching the cowards spill their guts in about 8 minutes have some use. If not maybe just watching these worthless fucks squirm is worth it.
Unless you are a liberal of course. If you are a liberal you can blame America
Rujax!: Say aloud, “All to Jesus I Surrender”
Let us pray.
Dear Jesus,
Please rapture up rob right not. He’s boring me to freaking tears.
He’s a good servant of yours and he really relishes “pouring water over some of these sick fucks”. It’s Muslims today, who knows who else tomorrow?
Take Puddybud while you’re at it. PLEASE!!!
Amen.
Golly liberals: I have to resurrect this article again?
http://www.boston.com/news/loc.....ed/?page=1
Is this a Murdoch or Scaife paper per Clueless Gooberfool’s#73 numerous rants?
Clueless Gooberfool: For the third time where is rapture in the Bible?
Uh…, I can see Clueless Gooberfool doesn’t understand the Bible and takes what he hears as “gospel”. Just like what he reads from those sticky white kool-aid sites he loves to visit.
Rujax!@69: Which of the five queer guys were you for the straight guy?
or the third time where is rapture in the Bible?
Not sure Stupes, but an awful lot of sheep believe in it, they buy a lot of silly books about it and they’re pandered to heavily by the corrupt weenies vying for leadership of your corrupt party.
I pray to Jesus it’s true and he beams you up!!
@64 MGI
So you believe in the fallibility of government. That your government will never imprison or torture an innocent person. You conservatives are nothing if not inconsistent and hypocritical
@77 Puddy-Your homophobic bigotry is showing.
@59 “If torture isn’t wrong why are they so sneaky about it?”
Exactly! Why are you afraid to admit that you support torture Puddy? Is it because that position doesn’t support the image you have of yourself as a God fearing pro-life, law-abiding Christian/conservative values Republican.
You conservatives are liars, torturers and war criminal hypocrites and yet are so delusional as to think you are exactly the opposite. You are absolutely fucking pathetic.
Stupes, it just came to me that you could have a useful theological discussion about the rapture with that feces eating cur Doofus.
He said on this very comment board that he’s sure the rapture will come and probably thinks ,like most of his ilk, within his lifetime.
It fits. That mutt is as much sheep as he is a cat-shit eating dog. All the years he’s come here, he’s repeated the same right wing lies and bullshit over and over and over again.
Heh. You can ask him about scriptural support for the rapture for sure.
Pissed Puddle and Poop Pile: wrong as ever Helpless Loosie (TM)