Page Two

What it takes to win the War on the War on Christmas

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REPORT FROM THE FRONT: FIGHTING THE WAR AGAINST "THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS"

A found document

Somewhere in suburban America, Dec. 21, 2005

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Dear parents,

The war on "The War on Christmas" has turned out to be much more difficult and protracted than I expected. After all, three quarters of this country is Christian – demographically, Americans tend to be far more religious than Europeans, who seem to have no problem with Christmas – and the fast-growing religions are evangelical Protestant (you can tell they've been teaching us a lot here). This is a democracy, so we should have our way with no problem, but those God-hating, secular humanist atheists can't be trusted, just as you raised us to understand. They are sneaky devils, always claiming innocence as they plot against all Christians, the Ten Commandments, and anything related to Christ the Savior.

Let me tell you about yesterday, a typical day in our campaign. In the morning, we had Bible study. The discussion was on Christmas trees (a sacred Christian symbol). In the Gospel According to St. Luke, it is made explicit that liberal Democrats are evil, and a Christmas tree is taller than the tallest male member of the household, has to go inside, and has an angel on top. In John, the wording isn't as clear; he seems to agree with the first two of those provisions but argues that, instead of an angel, it should be a star. As you can imagine, we really got into this one.

Then we went out to save Christmas. The first convenience store we came to not only didn't have the travesty of a Happy Holidays banner – they had no banner or decorations at all. This just days before Christmas! Aren't they Americans?

We broke all their windows. Then we moved on. We came to a large furniture store strewn with Happy Holidays banners. We grabbed the store manager and asked him why he hated Christ, Christians, God, the United States of America, and Christmas so much. He denied this, claiming the signs were not an attack on anyone, but welcome all to the joy of the season. We tried the old witch trick on him in a river running nearby; he drowned, so we knew he was lying.

Next, we came to a bookstore and burned all the anti-Christian, anti-Jesus, anti-Bill O'Reilly, anti-Bush books. This took quite a while.

Then we hit a toy store, where we made them take down the Happy Holidays banner and put up ones that said "Merry Christmas!"

Don't these people get it?!? This is a Christian country: The Jesus-haters, the Christian-haters, the Christmas-haters can't win!

We took a break for a late lunch and more Bible study. We read some of my favorite passages from the Gospel According to St. Matthew (Chapter 2):

"1 Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the King, behold, there came three wise men from the east to Jerusalem,

2 Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.

3 When Herod the King had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.

4 Then Herod the King looked out on to the sky, when what to his wondering eyes should appear but a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer.

5 With a little old driver, so lively and quick, Herod the King knew in a moment it must be Saint Nick."

After this break, we walked through the shopping malls outside of town, where we were thrilled to see they had really embraced the spirit of Christmas. All the important symbols associated with the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ were there in abundance – candy canes, sleds, fat Santas, elves in green – and every sign said "Merry Christmas!"

We headed back to our hostel. When we got there, some men were picketing. We decided they must be gay to hate Christians, Jesus, and Christmas so much. Now, though we all hate the sin, being true believers, we love the sinner. Unfortunately, we had to stone them for quite a while. I mean, we didn't want to hurt the sinner, but it was the only way to drive the sin out of their bodies.

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CONFLICT OF INTEREST

No. 3 in a Series – Collect Them All

Background: Conflict of interest is in the eye of the beholder. It is never your problem, as you always have a good, fair reason for feeling and reacting as you do. It's other people who are corrupted by their conflicts of interests. Especially media people.

Given the Chronicle advocates active involvement in the community, few publications are as flush with conflict of interest as the Chronicle, and in terms of wearing way too many hats, quite modestly I'd have to suggest I'm the staff's leader in tainted acts.

There used to be a music writer for another publication in this town who would note all the conflicts of interest I routinely confessed to and accuse me of having the very conflicts of interest I'd just acknowledged. I was so diligent about noting them that editors and proofreaders had long taken to removing my disclaimers as redundant and boring. Now, this writer's kids regularly swam in the pool of a manager whose acts he liked. He knew that, even though there was this apparent conflict, he wouldn't let it affect him: He liked this act's music anyway, and the fact the his kids were swimming in their manager's pool all the time didn't influence him; he knew that, so he never had to mention it.

Here at the Chronicle, we encourage involvement, and we even more strongly encourage noting our involvement when it is even marginally relevant.

Arts Editor Robert Faires is not only a superb critic, but also a terrific actor and excellent director. His wife, Chronicle contributor and actress Barbara Chisholm, is not only brilliantly talented, but a true Austin stah! Critic Barry Pineo and writer/editor Wayne Alan Brenner are both involved in the theatre community; Food Editor Virginia B. Wood and the food-reviewing gang have worked at any number of restaurants.

Staff writer Margaret Moser essentially created, institutionalized, and conceived of a Dewey decimal system for Austin's groupie scene. I'm almost positive that's true, but it doesn't really matter, as I'm contractually bound to say it.

There really isn't the space to begin to list Chronicle staffers who are musicians and their many different bands.

In almost every area, we can detail extensive staff involvement in the areas they cover. When appropriate, we do.

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Last issue, I quoted from the song "For What It's Worth," by Stephen Stills as performed by Buffalo Springfield. As originally written, my column was by no means explicit about this authorship, as I thought this piece of information was a given. Editing further obscured the point. Nowhere, however, did I suggest the song was written by Neil Young, as it wasn't. Since the piece was there to praise Young, some made an understandable mistake of thinking I was really stupid. I probably am, but I know who wrote the damn song!