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It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like... Stupidity
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It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like... Stupidity Last night, I received mail from [blog VoodooGuru1] alerting me to the following story. He tried to blog it, but of course, the site fucked up. So, he bowed to my superior knowledge on world religion and sent me the story and said feel free to blog it. It's long, so settle in and get a cup of cocoa. My comments follow the story: Wal-Mart Defends 'Happy Holidays' Approach By MARCUS KABEL (AP Business Writer) From Associated Press November 10, 2005 8:49 PM EST Wal-Mart Stores Inc. on Thursday said it no longer employs a worker who wrote to a shopper that Christmas is a mix of world religions, but that the company does support the generic greeting, "Happy Holidays," as being more inclusive amid year-end celebrations by numerous faiths. The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights criticized the world's largest retailer and called for a boycott over Wal-Mart's approach to Christmas. "We want a) an apology for insulting Christians by effectively banning Christmas and b) a withdrawal of its insane statement regarding the origins of Christmas and c) a revision on its website," Catholic League President Bill Donohue said on the group's Web site. In an interview, Donohue dismissed Wal-Mart's statement that it was respecting multiple beliefs as "corporate arrogance." "If Wal-Mart, which is the family-friendly institution, gets away with this, then all the other department stores will just fall into line," he told The Associated Press on Thursday. The dispute erupted after a Wal-Mart worker responded to a woman who complained that the company was replacing "Merry Christmas" with "Happy Holidays." The response described Christmas as a combination of world traditions from Siberian shamanism to Visigoth calendars. The e-mail, which Wal-Mart spokesman Dan Fogleman said was genuine, said Wal-Mart had to act as a global organization in a world with many different practices. "The colors associated with Christmas red and white are actually a representation of the aminita mascera (sic) mushroom. Santa is also borrowed from the Caucuses, mistletoe from the Celts, yule log from the Goths, the time from the Visigoth and the tree from the worship of Baal. It is a wide wide world," said the e-mail, from a customer service worker identified only as Kirby. Fogleman said Thursday that Kirby no longer worked for the company. "We at Wal-Mart believe this e-mail between a temporary associate and one of our valued customers was entirely inappropriate. Its contents in no way represent the policies, practices or views of our company. This associate, who was hired less than three weeks ago, is no longer employed by our company," Fogleman said in an e-mail to the AP. "Wal-Mart is proud to welcome customers of all faiths, and celebrants of all holidays. We sincerely apologize to any person or organization that was offended by the inappropriate and inflammatory comments made by this former associate." Fogleman said the e-mail had been taken out of context and that the stores, while encouraging employees to say "Happy Holidays," did so to include celebrations from Thanksgiving to Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and New Year's Eve as well as Christmas. ======================================================= OK... What is wrong with saying, "Happy Holidays"? I used to work for Macy's and we were instructed to say that to people, unless we knew they practiced a certain religion, then we could say, "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Chunukkah" or "Happy Yule" or whatever. People have become so sensitive about religion, "Happy Holidays" is the sensible thing to say, as even atheists are offended these days if you say "Merry Christmas." Not only is December 25th Christmas, the solstice is Yule and Pagans do give gifts. Chunukkah tends to fall in December. Once in a while, so does Ramadan. This year, it was in October. But while it's a month of fasting, it ends with Eid al-Fitr, which is the festival of breaking the fast. Get this . It's celebrated with lights, decorations, gifts and feasting. It comes but once a year too. Then there's Tet. That is also in December, it's the Vietnamese New Year. Celebrated with feasting, gift giving and get this... Tet trees. If you dig, you will discover that December gift giving doesn't just belong to Christians and Jews give gifts other than dreidels, no matter what you've learned from "South Park." Now, let's look at the letter the customer service rep sent... Walmart is a world wide organization and must remain conscious of this. The majority of the world still has different practices other than "christmas" which is an ancient tradition that has its roots in Siberian shamanism. um... WTF???? Siberian Shamanism? This is a new one on me. No. Nowhere are you going to find anything about Siberia or Shamanism when you look up the history of Christmas. Siberia didn't even have shamans. Shamans are purely Native American. Fluffbunnies insist Shamans can be any tradition. But Shamans are Native Americans. The word is Native American. It's a Native American tradition. There was no such thing as a Siberian Shaman anymore than an ancient Druid Shaman. The word didn't exist in European languages. It's like the people who claim to be Wiccan, but smudge their houses in sage, instead of burning dragon's blood for purification. Let's look at the history of Christmas. Western European Pagans celebrated the Solstice in whatever form. In the British Isles, Yule, taken from the OE word geol. It was also celebrated in Scandinavia, Germany and in Rome, it was a celebration to Saturn. Now, when Pope Julius I picked Dec. 25th to be Christmas, or Christ's Mass,a celebration of Jesus's birth in 350, he was choosing a date to fit in with other celebrations. The Church was only getting started. No one even knows when Jesus was born. No date was given in The Bible, so they picked a date that fit in with other celebrations. The best estimate for Christ's birth is August. Theologians have a joke among themselves that they think is hysterically funny. That Jesus was born in either late February or early March, as his sign is a fish. So he must be a Pisces. The colors associated with "christmas" red and white are actually a representation of of the aminita mascera mushroom. Excuse me? Red and white became Christmas colors because some confectioner from Ohio decided candy canes should be stripped. Before that, they were white, no flavor other than sugar and decorated with sugar roses. It wasn't until the late 1800s that red and white became associated with Christmas and it's purely an American tradition. Red and green are traditional. Santa is also borrowed from the Caucuses, OK, this is really stretching the truth here. Santa Claus, Father Christmas, Saint Nick, whatever you want to call him started with an actual Saint. Saint Nicholas was Bishop Nicholas of Smyrna, which is now modern Turkey. He was rich, a philanthropist. He was known for giving gifts to and dropping coins down the chimneys of poor families. He was a Catholic! Bishop of the Church of Rome. Yes, Turkey is on the outer edge of the Caucasus region. But saying it's borrowed from there is stretching the truth. Saint Nicholas Day is December 6. It was celebrated throughout Europe, as he became the most popular saint. This is one of the reasons gift giving got started. Now, as far as Santa Claus goes, that's American, borrowed from the Dutch settlers, who brought over the legend of Sinter Klaus, or in English, Saint Claus. Guess what, ? Sinter Klaus was short for Sinter Nikolaas. In other words, the evil Santa that nutjobs scream about was a real person and a Saint. Nothing to do with Santa having to do with Satan, nothing to do with anything Pagan. mistletoe from the Celts, yule log from the Goths, Hurrah! This asshole finally got something right! Mistletoe is Druid in origin! However, the poor asshole seems to think that because Gothic punk started in England, the Goths were British. No, the Yule log started in England and once again, it's a word in Old English origin. See above, if you've forgotten already. The Goths were German. They split into the Visigoths and Ostogoths and created separate kingdoms. the time from the Visigoth Wrong again. This jerk also seems to forget the Visigoths were Christians. Their form of Christianity was *ahem* Arianism. (Very un-PC comment: They were German, after all.) Arians believed in Jesus, but not in the Holy Trinity of the Catholic or Orthodox Churches. This movement started in Alexandria, Egypt in the 4th century. They were followers of the priest, Arius. Jesus was considered a created being, as he was man and therefore, inferior to God. Arius and his teachings were denounced by the Synod and as the battle raged, Constantine called for the First Council of Nicaea, where Arius and his teachings were condemned and the Nicene Creed, or as we were taught it, the Apostles Creed was created. To put forth Christ's divinity. The Visigoths considered Christ inferior to the father. The writer of the letter seems to think the Visigoths were Pagans. and the tree from the worship of Baal. It is a wide wide world. coughbullshitcough. A CHRISTMAS TREE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH BAAL!!!!!!!! The history of the Christmas tree has to do with a 7th century English monk visiting Germany. He used the evergreen to demonstrate the Holy Trinity. Before that, the symbol of God was the oak. Shades of Odin and the Druids there. The Christmas tree wasn't brought inside and decorated until Martin Luther started the trend centuries later. Now, I would have fired this idiot too. Simply because he or she got so many of the facts wrong. I can tell you without even looking for information on the person who wrote the letter to the customer that it was some fluffbunny who claims to be Wiccan. I can assure you of that. I honestly don't think Wal*Mart was wrong in firing the employee who wrote the letter. However, I take exception to the comments Bill Donohue has made, claiming there was no Pagan influence on Christmas, that it's always had to do with Jesus. No. It was created to fit in with Pagan holidays and a few elements are Pagan. In the early days of Christmas, the people would go to church, then have a drunken celebration. They would go knock on the doors of rich people and insist they be given food and drink. If they were refused, well, let's say it was the first Trick or Treating. This was also the precursor to the tradition of Boxing Day, where the moneyed traded places for a day with the servants. Now, in the World Net Daily story, which of course is very biased, as they make no secret of being right wing or Christian, Donohue said he thought the person who wrote the letter was drunk. I think the person was stupid, but I don't know about drunk. Seriously, Google the story and look it up on that website. It's quite an experience. I think Donohue is insane too. He says a family friendly store should only respect the values of Christians? Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Pagans, etc don't have families? He also says other retailers are going to follow suit and only say, "Happy Holidays." Um Billy Boy, I have some news for you. Major high end department stores and various other mall stores have been saying Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas for years. What backwater are you in that this is news to you? Looking at related stories on the World Net Daily site, I see that last year a group tried to boycott Macy's and others belonging to the five-headed hydra of Federated Department Stores. The group was called, the "Committee To Save Merry Christmas." I don't think their boycott got too far. Americans need to remember they spent nearly 100 years rejecting Christmas and all that had to do with it. I'm sure Catholics went to church, but Catholics had no rights in early America. We used to have to go to work on Christmas. Cromwell wasn't the only one to outlaw Christmas. From 1659 to 1681 it was outlawed in Boston and anyone celebrating was fined. The Puritans didn't believe in it. Christmas even in this country was a raucous, drunken holiday before the Victorian era. In 1828, the New York city council instituted the city's first police force in response to a Christmas riot. The idea of Christmas being a serene, peaceful and all of that was invented by Washington Irving. All the traditions he wrote about in, "The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon," that so many think embrace the true spirit of Christmas? HE MADE IT ALL UP! As I said at the start, I have no problem with people saying Happy Holidays. Christmas isn't the only December holiday. Anyone who can't deal with it should do all their shopping on-line, or from retailers who thumb their noses at people of other religions. There are myriad reasons for not shopping at Wal*Mart, from the treatment of employees to labor laws being broken to the way the of their employees are on Medicare as the company won't cover them, to the store a day until 2010 corporate practice. But Happy Holidays isn't one of them.  |
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11/11/2005 6:19 pm |
I work at Wal-Mart. As long as Wal-Mart is the largest retailer in the world and as long as Wal-Mart is the largest employer in the world they will come under terrible accusations and most of them false. I am not here to defend Wal-Mart but I am making the statement that Wal-Mart is not guilty of all the charges leveled against them. I am not dead yet
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Holy moses! Do you know all this history off the top of your head? Wonderful. When I ring the Salvation Army bell I say Happy Holidays unless someone has said Merry Christmas to me. We are not the ones in the Santa costumes even though some movies show it that way. I can't remember which group does wear the suits.
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11/12/2005 11:41 am |
Wal-Mart just sucks.....can we kick a greeter??????...LOL
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nighstalker, religion has caused most of the major wars in the world. Which I so don't get. bardic, someone named Kirby who was employeed by Wal*Mart sent that letter about the origins of Christmas to a customer who complained about "Happy Holidays." If you didn't notice, I actually defended them for firing the idiot. I have no problem with "Happy Holidays" as I said in the post. SpaceRanger, some of it I did know. Such as the origins of Santa Claus, Ramadan, Chunnukah and Tet. Tet I know about because in the days of Vietnam, we pretty much watched the war on the news. The Tet Offensive was a surprise attack on the Viet-Cong on Tet. Mistletoe and the Yule log, I knew about. But I didn't know the origins of the Christmas tree, I looked that up, as the worship of Baal sounded like someone talking out of his ass. I also learned of the Christmas riots as I wrote this post. In other words, I double checked what I did know and learned a few things in the process of writing this post. lifeisablast, just remember, if you kick that greeter who's trying to stretch their retirement benefits, the broken hip and subsequent killing pneumonia is on your conscience.
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3/2/2006 6:04 pm |
About Tet, I believe its actually in late January, not December. Anyway, interesting collection of facts about the Winter holidays. Quite a few I didn't know, especially about the Visigoths being followers of Arius (I knew they had been Christianized by the Romans). I don't want to derail your thread (truly, it was a wonderful read), but I wonder just how many heresies the Christian church had to 'stamp out'. I've recently read a bit on the Pelagian Heresy and had read a bit about the doomed Cathars a number of years ago.
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Dysgyzed, your dear friend told you that you were wrong and smudging is very Wiccan, right? I can assure you, most retail workers who say, "Happy Holidays" aren't all that happy and are not feeling the Christmas spirit. This is because their companies start dragging out the singing Santas on July 1 and start decorating for the season in September. By December, they just want it to be over and to take some vacation time. As far as three windows, if you used Mozilla or Firefox, you could just open tabs. BigBoob, I stand corrected on Tet. But didn't the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War take place in December? Or was I just too young to remember? That's it! I'm going to start celebrating Tet, just in hopes of getting more gifts!
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