The Young Curmudgeon

Fun With Blogger's "Next Blog" Feature

The following was, I kid you not, the top post the last time I did the random blog generator thing:

"What the hell? I only put my sandwich down for a moment and now it’s gone. Next thing you know my pants will follow. Better take them off before that happens."

I can't decide whether this blog is brilliant or idiotic, but I'm certain it's nothing in between.

How Dare You Question My Shih-Tzu's Patriotism

(Click to englarge)

The True Reason for the Season

Something to do with cute dogs in Santa Hats I think. (Click to Enlarge.)

And Another Thing About the "Christmas Wars"

I forgot to mention how much I like this Secession Daily post on the subject:

I do get the sense of there being a growing cottage industry in decrying the suppression of Christmas references in the public square. Judging from all the conservative hysteria about this or that nativity scene being scrapped for something less religious, Wolcott notes, “you'd think everybody was wishing each other Happy Kwanzaa!” Wolcott, a fellow Upper West Sider, adds that even here “people wish each other Merry Christmas without staggering three steps backward, thunderstruck and covered with chagrin.” Hell, last weekend I went to a “holiday” party for Socialists (that’s a capital “S”) at a loft downtown in which a Christmas tree prominently figured. Additionally, flipping through the 1000+ channels we now have thanks to digital cable, I saw a program on the House & Gardens Network the other night about Christmas at the White House. Apparently, instead of just the traditional one Christmas tree this year, the White House has elected to have a veritable forest of them. Take that you separation of Church and State meanies.

Me, since my folks aren't coming into town and I'm not going to the midwest for Christmas this year, I'm free to help the forces of paganism and secularization any way I choose. I can't decide if I'm going to celebrate Festivus or Chrismukkah.

Christmas Wars! Christmas Wars! Someone Make it Stop! (to the tune of Jingle Bells)

If 2004 is remembered for nothing else it should be remembered as the year in which some conservative Christians first fully embraced left-wing-style identity politics. It started around the time of the controversy over Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. Then, if you'll remember, many fans of the film were of the opinion that anyone who had the slightest negative thing to say about any aspect of Mel's opus was simply an "anti-Christian bigot", or perhaps even, a "Christophobe". Criticism of the film, even if merely aesthetic criticism, was thought to be tantamount to criticism of Christianity itself. Just as you can't criticize the NAACP, or any aspect of black culture, without some people calling you a "racist", you couldn't criticize The Passion of the Christ without someone calling you a Christophobe, or -worse yet - maybe even a dread "secularist".

Flash forward to the day after Thanksgiving. It's been a somewhat longstanding tradition that, as the Holiday Season starts [Damn it! I just tipped my hat and showed that I'm a secularist. Pretend you didn't see that. -ed.] so starts the season of endless hack media stories about a "war" on Christmas: no religious carols allowed at school, sometimes no carols at all, no nativity scenes in front of government buildings, Christmas trees at schools and other government buildings being renamed "holiday trees" etc. Two things stand out this year though. One is the sheer volume and intensity of these fights. The other is the fact that the "put the Christ back in Christmas" lobby has chosen the most innocuous thing possible, the use of the anodyne phrase "Happy Holidays", to be their main fight this year.

Yes, there is actually a national movement to - literally mind you -force storeclerks to say "Merry Christmas" instead of "Happy Holidays". So, James Lileks wrote a column advocating for the pro "Merry Christmas" position.  He recounts his experience saying "Merry Christmas" to various storeclerks and the nervous, confused reactions he gets from them. Now - as anyone who reads him regularly obviously knows - Lileks is a genial, kind guy and one of the best bloggers around; so the column is laid-back and not at all screedy. Still, there's something a bit unbecoming about his going around hassling minimum-wage shopclerks who are just trying to follow their training properly just to make a minor point. Virginia Postrel's equally gentle pro - "Happy Holidays" response post is the best piece of writing I've seen on the subject:

. . . Among all right-thinking bloggers "Happy Holidays" is out and "Merry Christmas" is in.

To which I say, Come to Dallas. Nobody here (except me) will wish you, "Happy Holidays." Everyone will ask whether you're ready for Christmas and wish you a merry one. And if, like me, you don't want to cause anyone to feel bad, you'll respond politely and let them go right on assuming you celebrate Christmas.

I can't blame Christians, who are the vast majority of Americans and the ones whose religion is celebrated in all those carols at the mall, for wanting their holiday acknowledged in public. I don't get offended when Dallasites assume everyone, of course, celebrates Christmas. (Everyone they know does, after all.) And I hope to have a happy, though not necessarily merry, December 25. But I wish good-hearted folks like Lileks would consider that Christmas greetings don't make everyone feel good.

Why criticize merchants for including all their customers in wishes for a happy holiday season? The holidays do, after all, stretch from Thanksgiving to New Year's, both nonsectarian holidays. "Happy Holidays" includes Christmas, for those who celebrate it. But it also includes holidays we all share, as well as some others only a minority observe.

When you extend these greetings, are you wishing people happiness? Or affirming your Christianity? Do you want people who don't celebrate Christmas to be happy (or merry)? Or do you want to make them at least mildly uncomfortable? The answers will determine what you say.

That's just it. As I understand it, the original idea behind "Happy Holidays", "Seasons Greetings" etc. was to have an all-purpose greeting which can't possibly put anyone in the socially awkward position of having to discuss their religion (or lack thereof) with a complete stranger. This is an idea with obvious appeal for merchants, who aren't in the business of proselytizing for a religion, (even the religion of the vast majority) but of selling to any and all.

The other upside to "Happy Holidays", as Postrel points out, is that you are wishing everyone greater and greater oodles of happiness as opposed to just one specific happy holiday. The holiday season theoretically includes Thanksgiving, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, Christmas, New Years, the Ascension, (in my admittedly idiosyncratic calculations) Lunar ("Chinese") New Year, and, as Postrel later points out, all the days before and in between. It's more happiness bang for your buck, and who could argue with that?

Well, there's been a lot of argument actually, all of it as tiresome as it sounds. James Wolcott, who reads like some parody of a snide, constipated UWS "liberal" but is apparently a real person, broke form and wrote a somewhat clever post in response to the original Lileks column. Lileks wrote a response to that post, (or "fisking" if you must), and the tiresome cycle went on. As Mary said in comments at her site, "He [Walcott-ed.] and Lileks should do their wives a favor, walk away from the computer and help with the shopping and the gift wrapping. Their wives, and the rest of the world would appreciate it."

But really, it's too late. This is officially the year in which mere holiday greetings have been politicized and forced into the red state vs. blue state template. And, this time it's the right that's done it. Is there anyone at all to save us, to bring us back to the simpler Christmas's of years past? Surprisingly a little bit of common sense was published today in Townhall, a normally ultra-conservative internet magazine. There, Jonah Goldberg's Christmas column (link via Michael J. Totten) ended with these sensible words for all:

Tolerance must be a two-way street. If minorities want the majority to be tolerant of them, minorities in turn need to tolerate at least some of the norms of the majority. Simply because there are more Christians than Jews or Muslims or atheists, doesn’t mean that Christians should always get the shaft. That said, Christians — or at least the politically organized ones — don’t do themselves any favors when they start talking like just another identity politics group. Christians seem to be complaining more this year than usual about the war on Christmas, even as they are finding more success. Arnold Schwarzenegger renamed the governor’s “holiday tree” a Christmas tree. George Bush is the first president ever to include a quote from scripture on his Christmas card. Besides, once “Merry Christmas” becomes a political statement, everyone loses.

So, everybody lighten up, it’s Christmas!

In the same on-line journal Michelle Malkin, of all people, writes of the need to distinguish between the "war on Christmas" and real, literal wars against Christians going on around the world; though she still insists on using the overwrought word "war" to describe this debate over church/state issues. (link via Jeff Jarvis.)

And They Shall Call Me "Texas Red"

There are a lot of different blogged accounts of the big center-right-leaning New York-based political blogger Chili-cook-off at Karol's place the night before last. (Or TBCRLNYBPBCCOAKPTNBL for short.) Most important from my perspective is cook-off winner Ken Wheaton's words of praise for my and my girlfriend's classic "Texas Red". He's from Louisiana and knows how to cook.

The judging occurred according to some sort of totally opaque, inscrutable process reminiscent of the Iowa caucuses. There were scattered allegations of irregularities, but in the end Jessica, the consensus 2nd place chili-cooker took the classy John Kerry route and not the sleazy John Edwards route, ending with a moving plea for chili-eating unity.

I should also note that my girlfriend's chocolate-pecan pie has been described by Ari as something "that I might forsake my random sexual incidents for."   Clearly the next move needs to be a bake-off in which I enter something Kim cooks under my own name.

The Great Bush Twins Debate

There were amusingly divergent reactions to the Bush twins' schtick at the convention last night. I found them awful, cringe-inducing. I was embarrassed for them. I didn't find the "jokes" funny (except for the hamster thing). They seemed to be trying to poke fun at their image as ditzy party girls but just ended up confirming it. Jonah Goldberg agrees with me. So does Kathryn Jean Lopez, and Karol Sheinin, and Roger L. Simon.

Now, here's the weird part. John Derbyshire completely disagrees. Gerard Van der Leun wrote a pretty long, serious-sounding post defending them. And, every blog seems to be getting lots of e-mails and comments from people saying that they found the twins to be charming, winsome, "real", that they "remind me of my daughters" etc. etc.

So, my hypothesis is that those who are in any way closer to the the twins' age: my girlfriend, Jonah, Karol, myself, found them to be awful and cringe-inducing. However, those who found them to be charming and natural generally tend to be the age of people who might have daughters that are their age. (Roger being an exception). So, if this hypothesis is correct, then what does all this say? Do middle-aged people have a skewed idea of what young people are like? Do they hold them to a depressingly low standard?

I asked these questions over here. The response I got was that the late-20s and 30-something crowd would tend to judge them the most harshly because we view them as contemporaries or peers. Also, we aren't far enough removed from their age to have an accurate idea of what we were really like then. Those who are more likely to have children their age, judge them as just that, children, who are naturally held to a much lower standard than contemporaries. This sounds at least somewhat right to me. Does anyone have any thoughts?

Thoughts on Quitting a Job you Hate

I'm quitting my absurd little day job at the end of next week. When I saw this Samuel Johnson quote, which Terry Treachout found, the words that Johnson wrote about completing The Idler, his last book of essays, it seemed to capture exactly how I feel about this circumstance:

Though the Idler and his readers have contracted no close friendship, they are perhaps both unwilling to part. There are few things not purely evil of which we can say, without some emotion of uneasiness, "this is the last." Those who never could agree together shed tears when mutual discontent has determined them to final separation; of a place which has been frequently visited though without pleasure, the last look is taken with heaviness of heart; and the Idler, with all his chillness of tranquillity, is not wholly unaffected by the thought that his last essay is now before him.

This secret horror of the last is inseparable from a thinking being whose life is limited, and to whom death is dreadful. We always make a secret comparison between a part and the whole; the termination of any period of life reminds us that life itself has likewise its termination; when we have done anything for the last time, we involuntarily reflect that a part of the days allotted us is past, and that as more is past there is less remaining.

Upbeat stuff huh! Really I'm happy to be moving on, but almost every change, even a positive one, is a kind of a loss too in some way.

Bitching About the Idiosyncratic Terminology at Starbucks, the Most Unoriginal of Riffs (UPDATED)

It started with Lileks:

Off to Starbucks to read the book. I was behind a fellow who had ten years on me; he was schooled in the old ways of joe. He placed his order thus:

“A cup of coffee, black.”

“Room for cream?”

Pause.

“No.”

I was next. What would I like?

“I’d like a medium coffee,” I said, since I’ll be gol-durned if I ever say “venti” to these people. I’ll give them Beijing for Peking, Hindu for Hindoo, but medium will be Medium until the day I die. “Black.”

“Room for cream?”

Kids today. They don’t know. They’ve lost the lingo. When you’ve established that the nature of your coffee is BLACK, cream no longer enters into the picture. Ever. But you could walk up and say “Blorg chulavista spaz mocha” and she’d ask “Room for cream?” It’s the script. Hidden cameras record her every word. They beat her with burlap sacks stuffed with beans if she doesn’t say the words.

Terry Treachout seems to realize how lame, how pseudo-populist, how pretentious this is, but then endorses the sentiment anyway:

I’m perfectly willing to admit (albeit through clenched teeth) that the self-conscious avoidance of affectation is itself an affectation. [Thank you! Finally someone who gets it! But then why do you end up agreeing with him later? -ed.]In any case, I’ve never been much of a coffee drinker, and you’re not likely to see me stroll into a Starbucks save for the purpose of ordering a mocha frappucino, a drink the mere uttering of whose name makes me cringe with embarrassment. Nevertheless, I know the Old Ways of Joe from black-and-white movies, and if you should ever hear me use Italian to specify the size of a drink in any country other than Italy, you’ll know the pod people have paid me a visit.

Finally, Bill of INDC Journal, completely independent of Lileks and Treachout earlier in the week, launches into the exact same tired riff:

A few of the things that I hate:

- Getting haughtily corrected by the Starbuck's employee when I refuse to debase myself by employing their hoity-toity burgeose size labels. I said "LARGE coffee," you fucking bean-jockey.

Note especially the typical-for-the-genre idea that it somehow shows you to be a man of the people when you refuse to use the proper terms employed within the coffee chain you've chosen to patronize coupled with the classist dismissal of the working-class barista (fucking bean-jockey). I'm not picking on Bill in particular here, just pointing out how tired, pretentious, and hypocritical this particular riff, which is no doubt being sounded by countless bloggers and stand-up comedians as we speak, really is. I think the goofy, pseudo-Italianate names are stupid too, but to make a point of refusing to use them even if it slows down the ordering process, doesn't make make you a man of the people. It doesn't make you the one guy who sees through all the lies and makes a bold stand to live a more authentic life, or whatever the hell you think is so special about being approximately the zillionth person to note that the names are silly. It makes you an annoying, affected asshole who is adding precious seconds to my v.v. important trip to Starbucks. The stupid names are part of the whole branding concept for the chain. If you're not some kind of rabid anti-capitalist who lives on a commune, this type of affected lingo should just be another mundane part of your life by now. When you go Burger King do you refuse to say "Whopper"? Do you freak out when someone offers you a "Kleenex" instead of a tissue? If not, then I think you can handle using the silly Starbucks lingo and helping the line move along more smoothly for everyone else. If it so offends your sensibility to order your coffee correctly, can you at least handle not constantly making a point of how cool, how like real and genuine it makes you? Please stop being so Garofalo. Thank you.

UPDATE:Bill takes this way too seriously. In the cold light of day I see that this post was maybe a bit over-the-top, but since he's acting so thin-skinned and jumpy about it, I'm disinclined to care at this point.

UPDATE:In what may have been the biggest waste of a morning in modern history, the comments over there became a forum for all sorts of schoolyard taunts. Bill, to his credit, deleted the comment thread and closed it. For the record, I apologize for this post (which I'm leaving up in the interest of honesty) - Not for the idea or sentiment behind it, but I apologize for writing it in a shrill, annoying way that made it seem like I was attacking these people (none of whom I have any animus towards) as opposed to attacking an opinion they expressed. This was all very stressful. Maybe I'll treat myself to a pedicure?

Am I on Crazy Pills?

The above is a reference to Ron Rosenbaum making a reference to Zoolander. The reasons I ask are these: 1) Clear Channel, a private corporation, decided to drop a boring, banal, way past his prime Howard Stern from their affiliates and people are calling it censorship. 2) The conservative Christians on National Review Online's The Corner, who normally are the sort that deplore movie violence, think, only in the case of this new Jesusheart movie, that violence is "just a different artistic choice.", even though even the most jaded reviewers are saying its one of the most gory, violent films ever made. 3) If you say anything anti-Bush the anti-Bush people will make all sorts of hectoring, bullying, condescending nyah-nyah-nyah we told you so type comments (see comments to top post). 4) If you say anything that's even remotely pro-Bush the anti-Bush people will call you an evil Satan Bushitler chimpy lapdog minion and even, literally drop you as a friend.

So, am I on crazy pills? Are these people on crazy pills? How does it work exactly?