December 20, 2003
WAR
AGAINST CHRISTMAS 2003 COMPETITION
[I] [II]
[III]
[IV] [VI]
[VII] [VIII]
[IX] [X]
- See also: War Against Christmas
2002,
2001,
2000.
War Against Christmas 2003 Competition [V]:
GREAT NEWS!
By
Peter Brimelow and
James Fulford
The bad news is that Hannah Claire
Brimelow, 8, to whom Peter Brimelow’s recent teacher
union
book is dedicated, is not getting even a "holiday
party" at her public school this year. Instead the
school is having a traditional New England ...piñata.
The good news: Americans are indeed
are fighting back against the abolition of Christmas.
The difference is perceptible over the four years
VDARE.COM has been running its competition to find the
worst Christmas atrocity. Indeed,
WorldNetDaily, which is giving the Khristmaskampf
good coverage, recently ran a
story about
Grinchlist.com, an excellent website founded for the
sole purpose of defending Christmas.
The GREAT news: the Conservative
Establishment has finally decided it has to insert
itself at the head of the Christmas procession. On
December 19, even the Wall Street Journal
grumpily
harrumphed in an editorial about what it called
“secularist fanatics,” citing cases also reported by
several of our readers:
“In
New York City, a judge is expected to rule any day on a
public-school policy that forbids Nativity scenes while
allowing Jewish menorahs and Islamic stars-and-crescents
on the grounds that the last two are secular. Likewise
in Palm Beach, the city is being sued by residents who
have been denied permission to place a crèche on public
property that already features a menorah. In the state
of Washington, meanwhile, a music teacher who allowed
his schoolchildren a Hanukkah song expunged the word
‘Christmas’ in ‘Carol From an Irish Cabin,’ replacing it
with the words ‘white winter.’”
The WSJ editorial concluded:
“And if you think labeling our spruces and firs ‘holiday
trees’ is the solution to the season's wars, just wait
until the ACLU realizes what the dictionary already
makes clear: That the word ‘holiday’ itself comes from
the Old English ‘holy day.’ ”
This “holy day” point, of
course is one we’ve made
repeatedly over the last few years. We’re delighted
that the Edit Pagers have finally picked it up. Perhaps
next year they will admit that the problem is not
secularism, but
Christophobia. And that it is exacerbated
by…immigration. (How did those “Islamic
stars-and-crescents” get to New York City anyway?)
Now, the
REALLY
GREAT news. National Review, where the War
Against Christmas Competition
began, only to be dropped after Bill Buckley purged
immigration reformers in 1998, has furtively reinstated
it! Jay Nordlinger had the no-doubt-thankless task in
his National Review Online
column:
“Yes, it's that time of year again, when "Merry
Christmas" seems practically verboten, and everything is
‘holiday,’ ‘holiday,’ ‘holiday’…
“Would you do me a favor, readers? If you have an
interesting story regarding "holiday" and "Christmas"
and the like, would you e-mail me — at
jnordlinger@nationalreview.com
— to tell me about it? I'd like to do a little
compilation.”
Subsequently, Nordlinger has said he’s writing up the
results for National Review treezine. (Anyone got
an e-copy?)
Let’s put
aside all nasty suspicion that this is an
Onward Christian Soldiers thing, like Stalin
reviving the Russian Orthodox Church in World War II. (Nordlinger
himself seems to
want to invade Saudi Arabia. Wherever.) (Note:
James Fulford supported the Iraq invasion. Do NOT send
him email.) It’s still a wonderful improvement from the
nadir of 2000, when National Review featured a
“Holiday Books” section on its cover.
We urge
readers to congratulate Nordlinger – and ask if the
magazine will next be allowed to
return to immigration reform, to the point of, you
know, criticizing Republicans.
We also urge
readers to read Tom Piatak’s Khristmaskampf
essay in the new American Conservative
(subscribe!) and thank TAC for its kind crediting of
VDARE.COM’s competition. They’re
gentlemen!
Send more
entries to
witan@vdare.com —marked “Christmas Competition’!
