Jews Strive To Restore Christmas Trees At Seattle Airport

On Mon, 18 Dec 2006 05:31:03 +0000, flaviaR wrote:

On 17-Dec-2006, "Mark K. Bilbo" wrote:

Whoa. The airport has *NO* rights. It's a municipal corporation. It
exist
purely to serve the public.

And celebrating public holidays and traditions helps that.

Yeah, putting up cheap plastic decorations gets people's luggage to the
right airport.

Sheesh.

But can you imagine if it did....?

Hm... well, then they'd at least have a useful secular use for the things.
I mean, other than cluttering up landfills...

--
Mark K. Bilbo
------------------------------------------------------------
"Being surprised at the fact that the universe is fine tuned
for life is akin to a puddle being surprised at how well it
fits its hole"
-Douglas Adams

On 17 Dec 2006 17:28:52 -0800, wrote:


Al Klein wrote:
On Sun, 17 Dec 2006 21:09:54 -0000, "brique"
wrote:

wrote in message
oups.com...

Irrelevant.
Under copyright and design rules one would be an infringment of the
other.

So, the American flag has 5 red stripes, 3 white stripes, and 39 green stars
on a black rectangle in the lower right hand corner..... well, close enough,
eh?

Would a picture of a Turkey Buzzard violate the US copyright on the
Bald Eagle?

Irrelevant, childish builder of strawmen.
We are talking about menorahs.

YOU were talking about one symbol being a copyright infringement on
another symbol, when the second symbol is a national symbol. Attention
span too short to connect the dots?
--
rukbat at optonline dot net
"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds
are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her
tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the
existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of
the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."
- Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)
(random sig, produced by SigChanger)

Mark K. Bilbo wrote:
[...]
This whole thing is breathtakingly stupid. The man's request wasn't
anything extraordinary. How much time and money could it have cost to
include a menorah (is that the right term, I'm getting confused in here
with all the debate about which is which)? He even offered to *donate one.

The Port of Seattle gave their reasons for what they did. They took
down their "holiday trees" because they interpreted the rabbi's request
as the threat of a lawsuit, and rather than put themselves in a
position of additional liability by adding a menorah, they were just
going to abstain from the display of anything this season so that they
would have time to study the legal issues and discuss with community
groups until after the holidays: "We look forward to sitting down after
the first of the year with not only Rabbi Bogomilsky but others as
well, and finding ways to make sure there's an appropriate winter
holiday representation for all faiths. We want to find out a way to
celebrate the winter holidays that is sensitive to all faiths." Since
then there was a massive upcry from all sides, the rabbi indicated he
was not going to sue, they have replaced the trees, and presumably the
Port is either going to try to design a more acceptable winter display
for next year or is going to choose to avoid legal controversy and
quietly choose not to display anything at all.

- Nate

On Sat, 16 Dec 2006 08:06:22 -0600, "Mark K. Bilbo" wrote:

On Sat, 16 Dec 2006 05:05:10 -0800, Tchiowa wrote:

Mark K. Bilbo wrote:
On Fri, 15 Dec 2006 05:51:22 -0800, Tchiowa wrote:

Mike Hunt wrote:
Tchiowa wrote:

Not bigotry. Where talking about secular vs. religious. Do you struggle
with that concept?


Did Congress make Christmas a national holiday because it had nothing to
do with religion? I doubt it.

Congress made it a national holiday because it's part of the culture.
And that includes Santa Claus, wreaths, trees, reindeer, elves and a
whole of secular facets.

And, of course, we'll all just ignore that it's Christ Mass...

It doesn't matter what the source of the holiday is. It's a national
holiday because it's part of the culture. Whining about it won't change
that.

Yeah and it would have become a national holiday and part of the culture
if Christianity hadn't existed right?

There'd also be no April Fool's day if it wasn't for those controlling,
indoctrinating kibitzers. :-)

Ben

On 16 Dec 2006 05:27:32 -0800, "Tchiowa" wrote:


Ben Kaufman wrote:
On 14 Dec 2006 16:08:38 -0800, "Tchiowa" wrote:


Ben Kaufman wrote:
On 14 Dec 2006 01:06:37 -0800, "Tchiowa" wrote:


Mike Hunt wrote:
Laura Sanchez wrote:

Too bad Christianity doesn't return the favor.



Excuse me? It's Christians that are the only ones defending Israel and
denouncing anti-Semitism.


Yet, they can't seem to share the winter holiday season by permitting a
one Jewish symbol at the airport.

Which "holiday" are you talking about? There is only one *NATIONAL
HOLIDAY* and it isn't a Jewish Holiday so why would you put up a Jewish
symbol?

Putting up a Jewish symbol would be celebrating a holiday that is
*PURELY* a religious holiday and not a national holiday and thus would
be in clear violation of separation of church and state.

Ah constitutionally based bigotry, way to go!

Ben

Not bigotry. Where talking about secular vs. religious. Do you struggle
with that concept?

You fail to realize, perhaps, that the national holiday of Christmas is secular
and does not give Christians any special decoration rights.

I never said that it did. But since it is a national holiday the
airport has just as much right to put up Christmas trees at Christmas
as it does to put up pictures of Lincoln on President's Day.

"At Christmas," you say. But Christmas is December 25th, not December 1st.

Ben

On Sun, 17 Dec 2006 19:37:38 -0600, "Mark K. Bilbo" wrote:

On Sun, 17 Dec 2006 02:23:54 +0000, PTravel wrote:


wrote in message news:dI1hh.7513$hy6.739@trnddc05...
Absolutely brilliant.

Susan

Thanks, Susan. Just common sense, really.

I've always wondered why those who always claim, "Jews are
disproportionately represented in [fill in any profession]" never thought
about the fact that Jews are disproportionately college graduates (and
possessors of post-graduate degrees) in comparison to the general
population. Want to be a lawyer or doctor? Go to med school or law
school -- they don't pass out licenses to practice either profession at the
DMV.

Many years ago, I worked in the office of a TV show and damned if the
studio, the show I worked on, a lot of the other shows weren't strikingly
heavily Jewish. Lots and lots of very well off, nice houses, eat out every
meal, Jewish folk driving BMWs... to their 12 to 14 hour work days.

To the extent they "dominated" that industry, it was pretty clearly because
of something I refer to as "working your butt off."

I bailed after a while. Talk about stress and long hours. The potential
was there for some breathtaking money but, man, it was wearing on my
health and I was in my *twenties at the time. Yeesh!


Of course, people who bitch aren't going to say, "They have money and
position because they worked hard for it." That would mean the bigot is
living in the double-wide because he's lazy and stupid. No, it's gotta be
something else. I know, they're Joooz!

The movie industry is a mere Matzoh ball compared to their biggest achievement:
Christianity. :-)

Ben

Robibnikoff wrote:
"Mike Hunt" postmaster@localhost wrote in message
. ..
James A. Donald wrote:

There was no manger at the airport, nor any prayer. The airport
Christmas was carefully sanitized of anything with the slightest
connection to Christianity.

Nonsense. Why do you think it is called CHRISTmas?
CHRISTians brought the tree celebration idea to the US.
The Christmas tree is a symbol of Christmas.

Didn't use to be - It's Pagan.

Would you care to document which individual in particular went and
found a pagan custom and adopted it? Most of us think Luther just
decided to decorate a tree because it looked pretty.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Sancho Panza wrote in message
...

"Mark K. Bilbo" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 17 Dec 2006 06:50:21 +1000, James A. Donald wrote:

"PTravel"
Even granting that the Christmas tree is secular
(and I don't believe that it is), it is definitely
not all-sectarian.

"James A. Donald"
It evidently includes Hindus, ancestor worshippers,
and animists, they being part of "peace on earth and
goodwill to all men"

"PTravel"
I'm talking about Christmas trees, not sentiments of
the holidays.

You will find Christmas trees in the houses of Hindus,
ancestor worshippers, and animists. Why then do some
Jews and many Muslims make a big deal of *not* having a
Christmas tree, as if it was made of ham?

Because it's not their religion. Duh.

It is not that they want to make the point that they are
not Christian. They want to make the point that they
are not American, even though Americans want them to be
American.

Aren't you the evil ****?

By the way, are you expatriate? As in, who the **** are you to define
what
it is or is not to "be American" sitting over there in Australia?

Good chance he's Mel Gibson's uncle.

Maybe its Mel Gibson himself........ oh, hang on.... the Gibson clan are
rabid old school catholics... latin mass and all, james is a staunch WASP...
oh well..... guess there is no point asking for his autograph then.......

Mark K. Bilbo wrote in message
...
On Sat, 16 Dec 2006 22:52:36 -0500, Sancho Panza wrote:

"James A. Donald" wrote in message
...
Militant Jews and radical Muslims should celebrate
Christmas the way that 90% of americans celebrate it and
the way 99% of American atheists, hindus, shintoists,
and animists celebrate it - as a day for the family to
be together, a day to be merry, and a day to be mindful
of peace on earth and goodwill to all men - instead of
threatening lawsuits and manufacturing confrontation and
hostility and reacting to Christmas cheer as if they
were being offered a ham sandwich.

Wait till this guy sees the stores start to open on his special day like
they have been doing on so many former "holidays."

Hm. I suspect that'll be a while if ever. People have become accustom to
having at least *one day that almost everybody gets the day off. I would
suspect long after Christianity is forgotten, people will be taking the
day off...

Except, of course, large numbers of people do _not_ get the day off, and if
you want to get an idea of how many, consider what would happen if
'everyone' did take the day off.
As for the stores opening, here in London I find a large ( and increasing
each year) number of shops are open on christmas day, mainly run by
non-christians who, one presumes, consider the business they do is worth the
effort and costs involved.


--
Mark K. Bilbo
------------------------------------------------------------
"The problem with defending the purity of the English language
is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't
just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other
languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their
pockets for new vocabulary." -James D. Nicoll

wrote in message
oups.com...
brique wrote:
wrote in message
ups.com...
brique wrote:
[...]
So, your solution is that everyone should become christians,
if not, they should at least pretend to be christians. So, will
you return that respectful gesture by fasting during Ramadan?
Will you synbolically bath in the Potomac in solidarity with
the Hindus bathing in the Ganges? Will you don a kippa and
recite the Torah at Seder? Will you light candles at your
ancestors graves and bang drums all night to keep the
shintoists happy? Or is it all one-way traffic, as usual?

Off the top of my head, I can think of major community-inclusive
celebrations in San Francisco for St. Patrick's Day, Chinese New Year,
the Japanese Cherry Blossom Festival, Dias de los Muertos, Cinco de
Mayo, Carnaval, Pride, and others, where probably a majority if not an
overwhelming majority of the celebrants are not culturally or
religiously affiliated with that of the celebration, or even really
know in any detail what the original cultural or religious
significance
of the celebration is.

If somebody's going to throw a party, why not take advantage of it?
If
the Hindu community had a big Diwali celebration that was open to the
whole community, people would go and celebrate. They probably do in
the south bay.

What I would view as odd, distasteful, or even possibly deranged is
if,
say, some part of the Irish community, rather than have an inclusive
St. Patrick's Day celebration, threatened to sue the city to revoke
its
licenses if the Chinese New Year parade did not include shamrocks and
green beer.

The matter here is that james has stated that not celebrating christmas
is
the act of a bigot.

The closest statement of James's I could find in this thread that
matches your claim is:

: No one must celebrate [Christmas], but any one who not
: only does not celebrate it, but gets upset and offended by
: other people celebrating it, is indeed a bigot.

which only "matches" in the sense of partial text matching, and
semantically bears nothing like the meaning you attribute to it. I
presume that this is the statement to which you refer, since you make
the same incorrect interpretation in your response to it. I suggest
you re-read.

james text is somewhat mangled, you will note my response was in the form of
a question. But I read it as saying : 'but any one who not only does not
celebrate it,' : that is clear enough, refers to those who do not celebrate
and the 'not only' infers a further category in addition to those who do not
celebrate, which is ;'but gets upset and offended by other people
celebrating it,' . So, we have two descriptions ; those who do not
celebrate, and those who do not celerbate and get upset if others do and
james then declares them to be 'indeed a bigot'.
He hasn't bothered to respond to my question, one must assume he feels it
represented his stance acurately.

:
James's immediate point in this subthread seems to be that rather than
complain that a traditional festival in which communities and families
participate has historical Christian symbolism, minority religions or
ideologies should take an "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" attitude of
co-opting the holiday's symbols with their own religious significance.
The same way that the Christians did to end up gathering all their
presents under a pagan Germanic religious symbol on an old Roman feast
day dedicated to the father of the Gods, himself co-opted from the
Greeks.

I havent complained about christmas, in fact, I have said I cant be bothered
if others choose to celebrate it with or without religious synbols
decorating their homes.
I have said that I do not see why public funds should be used to install
religous symbols and displays in public places, and further, that applied to
any religion on any of their festivals.


The original Kwanzaa holiday was apparently intended as a substitute
for Christmas: "Kwanzaa is not an imitation, but an alternative, in
fact, an oppositional alternative to the spookism, mysticism and
non-earth based practices which plague us as a people". This
confrontational tactic was apparently re-thought or abandoned, however,
and more recently has been recast as a complement to traditional
religious observance: "Today, many African-American families celebrate
Kwanzaa along with Christmas and New Year's. Frequently, both Christmas
trees and kinaras, the traditional candle holder symbolic of
African-American roots, share space in kwanzaa celebrating households.
To them, Kwanzaa is an opportunity to incorporate elements of their
particular ethnic heritage into holiday observances and celebrations of
Christmas." A process that has a long line of historical precedents,
and which tends to be successful precisely because for many if not most
celebrants, the main point of the holiday is family and community unity
and tradition, not theology.

Any religion is 'oppositional' to any other. It is implicit in their very
seperateness. Otherwise, they would be one and the same religion. They
dispute their gods, their prophets, their messiahs, their scriptures, their
moral codes, their priests, theirs bishops, their popes, imans, rabbis,
gurus and whatever other category of difference you can imagine. Within
their relgious sect they can often be more 'oppositional' with each other
than with differing religions.


[...]

- Nate