Category Archives: Holidays

The Rabbit Died?

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Another politically “correct” organization banned Easter eggs this year. And the Easter bunny.

Bunny Ears and TailHo hum.

Truth be told, I’m not keen on the commercialization of Christian holidays — there’s no Pesach Puppy spreading gifts in the grass, now is there — but I’m less enthralled by the airheads who want to tear them down.

After all, I grew up on the ears, the tail, the dip.

“Why do these religious nutcases have to parade their stuff everywhere you look,” my friend Lido “Lee” Bruhl me asked me the other day. “Why can’t they just keep it to themselves?

“I have the right not to have it shoved in my face,” he continued.

What about their right not to have nutcases like you shove your particular perversion in their faces, Lee? Hmmm?

I’ve long said that rust never sleeps. Will Durant once said Barbarism does not die. Both survive mostly because we stop paying attention.

Good Passover and Happy Easter, my friends.

 

It’s All Super

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CBS started its Super Bowl coverage this morning at 11 a.m. Eastern time. The game starts at 6:25 or 7 p.m. or so.

“We really hope for an overtime game,” one of the reporters said.

safety equipmentLike 111 million other red blooded Americans, I’ll tune in, although I almost never watch football and I still think the Baltimore team should be the Colts.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is addressing player safety including his plan to have an HGH testing program in place for the 2013 season, neurologists on the sidelines, and talks with NASCAR and others about equipment. From shoulder pads to the “Rooney Rule” to the low hit rule, football rules are ever evolving.

Racing Gets Safer
The Parisian magazine Le Petit Journal held the world’s first motoring competition in 1894; sixty-nine cars vied to start the 127 km course from Paris to Rouen but only 25 ran.

Attilio Caffaratti was the first reported fatality in racing. He crashed in the Brescia-Cremona-Mantova-Verona-Brescia in 1900. The French Gran Prix killed Antonio Ascari in 1925. Jim Clark died in a Formula 2 race in Hockenheimring in 1968 and Jerry Titus at Road America in 1970. Mark Donohue died practicing for the 1975 F1 race at Österreichring. The 2001 Daytona 500 claimed Dale Earnhardt. Dan Wheldon died in a 15-car IndyCar crash at Las Vegas in November. 56 drivers have died in major races at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, 48 at Nürburgring, 30 at Monza, and 24 each at Daytona and Le Mans.

State of the Art
Where better than auto racing to learn about safety equipment?

Racing safety equipment has mostly followed tragedy. Helmets, seatbelts, on-board fire extinguishers, fire proof driving suits, five-point safety harnesses, fuel cells, ever safer racing seats and HANS devices, “soft wall” technology, and more all came after head injuries, thrown drivers, fires, and crashes.

Safety didn’t come easily.

“Those early helmets were like wearing a flower pot on your head with leather straps,” NASCAR Champion driver Ned Jarrett said. “At the time, we felt like it was the state-of-the-art helmet because that was about all you could get.” Sort of like the helmets high school kids used for football when I was in school. It wasn’t until recently that oval track drivers were required to wear gloves.

The history of auto racing saw crash helmets arrive in the ’40s, roll bars in the ’50s, the roll cage in the ’60s. Sports Car Club of America recommended a roll cage (but required only a braced hoop toll bar) when I built my first A-Sedan Camaro in 1971; I installed a full cage similar to NASCAR’s full enclosure with door bars and a snoot hoop. That saved my bacon at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Rules Changes
“The NFL changes the rules every year,” Mr. Goodell said innocently.

So do most motorsports groups. Football players keep getting bigger and racecars keep getting faster.

Cool.

OK, now it’s time for the important part of the day.


super bowl commercials

There is still time to sign the Declare the Monday Following the Super Bowl a National Holiday petition at whitehouse.gov.

The 55th annual Daytona 500 will begin at 1 p.m. on Sunday, February 24. That’s the day after the petition drive ends.

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

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In Charlotte, Vermont, in 2008, a school got hammered to take down its candy cane decorations because a grinch there says they have an overt Christmas message. Federal Reserve examiners in 2010 told a hometown bank that it must remove crosses, Bible verses, and Christmas buttons because they could be offensive. The Fed says the Christian paraphernalia violated federal bank regulations. This year, the owner of a New Jersey business faces thousands in fines because he installed a 40-foot tall inflatable Santa Claus on his retail store rooftop. CANDY CANES and SANTA! The Menorah and the Glitter Moon and Star for Ramadan probably stayed up at the school, though.


christmas bird

Every radio station has defaulted to Christmas music. I’m surprised we haven’t lost that, too. I don’t particularly like Christmas music but my radio has an off switch. I don’t have to listen to it if I don’t want to.

I was raised in a family that was Quaker on one side, Presbyterian on the other. I may not be as organized now as I was when I reached the age of accountability and joined the Presbyterian church but I am still a Christian. And, of course, a WASP.

You don’t have to be either.

Tomorrow is the day Christians celebrate the birth of the Christ child and the meaning of Christianity. It was a pretty big day before the stock exchange took it over.

It doesn’t mean Do unto all the other religions, then cut out. Unless you are a Member of Congress.

Here’s the thing. If you offer food to the monks on Vesak, Buddha’s Birthday, I will honor your commitment to the poor. If you celebrate Diwali, the Festival of Lights, I will honor with you the victory of Lord Ram over the demon-king Ravana. If you fast during Ramadan when the Qur’an was revealed to Mohammad, I will honor your patience and humility. If you celebrate the most solemn and important of Jewish holidays, Yom Kippur, I will honor your atonement and repentance. If you light the candles of Kwanzaa, I will help you honor your heritage. And if you are a lib’rul atheist, I will not proselytize.

That maybe the most important message.

Not one American soldier in Afganistan has forced any man, woman, or child to convert to Christianity at the point of a gun this year.

You don’t have to be a Buddhist, a Hindu, Islamic, a Jew, a Kwanzaan celebrant, or an atheist. It is time, on this Christian holy day, to let Christians be Christians.

My right to impose my own beliefs stops at my property line (or the end of my nose when I’m out in public). The Charlotte, Vermont, grinch’s right to his own idiocy stops at pretty much the same place. It is time to stop accepting that “politically correct” credo and start honoring the true message of Christmas.

Scythian philosopher Anacharsis wrote in the 6th century BCE, “Wise men argue causes, and fools decide them.”

Peace.

This column originally appeared on Christmas Day, 2008. It required very little updating.