Chan's Personal Blog

Hmmm.... today's title doesn't really make sense, but it sounds cool, so I'll go with it. So today we had another mini grad reunion at Red Robins to welcome Dave back home to Victoria. There was actually a really good showing tonight. The people that attended included Jon, Brian, Adam, Natalie, Marley, Tim, Bill, Dave, Ang, Eton, Kim, Tyler, Michaela (spelling? sorry if it's wrong), Beth, and Nicole. Sorry if I missed anyone, this is not an intentional omission, I just don't have photographic memory....yet. So we all got to mingle and catch up over burgers, fries, and pasta. I had my favourite as usual, chicken parmigiano penne. The delicious leftovers are waiting in the fridge.... mmmm.

As mentioned before, this night was planned around Dave coming back to town. His training at depot seems to be paying off. He's got some entertaining painful arm holds and submission moves. Nothing gets a party going quite like senselessly disabling innocent bystanders. His racial profiling skills have also improved. I got him to do me, and he was pretty dead on except for my car.... I don't drive a Honda . I'm Asian but not THAT Asian apparently.

Anyways, it was a really fun night. I discovered tonight that actually quite a few people still read this blog, so that's good ... it appears I'm not boring people to death with my nonsensical rambling and propaganda. Thanks Timmy for organizing tonight, it was fun. Cheers.

The end of the year quickly approaches, a magical time when we feast, share time with the family, and trek through the political correctness minefield that has become part of the holiday tradition. Yes friends, this is my end of the year rant about how ridiculous political correctness has become.

I first observed this politically correct nonsense at my institution where I work and study. Feel good concepts like tolerance, equal oppurtunity, diversity, inclusiveness is the religion there. A greeting of Merry Christmas is replied with a, "saying Merry Christmas isn't the right thing to say because not everyone celebrates Christmas, and they could be offended. You should say happy holidays." The first time when I heard this I though, ha ha, funny funny, you had me going ... unfortunately it was no joke. I remember telling my boss about this, and she told me about this story where a person in the office didn't celebrate Christmas and was pretty militant about it. Therefore, everyone kept the holiday celebrations super low key for fear of offending this person. This seems to be contrary to the doctrine of tolerance, diversity, etc... because it seems like this person is imposing his/her beliefs on the rest of us. Tolerance is a two way relationship, we should tolerate other people's beliefs and cultures just as much as they tolerate ours. Why do you try to suppress my freedom of expression and celebration? I'm all for tolerance and what not, but why do you try to change the Christmas which is a time-honoured holiday that is celebrated in Canada?

As time has passed, the support for a politically correct holiday seems to be growing. Every now and then at my parent's store, a customer will come in and complain that a sign reads Merry Christmas, and give the whole speech about how some people are offended by Christmas. I'm thinking, who are these people that are offended?! Are these hyper-sensitive people or something? Or is this a phantom menace that does not actually exist?! Why are they so militant about neutering Christmas? If someone came up to me and wished me a happy Kwanzaa, or a happy Winter Solstice, fine ... I don't celebrate it but I'm not going to cry about being offended.

I was googling for examples of the attacks against the Christmas tradition, and came across an article here that summarized a handful of incidents:

In Denver, CO, Mayor John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, decided to ban the words "Merry Christmas" from the city and county building in downtown Denver. The Mayor announced that "Merry Christmas," due to its offensive nature, will be replaced with "Happy Holidays." Only after his office was flooded with complaints did he second-guess his decision.

In the same city, the non-profit group that runs the annual "Parade of Lights" Christmas parade has banned a local Christian church from participating in the event. The Christian themed float, with its Merry Christmas message and Christmas carols, cannot participate because of its "religious theme" -- even though they're allowing a "Two Sprit Society's" float, which honors homosexual American Indians as "holy people". Included in the parade's ban are signs that read "Merry Christmas" and the singing or playing of Christmas hymns.

I'm curious to know why only Christian holidays are subject to condemnation from the religion of Political Correctness. I could rant some more, but this guy's blog does a good job of ranting for me, it is entitled, "Offended by Christmas? GOOD!" (Trackback to that blog)

In either case, I think this is going to get more ridiculous as time goes on. However, I will continue wishing people a Merry Christmas as my non-violent form of resistence and protest. I WISH YOU ALL A MERRY CHRISTMAS! THAT'S RIGHT, A MERRY CHRISTMAS! ALL OF YOU!

The line in the sand has been drawn...