Garrison Keillor Joins the war on Chanukah

[cosmik debris]

"There are people who feel "excluded" by Christian symbolism and are offended by the manger and the angels and the Child, but there have always been humorless, legalistic people. Complaint is an American art form, and in our time it has been raised to an operatic level. To which one can only say: Get a life. When you go to France, you don't expect a stack of buckwheat pancakes for breakfast or Le Monde to print box scores. You're in France. Now you're in America. It's a Christian culture. Work with it."

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/11/29/keillor/index.html

Even liberal stalwarts can find an excuse.

[danalytical]

1. Well, he's right

I consider myself an atheist and i love Christmas. If you don't.. get over it.

[trotsky]

2. Like most of them, Keillor has it all wrong.

I'm not in the least bit offended by Christian symbolism, and I fully understand that in a country with a majority Christian population it's going to be in your face. A lot.

What offends me is when these Christians want to put their creches up at City Hall, or at the park by the public library. Or when they want to dictate (by force or by boycott threat) how stores should greet their customers.

It's also funny, two of Keillor "3 C's" of Christmas don't have anything to do with Christianity. And the third, carols, is only coincidental.

Keillor, like a lot of religious liberals, appears to have no idea how what we celebrate as "Christmas" has very few elements that are actually fully Christian in origin.

Ah well, I'm the one who has to get a life, so what do I know?

[cosmik debris]

4. From a humorless, legalistic person,

Keep the Chan in Chanukah, the reason for the season.

You know what they say, the war on Chanukah won't be lost unless we quit before the job is complete.

Okay, so my jokes are bad, but I AM NOT HUMORLESS! Just humor impaired, or differently humor enabled.

[Pyrzqxgl]

8. Now thats it. I always felt that Chanukah needed a Santa Claus (or equivalent)

So how about Chinese detective CHARLIE CHAN (he was never even played by Chinese actors. I think Warner Oland & Sidney Tolar were Jewish, I don't know about Roland Winter, so it all fits). KEEP THE CHAN IN CHANUKAH.

[Karenca]

3. ICK

Comparing cuisine in France
to being forced-fed religion in America.

This is just wrong.

[betherenow]

5. G. Keillor talks like W.C. Fields & pronounces short "e" sounds like short "a"

sounds. So, instead of e.g. "terrible", he says " tarruhble". Not "merry Christmas", but "Marry Christmas". Hard to listen to him, and especially since he was an English major in college.

[MemphisTiger]

6. I do believe you are off your rocker...

Keillor has one of the best voices in the business. He is from MN and that is just his accent with his different accents.


Welcome to DU by the way.

[bryant69]

7. It's understandable

We are coming up on the "War on Christmas" season, where Bill O'Reilly and his ilk are going to be accusing us liberals daily of trying to stop Christmas. There are two common responses to this

"Nobody's trying to stop Christmas except a few cranks - so stop trying to pick a fight with liberalism over the holiday."

or

"Nobodys trying to stop Christmas, we are just trying to keep it out of our Government where it doesn't belong."

Those responses don't really work together, I suppose

Bryant