First there was the war on drugs. Then came the war on terror. Now America's conservatives are deeply involved in another fight-to-the-death crusade that pits good against evil, faithful against heathens and the righteous against the sinners.
They call it "The War on Christmas."
In churches and living rooms, religious folks lament the attack on Christmas, supposedly masterminded by the left-wing conspiracy in the media.
PHOTO: AP
The proof? In malls and schools across the nation, in private homes and public buildings, and even, Lord have mercy, in the White House itself, the traditional greeting of Merry Christmas has been replaced by "Happy Holidays."
The 1.4 million greeting cards sent out by US President George W. Bush portrayed the presidential pets sitting in the snow outside the White House and offered recipients "Best wishes for a holiday season of hope and happiness."
The annual White House greeting card has been secular for 13 years, and the last president to send explicitly Christmas greetings was Bush's father in 1992. But this year, as some folks even try to commit the heresy of calling Christmas trees festival trees, conservatives have decided to make a stand.
Pluralistic holiday language might seem fitting for a country that calls itself the world's greatest democracy, whose constitution enshrines the idea of separation between church and state.
But not to the combatants in the War on Christmas.
"It's all part of the secular progressive agenda to get Christi-anity and spirituality and Judaism out of the public square," conservative populist Bill O'Reilly of Fox News said.
One of the main targets in the war appears to be the American Civil Liberties Union, a longtime conservative bogeyman. Numerous religious organizations like the Catholic League and the American Family Association called for boycotts of chain stores like Target and Wal-Mart for their failure to acknowledge the birth of the messiah.
American Family Association President Tim Wildmon said stores should display "Merry Christmas" signs prominently "if they expect Christians to come in and buy products during this so-called season."
But opponents see a powerful religious sector, which already dominates the political landscape, now inventing a crisis to raise money and divert attention from the real issues facing the US.
"These are the things that we should be talking about when we are waging this war in Iraq, we should be equating it to the war on Christmas," liberal radio host Sam Seder said when debating Knight on CNN.
The notion of a war on Christmas is "nonsense," Jeremy Gunn, director of the ACLU's Programme on Freedom of Religion and Belief said.
"Christians can put religious displays on church and personal property, and the ACLU will defend their right to do so," Gunn said.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist
Peter Brighton was amazed when he found the giant jackfruit. He had been watching it grow on his farm in far north Queensland, and when it came time to pick it from the tree, it was so heavy it needed two people to do the job. “I was surprised when we cut it off and felt how heavy it was,” he says. “I grabbed it and my wife cut it — couldn’t do it by myself, it took two of us.” Weighing in at 45 kilograms, it is the heaviest jackfruit that Brighton has ever grown on his tropical fruit farm, located