Monthly Archives: December 2012

December 24, 2012

Merry…. Happy….. Never Mind

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

Being Canadian has to be the weirdest around holidays. Especially in Toronto where there are so many different people from around the world living here. Different cultures, different religions… I take it for granted now, but it’s pretty amazing that we all get along the way we do. Relatively speaking anyways. We still don’t really get along as well as we could, especially around the holidays.
I deal with the public for a living. When someone I’ve been dealing with leaves, I say ‘have a great day’. I say this during the day. I say this at night. I say this every day of the week. I say this on Holidays, both national and religious. It’s my thing. Have a great day. Nobody gets offended. Nor should they. It’s very Canadian to not want to offend anyone.

I first became aware of different cultural beliefs when there was a student in my class whose parents made an arrangement to have them ‘pulled’ from the room every morning when we said the Lord’s Prayer. I think this was Grade 1, and it was quite some time ago, because we sang the national anthem (which I’m sure they still do), but then we followed it with the Lord’s Prayer. That seems crazy to me now for public school to do that, but they did. I guess they figured we were all cool with that. I felt bad for the kid though. It’s just embarrassing to be pulled from the class for 2 minutes a day for any reason. I don’t know if the parents thought this kid would turn into a raging Christian or what, but they didn’t want to take any chances.

As the years went by, more and more immigrants descended on Toronto. They stopped doing the Lord’s Prayer in Public Schools at some point. Which I agree with. People can go to church for that. It should be optional. There are lots of churches here or temples or whatever you need for whatever religion you are. I guess different people’s belief systems make them who they are, and inform them on how to interact in the world. It’s truly interesting and sometimes fun that there are so many, but when Christmas rolls around??? Not so much fun.

The consensus seems to be that in order to be sensitive to everybody here, that we shouldn’t be wishing people a ‘Merry Christmas’. Even if it is Christmas, and there’s no competing holiday for any other religion on that day. The politically correct term we can use is ‘Happy Holidays’. That’s more inclusive. I’m OK with that. I’ll go with the majority. If I’m dealing with the public, I don’t want to assume that you celebrate Christmas. I don’t want to assume that if you did, that you could or would be able to have a happy or merry one. So sometimes I say ‘Happy Holidays’ which is recommended. Most of the time I say ‘Have a great day’ which is even less offensive.

Here’s the real problem. Why is Merry Christmas offensive?? December 25th is Christmas whether you celebrate it or not. When I wish you a Happy Christmas, I’m wishing you a Happy Day. I’m not telling you to go to church, I’m not telling you to sell out your own god, I’m not telling you to decorate your house, I’m not telling you to sacrifice a goat, I’m just wishing you Happy Days. Sunday Monday Happy Days. Tuesday Wednesday Happy Days. Thursday Friday Happy Days. Saturday, what a day, groovin all week with you. You know the rest. I’m just wishing you a happy day. Why is that offensive?? If you said Happy Hanukkah to me I wouldn’t be offended because I’m not Jewish. I’d be happy that you shared some positive words with me. I’d list off a few other examples, but I really don’t know that much about the other religious holidays. Just know that if your religion has a holiday where it’s customary to wish somebody well during that time, you can wish me well, and I would be happy that you did. Not offended, that’s absurd.

To make matters COMPLETELY worse, I’ve noticed a lot of Canadians who do celebrate Christmas posting stuff on their Facebook that is making is seem like ‘Happy Holidays’ is offensive to them because we should be saying Merry Christmas, and never mind what everybody else thinks about it. I understand the sentiment, but really??? You’re badmouthing ‘Happy Holidays’????

Everybody needs to just calm the fuck down!

Whether you believe in Jesus, Santa Claus or somebody or something else, or none of the above…… Christmas is a time to be cool. You’re not being cool! No matter what religion you are part of, the major holidays are about being with your family, friends and spreading good cheer. It’s not about money, expectations, stress and nonsense. All this arguing is bringing me down man. It’s petty. Grow Up!

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Have a Great Day!!
R

5 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Humor, Rants, Uncategorized

December 18, 2012

Aftermath

By Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

I had so many fun and lighthearted topics to choose from this week, but I just can’t seem to get my head (or heart) around the school shootings in Connecticut that have taken place since my last blog.  We’ve seen tragedies like this before, but never REALLY like this.  I don’t know why it’s affecting me so much.  I’ve felt an awful combination of sickness and sadness whenever I think about this.  Is it because of the age of the kids, or because I am now a father?  Either way, what’s always interesting to me is how the aftermath plays out.

First we mourn for the families which makes sense, and it should really stop there.  Then, it’s the blame game.  As if you can undo all of this as long as you are able to isolate the cause.  Or at very least you can stop it from happening again.  I don’t think that’s true….. it was too random.  Plus I think it makes people feel horrible to think that it could have been prevented.  I don’t think it helps the grieving process at all.  They’ll do their best to break it down in the coming weeks, and the public will argue and debate which ‘reason’ they think was the primary motive behind it.  Then the government will step in and throw some money at the winner.

What’s to blame?

– Gun Control???  (Pick me, Pick me!!!)  Yes and no.  Gun control is absolutely a problem in the United States, although most of their population refuses to admit it.  There are many who feel their right to ‘bear arms’ is more important than the overall safety of their population.  Was it responsible for this incident?  I doubt it.  I’m sure a properly motivated killer could find a murder weapon whether it was easy or difficult.  I’d say that hopefully the aftermath leads the politicians to look at this closer though.  Sometimes in politics, it takes something like this to sway public opinion, and open up some minds.  This could be a huge opportunity to take steps to making America a safer place.  They’ve shown little to no interest in gun control for the sake of stopping inner city violence, but 20 schoolchildren between the ages of 5-10???  I sure hope something good comes out of this.

– Lack of awareness of mental health issues???  Maybe.  This is always a problem.  Especially in young people.  When a teenager is acting out, people are always so dismissive.  Is this some undiagnosed problem?  Were people around this guy being sensitive to it?  Was his own family sensitive to it?  I haven’t done any research to find out the story about the killer.  I’m sure more details in will surface in the aftermath.  I will say this…. You have to be absolutely dripping with evil to do what he did on the scale that he did it.  How did that evil not manifest itself earlier in life?  Who knows?  It’s almost always mental health issues that people don’t know about.  I don’t believe anybody in their right or wrong mind would do what he did.  There have to be factors at play that we don’t know about.

– The Parents?  Easy target.  Divorced.  The mother was one of the victims.  How bad could they have possibly been at parenting that this happened?  I don’t think so.  Apparently she kept a lot of guns in the house though.

The truth is, it doesn’t matter who’s to blame.  It’s over.  It doesn’t sound like there’s anything to learn.  It doesn’t sound like there was any way to prevent it.  One thing for sure is that in the weeks to come it will be analyzed to death.  All of the US networks can pencil this into the news programming for the next 6 months.  Reporters can dig up all the dirt they can find about every person who ever knew or dealt with the killer’s family.  It’s only a matter of time before this is referenced in a tasteless rap lyric.  We will all hold opinions about this and judge people we’ve never met before.

We can only hope that something like tighter gun control is what comes from this.  Other than that, maybe for a day or two we hugged our children just a little bit longer.  Maybe we decided against berating the kid who took to long to give us our order at McDonalds.  Maybe for a time we united with our enemies over the grief of senseless killings of school children.  Hopefully this reminded us that life isn’t something to be taken for granted.  Hopefully there’s some way to turn this violence from the past into a peaceful future.  Hopefully something positive and lasting comes out of the aftermath!

3 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Rants, Uncategorized