azurelunatic: Cartoon Azz with blue hair in almost-tidy bun, with glasses and black lipstick. (Azzlibrarian)
Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 ([personal profile] azurelunatic) wrote2006-04-08 09:58 pm

Petty annoyances, and little diversions.

Plotting to leave a polite note with the office stating "I will abide by the posted laundry room hours while they are in force. I disagree with these new hours and respectfully request that they be rescinded."

Monthly.

In other news, we have the happy/fun apartment inspections. This doesn't mean heavy-duty cleaning, thankfully, but it does mean some serious de-cluttering.

Laundry is in for drying.

O'Reilly Owl (regexp type) has now been hacked, in convenient LJ-icon size.

Am attempting to formulate what the hell to write back to an old friend, with whom both contact and the friendship have lapsed severely. She is in the habit of forwarding massive amounts of stuff, some of it cheerful and uplifting, some of it ... not so (the "Hi! This is a nasty spider bite! See how it progresses! Brown Recluse is dangerous! Watch out, m'kay?" scare-mail), and some of it ... well, there is an audience for the "OMG! Christian values have departed the society! DOOM!" e-mail. That audience is not me. I said as much in reply. I got back a snippy e-mail saying essentially the "Well, I would have thought that YOU would care while the RIGHTS OF OTHERS are being CHIPPED AWAY!"

Except that I have no problem with the secularization of government, feel that "holiday" and "season" are appropriate words for the $WINTERHOLIDAY season, especially if individual people are celebrating their own personal holidays and referring to them openly, and think that the removal of certain overt Christian themes from some bits of mass media (TV shows, like the e-mail was protesting) is more of a market response issue than a rights issue, especially given that people who've had the religion shoved in their face in the past tend to react all prickly-wise to it if it's presented as the Default Religion.

Do note if my assumption is incorrect, but I do believe that there are parts of the US where wearing a tiny, tasteful pentacle (less than dime sized) can get one targeted for assault and/or harassment, to say nothing of potential loss of job, demotion, discrimination, et cetera. I also believe that wearing a cross of similar size in most parts of the US is anywhere from unobjectionable to unremarkable to laudable. It's sad that people feel as if they can't express their religion openly without fear of being mocked. It's also sad that there are television channels where people like Pat Robertson run their mouths, and people listen to this. In summary: Stick = the eye of the public face of Christianity. Mote = the eye of major broadcast network television. Just sayin'.

Not sure how I want to express all of that-there sentiment to the woman, but I'm planning on expressing at least some of it.


I am again cursed with insufficient shelf space. I probably want a bigger apartment in the future, to save room for all my books. I like books. Books like me. I have a best friend. He likes books too.

I do intend to pass some books on the instant I get done with them, should I fail to like them or fail to want to keep them on hand. Only sensible thing to do with bad paperbacks, aside from chucking them at 3am noise polluters.

[identity profile] torrilin.livejournal.com 2006-04-09 02:53 pm (UTC)(link)
Huh. I *am* a Christian and I find such stuff offensive. Jews don't celebrate Christmas. Neither do Muslims. Both religions are a substantial minority in the US. Now, I have two choices. I can wish people a Merry Christmas (and hope they'll understand that I'm *Christian* and thus celebrate Christmas and not be offended) or I can wish them something more tailored. Happy Holidays at least has the merit of not making assumptions that the other person practices a specific faith. That makes it suitable for business use.

On the other hand, my friends know I'm Christian and don't find me getting excited about Christmas offensive. Even when they're pagan. Or Jewish. That's why they're good friends :D.
wibbble: A manipulated picture of my eye, with a blue swirling background. (Pentagram Eye)

[personal profile] wibbble 2006-04-09 03:04 pm (UTC)(link)
Happy Capitalism Day!

Even as a non-Christian Pagan I don't find 'Merry Christmas' offensive, because Christmas has got nothing to do with Christianity. It's a cross between mid-Winter celebrations that go back into antiquity and an excuse to push forward consumerist society. Even if you're prepared to paper over the fact that Christ's birthday wasn't in December, the birth of Jesus isn't really the defining moment of Christianity anyway - that's Easter.

Of course, Easter's even weirder. It's in the right time of year, but it's a blatantly Pagan festival. Eggs and bunnies? I didn't know that the resurrection was about fertility symbols... Not to mention the name, of course.

We had a huge debate about this in a local community for Edinburgh last year. The scariest thing was the number of people who just kept saying 'but it's Christmas, how can you call it anything else? it's obviously just Christmas!'