Comments

• 04/10/2008 @ 03:44 Mebenji said

  

  OH Yeah!!! Mid SUMMER party!!!! We shall be the Ba Humbug Club. Hawaiian shirts and hula skirts, eh? :) Or did you have something else in mind in front of that open fire place? (oh no, not good for the environment...fake fire places then??? & I'll have fake snow - depending upon the propellant used...it's so complicated...)

  
  Oh, yes, almost a month ago I noticed the Christmas CRAP on display in the major department stores. UUUUGGGGHHH - but some of it really is SSSOOOOOO crappy I simply do have to laugh! Indeed this might be the only criteria I will use if/when I am wanting to buy Christmas Crap.

  
  To each their own madness, I say, Summer - if only they would leave us alone!!! So many ads to look forward to trying to avoid seeing!!! & in store Christmas crappish musak I can but try to ignore (unsucessfully). Thanks, Summer, for bringing this to my attention. :)

  
  -Mebenji

• 04/10/2008 @ 11:10 UMxx said

  

  I hate the no ratings season on TV and the lack of decent stuff on tellie.
  I love getting together with the people I love but I can't bear the commercialism that is smeared across everything.

  If only we could choose when to have our own Christmas - that would confuse the shop owners and we could escape the money makers.

  But I will celebrate Christmas - I can't help but love the excitement of my kids on christmas day - the tight hugs and the cuddles in bed - the fruit feasts and long swims in the pool and the nap in the afternoon. But I don't expect anyone else to have to get involved if they don't want

  UM xx

• 04/10/2008 @ 23:00 summer76 said

  

  Yes benji and um, come the dark depths of midwinter I love a break and a blow out on good food, wine and if I get my act sorted, company. I even like the nostalgia, specially New Year celebrations. It is a turning point after all.
  benji you have sold it to me. We all will be on your boat ok, moored off some desert island with no contact with the outside world. Crate upon crate of ethical good stuff and camp fires at night. That should confuse the depressing txxx with the red hat.
  um, as ever you hit the mark. 'If they don't want to'. My point is we have no bxxxx choice. For 3 months every sense is bombarded day and night with tinsel water torture. The ones I feel most sorry for are shop workers. Hour upon hour of repetitive jingles that must truly numb the brain. Must be like the effect in the 'Manchurian Candidate'. Unions have recently established it is a major cause of employee stress.
  I am relieved to say that people at work have finally got the message. I am excluded completely from any meal/party plans. But this is at the cost of being painted as some depressive oddity. There is no choice in most eyes. You join in the bloody fairytale farce cooked up over a camp fire in the desert some 2000 years ago, or you are not quite right.
  Yes it can be a good time for kids and families. Although I remember as a child I was never completely comfortable with it. Actually found it quite a sad lonely time. Doing things I did not want to do with people I did not want to be with - and that continued up to some 10 years ago. Hmmm something in that!
  As I get older I think what I most object to, and what worries me the most, is the brainwashing of children in schools like the Catholic one just down the road. The little mites have no choice do they? In my experience the parents are the first to watch out for 'indoctrination'. i.e any opposition or anything resembling the facts of this bloody world. They should know. They are experts in indoctrination.
  Got it! As I cannot exactly escape it I will join in and suggest that we make one of the three wise men gay. At least then some of the kids who grow up gay will remember seeing themselves represented in a school play. Unlike the the narrow nuclear model shoved down our throat for centuries.
  No other word for it. I find the way the C festival as it is celebrated downright fascist.
  UTTERLY LOATHSOME

  summer - first rant of many I am afraid
  

• 04/10/2008 @ 23:47 UMxx said

  

  Both of my children were terrified of Santa Claus - well little wonder - there is no one who looks like that and dresses like that here - Santa was never allowed to come in the house - though we quite liked the reindeer.

  I was never into humanising Santa - but the kids got it non stop from family and daycare. I think because for some reason it is a fun concept for adults they think it is fun for children - Santa wasn't a big part of my childhood .

  Now onto christmas carols - murderous form of torture played through bad speakers for too long. I think they should only be allowed for the 12 days of christmas. I also think that christmas tree may only be erected on Christmas eve and taken down 11 days later.

  Christmas is such a hotch potch of rituals from more ancient times and co opted by christianity.

  Just a tool of the retailers and marketing people. We don't have to participate -keep Christmas to one day a year would be a fine idea
  UM xx

• 05/10/2008 @ 07:50 Mebenji said

  

  I'm a bit worried about the idea for everyone to have Christmas any time they want to - firstly we'd have to cope with Christmas Crap all year round, secondly If your family is having Christmas, do you invite friends or rellies even who may not be? Do you allow the kids to participate in the Christmases of their friends? Would we be pressured into buying prezzies all year round? The more I think about it, the more nightmarish this idea sounds.

  Personally, I'd rather disassemble Christmas; make the religious, pagan and commercial aspects all separate - so one could chose one the other or a combination, as they like...or indeed, the simply have it as a time for stuffing your face and lazing about/partying, &/or getting together with friends or going off on holidays - ie: getting away from it all!

  & I think if we must have public recognition of religious holidays - let there be equal time for all (except Scientology - not really a religion, no matter what they say.) & So any which are clearly a business, let them purchase air time.

  Except that I do rather like my little fibre optic tree - I'd suggest decorating a real tree, a small perennial growing outside, never cut down; a traditional/emotionally sentimental tree, one you've invested with meaning and history, which we decorate each year.

  I tried doing this with one of the trees outside my back door - but it's got too tall (& healthier for it too, now my neighbour is not cutting it back so brutally anymore.)

  Maybe I can find an appropriately restrained sort of bush for the front, one that will not grow to tall or wide (can't block the path next to the garden space) - make a space there for it. I don't really want to have to prune it because I also like the natural shape of plants to be evident.

  Just to do something, really, because I do feel compelled to, I feel the pressure, the perennial questions about what you will be doing for Christmas, who you will be with, will you be with family....UUUGGGHHH - particularly the latter. It's not all wonderful for everyone - but the public facade of it would have you think it is so, well, for everyone else, & it is supposed to be wonderful; it is weird if it is not, if you say so you get pity and sympathy...so I want to be able to truthfully say I am doing something and that it is good and pleasurable and in it's own way celebratory of an event which happened so bloody long ago, related to a religion I don't bloody believe in! Or I at least have 'the spirit of Christmas'.

  Easy for me to do...but how is it for people who have very distinctly different beliefs they want to be faithful to? That's something which has bothered me for a long time.

  Hey, how 'bout we celebrate BWW's Birthday then instead? That date would do just as well as any other, I think.

  
  -Mebenji

• 05/10/2008 @ 08:07 UMxx said

  

  well I guess in the short term it might be awful having a christmas party all year around but then every one would get sick of it and the retailers couldn't use it as leverage and make money out of it and then it would only exist for those people who have a faith basis for celebrating it. I am prepared to organise for a bit of short term pain for long term gain.

  I agree that we should respect religions providing they are religions faith based and not just beliefs. I would prefer to make time for witches pantheists and animists than people without a faith in something.

  In Indonesia they really do acknowledge all religous festivals for islam, christianity and buddhism - drives lots of overseas companies crazy because of the public holidays - It would take a special culture to do this - and the subscription to endless consultation and consensus.

• 05/10/2008 @ 11:30 Mebenji said

  

  No pain, no gain, you reckon? Okzy - but I'm not sure how long I could stand it. I'm not so good at meditation as you are.

  Are you saying they recognise all these holidays without job sharing?

  -Mebenji

• 05/10/2008 @ 12:43 UMxx said

  

  Goodness don't give them ideas ! Yes they do - it is a crime to be nothing in Indonesia - everyone must be a subscriber to something - be it traditional animist beliefs or a modern religion - I used to work there a bit and be a pantheist . xxxxx UM x

• 05/10/2008 @ 13:31 Mebenji said

  

  Oh, I'd better not NEVER go there then - I fervently refuse to subscribe to anything - on pain of death? (Not that I'm saying Indonesian government would do that - honestly, I don't know what they would do.) I don't know - if all I have to do is lie to people who leave me few other choices. I wouldn't like it though; I think I would resent it quite a lot. What about you, Summer - how far would you stand up to Atheist oppression/repression?

  -Mebenji

• 05/10/2008 @ 20:39 UMxx said

  

  Well it is actually more inclusive than our own country - or the USA or the UK - funny that we don't seem to see the shortfalls of our own society is it - Funny because this brick is about giving Christmas the boot and yet no one would make you celebrate a thing in Indonesia -

  I'd have to say that there are many people who are really oppressed in the world and as an atheist I have never found that to be something I have been been treated harshly for. It is just that it is beyond their cultural understanding that someone would believe in nothing - they have a rich animist tradition though - much like our own people here - animists make more sense than any of the organised religions I think - at least it is accepting of the natural order and our lack of capacity to explain all that we can see in nature.

  Maybe I shouldn't have used the word crime - it has distracted the TA. I'm off now. UMxx

• 05/10/2008 @ 21:33 summer76 said

  

  Checking before posting. Trouble loading bricks again. Damn site!!!!

• 05/10/2008 @ 21:50 summer76 said

  

  Well it worked so here goes.
  Well you two. There really is no telling where a simple statement on Christmas will lead us. A dissertation on Indonesia no less. Love it.
  However I am not sure I can believe what I am reading um. OK you lived there dearest so you have more experience than me but the simple mention of the country caused something to jar. In my experience the press has been full of stories of repression for decades. So I googled it. The PC groaned under the weight of replies. For example.

  http://www.christiantoday.com/article/christian.persecution.in.indonesia.escalates.in.street.attacks/4377.htm

  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/britain-supplies-indonesia-with-tools-for-repression-635351.html

  I will let you run down that rabbit hole for the rest. You must be aware of the genocide in East Timor. John Pilger did a brilliant and very moving expose of it. You have heard of the dictator Suharto I take it.

  On top of all that the Muslim Jihadi's are striking terror every day.

  How would I stand up benji? Like too many places on this earth I would not survive long.
  Lefty, Atheist homo's give them a pick n mix choice before they reach for the electrodes.

  My what a cheerful brick this is turning out to be. Perhaps Chridtmas is not so bad after all..............................................
  Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

  hugs
  summer x

• 05/10/2008 @ 22:47 UMxx said

  

  Yeah but I live in a country where we still practice genocide of our indigenous people but who is taking notice of that. Jihad terror every day - like when? Not like the US bombing Iraq of course - and nothing like the christian attacks on the locals in Indonesia - oh but that is in the name of missionaries and war - keep forgetting. We are all as bad as each other - but we wrap ours up in our own anglo clean white paper. It's not that nationality or the religion - its the people within it. Like who made Suharto - well our governments did - Sukarno was rather too cosy with the coms - Who made Sadam Hussein well he wasn't self made and was well resourced by the west. The Phillipines scares me more as a government - they are not so inclusive.

  Is there a place that I would want to live more than australia - no - can't see the point of swapping once place for another - but check out the indigenous sites here. You know what would be worse than being a lefty atheist gay man in London - being a left atheist gay koori man in Australia - the left and atheist thing doesn't even matter here for kooris - it doens't need to be labelled the fact they are gay and indigenous means that they are definitely on the outer. I only have to open my window to know that the smell here is no different to the countries that we think are so much better than. Its the smell of greed and self rightousness - can't you smell that in Brisbane and the UK? You're right about Pilger - he documents great stuff - but there are lots of targets for his work. And lots of others who can show real injustices in the world. While people die of starvation in the world because of the greed of the first world I feel a bit ungrateful about worrying about the struggles that we have. Love you both but just don't think seeing it from our personal perspective is a real view of the world at large - lots of countries I would be dead in - but mine is a decision of adulthood - choosing my own politics - but for most of the worlds population they live in countries were the rates of surviving to adulthood are so much lower I wouldn't have needed to make a decision. Hey and if we lived in such a country christmas wouldn't be a big deal either - we wouldn't have money for retailers to chase! So much more comfortable living in the first world and having to moan about christmas I think. UM xxx

• 06/10/2008 @ 20:19 summer76 said

  

  Dear um sister, did I catch you at a bad moment? Good to see that you can rant angrily even more than me. Of all the people on this site I think you know benji and myself are the last to sit back on our own comfortable perspectives. So I am a mite perplexed by the vociferousnes of your points.
  You know that I more than share that self same anger, particularly about 'The West's' colonialism, and underscore almost every line you have written a dozen times. But have'nt we somewhat drifted first from the point of this brick and secondly even from your original points about Indonesia?
  I want to get back to the original, frankly sometimes amusing, points about Christmas. No doubt we will see many more over the next few months. There are many other places we discuss the woes of this world on here.
  But briefly can I just revisit a few of the issues you raised. Firstly was'nt some of this about the freedom to choose. OK in some countries we have a democratic facade of choice which nevertheless is bloody wonderful compared to the repression elsewhere. Sometimes where there is not even a choice between life and death. But my simple point was commercial Christmas is hard to escape from. For some we read every year how the enforced debt incurred causes misery, impoverishment and family break up.
  On a scale of 1 - 10 however I do not need reminding that that is as nothing compared to the blight of countless millions on this planet. But knowing that does not lessen the problems of families and their children does it? Just as you thankfully have pulled me up sharp if I am dismissing my own woes in the face of other more dire issues expressed on here.
  I was well aware, and expressed anger many times before I joined this site, about the continueing appalling treatment of Australia's indigenous population. It has been of course of the same pattern and a mirror image of the experience of Native Americans, Inca's, Aztec's and countless more peoples for hundreds of years.
  But one countries genocide is not exactly another countries mass murder or freedom fight. Be wary of 'Bush' like league tables of suffering.
  As for Indonesia. I accept you lived there and have your own invaluable experience. Admittedly all I have to go on is well informed opinions from the 'quality' press and media which I well know can have it's own agenda. But consistently for decades Indonesia has been painted as a very repressive society. Of course that has often been the western backed government and its politics. Islam fundamentalism is on the rise there like elsewhere. For every bomb in 'Bali' etc it must inevitably have its echoes in the street. Just because Christians in turn are repressive does not excuse any other kind.

  OOh you got me going love. Thank you.More in a minute
  

• 06/10/2008 @ 20:39 summer76 said

  

  To continue I cannot resist this one. Whether those electrodes are attached to my bxxx because I am gay, atheist, lefty, indigenous Australian, christian, muslim or for that matter a splodge they still bloody hurt. Even when it is done by an Indonesian policeman (yes it has to be a man sadly).
  Like you I am relatively thankful for where I live. If I had a choice however I would certainly not have Indonesia on my list. Or for that matter Jamaica. One of the most terminally depressing aspects of prejudice is how those who suffer it themselves, like many of the inhabitants of Jamaica, can turn it round into the most vicious life threatening homophobia. The vicious murders on record speak for themselves.

  Right Non-Christmas brick remember. Trouble is now the thought of those red baubles on a Christmas tree have quite a different significance. Bloody ouch.......!

  Hugs

  summer
  xx

• 06/10/2008 @ 21:28 summer76 said

  

  Or resist this singalong - 'Chestnuts roasting on an open fire'.......!
  OK this is my far from subtle attempt to change the subject slightly and return this brick to the bottom of the 'C' tree. But on a lovely black Christmas note one of my favourite crap films at Christmas is 'Black Christmas'. Dated serial killer tosh with Olivia Hussey and Keir Dellea (Yes of 2001 fame - hmmm funny it is a favourite......yummy man)
  Saw it when I was so young and it was one of the first real antidotes to the enforced so called 'fun'. Perhaps all of us need an antidote to the tinsel. What is yours?
  Just get one thing straight. Indonesia would be far too bloody hot for me anyway

  Triple festive hugs

  summer xxx

• 07/10/2008 @ 04:44 Mebenji said

  

  :) Thank you, Summer, for being so eloquently verbose or verbosely eloquent.
  I must admit to being far too much on the sidelines, watching or trying not to watch but knowing all the same - I am not an active activist by any means. Once upon a time, when my feet didn't hurt so much and I could tolerate being in a noisy environment for longer I would go along to rallies and marches, but that was the extent of my involvement.

  "Black Christmas"; I don't think I've seen that one - supposed I'd remember if I had, or not, sometimes I begin watching movies feeling for sure I should remember them but don't even though I may have seen them a dozen times. I'm sure I would have if it was on tellie - and likely not during December or January even, more likely we'd see such a movie aired in July, just because, I presume, it wouldn't be a sweet, cutesy-pie, lovey dovey, or tear jerker or even intentionally comedic (those are mostly the least funny of all) as the Christmas genre tends to be. Did you only begin watching "Black Christmas" because you knew that hunk of a man was in it - or was that a happy surprise?

  Having said that, however one of my favourite and intentionally funny Christmas films is "A Muppet Christmas Carol". & what's more, I do laugh at the intended humour. Truly an exception to the norm.

  Except for missing a few programmes which go away for three-four-five months or so - if they are to return at all that is - I barely notice a difference anymore between ratings and non-rating periods.

  Radio programmes too sort of take a break and broadcast a selection of programmes form the year or years gone by - even though recent programmes can be downloaded (each programme is available for a month in this way from the date it is broadcast - after that it's transcripts.) if I haven't listened to them already. So even the older ones from years ago temporarily become available to download when they are broadcast during the Christmas break. This is on our ABC - they're even making t.v. programmes or extended interviews available (oh, too much download really for me). There's a suggestion for you, Summer, for something to occupy you during boring Christmas hols or to distract you some (aw but be warned, even the ABC gets into the spirit - there's loads more on there than that, though).

  You know what, if I don't do something Christmassy I feel I'm missing out some how - so I do do a bit, maybe I'll put up my little tree and decorate it, maybe I'll send a special note to some people - so they are not forgotten, so they know I haven't - and maybe I'll get a big bit of fish and make some creamy garlic sauce to go with it, might even attempt (what I do is not really pasta) homemade pasta as well, have some cranberry sauce, get some cherries and other munchies and soft-drink to have more of that week between Christmas and New Year's than at any other time. I may even get a gift to put under one of those 'Wishing Trees' if there are this year - and hope I've brightened up some-one's otherwise dreary day. I'm not sure they do, because there was even a sort of panic about these things too. I do this because I feel more acutely out of step - there's that sense of compulsion again!

  Seems to require an awful lot of effort to fight it and feel good at the same time...

  Oh, yeah, and I will go to a Christmas afternoon run by Queensland Blind Association - meet up with some people I don't see much, maybe win one of the several raffle prizes and everyone takes home a Christmas cake and pudding (I'll give these away) and pay my $5 annual membership fee and purchase a large print calendar I hang up to reference sometimes (I need to more often). & they will provide taxis home. I more than break even! -& that's not really the point either. So I tend to buy more than a few raffle tickets, to make up the difference I think.

  You guys can argue bloody brilliantly - me not so - I'm enjoying this from the sidelines now...so I will try to stick to the "Ban Christmas" - though damned if I know how to achieve this noble goal.

  ((((((hugs)))))) to you both, together, now shake hands, be friends and come out fighting! :) (maybe I am a voyeur at heart).

  -Mebenji
  

• 07/10/2008 @ 21:29 summer76 said

  

  Not an argument with dear um or verbose I hope benji, just getting my facts straight so I can be sure of places to hide come December. Mind you if it is an argument you paint a picture of yourself 'knitting by the guillotine'. Well sorry no show dearest, I am far too sqeamish.
  Yes, quite right, back to Christmas. I adore The Muppets, creation of genius. Sheer unbridled innofensive fun than transcends all ages. As for the rest of TV. What irks me most are the other 'Christmas Specials'. They take an every day wall paper 'soap' and put bloody tinsel on it. Makes the usual tosh even more inane.
  One thing actually that would make the season more for me is proper December weather from my youth and childhhod. 7 ft Snow drifts please and being cut off from the world in an idylic country cottage - stocked to the rafters with goodies, games and a few chosen friends from my distant past. Yes I seem to have once had some!
  Come now Benji what is this about a tree, you are slacking. I have banished even Christmas cards. Though i do try to send something around New Year for old times sake. Thing is I/we have done Christmas in spades in the past. In the eighties in particular I would spend a fortune on the lot. Looking back it was quite obscene but I have to admit bloody brilliant at the time. Just grew out of it long ago. Perhaps it is age. When it just becomes the annual insincere drudge. When everything is 'what you are supposed to do at this time of year'. When asked what am I doing I always lie just to avoid the humbugs etc.
  Keir Dullea was a happy surprise. As was the film. Scared me senseless first time I saw it but dated now.
  Hugs to all
  summer xx
  

• 04/11/2008 @ 11:00 Jomo said

  

  So. Now we have a conspiracty to steal the midwinter festivities back from the Christian ratbags who stole them from us poor bloody pagans in the first place.

  
  I like to see the kids having fun at chrissmiss, I do so. And I like to have fun. But I do not do the religious chrissmiss, or the giant splurge of spending, I have fun, and make stuff, and have jokes. One of us always gets a whoopee cushion at chrissmiss. Always a sure fire hit.

  Summer. Don't feel bad. Feel good. Ignore the terrible tinny crackling manic cheapo toys/decorations - and think of friends and laughter and mulled wine - and giving a little joy to friends. A smile, a sincere greeting to a stranger - I dunno. I never do, me.

• 06/11/2008 @ 04:38 Mebenji said

  

  :) I should like to do Christmas with you, Jomo - how 'bout it? I'm a bit out of practice as far as making things goes though...hmmm I just thought of something I can make!

  -Mebenji