Grinch Alert

Pastor Robert Jeffress of the First Baptist Church in Dallas, TX has recently made headlines for creating a list of businesses that are “naughty” or “nice.” A business is considered nice if they appear to openly celebrate Christmas (either by oral greeting or store signage) or naughty if they choose a more ambiguous greeting such as “Happy Holidays.” This list is populated by citizens who can submit a business to www.grinchalert.com and (if approved by staff) it will be listed for the world to see. 

Grinchmaster Jeffress

Pastor Jeffress has stated that his reasoning behind the decision was “to do something positive to encourage businesses to acknowledge Christmas and not bow to the strident voices of a minority who object to the holiday.” I decided to visit the site in order to discern which businesses were naughty and which were nice and immediately stumbled upon a conundrum. It would appear that some businesses have been double-booked. 

For instance, Target was listed as naughty by one submission and nice by another on the very same screen.

The overall goal of the site is to guide holiday shoppers toward establishments that openly support Christianity by acknowledging Christmas’s elevated status as the premier winter holiday. Finding no local businesses on the list yet, I took it upon myself to select a local merchant (since most of the franchised institutions had been duly represented) and discover their stance. I eventually settled on the Double D Ranch, a Hooters-esque restaurant that that features scantily-clad women and serves beer in bra cup sizes.

After chatting with the on-duty manager for several minutes, he enthusiastically informed me that the Double D Ranch was a “Merry Christmas business” through and through. I replied that his commitment to Christmas (and by extension Jesus) was inspiring and that he would be seeing me soon. I then logged on to Pastor Jeffress’s website and filled out a submission form nominating the Double D Ranch Restaurant in Jackson, TN as a “nice” business. As of this writing, I am still waiting for approval.

Since the Grinch approval process seemed to be moving slowly, I decided to research some of the “nice” businesses. I began with Taco Bell, a franchise deemed worthy to carry the Pastor Jeffress seal of approval.

Taco Bell is a subsidiary of Yum! Brands Incorporated, a conglomerate that owns other large fast-food chains like KFC, Pizza Hut, and Long John Silvers. The company is based in Louisville, KY and since 2006 has been the primary corporate sponsor of the Kentucky Derby horse race, an event that generates over $100 million in gambling revenue each year. I found this curious since the official stance of the Southern Baptist Convention on gambling is that it “is personally selfish, morally irresponsible, and socially destructive. Therefore, gambling must be vigorously resisted.”

Another “approved business,” Cinemark Theatres, was boycotted by several religious groups in 2008 after the CEO donated thousands of dollars to support the repealing of California’s Proposition 8.

I use these examples not to make a moral statement on gambling or homosexuality, but to highlight the futility of trying to identify businesses that share compatible values based on how a minimum wage employee chooses to greet you. Is the best use of his church’s time and resources blacklisting organizations that acknowledge other religious holidays? Should Christians really get pissed off that a store acknowledges a Jewish holiday by inclusion? One person put Delta Airlines on the list because they “offended him as a Christian” by sending him an e-mail wishing he and his family “Happy Holidays.” This is one of the pettiest comments I have ever read. You are privileged to live in a country where you can freely worship as a Christian without fear of persecution and you chose to take time to be offended because an airline wished you a “Happy Holidays.” Do you even understand what the word offensive means?

I can only hope that Jeffress brings this kind of fervor and passion to feeding the hungry and clothing the naked, otherwise I might be “offended as a Christian.”  

Slacktivism

A few days ago I noticed that many of my Facebook friends were changing their profile pictures to cartoon characters. The explanation given for this behavior was generally two-fold:

1. It diminished the possibility of seeing a “human face” on Facebook.
2. It brought awareness to, and helped combat, child abuse.

Leaving aside the glaring irony in voluntarily removing our human faces from a website whose entire basis is to facilitate unique self-expression through profiles, I began to wonder just how the second objective would be accomplished. In our modern age are there really a significant number of people with Facebook profiles who are unaware that child abuse exists? What are the odds that someone is currently staring at a photo of Scooby Doo on someone’s homepage saying to themselves, “So that is what it is called when I beat little Timmy with a tight-rolled area-wide phonebook…”

Therefore, logically, the next assumption we come to is that widespread awareness of child abuse already exists and the cartoon profile is a way to combat its proliferation. I find this even more preposterous that the ignorance argument. Exactly how would this scenario play out?

Scenario A - Stepdaddy comes home drunk, decides to update his profile to include Nightranger among his favorite bands, and just before signing out to go show the kids “what’s gonna happen when young’uns get to sassin’” he sees that a picture of Donald Duck has replaced his friend Terry’s profile pic and is overcome with emotion. His inebriated body is racked by guilt as the childhood image sparks memories of his own adolescence when he too found himself at the violent mercy of an alcoholic step-father. Slowly, he becomes acutely aware of the cyclical nature of his own rudderless aggression and vows to never lay a hand on the children again. Over the next several weeks, a marked change appears in his demeanor as he realizes the physical and psychological damage he has caused to the young lives entrusted to him. Years later, he looks back on the poignant self-reflection initiated by Terry’s simple act of nostalgia and wonders what could have happened had Terry chosen not to participate.

Scenario B –Intoxicate stepdaddy notices Terry’s profile pic of Donald Duck, makes a mental note to de-friend him, and follows through with his original proposal of beating his stepchildren with a partially-thawed rotisserie chicken.

Do not misunderstand me. Child abuse is an abhorrent trend that must be stopped, but it almost cheapens the issue to tell people that they can help eradicate it by replacing their frat party photo with a .jpeg of Space Ghost. If you want to change your profile photo to a cartoon, don’t pretend you did so out of solidarity with the victims of such a heinous crime. If you want to actively help combat child abuse, find a reputable charity in your area and volunteer your time and/or bank account.

Take that, morally abhorrent social deviants!

This phenomenon is not limited to child abuse. Earlier this year, women were encouraged to utilize their Facebook status to cryptically divulge where they prefer to store their purse. This resulted in statuses that read like sexual euphemisms:

• Sarah likes it “on the kitchen table.”
• Julie likes it “hung from the bar stool.”
• Cindy likes it “in the trunk of her 2002 Dodge Intrepid at the Bon Jovi concert.”

In this case, participants were assured that their compliance supported “breast cancer awareness.” How? Does my status change set in motion a chain of events that will ultimately result in a Facebook friend realizing that women have breasts and that those same breasts are susceptible to cancer? Are people with constant access to high-speed Internet connections really so far out of the loop that they have to discover medical advances through a Facebook status update?

Even before Facebook, this same “slacktivism” infiltrated cyberspace through e-mail forwarded chain letters. Our inboxes became saturated with messages imploring us to continue circulating pointless information to assist a cause.

• If you disagree with cancer, please forward this to 10 people…..
• Help stop gang-related puppy violence by sending this to twenty people that you care about……
• Every time you forward this message, the National Institute of Organizational Charity will donate one dollar to prevent pre-childhood obesity in illiterate Asian women……

Why do these resonate with us? Deep down, most of us must realize that whatever self-satisfaction we get from these symbolic gestures borders on emotional perjury. In some cases, especially on Facebook, we do it because large amounts of people witness how “chartable” we are. It is unlikely that anyone you know will see you volunteering at a soup kitchen or battered women’s shelter, but on Facebook you are assured that hundreds of people will know that you think they should be aware that there are battered women and starving people.

I have no problem with cartoon characters profile pictures, divulging the location of your purse or the color of your undergarments; but let’s drop the pretense of crusading for charity. Can’t I just change my profile picture to Snoopy because I like Snoopy? Must I fabricate an altruistic motive to justify my decision? There are countless ways to utilize your time, money, and talents to have a positive impact on the world around you and if you are fortunate enough to have regular access to the Internet, then I am sure you can locate a more effective medium than Facebook in which to utilize them.

*On a side note, I have it on good authority that if you change your profile picture to your favorite Kardashian during the first week of January, Viacom will donate two pouches of Capri-Sun to the cousin of an albino homicide victim. For realsies!     

Movies That Suck: Legion

The year is 2010 and God has decided that humanity deserves to be eliminated (it is unclear whether or not watching The View factored into his decision) so he distributes a memo to his full-time angelic staff to “clean house” a la’ Noah and the Ark. For reasons known only to the big man, it is imperative that the unborn fetus of a specific Arizona waitress is violently executed before mankind can receive its supernatural comeuppance.

This new corporate policy does not sit well with the Archangel Michael (painfully referred to as "Mike" throughout the film) and after he and Gabriel kick it around the heavenly water cooler, Mikey decides two put in his two weeks’ notice. In short order he finds himself on the streets of Los Angeles without his wings and on a mission to save the aforementioned fetus from God.

While Mike is on his way to the isolated coffee shop to protect said waitress, heavenly angels begin taking over the bodies of motorists in the area. This angelic possession can be easily identified by two characteristics:

• The affected suffer violent seizures from the neck up.
• Their teeth become both symmetrical and pointy.

However, if the host is elderly they are immune from both the seizures and involuntary dental work and  instead they use the f-word excessively and favor undercooked beef.

Eventually, Mike and a band of customers find themselves hold up in the Arizona dinner (owned by Dennis Quaid) fighting off the hordes of angels. The film’s climax involves a showdown between erstwhile angel Mike and his old buddy Gabriel. I will not spoil it by telling you who wins, but I can assure you that it will not be the audience.

I am more than willing to make certain theological concessions when it comes to apocalyptic films, but come on. Are we really expected to believe that God almighty, who by the films own admission wields infinite power, is unable to snuff out a particular pregnant waitress without the help of possessed motorists? And while I am on the subject, why do the angels sport tattoos and carry what appear to be prison shanks? Was the heavenly defense budget cut this year?

The exception, of course, is Gabriel who has been issued a motorized mace that functions like a holy-ghost power tool. It is also worth noting that Mike, who presumably has spent his entire existence removed from the trappings of humanity, has a strong British accent and received extensive training in both Taekwondo and the handling of automatic firearms.

All of this must be quite discouraging for Satan, whose job of torturing and punishing humanity has essentially been outsourced. I am not sure what is left for the dark master to do if angels are violently murdering the width and breadth of mankind.

The film, however, does excel in certain areas; the most notable being the subtle art of stereotyping. Kyle Williams, played by Tyrese Gibson, is an African-American traveler who drives a chromed-out SUV with dark tinted windows, carries a pistol, and has a disgruntled baby-mama that he may or may not be late making child support payments to.

Conversely, the single nuclear family that appears in the film is Caucasian but is imploding because the couple’s teenage daughter is disrespectful, sexually promiscuous, and may or may not use large amounts of recreational drugs. They only find themselves in such an undignified eatery because their BMW broke down and the dinner apparently employs a part-time mechanic. The film’s remaining character is the dinner’s grill cook who possesses only one hand.

Thankfully, the child is safely delivered and God changes his mind and decides to give humanity another chance. Let’s just hope that he doesn’t put Legion in his Netflix que…

This film has been rated R for geriatric profanity, theological innuendo, and an intense scene of Dennis Quaid mismanaging a small business.

To The Politicians

I cannot help but feel somewhat disillusioned by the state of our legislative body after the midterm elections. In the interest of full disclosure, I voted about half Republican and half Democrat in the midterms and have never been a registered member of or donated to either party. I try my best to research the candidates I support and do so based on their stances. With that being said, I have decided to pen an open letter to several members of our Federal legislative body which no one will read.

To Mitch McConnell,

Hello Ladies......

As minority leader of the Senate you recently announced that the single most important priority for the Republican Party over the next two years was making sure that President Obama does not get re-elected. With all due respect Mr. McConnell, that is one of the most insulting statements I have ever heard. You truly believe that the greatest use of your time and our money is campaigning against the sitting president for the next two years. Apparently job creation, social security reform, national security, or foreign policy has become secondary to the making sure Barack Obama is a single term President.

You are fortunate you are a politician because I doubt that such an attitude would fly outside the confines of Congress. I can just imagine my next performance review and when my boss asks what I feel my most important job function as a network technician is I respond “Making sure the current mayor doesn’t receive the votes necessary to reinstate him.” I am sure your eloquent rebuttal would be that ousting Obama would positively affect all the aforementioned areas of concern, but that would be a cop-out of the worst kind. You cannot roll up all of our nation’s problems and lay them at the feet of one man, even if he is the president. It was irrational to do so with Bush and it is equally irrational to do so with Obama. Do what you are actually paid for and not what you would like to be paid for.

To Nancy Pelosi,

When one overly-conspicuous American flag backdrop just wont cut it...

                In the name of all that is holy, please just go quietly into that good night and quit wrangling to hold leadership positions in the House. You are so wildly unpopular that if they elected you chair of the Federal drinking water committee 85% of America would opt for dehydration. I realize that it is difficult to go from third in line for the Presidency to plain old representative, but I think it is abundantly clear that is what America wants. You are paid to serve the country by representing your constituency, please do so out of the limelight.    

In addition, I am tired of seeing your face on every single Republican mailer I get. Each time a local member of the GOP runs for Municipal Illumination Supervisor I have to hear about how he is dedicated to stopping the “Pelosi Agenda” because apparently your liberal bias has negatively affected the performance of our sodium-vapor bulbs on East Avenue.

To Jim DeMint,

Have you or a loved one been injured in an auto accident?

You have put forth the single most practical solution to government overspending of the entire midterm election season. While every single candidate touts their commitment to fiscal responsibility and doing more with less, you have stepped up to the plate and suggested that we should end all congressional earmarks for both parties.

While I doubt that such a sweeping change could gain a foothold in the current political climate, just having you suggest it probably caused two-thirds of the house to soil their designer trousers. It was worth every penny.

On a side note, your idea to fire female public school teachers caught having pre-marital sex is the worst idea since David Hasselhoff’s Greatest Hits CD. If you are that concerned with morality I propose a committee of female public school teachers who have the power to fire politicians who cheat on their spouses.

To The Tea Party,

            Keep the flat tax and drop the nut jobs. The Republicans may think of you as the embarrassing cousin and fight to keep you out of leadership, but several of your ideas are common sense and we could use them. Also, please try and refrain from using Hitler on any more billboards.

To the entire Legislative Body,

            Get your crap together. We have a Republican House and a Democratic Congress which means one of two scenarios can play out:

•  Each party could use every single issue as a pissing contest while the people who fund your salaries become nothing more than pawns in partisan wrangling.
• Both of you could acknowledge that the strength of our system lies on the existence of, and cooperation among, differing ideologies to bring about a common good.

 I prefer option number two. The Republicans are so bent on repealing “Obama care” in its filthy liberal entirety they are unwilling to acknowledge that it contains provisions (such as insurance companies not being able to drop you when you get sick) that are widely supported. You may not agree with the all the words said, but at least he Democrats started the conversation.

Conversely, the Democrats feel that not extending the Bush-era tax cuts to the wealthy is the hill to die on, it isn’t. Also, it is fine to fight for important provisions in the health care bill, but allowing some Republican input and tweaking could streamline its effectiveness while allowing it to be more readily fundable and accepted.

And could someone please simplify the Federal Tax code? I realize that doing so would ensure the demise of H&R Block, but if I could just be a given a simple percentage that I owed each year I would not feel the need to own a graphing calculator.