Holidays, …or “Hollow-Days”?

What is the point of a holiday? Is it just to have a day (or a week) off from work or school? Is it just to spend time with distant relatives you never spend time with otherwise? Is it just to kick back, have fun, and watch the big game?

Or is it something more?

There’s a line in ‘Rocky‘ that illustrates this point perfectly. Rocky Balboa goes on a date with a girl he likes (Adrian), on Thanksgiving. He’s completely oblivious to that fact, though. Adrian even explicitly points out that it’s a special day, but Rocky responds, “To you, it’s Thanksgiving. To me, it’s Thursday.”

Think about that…

Charlie Brown, the War on Christmas, and what it means for the culture-at-large

Just saw my first “War on Christmas” story for 2012, from a group called ‘Arkansas Society of Freethinkers‘ doing the annual secularist freak-out.

But as you read this, remember: the repeated refrain we hear in the media is that there IS no such ‘war’, and that it’s a contrived creation of the “Christian right” and Fox News.

From Statepress.com:

“This isn’t about Charlie Brown or Christmas, it’s about the separation of church and state,” Anne Orsi, the vice president The Arkansas Society of Freethinkers, said in her statement voicing opposition to the actions taken by the Terry Elementary School in Little Rock, Ark.

The school took students to a [stage] performance of “Merry Christmas Charlie Brown,” reinvigorating a debate between the pious and secular.

The school should not have taken the children to see this play, regardless of giving the option to attend. Not because it violates the Constitution or breaks freedom of religion, but because the state should not have any say in the spiritual or religious education of our children…