Month: December 2005

Henry Ford, the Klan

Reading about the Ford Motor Company caving into the Mullah Dobson and withdrawing ads from gay-friendly/advocacy publications, I saw a mention of this book: The International Jew, the World’s Foremost Problem. Micah Ford
I didn’t know that Henry Ford Sr was such a bigot. It was more common/acceptable at the beginning of the last century, but I didn’t realize he had bought a newspaper expressly to disseminate his anti-Jewish rants.

Further Google searches on the title displayed a result from the Klan. That Klan, the cowards in the pointy hoods. I’m not surprised that they have a website — as you’re reading now, any fool can do this — but I just didn’t think it would be so open. No links. Find it yourself if you need to. I’m trying to forget I saw it, even though it was just a page of text.

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Holiday Grabbag 2005

Spent some time over the past few days putting together a holiday gift CD.

This is how it turned out. I published it as an iMix at the iTunes Music Store if you want to add any of this to your own collection.

I tried to mix up the styles a bit without dipping into the overly familiar (no Bing Crosby or Little Drummer Boy, though I did find a version by Hendrix that might have suited). And I have included an after dinner joke story to help with digestion. But once more I realize the time to think about this is in the heat of summer if I want a good selection of material to work with.

  • A Christmas/Kwanzaa/Solstice/Chanukah/Ramadan/Boxing Day Song/Christine Lavin • The Runaway Christmas Tree
  • ‘Zat You, Santa Claus? • Louis Armstrong & The Commanders • 20th Century Masters – The Christmas Collection: The Best of Louis Armstrong
  • Welcome Christmas (Reprise) • Boris Karloff • How the Grinch Stole Christmas
  • Christmas Time Is Here (Vocal) • Vince Guaraldi Trio • A Charlie Brown Christmas
  • Must Be Santa (Polka) • Brave Combo • Must Be Santa! The Rounder Christmas Album
  • O Holy Night • Rickie Lee Jones, Suzie Katayama & The Chieftains • The Bells of Dublin
  • Gaudete • Mediaeval Baebes • A Winter’s Night
  • The Nutcracker Suite • The Brian Setzer Orchestra • Boogie Woogie Christmas
  • The Rebel Jesus • The Chieftains & Jackson Browne • The Bells of Dublin
  • Coventry Carol • Suzanne Vega • Celebrate the Season
  • The Bricklayer’s Lament • Gerard Hoffnung
  • Jingle Bell Rock • The Ventures • The Ventures’ Christmas Album
  • Rusty Chevrolet • Da Yoopers • Culture Shock
  • Christmas Wrapping • The Waitresses
  • Thanks For Christmas • Three Wise Men (XTC)
  • Merry Christmas Baby • B.B. King
  • Happy Christmas (War Is Over) • U2 • Live on RTE, 1988

I hope you find some things to listen to, either new and refreshing or familiar: we need both, I think.

so what did he say?

Strategy Word Count:

Word counts from the “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq,” put out by the White House to correspond with President Bush’s speech this morning.

Terrorists: 59
Kill: 9
Torture: 0

Victory: 34
Success: 17
Win: 8

Casualties: 1
Death count: 0
Backdoor draft: 0

“Our strategy is working”: 2
Reality: 1
Truth: 0

Saddam: 31
Osama: 4
September 11th: 1

Only one mention of the event that changed everything, but almost 8 times as many references to Saddam as to Osama bin Laden.

the roots of The War On Christmas run deep

Who knew the secular humanists had been working their plan since WWI?
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And as for the old canard that the use of Xmas means that we’re “X-ing out Christ” read on: surely a reporter for the National Review couldn’t be on the side of the atheistic hordes?
John J. Miller on Christmas on National Review Online:

How did Christmas become Xmas?

It’s Greek to us — literally. The Greek word for Christ is Xristos. That’s where the X in Xmas comes from. There’s a Christian website called www.xristos.com. Here’s what it says: Xristos is a transliteration of the New Testament Greek word for Christ “criston.” The Greek letter Chi ‘c’ was retained to insure a connection to the roots and original texts, as well as visually represent the centrality of the cross in all. The visual symbol Chi-ro is also employed at various places by Xristos, recalling one of the earliest practices of the Christian community.

So referring to Christmas as Xmas is no sign of disrespect, as many people believe. But it helps to know its origins.

Knowing origins, or the refusal to think things through, is how these arguments start, after all.
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glad I didn’t read this a month ago

On the advice of Neil Gaiman, I picked up The King of Elfland’s Daughter and looked up some information on the author.

Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron Dunsany – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

The Gibbelins eat, as is well known, nothing less good than man. Their evil tower is joined to Terra Cognita, to the lands we know, by a bridge. Their hoard is beyond reason; avarice has no use for it; they have a separate cellar for emeralds and a separate cellar for sapphires; they have filled a hole with gold and dig it up when they need it. And the only use that is known for their ridiculous wealth is to attract to their larder a continual supply of food. In times of famine they have even been known to scatter rubies abroad, a little trail of them to some city of Man, and sure enough their larders would soon be full again.

I was a little surprised at this. I won’t say that my NaNoWriMo attempt is similar but there is something in the stuff I wrote that could be a very faint echo of this, though without the bloodthirsty aspect.

The Elfland book seems to be very good. Strong stuff though, needing to be taken in sips, not great draughts.

Now playing: Humpty Dumpty by Aimee Mann from the album “Lost in Space”