Back to Last Ounce of Courage:
- So, to compensate for the supposed ban on religion, the Christmas pageant is about aliens visiting Earth for the birth of a king and to get a pot of gold. Do the authors seriously have that little knowledge of the outside world that they think the only plays possible about Christmas are focused on the activity and the only way to write around a supposed ban on Christmas is to turn it into a ham-fisted play about aliens? No Christmas Carols or Night Before Christmases? You know what, I'll just leave this here. There are FIFTEEN plays based around Dickens' A Christmas Carol in this aggregate alone.
- At least they have some sort of lip service that Muslims and Jews and even Atheists should be allowed to do what they want to do, whether it's Hanukkah or whatever Muslim holiday is taking place around that time (I'm leaving this intentionally vague since the Muslim calendar only has 354 days per year, and thus, it's liable to change.)
- Operation Christmas. Seriously? What's the point of having a codename if it's not going to hide what's going to happen?
- Is it just me or does Madison look exactly like Laura Dern? Not as a kid, as a 40-year old. I just watched The Tale and I can't unsee it.
- A nativity scene on a private citizen's front lawn and a Christmas scene and a Christmas Tree on a courthouse lawn are entirely uncontroversial.
- No stations playing Christmas music... Here's something about Chicago: Starting in November, earlier than later, 93.9 WLIT goes from being a popular Adult Contemporary station to an All-Christmas-All-The-Fucking-Time station. It quickly becomes the #1 station in the Chicagoland area and it stays on top until the Christmas music stops on December 26. And bear in mind, Chicago is a pretty fucking blue city. Not only haven't we had a Republican mayor since 1931, the City Council has had exactly one Republican alderman since I was born. You can chalk that up to machine politics if you want, but even if that's true, that only furthers my point that this claim is fucking asinine.
- Goddamit, that trucker rapping over "We Three Kings" is giving me serious Saving Christmas flashbacks.
- Why is Columbus Day the go-to example of a non-controversial holiday? A holiday named after an Italian explorer who committed genocide against the natives of Hispaniola, and despite being credited as the discoverer of America, not only didn't discover it (Leif Erickson beat him to it half a millennium prior), but didn't even set foot on the North American continent (though in his fourth voyage, he did spend some time covering the east coast of Central America looking for a passage to the Indian Ocean and briefly spent time on Panama's mainland), and insisted to his dying day that he didn't discover a new world (even after other explorers figured out this wasn't actually India).
- The cinematography reminds me of some of the shakier camera movements in a Lars von Trier movie, at least until it doesn't.
- Bob gets fired as mayor by the city council. This isn't possible. They can only be impeached or removed by a recall election (barring losing an election or resigning). They can't be removed this quickly.
- And that space play is a "historical look at our glorious beginnings?" I feel like I'm high right now.
- So... at the end of the pageant, they show the soldier's last dispatch from Iraq/Afghanistan, a Christmas message to his wife and babies... which ends with him and his troop getting blown the fuck up. And this is viewed as a heartwarming reminder of how valuable freedom is and not just "what the fuck? Did these kids hijack this play about space aliens to show us a snuff film?" WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE. Scratch that, WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH AN AMERICA THAT THINKS THIS IS A GOOD THING?
- And, of course, somehow he heard it on the radio, despite it not being broadcast on the radio. God or mental illness? In these movies, is there even much of a difference?
Comparing the Universal Oneness of All Life to Yo Mama since 2010.
I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.
I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense the world is mad.