Alternate headline: Conservatives launch war on Christmas. https://t.co/WcukOmB6kn
— Donald G. Carder (@theangrymick) December 6, 2019
The first resort of the modern American “patriot”…
Grant only made Christmas a federal holiday as an overture to Southern Baptists. And this is how they pay it back. https://t.co/2rCF1G421u
— Malarksist Revolutionary (@agraybee) December 8, 2019
Per the Washington Post, “‘I feel so bad for the children’: N.C. towns cancel Christmas parades after demands to remove Confederate groups”:
… In a Wednesday night video message, Wake Forest Mayor Vivian Jones announced that the town’s downtown board of directors voted to cancel the Dec. 14 Christmas parade out of concern that “outside agitators” would show up to protest or defend the Sons and Daughters of the Confederacy, who planned to march in the event.
The decision in Wake Forest, located less than 20 miles outside Raleigh, comes almost a week after another nearby town, Garner, N.C., announced it was canceling its Christmas parade over possible protests of a float sponsored by a local Confederate group, the Raleigh News & Observer reported.
By the end of her video announcement, Jones was fighting tears…
Wake Forest Police Chief Jeff Leonard said in a statement that one group had notified the town of its plans to protest, but that the police department was worried that more agitators would “show up, wreak havoc then leave.” The town had received “credible information” about a “growing number of outside groups” planning to attend to either defend or oppose the Sons and Daughters of the Confederacy, according to a statement. The town had not received any threats, officials clarified, but Leonard and Jones said they still believed safety could be put at risk.
“We aren’t happy telling kids they can’t attend or participate in this year’s parade, but it’s better than trying to explain to a parent whose child was injured why we chose to proceed despite so many warning signs,” Leonard said. “No matter what side of this issue you are on, our focus is public safety and at this point, the risk of moving forward with the parade simply outweighs any possible reward.”…
Blaming the ‘outside agitators’ — another proud Suthrun tradition, of course.
Fun-fact: the actual All-American Christmas tradition of the Puritans was to spend the day working and then return home to houses with no Christmas tree.
Christmas trees are a European tradition we didn’t import until the mid-1800s. https://t.co/aydUt4EBSK
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) December 5, 2019
Our proud Puritan forebears actually banned the celebration of Christmas — it was considered ‘pagan’, i.e., Papist (Catholic). Christmas trees became an aspirational holiday accessory when hordes of desperate German refugees started producing tchotchkes cheaply enough for the American middle class to imitate Queen Victoria’s annual tribute to her German husband. (Which, of course, didn’t stop those good, patriotic Heartland Americans from vilifying the Germans as filthy disease-carrying criminals who couldn’t be bothered to learn English or teach their hordes of subnormal offspring decent behavior.)
Americans during the period around the Civil War were desperate for “unifying” Kinder, Küche, Kirche “traditions” to plaster over the ugly realities of widespread social dissent. (Lots of us remember the sentimental Little Women Christmas scenes, but when you actually read Alcott’s bestselling children’s books, the backgrounds — even in New England — are of war widows desperate to feed their children, wandering ‘tramp’ veterans with PTSD, and 14-year-old orphans turned out to support themselves or starve.) Just in case you thought Fox News was the first to weaponize The War on Xmas.
"It is really a sad day for America. It is, I think, going to hurt people's Christmas experience because this is going to be playing in the background. Instead of Bing Crosby's Christmas album, we're going to have impeachment," Whitaker said.
— Josh Wingrove (@josh_wingrove) December 5, 2019
I mean, that’s my only Christmas wish.
— Kerri "I'm tired" Ann (@misskerriann) December 6, 2019
NotMax
CarpetAstroturfbaggers?Bex
Since this is an open thread, I’ll repost this from the gifts thread. Are you Catholic, Orthodox or even high church Protestant? Or just looking for something to wear on St. Patrick’s Day? Try Sock Religious: https://sockreligious.com/
NotMax
No edit. Fix.
CarpetAstroturfbaggers.dmsilev
One could argue that the traditional representation of Santa and his elves is basically a plantation setup, so in that sense maybe it’s appropriate to have Confederate Christmas.
jeffreyw
We will wage our Xmas battle at Applebee’s. The war on Thanksgiving went swimmingly there. I had the chicken.
West of the Rockies
Well, they’ve declared their true priorities: racism and bigotry Trump a celebration of their so-called Christian faith.
Believe them when they show who they are.
dmsilev
I’m dreaming of a White House Impeachment,
Just like the ones I used to know.
Where the treetops glisten and children listen
To House hearings in the snow.
Kent
Christmas trees actually pre-date Christianity. They were borrowed from the Roman holiday of Saturnalia in which Romans would bring greenery into their houses during the winter solstice and give gifts and party. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturnalia
NotMax
@jeffreyw
Yule be sorry.
;)
Mike in NC
Wasn’t Bing Crosby in reality a drunken asshole who beat his kids?
Cheryl Rofer
The Claremont United Methodist Church has something to say about the children.
hells littlest angel
“All of us at Fox News would like to wish African-Americans a Happy Kwanzukah, or whatever the fuck they call it.”
jeffreyw
@NotMax: I go there for the brief conversations around the salad bar. Great place to pick up new jokes.
SFAW
@jeffreyw:
I call bullshit! David Brooks has never been known to tell a joke. Well, at least, not a funny one.
J R in WV
@jeffreyw:
Shouldn’t you be using the snark font?
Baud
@Cheryl Rofer:
Hillary is Methodist. Maybe they’ve all got no more fucks to give.
SFAW
@dmsilev:
Only in Holland (etc.) Otherwise, I think the elves are white.
J R in WV
@Cheryl Rofer:
United Methodist Church nativity display impresses me.
Horrible, but wonderful for being to the point. Don’t even need a sign, just the display makes the point perfectly.
If every church in the country put up that display, Trump would have to resign and run away, very far away. But most are too chicken to do something that in your face to the MAGA Bigots.
dmsilev
@SFAW: So, more of a company-town sweatshop factory then?
jeffreyw
@J R in WV:
No
dmsilev
@J R in WV:
A large number of churches wouldn’t do so because they’re afraid of the MAGA bigots, but rather because they agree with/are the bigots.
SFAW
@dmsilev:
Fair enough
ola azul
@Baud:
Hillary, like Al Gore, both became more forthcoming peeps *after* they, ahem, lost.
For me, it’sa indictment of our maladjusted society, not them, that the world warn’t ready for em just as they is.
debbie
@Cheryl Rofer:
That is a very powerful statement. It would be nice if other cities did the same thing.
dmsilev
@SFAW: History has largely forgotten the time Santa brought in the Pinkertons to crush the nascent Elvish Union.
Patricia Kayden
I guess refugees will be banned from red cities, counties and perhaps whole states.
khead
@Cheryl Rofer:
That is some high quality trolling.
Nicole
A former coworker of mine is Jewish on both sides, but her mother’s family had always put up a decorated tree in December, and she refused to give up the tradition after she got married. My coworker’s father was mortified about it, but his wife held firm. So, every December, my coworker’s mom put up a decorated tree right in front of their big bay window, and her father made sure the curtains were closed the entire month so their neighbors wouldn’t see.
Martin
Reminder that the GOP released articles of impeachment timed to pre-empt the broadcast of Clinton lighting the national Christmas tree. They held the vote 5 days before Christmas.
May all of our yule logs be fueled by the flesh of Republicans.
David C
It’s not even Christmas, yet! Don’t rush the season. In church this morning we learned the proper holiday greeting: “Have a penitent Advent, you miserable sinner!”
Yep, Calvinist through and through.
Martin
@Cheryl Rofer: That’s much more U/U than Methodist. Good on ’em.
zhena gogolia
@Cheryl Rofer:
All Breznican’s comments there are beautiful.
Villago Delenda Est
Echoes of treason.
Fuck all Confederate sympathizers with rusty, unlubed chain saws.
Kathleen
@Mike in NC: One of several articles in The Googlz. Evidently one son denied what his brother Gary wrote.
https://people.com/archive/cover-story-the-sad-ballad-of-bing-and-his-boys-vol-19-no-11/
Kathleen
@ola azul: +1. Amen to that! I loved her interview with Stern.
Bill Arnold
This (top post) story is so sad. It’s a near certainty that the Town leadership was steeped in right with propaganda promoting baseless fear of people protesting Confederacy supporters. (supporters is a fair word, imo)
I could see towns being legitimately worried about extra policing costs for fear that the event would become a magnet for both protestors and supporters of the Confederacy, but no, their statement is about worry about possible violence to children.
scav
@Cheryl Rofer: Claremont. Bravo.
Mary G
Has anyone put up this video of suburban moose battling with awesome commentary? I was sure it would be front paged by now.
ola azul
@Kathleen:
I did, too. Comfortable. Confident. Accessible.
Get the sense, and will freely concede am just a dumb fisherman who don’t know shit (ask anyone; they’s more’n happy to gleefully to confirm), that, cuz of the ridiculous partisan double-standard, the Dem candidates were at sumpin of a disadvantage.
Got no immediate answer, just frustrating to see (surprise!) Cassandra to call it right yet again.
Raven
@ola azul: I wrote you about my cow nose ray battle the other day but you was gone!
Mary G
@Kathleen: I was in an eating disorder rehab with a member of Gary’s family and he participated in the family sessions. They were seriously messed up. My dad also played golf with der Bing when he was a Jesuit and wasn’t a fan.
ola azul
@Raven:
You n I is been boats passing unknowingly in the nights. Responded! Twice!
We ain’t jived on timing, but will say I enjoy the recounting of yer adventures vicarious.
SFAW
@dmsilev:
I don’t know whether to be gratified or scared that, when you posted your original “sweatshop” comment, I immediately thought of the Pinkertons.
Mary G
RIP René Auberjonois.
Raven
@ola azul: My knee is just about healed!
SFAW
@Mary G:
Damn.
Baud
@Kathleen:
I’m halfway through that.
It made me realize that I don’t know how I’d be dealing right now if she wasn’t as strong a person as she is.
sukabi
@SFAW: pretty sure David Brooks is a joke.
lamh36
Evening BJ…back on my pop culture grind.
Been a BIG week for trailers, starting with the new official trailer forBlack Widow
Followed by the trailer for Daniel Craig’s FINAL Bond film: No Time To Die
These two opened the week and of the two, I was most impressed by the Bond trailer…Lashana Lynch looks SOOO good, too bad she won’t be the replacement Bond…but can’t wait to see more of what/who Rami Malek’s villain character is.
Duane
I feel bad for the children who are subjected to racist Christmas parades.
ola azul
@Raven:
Worth it, am guessing. W/o extenuating circumstances, a body don’t just willy-nilly donate Penn reels to the briny deep w/o protest!
Raven
@ola azul: Yea and when it hits you don’t know what it is. I’ve had redfish do the same thing.
Tehanu
Just as in S.J. Perelman’s classic “Waiting for Santy”!
lamh36
@lamh36: Continuing with new trailers, the middle of the week saw the premiere of the first official full trailer of Disney’s live action Mulan , which looks to be more “epic” story, more closely related to the Chinese telling of the Legend of Mulan.
Yesterday saw the premiere of a film that I’d heard a bit about, not much, but a bit. It stars Ryan Reynolds and I think he’s found his sweet spot when it comes to the types of movie characters he plays well! It’s called FREE GUY and it’s another Disney property.
Major Major Major Major
I somehow doubt it would be the anti confederate protesters getting violent…
lamh36
@lamh36: And finally, just a few hours ago, the trailer for the Wonder Woman sequel, came out. You can check it out here:
Wonder Woman 1984
Wonder Woman is my FAVORITE DC superhero, so of course this will be a day 1 viewing for my next summer.
Out of all the trailers premiering this week the one that stood out the most though was Mulan. I love the animated film. I liked, not loved, some of the animated live action remakes, but this one looks to be going for a more serious EPIC tone with no singing (none obvious singing that is) and actual Chinese style action sequences. Also too…it gave me the feels so now I kinda can’t wait to see it on the big screen
ola azul
@Raven:
Worth it, am guessing. W/o extenuating circumstances, a body don’t just willy-nilly donate Penn reels to the briny deep w/o protest!
@Baud:
If I hadda guess (and I do!), I’d say Hillary felt obliged to play the game as she knew it (i.e. she was a female and she hadda comport herself according to the manacled strictures as she’d lived them). It’sa weird age in which we live, and I hold her blameless for not knowing the best way to proceed.
Had she confronted the singular menace that is Trump differently, no one knows how it’d have worked out.
Baud
@ola azul:
Yeah, you can play what if until you’re head explodes.
I don’t think anyone knows how best to proceed right now.
ola azul
@Baud:
In the immortal words of Bob Evans (I think! new phone, can’t seem to look shit up while posting): Don’t nobody know nothing.
This is why, e.g., we got alla these intramural fights bout whether it’s better to go big or get squishy.
mrmoshpotato
When are the men’s rights/states’ rights whackjobs going to start claiming Christmas is about celebrating the Lost Cause?
It’s been 154 years since you were handed your racist asses by the Union! GET OVER IT!
debbie
@Nicole:
My Jewish family celebrated Christmas. After an Orthodox rabbi moved in next door and disparaged my family’s membership at the Reform temple, my father placed the Christmas tree in the window facing the rabbi’s kitchen. During Hannukah, the menorah was placed alongside the Christmas tree. The Rabbi’s curtains remained drawn for the season.
debbie
@Kathleen:
I did too. Considering how many years I hated that man, he does do really good interviews.
delk
Shouldn’t Matt Whitaker be working on Trump’s toilet flushing problem?
mrmoshpotato
?All I want for Christmas is this Soviet shitpile mobster conman crime family frog marched out of the People’s House. Baby!?
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Our next film we plan to see in theaters is going to be Knives Out. I think at least half the attraction is seeing Daniel Craig as a southern lawman. The other half being the always-entertaining spectacle of seeing an ensemble of great actors playing a dysfunctional family of terrible people. I think our last film from that genre was August: Osage County.
zhena gogolia
@Mary G:
Oh, that’s so sad!
Baud
@debbie:
Agree about Stern. I’m conflicted.
debbie
@Baud:
Lol, I had more than a few arguments with NYC cab drivers who insisted on listening to him full blast.
Glad to see your post; I didn’t realize they posted the entire interview. This will be my background listening for the next couple of days.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Well, the White House/congressional R’s could always put on Stephen Miller’s Christmas album during impeachment as a counter. Everybody knows his greatest hits “Do You Hate Who I Hate” and “I’m Dreaming of a White Ethnostate”.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@delk: Wouldn’t that be a job for Joe “The Plumber”?
Villago Delenda Est
@Mary G: Damn it, damn it, damn it.
Dick Cheney is still animated, too.
Baud
@debbie:
There are four parts on Youtube, which I assume is all of it.
lamh36
@lamh36: FYI…I fleshed out a little bit more of my reactions to each here at my blog is ya care to see
Trailer Palooza or I’m Back Bishes!!!
https://nellybellsplace.com/2019/12/08/trailer-palooza-or-im-back-bishes/
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
But that’s directed by RUIN Johnson! He raped and murdered every TRUE Star Wars fan’s childhood by making The Last Jedi
/s
lamh36
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: ooh, I’ve heard good things about Knives Out, but I may not have a chance to see it in the theatres. But it’s DEF on my to watch list!
Patricia Kayden
ola azul
@Baud:
Fair enough. For me, it ain’t no differnt than every other motherfucking asshole in times of yore (viz: Rick Wilson, Steve Schmidt, Butcher Bill Kristol et al.) who’re *now* fellow travelers but once were, if not enemies, at least not friends.
Like FDR is once purported to’ve said (paraphrase, mightta got it wrong, did I mention I can’t look shit up en media res?): I’d give the devil a fair hearing if it’d help me vanquish the opponents at hand (or somr like that).
Baud
@ola azul:
You gotta do what you gotta do.
debbie
@Baud:
Google says there’s a fifth part on youtube. This makes it about 2 and a half hours; that must be some kind of record for Stern.
Kay
We had a little controversy at the Christmas parade. I was waiting for the marching band to go by so I could wave to my son and he could pretend he didn’t see me, as is our holiday custom, and a man standing in front of me yelled “Make America Great!” when the firetrucks went by and a woman said, very loudly, “EEEWW!’ which I assume was a comment on Trump, not America. He turned around and they glared at each other but that was it. I did love her spontaneous revulsion, though. His was very practiced- hers was right from the gut.
Baud
@debbie:
Saved. Thanks!
Sab
@debbie: My best friend in junior high school was Jewish, and her mother had decorated windows in a department store before she got married. So they always had a gorgeous christmas tree, on casters so that they could roll it out of sight.
glory b
@debbie: One has to admit, Stern has grown. He’s apologized to a lot of people, made amends and changed. Maybe because he married a Pittsburgher.
He’s a GREAT interviewer.
In an interview with Terry Gross from Fresh Air (yes, npr, don’t judge me, I don’t listen to their news programming), she was asked who she thought was the best in the business. She said no doubt, Howard Stern.
Scuffletuffle
@lamh36: Saw it..good fun flick and Chris Evans, what’s not to like!
ola azul
@Kay:
Testament to the uncorrupted Dionysian over the inflexible Apollinian.
That, and Robert McNamara can still go fuck himself.
mrmoshpotato
@delk: I thought Whitaker only knew about big dick toilets…
debbie
@glory b:
When I left NYC and moved back to OH, I was so homesick, I started listening to Stern (on a local station) just to hear an accent I recognized. Listening to full shows, I quickly realized that he was much more than he had seemed. He also grew up along the way.
I also heard Terry Gross’s interview with him (two parts, I believe), and it was really great.
Villago Delenda Est
@Patricia Kayden: Ann Coulter’s greatest regret has always been that she was born 50 years too late to be the Bitch of Buchenwald.
glory b
@debbie: His recountings of his conversations with his parents are hilarious.
Mike in NC
We saw Knives Out last week in Tampa and it was very good.
Searcher
Can confirm; my German ancestors moved here sometime in the 1840’s (not not as part of the Forty-Eighters) and didn’t stop speaking German until WWI.
mrmoshpotato
@debbie:
@Baud: Yes – the interview is 5 parts. Make a playlist! I did! :)
JR
Puritans also executed a ruler in their home country who was very much like Trump.
Splitting Image
Ben Jonson commented on the “War on Christmas” in The Alchemist, which he wrote in 1610, around the same time that Will Shakespeare was writing The Tempest.
Ananias is one of a pair of insufferable Puritans in the play who hate Catholics. Christmas being a Catholic holiday, they hate that too. These fuckers haven’t changed in four hundred years.
ola azul
@Villago Delenda Est:
This kinda reax is inneresting to me.
Not to say Ann Coulter don’t deserve to get slagged on. (She do!)
Just that: If I’ma vilify someone, I’ma wanna come correct.
Ann Coulter, to me, is of a piece with the likes of Dick “Literally Heartless” Cheney. Expect she believes alla inhumane shit she propounds. Evil not stupid —-> like Rush. Like Tucker. Like Hannity (tho, to be assiduously fair, Hannity is both stupid *and* evil). Granted, in the final analysis, don’t make no tangible differnce that Coulter ain’t stupid but is evil, ‘cept to say, from the liberal indictment perspective: Coulter passes for what’s known as a “thought-leader” in conservative circles. As such, guess what I’ma saying, imperfectly, is I unnerstand the impulse to condemn Coulter, just that it weakens if not neuters yer argument to leans so excessively on hyperbole.
We live in perilous times, granted, and the route we could go is been presaged by histry. Understood. Just saying the understandable impulse to paint a horrible human being (Coulter) as something she presently ain’t (not to say she couldn’t, just that she presently ain’t) is less than persuasive.
imo
debbie
@glory b:
“Don’t be an idiot!”
Kathleen
@Mary G: I feel for his children. Very sad story.
David ??Booooooo?? Koch
namekarB
@J R in WV:
Actually most churches do not want to jeopardize their tithe cash flow when the old, white MAGA members get upset and move to another church
Kathleen
@Baud: I’m ashamed to say that if I were in her situation I probably would have withdrawn from public life and nursed a lot of bitterness, which is something I don’t like about myself. One of the reasons I admire her so much is that she honors the calling of her heart by using her gifts, talents and influence to help people, though she’s been demonized, insulted, and criticized mercilessly and publicly humiliated in her personal life. I want to experience her ability to keep her eye on the prize in my own life but I allow other people’s disapproval to derail me.
Kathleen
@debbie: I know! I despised him too. He made reference to therapy. Maybe he’s a kinder, gentler Howard. I did read his first book when it was published and enjoyed it. He came across differently in the book than he did on the air. I also remember that Robin Quiver revealed she had experienced abuse in her childhood and stated how much she appreciated Stern’s support and compassion.
delk
@mrmoshpotato: well, Trump is one.
gwangung
@lamh36: Lots of changes in this version. And all the versions are making the title character MORE of what she was in the original: awesome, determined, kickass woman.
I approve (less so about the games the Chinese government is playing with it, but…)
Kathleen
@debbie: One of my favorite parts was how her mom fan girled over Keith Richards.
Kathleen
@glory b: That doesn’t surprise me. He’s had the reputation for years with his peers.
TomatoQueen
I am pleased to see a church of my denomination acting its doctrine. Doubtless some senior Methodist administrator will frown or otherwise fuss, while hemming and hawing and finding yet another excuse to fail to embrace the rainbow. Still got that sub-denomination, the Backsliding Methodist? That might be because the faith is a seamless garment.
Kathleen
@debbie: I’ll have to check that out. Thanks!
mrmoshpotato
@David ??Booooooo?? Koch: I remember Jon Stewart trying to figure out what racist, white children were watching Megyn Kelly at 9PM.
Steeplejack
@Kay:
I love your little anecdotes of heartland Americana and traditional family life. Also love your political analysis.
It doesn’t get said enough. I hope you don’t feel that you are writing into a vacuum here.
Villago Delenda Est
@ola azul: A thoughtful comment, albeit spelled a bit unconventionally.
Still, Coulter epitomizes the Nazi impulse of the right. Even the Jewish ones, like Shapiro and Miller.
J R in WV
I have to say, I was stunned when the Methodists had an international conference and they voted to exclude gay ministers, stop gay marriages, etc. I suspect individual churches will decide to go with local beliefs and let the internationals be bigots if they want in their locales.
The American Episcopal Church has run, not walked, away from all that gender-based bigotry. Their bishops (and priests) sometimes wear rainbow stoles, which means exactly what you would think it means. I’m way not religious, but I admire those who are and who work for freedom along those issues.
Azurite
@David C: Not in my Congregational Church, my minister proudly displays a rainbow flag. Not all Calvinists are evil. The concept of Predestination is unfortunately misunderstood by those who will only see what they want to see.
debbie
@Steeplejack:
Seconded. “As is our holiday custom” is but one of many jewels.
debbie
@Kathleen:
My youngest brother got Sirius so he could keep listening to Stern. This is the brother who told me how great Trump was going to be. If we ever speak again, one of the first things I will ask him is what he thought about the interview.
Original Lee
@J R in WV: That vote from the Methodist conference was so messed up. Being a recent convert to Methodism, I had to have it explained. (I may still not understand correctly, though.) Apparently there’s a rule that delegates from non-U.S. churches are allowed to vote on items that only apply to the U.S. If the non-U.S. delegates had not been allowed to vote, the outcome would have been different.
Steeplejack
@debbie:
Inorite. Her relationship with the kid is hilarious.
Bill Arnold
@glory b:
Howard Stern interviewing D.J. Trump, Ivanka and Don Jr, in 2006. We were warned!
Trump Does Math! (“What is 17 times 6?”)
Ivanka said it’s not a practical question. Don Jr tried to guess, twice, wrongly. D.J. Trump asserted the wrong answer in con man style.
High-res link with context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMIKzUAY8n4
Bill Arnold
@Bill Arnold:
Correction, in the longer clip Don Jr got it wrong 3 times.
And D.J. Trump managed to convince some of the people in the room that his incorrect answer was correct.
glory b
@Bill Arnold: Yep. You could have learned everything you needed to know about the Trumps from the Stern show.
David C
@Azurite: The comment was said tongue in cheek – sorry I wasn’t clear. I do think that Calvin’s view of mankind’s sinful nature has merit, and is why we should be distrustful of power being in one person’s hands. Things like public education and representative government come from our Puritan past. It’s also interesting that some of our more liberal faiths (UU, UCC, PCUSA) have their roots in the teachings of Calvin.
Zinsky
I long for the days when you could just smash a pie in the face of your local right-wing tool, as shown so delightfully here: https://youtu.be/dS91gT3XT_A
pluky
My goto response to the “merry christmas” absolutists is “ave sol invictus”.
Just One More Canuck
@Bill Arnold: “not a practical question”? Yes, what possible practical use could arithmetic have?
cleek
Yes.
In this case, however, it’s probably 100% true.
I live in a town on the west side of Raleigh (Wake Forest is on the north side). And this summer and fall we had months of violence and shouting over a now-removed confederate loser statue. Once word got out that the statue was going to be removed, confederate losers started coming to protest. Once word got out about the confederate losers people started coming out to protest them. Once word got out about that, confederates from all over the country started showing up because they heard antifa was there and they wanted to fight. That brought more anti-confederate protesters and people who wanted to fight them. Etc..
Literally, outside agitators came to my little town of 5000 people to rant and rave at other groups of outside agitators. Again: violence many arrests. Every Saturday for months, these groups would show up and make a mess of our downtown. They’d drive around waving flags, honking their horns, yelling at each other, fighting on the streets. Residents hated it. Businesses hated it. The local police hated it.
Similar things happened in Chapel Hill, thanks to a statue at UNC. Durham, too.
So, when Wake Forest and Garner were looking at the possibility of having their Christmas parades turned into shouting matches between confederate losers and protesters and the inevitable counter-protesters, they threw in the towel.