Merry Conditional Christmas … Please Disregard If Not Applicable

I effectively quit Facebook a little over a year ago (Oct 20, 2015 to be precise). Effectively, but not completely. I stopped posting updates to my wall and stopped commenting on others’ posts, pics, etc. But as very few people followed me in my return to email–not that I went Jerry Maguire on them or anything–I still need to use its messaging, lest I stop contacting friends and family altogether.

When I go back, I try to be as quick as possible. Kind of like sneaking a quick peek at a nice skirt walking by. I open the main page, immediately scan the top row of icons and determine whether there are any messages or new contacts. Sometimes I click on the little globe icon to see if there’s any activity from “important” friends–but generally not.

And sometimes I get sucked in. Something catches my eye and my quick peek becomes a glance which then becomes an ogle. Before I know it, I’m sliding down that rabbit hole greased with the idiotic comments and clickbait that got me to abandon the blue and white digital cesspool in the first place.

Yesterday, Christmas Day, I went to check messages and deliver a few good tidings and seasons greetings to friends. Something caught my eye on my news feed. A very long-winded “Merry Christmas” full of qualifiers. So I scrolled own and saw another. Then another. And more and more and more.

Many people were posting something to the effect of “Merry Christmas! But Only If You Celebrate Christmas. If You Don’t Then, Sorry, Please Just Ignore This.” My evangelical atheist friends had to qualify theirs with: “Although I Don’t Believe in God, I Wish Those Of You Who Do A Happy Holiday Season.”

If you want to say “Merry Christmas” say “Merry Christmas”. People know who you’re talking to. Your Jewish friends aren’t going to hate you. Your Muslim friends aren’t going to get offended. And your Atheist friends… well they’re probably exchanging a few gifts anyways.

When Ramadan roles around, nobody says “Happy Ramadan… but only to my Muslim friends.” Muslims don’t add qualifiers to “Ramadan Mubarak” and Jews don’t offer conditional “Happy Hanukkahs”. No one really gives a shit if you say, write or sing “Merry Christmas”. Unless you’re writing it in the snow. On the hood of their car. With your pee.

This is not a rallying cry for that Bill O’Reilly and Fox News rubbish about the War On Christmas. People just need to stop being such annoying pussies and have a little faith in others. After all, it’s Christmastime!

I Hope Trump Wins

I want Donald Trump to become the next President of the United States of America. Not because I think he deserves it. Or that he is the best choice for the country. Or the world. Or that I agree with any of his politics. Or even that I think he’ll do a good job. Quite the opposite, in fact.

I think he is a disgusting, repugnant human being. He represents greed and racism and heartlessness. He is a vulgar, arrogant narcissist who is a very conceivable threat to global political stability, the quality of life in America and, most importantly, the environment. The world’s environment.

With all that said, why would I want him to win? Because he is the culmination of America. He is America. And it’s due time that America reaps what it sows. Even if such a predicament holds great potential to harm the rest of us. America needs a bigger taste of America before it will change.

Ever more felicitous are Jeremiah Wright’s words that caused such a hullabaloo during Obama’s first presidential campaign: “America’s chickens are coming home to roost.”

There Just Ain’t Room for Refugees in Canada

I need to work on my drawing skills. But I made a comic.

 

Helpful Profile Pic for Facebook Racists

A lot of my friends are not racist. It’s not like they’re antisemites or something. They just hate Muslims. And refugees — from “those kind” of countries. And rightly so. Refugees represent a threat to their safety and security. After all, the few Canadian terrorists there have been have all been born in Canada. They’ve not been refugees. So, let’s not help get that ball rolling. Best to keep our terror homegrown and let foreign children drown, starve and get sold into slavery. Or better yet, get picked up by ISIS/ISIL, al-Shabab, or some other radical asymmetrical warfare group that will mold them into a real threat.

And seeing as so many of them love to show their support for things by splashing colour overlays on their profile pics (ex: French flag, Pride flag, Pink October), I thought I could help them out. This profile pic could clear up any wrong impressions people may get about them from their posts and comments. But perhaps I should make a translucent version as well.

Five Seconds on Facebook Reconfirms My Reasons for Leaving

In the months preceding the Canadian federal election I began to see this growing trend of “acceptable prejudice” from many friends and friends of friends on Facebook. That typical Facebook World of people you know, people you knew and people you never will. But, of course, that was Stephen Harper’s election plan after all — divide and conquer. That’s why he hired the detestable and despicable Lynton Crosby to be his Campaign Manager of Propaganda & Fear. And it worked. Because it seems most people have very little capacity for independent critical thought. What I saw, day in and day out, was quite saddening. People, they really are the masses.

All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach.

I have a very low tolerance for intolerance, so most of my Facebook posts for the better part of 2015 were anti-Harper posts. And it got tiring. And heated. And somehow, Islamic cultural attire became the most important campaign issue facing the nation. I was honestly surprised at how many people are so vehemently anti-Muslim. And that this overtly racist sentiment (absolutely no different than antisemitism) is apparently quite acceptable to a great majority of people. Of Canadians. The idiotic fake driver’s license of a burka-covered face was quickly shared by an astounding number of people. Without even questioning its prejudice, let alone giving a half-second thought to its veracity.

By the skillful and sustained use of propaganda, one can make a people see even heaven as hell or an extremely wretched life as paradise.

I got into more than a few debates, dialogues and arguments with friends and strangers. And I realized — it’s not worth it. So in late September I decided that after the October 19th election I’d pack up my virtual Facebook bags and take a break. A two-week vacation, in fact. Two weeks from actual Facebook time that is. And I figured that if I spend an hour a day on Facebook that amounts to 365 hours a year. And that equals 15 days — or about two weeks. So on October 21st, with a very brief post simply asking people to get hold of me via email, phone or some other avenue, I stopped visiting Facebook.

And it’s been bliss.

However, after seeing news of the attacks in Paris I logged into Facebook to check on my friends who live there. I was relieved to see both are fine. (One of their friends was actually at the Bataclan. Thankfully, she made it out okay. Physically.) I then made the mistake of glancing at my newsfeed. I saw a friend of mine, his profile pic overlayed with the French flag, had a status asking people not to spread the hate because, obviously, all Muslims are not evil terrorists. The reply from a friend was as swift and seething as it was ignorant. But this, this is now par for the course in Canada. In the West. This is blatant, vocal racism is acceptable to a great many people. And there is apparently no shame in it. It even got “likes”.

I had only to scroll down one small flick of my finger to see another post of a similar vein. But this one, she was blaming the refugees! The people running away from the chaos! Her thoughts and prayers were with the people of Paris, but not with the millions of people displaced by war outside the French capital. Heartwarming. And, of course, she had people immediately support her call to close the gates and fuck ’em all.

Anyways, two ignorant posts were more than enough. I had confirmed my friends were safe and that was my reason for being there. It was time to quietly duck back out before I had another friend warn me about evil refugees and fucking jihadis. Maybe they don’t know The Forgotten Rebels were being sarcastic when they sang Bomb The Boats.

Blockquotes above are by Adolf Hitler.

The Ottawa Citizen Should Vet Their Ads

It’s not unheard of, or even rare, nowadays in this world of clicks and impressions and maximizing the online ad revenue of every single pixel. But that doesn’t make it excusable.

Today in The Ottawa Citizen, smack dab in the middle of an open letter titled “Fear-mongering shows contempt for a politics of mutual respect”, was an ad by Christianity.com justifying the genocide and apartheid currently underway in Palestine. It is promoting the very “wedge politics” and “fear-mongering” that the letter is denouncing.

Mind you, it only showed up when I read the letter on my phone, but was not there when I checked it on my PC.

The letter is not about what is happening in Israel and Palestine, and it is safe assume that it hit upon some keywords that Christianity.com was hoping to attract: fear-mongering, Harper, barbaric practices, etc.

Still, that does not absolve the news outlet of responsibility. Unless it was intentional. Then that, of course, is a different matter altogether.

Here’s a shortened screenshot of the letter:

Six Most Wanted under the Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act

Here is a proposed list of offenders under Bill S-7, the Canadian Conservative government’s Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act.

Stephen Harper, M.D.

If Stephen Harper were a doctor…

Conservatives Take Commanding Lead, Can Sit Back and Relax

The federal Conservative Party of Canada has taken a commanding lead in a new poll conducted after the French language leaders debate yesterday.

Canadian Crime Minister Stephen Harper stood back and smiled as the other party leaders tore each other apart, assuring his party another five years of majority government.

With the assistance of Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe delivering ominous warnings of Quebec’s one hundred niqab-wearing women representing a greater threat than climate change, mass unemployment and unaffordable health care combined, Harper and his followers are set on cruise control to victory. They won’t even need a lot of their supporters to show up on Election Day.

So be thankful Conservative voters, you don’t really need to vote this year. Take the day off and relax. Fishing, hunting, church. Whatever! The day is yours.

What to Think EZ-Chart

Don’t waste any more of your valuable time researching or thinking! This little table can help you decide what to believe within seconds.

Thinking. Simplified.