If there were a God, would He have scheduled Christmas on a Sunday??
December 24, 2005
The Discussion: 50 Comments
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If there were a God, would He have scheduled Christmas on a Sunday??
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Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
A peculiar hybrid of personal journal, dilettantish punditry, pseudo-philosophy and much more, from an Accidental Expat who has made his way from Hong Kong to Beijing to Taipei and finally back to Beijing for reasons that are still not entirely clear to him…
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1 By Ivan
I can’t answer that question about God, but I CAN tell you I know Santa Claus is Jewish, because he works on Christmas.
December 19, 2005 @ 4:43 am | Comment
2 By shulan
Bad days for decent people who still have morals. Seems that the sick values of the Westerners are starting to pervert even the minds of innocent animals.
Here is the shocking story of Dashik and Yahuda two male vultures who’s home is the Biblical Zoo in the holy city of Jerusalem. They where not only observed mating but have also been seduced by the immoral keepers to raise two baby birds. Without guiltiness the keepers even dared to praise their outrageous actions: “We’re very proud of them. We think they’ve done a marvelous job,” said bird keeper Sharon Sterling. “They’ve behaved extremely well, the best parents we’ve ever seen.”
Good to know that there are still countries in the world that have not yet surrendered to the decadent imperialistic Western culture.?Save the vultures! No surrender!
December 19, 2005 @ 4:44 am | Comment
3 By Ivan
VQ? Vultures’ Quarterly?
Metrosexual vultures?
December 19, 2005 @ 4:53 am | Comment
4 By Darin
A birthday party for his son?
December 19, 2005 @ 4:55 am | Comment
5 By Ivan
How do we know Jesus was Jewish?
Because he thought his mother was a virgin, and his mother thought he was God.
“He is NOT the Messiah, he’s a VERY NAUGHTY BOY!”
December 19, 2005 @ 5:02 am | Comment
6 By shulan
Once again an example how ignorant you Americans are. It’s not on a sunday, it’s on a saturday this year!
December 19, 2005 @ 5:03 am | Comment
7 By dishuiguanyin
Ah, no shulan. Christmas Eve is on Saturday. Christmas is on Sunday. And this kind of thing happens regularly – like about once every seven years or so.
(Of course, it depends on your cultural background. Some, like ethnic Germans have their largest celebration on Christmas Eve. Some, like the Brits, do it on Christmas Day. And the Ethiopians do it on Jan 7th.)
December 19, 2005 @ 6:38 am | Comment
8 By shulan
Shit. I just was getting started with my Anti-American fervor. And now you come along and spoil all the fun.
December 19, 2005 @ 7:43 am | Comment
9 By Gordon
Here’s a little history about Christmas.
December 19, 2005 @ 10:57 am | Comment
10 By Ivan
As we all know, in China, it is always Christmas every day, under the correct leadership of the Communist Party and Mao-Ze-Dong Thought!
December 19, 2005 @ 12:02 pm | Comment
11 By Ivan
Communist Party leader, to a class of little schoolchildren:
“Now, children, let’s do an experiment. Close your eyes and pray to God and ask him for an chocolate bar. Go ahead! See if God gives you what you want!”
(Pause, children close their eyes and pray for chocolate bars, open their eyes and see nothing. God did not give them any chocolate.)
“Ah, you SEE, children? God does not exist! Now, let’s try ANOTHER experiment. Close your eyes and ask the Communist Party to pay your parents for the land we stole from them!”
(Children close their eyes and say, “Oh Communist Party, will you please pay our parents for…..”)
BLAM-BLAM-BLAM-BLAM! Communist Party shoots half of the children dead….
“So you see, children, God does not exist, but the Communist Party is REAL, and don’t you forget it!”
December 19, 2005 @ 12:09 pm | Comment
12 By fd
Oh, come on. Our government is too soft on those trouble makers. This government failed our hope of eradicating Christianity and other religions from our soil. The history has proven that Christians alwasys side with foreign invaders and betray our country and the atheist majority, and we still allow them to build churchs here? That is ridiculous. We need a democratic government to materialize the will of most Chinese people which is to get ride of those trouble makers.
December 19, 2005 @ 6:51 pm | Comment
13 By Michael Turton
Oh, come on. Our government is too soft on those trouble makers. This government failed our hope of eradicating Christianity and other religions from our soil.
Yes, I think we can draw some pretty clear conclusions from the fact that Christianity has exploded in China, but it is suppressed there, whereas in the Chinese societies around China it has made zero headway despite religious freedom. A clue for those wise enough to take it.
If you want more clues, note that now that Taiwan is a democracy, the Catholic Church is busy switching recognition to China. Hint, hint.
Vorkosigan
December 19, 2005 @ 6:54 pm | Comment
14 By fd
Well, a true traditional Chinese is always an atheist. That’s who we are. I found it is interesting that CCP members are more like to convert to some kind of religion when they live abroad. I think they just need the feeling of belonging to a group and will be take care of by the group. Further more, if communism cannot be true, the promise of going to heaven is not a bad idea. How pathetic. After all, communism is also a kind of religion which make people to believe something unreal and by that some can take advantage from this.. money.. power..etc. And those former CCP members still cannot stand up to face reality.
December 19, 2005 @ 7:15 pm | Comment
15 By lirelou
A true, traditional Chinese is always an atheist? Damn, who the hell were all those people masquerading as Chinese that I’ve seen all my life setting up little altars to various gods and spirits, and burning incense? Who are these imposters who waste so much money on hungry ghosts? FD! We need your expertise! How do we identify the true Chinese from these other Asian imposters? But, I agree that Communism is a form of godless religion. Ah, Mr. Turton, I realize that Korea is not a Chinese society, though it has been heavily influenced by both Chinese history and culture. Yet Christianity is doing very well there, and they too are an Asian economic tiger. Might we take that into account as well?
December 19, 2005 @ 10:29 pm | Comment
16 By prasanna
God, I have a sneaky feeling, does play dice with the universe! 😀
December 20, 2005 @ 2:39 am | Comment
17 By Michael Turton
But, I agree that Communism is a form of godless religion. Ah, Mr. Turton, I realize that Korea is not a Chinese society, though it has been heavily influenced by both Chinese history and culture. Yet Christianity is doing very well there, and they too are an Asian economic tiger. Might we take that into account as well?
Oh yes, Korea is a fascinating exception to the rest of Asia. One might also note the relative popularity of Mormonism in the Philippines too.
Answers.com/Wiki has a good presentation on it:
http://www.answers.com/topic/christianity-in-korea
Korea is, I would argue, a special case with many unique factors, few, if any of which exist in the Chinese societies around Korea.
Michael
December 20, 2005 @ 4:11 am | Comment
18 By chris
why oh why does this always devolve into hacking on the CCP. its almost christmas, common, cant we just wish each other a merry christmas? all the people of china, including all those perverted CCP’ers?
merry christmas, xin nian kwai le!
December 20, 2005 @ 5:06 am | Comment
19 By Ivan
Chris,
You’re right. In fact, I think the Communist Party deserves it’s very own Christmas story:
…and Mo Li’s ghost rattled his chains, and wailed:
“Bo Ni Zi! Bo Ni Zi Scrooge! Tonight you will be visited by three ghosts!”
“You always were a good man of business, Mo Li,” Bo Ni Zi replied, tossing some Hell Money at Mo Li.
“BUSINESS! MANKIND was my business! The common welfare was my business! The first ghost will come for you at one, the second at two…”
The Mo Li’s Ghost’s cell phone rang, and he waddled out the door staring at the ground and shouting and waking the neighbors.
The first ghost visited Scrooge at One. It was hard to tell whether he was a youth or an old man, because you can never tell with the Chinese.
He was dressed like a Red Guard, and he waved a Little Red book at Scrooge. “I am the Ghost of Christmas Past,” he said.
“But during the Cultural Revolution, there WAS NO Christmas, and you destroyed most of the ancient Temples of China! You persecuted ALL religion and ALL ideas other than Mao’s You even ruined some decent Communists!” Scrooge said.
“That’s right, asshole!” said the Red Ghost. “And that’s why you’re such a miserable old man today!” He slapped Scrooge with the Little Red Book, and vanished.
The Second Ghost appeared at Two:
He was a fat businessman who opened his own restaurant in 1980. He invited Scrooge to a huge banquet, and gave him a bottle of maotai. “I am the Ghost of Christmas Present! Come, and know me better, man!” he said.
And he took Scrooge on a tour of all the best restaurants of Beijing, and Scrooge enjoyed it all very much, but then the Ghost said, “But not everyone is happy tonight. SEE!” And under the Ghost’s robe, were two AIDS orphans.” Scrooge asked,
“Whose children are they?” And the ghost said: “They are the Communist Party’s children!”
Scrooge was horrified, and he asked, “Why does no one look after them?” And the ghost repeated Scrooge’s own words back to him:
“Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?” And he vanished, and then the third Ghost appeared…
December 20, 2005 @ 6:04 am | Comment
20 By Ivan
…and the Third Ghost was all draped in black, and he escorted Scrooge to a graveyard. And Scrooge said:
“Spirit of the Future, I fear you most of all. But before I look at this grave, tell me, are these the shadows of things that MIGHT be, or that MUST be?”
And the Ghost said, “As we all know, History follows an inevitable process, as Marx said.” And he pointed to the headstone and Scrooge saw the epitaph:
“USSR, 1917-1991.”
But then Scrooge said, “Yeah, well, that will NEVER happen to ME! I will find another path, of Communism-With-Scrooge-Characteristics!”
And the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, shook his head and walked away from Scrooge, leaving him alone in the graveyard.
December 20, 2005 @ 6:25 am | Comment
21 By dishuiguanyin
Ivan, you’re a genius. An annoying genius sometimes mind…but this is just exquisite.
Can post it somewhere that’s easier to link to than the middle of richard’s open thread?
December 20, 2005 @ 9:24 am | Comment
22 By dishuiguanyin
Sorry, should read, “Can you post it…”
December 20, 2005 @ 9:25 am | Comment
23 By yuanme
Ivan, That was a real piece of art!
December 20, 2005 @ 9:49 am | Comment
24 By Ivan
Dish,
Thanks for the compliment, my English cousin!
(Well, if you have any roots in the North, then you might possibly be my second cousin. But if you’re a purely Southern English Git from the Fat Underbelly of Britain, then I am more closely related to the Norwegians and the Welsh, than to any Soothern English Git… 🙂
ANYway…more seriously…ah, no, you will not find my “Chinese Christmas Carol” anywhere else.
I wrote it spontaneously, a few hours ago, just for this site, just for TPD. It took me around half an hour to think of it and to write it here.
Just another Rapper-Skald son of Yorkshire…….. 🙂 OY! What’s the difference between an acute angle and an obtuse angle? A Yorkshire boy at Eton replied: “Well, the Northern Angles are acute, and the Soothern Angles are obtuse!”
🙂
December 20, 2005 @ 10:06 am | Comment
25 By Other Lisa
Ivan, that was priceless! Really.
December 20, 2005 @ 1:06 pm | Comment
26 By dylan
From Radio Free Asia:
Guangdong Province–About five kilometers from Shanwei, my bus is stopped, and policemen board, checking the papers of every passenger. A fellow passenger whispers to me: “They are looking for Dongzhou villagers who have been on the run.” Later, the ticket-seller on the bus tells me that the police never used to check passengers’ papers, but that since the incident in Dongzhou they have been checking every day. I ask her what incident she is referring to, and she replies: “People died,” but refuses to say any more.
On the way to Dongzhou village you can see banners and signs posted on the walls of houses lining the road. The closer you get to Dongzhou, the more signs there are. The notices read as follows: “Crack down on criminals. Maintain social stability. Do not believe rumors. Do not believe evil talk. Without justice, there can only be an evil atmosphere. Without the government, it will be hard to have peace. The government solidly supports the people of Dongzhou.”
Amnesty for explosives and knives
Among the banners festooned at the roadside are police notices, signed by the Shanwei public security bureau. Two were issued on Dec. 13. One orders residents to turn in explosives and knives. The other urges those wanted by the police to surrender. Nearly all the posters have been ripped, as if someone has been trying to tear them down.
In the township’s busy People’s Market shopping area, the People are reluctant to talk about the shootings. A grocery-store owner makes a start but stops himself short, saying only, “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Migrant workers from other parts of China to Dongzhou are a bit more forthcoming. One of them tells me: “When they started shooting people that day, I was afraid to go over there. But let me tell you something. About 100 meters from here there is a house by the road. The man who lived there died that night. It was only this morning that his wife and child were weeping at the People’s Market. The police asked them to leave. In the past few days, there have been people weeping at the People’s Market every day. The police take them away, saying that they will have a bad influence. But they keep on coming.”
It’s after dark. A villager points to a car parked by the side of the road. “See that car parked there? It belongs to the government. It doesn’t have a tag indicating that it’s public security. It’s parked in front of the house of a man who was killed. It’s there to stop people from going in and asking questions.”
Scene of the killings
Much later, another villager accompanies me to the site where the shooting took place. He tells me that this was where the villagers tried to stop the armed police from Shanwei from advancing any farther. He says, “When they started shooting, we were stunned. We couldn’t believe what was happening. All hell broke loose. More than a dozen people died.”
Two other villagers tell me that more than a dozen people died that night, too, and also that many have fled Dongzhou and are now wanted by the police. Another villager says that anyone seen with a camera gets beaten by the police.
I see a poster issued by the government on Nov. 2 about the newly constructed power plant. Someone has stuck a poster beside it containing a report from the official Xinhua news agency dated March 3. The Xinhua report carries the headline: “According to the central government, the blind development of power plants must come to a halt.”
Original reporting in Mandarin by Lin Di. RFA Mandarin service director: Jennifer Chou. Edited by Luisetta Mudie.
December 20, 2005 @ 1:37 pm | Comment
27 By Ivan
Lisa,
Thanks, Honey. 🙂
December 20, 2005 @ 2:04 pm | Comment
28 By David Mercer
Richard thought that this comment I posted on the Bush/NSA spying post would possibly stir up some fun here in the open thread, so here goes!
FISA allows them to spy on someone for three days before going to a judge on the secret FISC court, which is part of my only 5 requests have ever been turned down since FISA passed in 1979.
Three days…so Bush’s ‘we need to move faster in this new type of war’ excuse is utter, total BULLSHIT.
I smell Hubert Humphrey-esque shennanigans, and that kind of BS is EXACTLY why FISA clearly says that such spying on American Citizens on US soil is forbidden aside from some other STATUTORY provision. And his “the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) post-911” let us do it argument is moot also. If that were the case, then why did they need the acursed Patriot Act on top of it for other, lesser, domestic spying?
Secret courts, secret legal opinions, secret regulations and secret review by the same branch of government….I can think of little else that would be more UnAmerican than this mess!
Oh, hi Richard! Nice to be on the same side as you politically, finally, in a deep-in-my bones fashion!!
Cheers,
-David Mercer
Tucson, AZ
PS At least I can see/post on “Anti-US-govt.” sites like Peking Duck, even if the NSA may perhaps be reading all of my mail to Richard and others outside of the US.
Especially as I’ve had to send a legally required email to the NSA before I posted export controlled cryptography software I’ve written to my site.
You ARE being watched!
December 20, 2005 @ 8:11 pm | Comment
29 By richard
David, see my email to you. I was actually suggesting you post something else here, but it’s good that you posted this as well.
December 20, 2005 @ 8:51 pm | Comment
30 By David Mercer
DOH! I wasn’t sure which one Richard meant at first, but figured a little analysis of the latest High Crimes of the Administration wouldn’t be unwanted here, but here’s the post he actually was requesting a cross-post of from my blog found initially at: http://davidmercer.nfshost.com/2005/12/14/WellturnsoutIwascrazierthanIthought
Well, turns out I was crazier than I thought! · 6 days ago by David Mercer
I had no idea when I titled my first post on this site, just the other week, “Just who is this madman?” that it would turn out to be so literally true. It turns out that I have had bipolar disorder for, most likely, at least the last 18 years. As I’m now 34, that’s more than half of my life. And all of my adulthood.
The migraine headaches I’ve had more and more the last few years turn out to have been a symptom. Which is a good thing, as my father died of brain cancer when I was 9, and my wife feared that that might be the cause of my ‘going off the rails’ at the beginning of this month.
Bipolar disorder (formerly known as Manic Depression) is treated with medications that are also given to people for epilepsy. Bipolar disorder (if the diagnosis is accurate) is also a type of seizure, just not in the same part of the brain as epilepsy. Instead of nerve cells firing in a loop that self-reinforces, causing physical seizures, the loop makes one get stuck in a manic or depressive state, depending on what the proximate cause or trigger was.
Thank heavens there is a newer medication that doesn’t have very many side effects that’s now available to treat it, Trileptal. It’s merely Tegretol (very commonly prescribed for epilepsy) with an additional oxygen atom stuck on top, which causes it to be metabolized differently, while still having the desired medical properties. Everyone’s almost 100% certain that the diagnosis is correct, as this is clearly one of those “if the pill works, we got it figured out, if it doesn’t it’s something else” cases.
This is almost certainly due to a number of head injuries I sustained as a child: for a while in my family the running joke was “oh no, David hit his head again!” At least two of those probably should have had stitches, but my extreme distaste (nay, fear!) of needles caused me to throw a fit and have mom just slap a butterfly bandage on them, and have (in both cases) a doctor we knew just eyeball them later in passing when we saw them 1) at the grocery store! and 2) at her cousin’s house (he was a relative, that time).
Obviously I don’t have a problem talking about this in public, as I’m posting this for God, Mankind (that’s online) and the googlebot to see. I learned long ago that hiding one’s problems doesn’t make them go away, but merely causes them to be mis-interpreted by those who are not aware of them and most likely would be more compassionate if they were.
In any event, my sincere apologies to anyone I may have hurt by word or deed in the last 18 years, as I most certainly was not well. That’s not an excuse, but hopefully will suffice as an explaination.
Happy Holidays to you all, whichever ones you celebrate,
-David Mercer
Tucson, AZ
December 20, 2005 @ 11:43 pm | Comment
31 By dishuiguanyin
Ivan: If I give you a complete and detailed breakdown of my ethnic background, will you let me copy and repost your Christmas carol?Obviously that would be with full attributation to you and a link back to the original.
David: One of my colleagues was diagnosed with bipolar disorder while we were working in the middle of China, and I remember there were some big issues about the medication. It’s very interesting to hear that there are new treatments available. I wish we’d know about that at the time.
December 21, 2005 @ 6:26 am | Comment
32 By Michael Turton
Damn David! I wish you well on your journey. Happy Holly Daze!
December 21, 2005 @ 8:56 pm | Comment
33 By Keir
Within five minutes of posting a list of banned words My Spaces got blocked. Now that I deleted the Chinese forms it seems to be OK…
December 22, 2005 @ 3:48 am | Comment
34 By Keir
Within 5 minutes of posting a list of banned words on My Spaces, it got blocked. Now that I deleted the Chinese forms it seems to be OK… But my student hasn’t been blocked yet…
December 22, 2005 @ 3:51 am | Comment
35 By Keir
Spoke too soon…
December 22, 2005 @ 3:56 am | Comment
36 By Ivan
Dish:
You should “virtually” know me well enough by now, in a cyber way, to know that I was just being silly about your “ethnic background.”
(And I think it’s a lark, to say being Soothern English is an “ethnic” background! HA! But come to think of it, I know one Mancunian who says everyone from south of the Trent should show passports when they go oop North….)
Go ahead and re-post my Chinese Christmas Carol, and I don’t need any attribution. Quite the contrary, I prefer to remain anonymous in cyberspace. So, go ahead and re-post wherever you want to…. 🙂
December 22, 2005 @ 11:55 am | Comment
37 By Ivan
PS, Dish,
Although, come to think of it, there IS some truth in perceiving some kinds of “ethnic” distinctions between England’s North and South. (Of course, allowing for all the migrations and intermarriages of the past 1000 years.)
For example, maybe you know the little book, “The Snow Goose”, set in East Anglia in 1940. I suppose the region has changed since then, but at least in those times, East Anglia was still – well – literally very “Anglian” – the local dialect was especially similar to Dutch, and the local people looked and behaved a lot like the Dutch (the homeland of the Angles)
And then the West Country is – or used to be – another story, especially Cornwall (and parts of Devon etc)
It was kind of half Welsh-ish out there. Cf (if you’re old enough to remember) the BBC series, “Poldark”, and Demelza (the goddess Angharad Reese, GRRR! 🙂 and her Cornish relatives with their hard Rs and their old Celtic ways.
And to this day, whenever I visit Yorkshire (one of my ancestral provenances), I STILL hear some people (especially the older ones) speaking in tones and metres very much resembling Norwegian. (As some of my great-uncles did, even after they came to America, until the Reaper took the last survivor in 1999.)
I can even go further, and tell you that until my last surviving Yorkshire uncle died in 1999 (born as a subject of Edward VII) – he had a lovely little farmlet (somewhere on the US East Coast) – and every sunday, he would host a Sunday lunch for the extended family, at a big, heavy wooden table with long benches. And he would sit at the head of the table and tell old stories – and he would give advice and dispense justice within the extended family – EXACTLY like the Vikings did, 1000 years ago. And he literally got that custom from his father, who got it from his, back and back for 1000 years of Yorkshire Franklins and Yeomen, and Vikings…. 🙂
(The big table with long benches is especially Viking, and so is the custom of hearing family disputes and meting out Justice by the Elder at the head of the table, who then goes on to tell old stories…and this was very typical of Northern English freeholders/farmers/Yeomen until very recently….oh and so was the stuffed heart my uncle used to cook, ICK! 🙂 But his Yorkshire pudding was pretty cool. Actually he taught me how to make it, and I’m cooking some right now, for Christmas….
So you might be right about how different parts of England have different “ethnic” backgrounds….
December 22, 2005 @ 12:20 pm | Comment
38 By keir
This just in:
“Tokyo-Beijing ties endure MORE strain”
http://iht.com/articles/2005/12/22/news/japan.php
From the Guardian: (http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,7369,1673311,00.html)
“(T)he Japanese foreign minister, said he was far from convinced of China’s benign intentions. “A neighbouring country has an atomic bomb and its military spending has been rising for 12 consecutive years. It is beginning to pose a considerable threat,” he told reporters. “The content of China’s military expenditures is difficult for outsiders to know, and that fuels suspicion.” The comments by Mr Aso, a rightwinger, will have done little to help repair bilateral ties damaged by disputes over Japan’s occupation of China before and during the second world war and the rights to natural gas deposits in the East China Sea.
Beijing was indignant. “It is highly irresponsible for the Japanese foreign minister to make these remarks,” a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, Qin Gang, told a news conference.”
December 22, 2005 @ 9:17 pm | Comment
39 By dishuiguanyin
Ivan, I know that different regions of Britain have different ethnic backgrounds. That’s because I’m British, remember?
Centuries after the Danelaw was set up by Kings Alfred and Guthrum you can still draw a line across England and pretty well divide up those of Anglo-Saxon origin and those of Viking origin.
You didn’t ask for it, but anyway, I am:
One quarter Yorkshire, which probably means a decent dose of Viking plus some Pict (the Picts were Celts from the first Celtic wave).
One quarter Cornish, which means pure Celt. (I’ve forgotten if the Cornish were first or second wave celts, but they’re said to be closely related to the people in Brittany, and probably also the Welsh.)
One quarter Norman-Scot, which means Viking (for the Normans) mixed with more Pict.
One quarter west-coast Scots, which probably means Celt from the second wave (via Ireland).
Thus I’m mostly Celtic with some Viking mixed in, and I doubt there’s much Anglo-Saxon in my blood at all. In my family the Celtic traditions predominate, including the grouping of the family around a strong-willed matriarch.
Thanks for your permission.
Merry Christmas to all.
December 22, 2005 @ 9:59 pm | Comment
40 By Joey
Yorkshire bloody pudding! Come on Ivan mate, don’t come the raw prawn with me. You’ve gotta be kiddin’, right? I mean, bloody hell, what kind of a bloke eats Yorkshire bloody pudding? What’s wrong with ya? You some kind of psycho pansy or somethin’?
And what’s the caper with the name? I mean, struth mate, how many people are called Ivan these days? It’s a bit of an old fashioned kinda name, don’t ya reckon? The only Ivan I ever hear of these days is that backpacker murderer, Ivan Milat, and he’s a bloody psycho pansy too ain’t he. You need to get yourself a new name mate, before ya scare the lot of us away.
December 23, 2005 @ 3:26 am | Comment
41 By Jacob
The question “If there were a God, would He have scheduled Christmas on a Sunday??” strikes me as being just as silly as the issue of whether or not there is a secular war on Christmas. Obviously, for one like me who believes in God, He didn’t schedule Christmas on ANY day. Calendars and dates are human, not divine, obsessions. (Which is why I considered all the eschatological furror surrounding the year 2000 to be utter nonsense). As a believer, I intend to practice Christmas in accordance with the customs of my belief — on whatever day it happens to fall (Sunday being just as good a day as any other). I trust you will give me your forebearance. For those of you who are not Christian — whether you chose not to believe or are of another faith — please permit me to wish you, one and all, the Happiest of Holidays or Happy Chanuka or whatever activities or celebrations your conscience or religion leads or guides you to observe. My sincerest best wishes for every one of you. Now, let us go in peace.
December 23, 2005 @ 6:24 am | Comment
42 By richard
Lighten up Jacob. It was totally in fun.
December 23, 2005 @ 9:57 am | Comment
43 By Shanghai Slim
Who do you think is writing the “Joey” comments?
December 23, 2005 @ 10:40 pm | Comment
44 By Other Lisa
I dunno – Crocodile Dundee, maybe?
December 24, 2005 @ 1:13 am | Comment
45 By shulan
To whom it may concern:
Merry Christmas everybody. Und einen guten Rutsch.
December 24, 2005 @ 6:10 am | Comment
46 By Shanghai Slim
To Richard and everyone else paddling about the ice-clogged Peking Duck Pond:
|__| Merry Christmas!
|__| Happy Hanukkah!
|__| Season’s Greetings!
|__| Happy Holidays!
|__| Zhu nimen shendanjie kuai le!
Choose the one that makes you feel best, and accept it with my warmest wishes!
December 24, 2005 @ 2:51 pm | Comment
47 By Ivan
Slim:
Please add “S’novim godom” for the Russians!
OR ELSE! 🙂
(Singing now):
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Russian,
Had a very shiny nose,
And if you ever saw it,
It was face down in the snows…..
December 24, 2005 @ 3:31 pm | Comment
48 By Shanghai Slim
Haha! S’novim godom, Ivan! 🙂
December 24, 2005 @ 9:04 pm | Comment
49 By Ivan
Slim,
Now I AM truly drunk. And in this state of altered consciousness, on Christmas, I will say, that I like you, Slim. You rock!
And so do Richard and Lisa and Martyn (whenever the f— Martyn shows up), and so do other regulars like Gordon and Dish, oh and davesgonechina, he REALLY rocks!
I love you all, all of the aforementioned.
That said, I want to tell “Joey” to go fuck himself. And I think Sun Bin is just another Communist whore, although a rather intelligent one whose comments are enlightening about how Communist Whores think.
And – ah, what was I saying? Oh yeah. Something about how I want the entire Communist Party to fuck themselves up the ass with a rusty, jagged flagpole and to get AIDS and to die alone in poverty.
Anyway, Slim, you and all of our other true friends here, you truly rock.
Sincerely yours,
Ivan the Metrosexual Russian-American who wants the entire CCP to get AIDS and then fuck itself up the ass with a rusty jagged flagpole.
PS, THIS is the TRUE meaning of Christmas! 🙂 (“And so, Scrooge was better than his word….”)
December 24, 2005 @ 9:22 pm | Comment
50 By richard
Time for a new thread.
But let me first note that I had some real big issues with Joey and didn’t want him making fools of everyone with his BS. So he won’t be around anymore. I know, this is not exactly in the spirit of Christmas, but I know a BS’er when I see one and I don’t want the comments being used by pranksters. I’m such a mean, nasty guy…
December 24, 2005 @ 10:18 pm | Comment