Tea Time with Christmas Lights

I’m bad at this (forced) holiday cheer thing. Gallows humor has always been my coping mechanism. And tea.

From An Insider’s View: The Dark Rigidity of Fundamentalist Rural America:

At some point during the discussion, “That’s your education talking,” will be said, derogatorily, as a general dismissal of everything I said. They truly believe this is a legitimate response because to them education is not to be trusted. Education is the enemy of fundamentalism because fundamentalism, by its very nature, is not built on facts. The fundamentalists I grew up around aren’t anti-education. They want their kids to know how to read and write. They are anti-quality, in-depth, broad, specialized education. Learning is only valued up to the certain point. Once it reaches the level where what you learn contradicts doctrine and fundamentalist arguments, it becomes dangerous.

(In my college years, I lived months in rural Kentucky, and 2 years in Lexington. I was accused of “book-learnin’,” which I couldn’t believe was a legitimate insult. But it was given as one.)

From Anthony Bourdain: The Post-Election Interview:

I mean, you would think, Gee, with all these great travel shows on, there are plenty of opportunities to see how other people live. But you know something else travel has taught me: People rise up and kill their neighbors all the time. People they’ve lived with their whole lives, yesterday they were fine, today they’re the enemy. You’ve seen it in Yugoslavia, you’ve seen it in Borneo. Now you’re seeing it here. So, I don’t know.

I’m a guy who’d like to blow up every safe space, every trigger warning. I would like to unleash every comedian to say “cunt” as many times as they like, or any other word they care to use. But the threshold of acceptable rhetoric right now, the threshold of hate and animus that’s being shown at this point — this really naked hatred of every flavor, racists, sexists, pure misogyny, class hatred, hatred of the educated — this is something I’ve never seen before. And it’s now acceptable! It’s more acceptable in public at political rallies than it is at universities, which is where people should be saying offensive shit.

Proof of merging alternate timelines? The movie that doesn’t exist and the Redditors who think it does

“I remember thinking Shaq’s Kazaam was a rip-off or a revamp of a failed first run, like how the 1991 film Buffy the Vampire Slayer bombed but the late Nineties TV reboot was a sensation,” says Meredith, who is one of many who claim to remember both Shazaam and Kazaam. Don remembers ordering two copies of the former and only one of the latter for the store, while Carl says: “I am one of several people who specifically never saw Kazaam because it looked ridiculous to rip off Shazaam just a few years after it had been released.” When Carl first realised there was no evidence of the Sinbad movie existing, he texted his sister to ask if she remembered the film.

“Her response [was] ‘Of course.’ I told her, ‘Try and look it up, it doesn’t exist’. She tried and texted back with only: ‘What was it called?’ – there was never a question of if it existed, only not remembering the title.”

Eric Garland on the evolution of online controversies (click on the tweet to reveal the thread):

<MANSPREADTHREADMAS> Having a history of writing on controversial subjects, I want to talk about how trolls have evolved, 2012-2016.

— Eric Garland (@ericgarland) December 23, 2016

Many years back, I was surprised by people who didn’t go to church but who considered themselves Christian and “educated” going on a hard defense when I made an offhand reference to Christmas’ pagan origins. They’d known nothing of the controversy surrounding Jesus’ birth date (likely NOT during winter) nor about heathen celebrations of winter solstice nor how many Christmas traditions like the tree, wreath and mistletoe were not Christian traditions. These individuals were incensed the more information was provided them–I’m still not sure if it was because it was shameful that a lowly Asian girl (Buddhist at the time) was giving them this information, or just part of their narcissism-should-never-be-confronted behavioral pattern, but anyway, it remains an experience that was hard to live through. It was also one of my many experiences unintentionally pissing ignorant people off with information I thought was universal.

But amidst darkness, I will choose light.

I still enjoy the sensory overload and spirit of it. May your holidays be blessed.