Subject: [Tweeters] Christmas Counts
Date: Sat Nov 28 10:31:36 PST 2020
From: Roger Craik - r_craik at shaw.ca

All

The rampaging cancel culture rides again. It's totally out of control.

Roger Craik

Maple Ridge BC

On 2020-11-28 9:45 a.m., Lonnie Somer wrote:

> Hi Tweeters,

>

> I agree with Gary.  I'm Jewish and I'm a birder.  I'm also an

> anthropologist who studies various traditions around the world and

> their importance for maintaining continuity for cultures and

> subcultures.  It's been called the Christmas Bird Count for more than

> 100 years.  It was never used in a discriminatory fashion nor was it

> intended to be exclusive, as far as I'm aware.  I'll keep calling it

> the CBC.  Now, I'm off to go pishing on Schmuck Rd. in Sequim.....

>

> Good birding,

>

> Lonnie Somer

> Seattle

>

> On Sat, Nov 28, 2020 at 8:27 AM Ken Trease <krtrease at gmail.com

> <mailto:krtrease at gmail.com>> wrote:

>

> 👍 well said Gary

>

> Sent from my iPhone

>

>> On Nov 28, 2020, at 8:19 AM, Gary Bletsch <garybletsch at yahoo.com

>> <mailto:garybletsch at yahoo.com>> wrote:

>>

>> 

>> Dear Tweeters,

>>

>> May the name "Christmas Count" remain. It's called a Christmas

>> count; there's nothing wrong with calling it such.

>>

>> When I was a kid birder in New York, most of the older birders

>> who mentored me on my first CBC's were Jewish. None of them had

>> any beefs (or porks!) with the name.

>>

>> It would be hard to find anyone on this planet who loved

>> Christmas more than I did as a kid. I was the last one on the

>> block to stop believing in Santa Claus. By the time I was sixteen

>> or so, however, the excesses of the season began to inflict their

>> existential nausea upon my spirit. Those excesses have multiplied

>> to a staggering degree since then. My revulsion for this annual

>> cacophonous glut can hardly be expressed.

>>

>> Last December, I made my escape to South America, where I

>> detected nary a hint of yuletide mania until about the 20th of

>> December. Glorious! I was all ready to make it an annual habit

>> when the pandemic came along.

>>

>> Even so, the Christmas Bird Count is one of the few things that I

>> do like about December-- other than the beginning of lengthening

>> hours of daylight in our hemisphere.

>>

>> My objection to the suggested name change, then, is not because I

>> want to put the "Christ back in Christmas," or because I want to

>> fight a rearguard action against what some call "the war on

>> Christmas."

>>

>> Far, far from it! I just don't like this penchant for taking a

>> belt sander to anything rough or nettlesome in a word or name. I

>> characterize it as a misguided attempt to protect tender

>> feelings, bordering on the self-righteous. Such rechristenings

>> always remind me of /Brave New World,/ where all of the steeple

>> crosses had their tops sawn off, turning them into capital T's,

>> in honor of Henry Ford's Model T automobile. How Orwellian!

>>

>> Yours truly,

>>

>> Gary Bletsch

>>

>>

>> _______________________________________________

>> Tweeters mailing list

>> Tweeters at u.washington.edu <mailto:Tweeters at u.washington.edu>

>> http://mailman11.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters

>> <http://mailman11.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters>

> _______________________________________________

> Tweeters mailing list

> Tweeters at u.washington.edu <mailto:Tweeters at u.washington.edu>

> http://mailman11.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters

> <http://mailman11.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters>

>

>

> _______________________________________________

> Tweeters mailing list

> Tweeters at u.washington.edu

> http://mailman11.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/tweeters


--
Roger Craik
604-970-2322 Cell
604-467-5412

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman11.u.washington.edu/pipermail/tweeters/attachments/20201128/2b73d1bf/attachment.html>