Today in Suburban Irony and Ignorance

I've got two for you today.

First story

The other day, an acquaintance and Facebook "friend", joined the Facebook cause, "Stop Obama from changing the National Christmas Tree to the Holiday Tree."

I rolled my eyes. We all know this is bull. (We do all know it, right? Because if you don't know it, you should definitely click the link that follows.) I wasn't feeling in an "ignore it" mood, so I took the opportunity to look up the relevant facts on PolitiFact and posted the following comment to her Profile page. I edited myself several time to aim for the most calm response to this ridiculousness that I could muster.

"Hi, A__ - This background might be interesting to you. Politifact.com is a great resource for sorting out fact from fiction. The site won the Pulitzer Prize in 2009."

And I gave her this link:

Chain email claims Obamas plan to change holiday tradition

A replied:

"Thank you for sending this, at least I know its not true...I cant stand all this HOLIDAY stuff...it is CHRISTMAS and we should embrace it!! Hope all is well...:)"

Fine and dandy. I made my point, figured I'd drop it from here.

In today's mail, we received A's family Christmas card. What do you think it said across the top? Merry Christmas? Nope. It reads "Season's Greetings" across the top and "Happy Holidays from the K_____ family."

Um.....

Second Story

C's closest friend is M. M used to live across the street from us and M's dad is my kids' pediatrician. We always knew Dr. H was a tad more conservative than us, but the extent is only now becoming clear. It's never mattered much because we get along fine - we just don't talk politics.

Anyway, M is a very smart boy and has mostly stellar grades, is a mostly nice kid, etc. While we suspect Dr. H rides M HARD with expectation, M *is* smart. Well, mostly. In a very book-smart sort of way.

Dr. H, it turns out, is FOX/FAUX news watcher. He has also told M - and M believes him - that FOX/FAUX news is "liberal." We got a good laugh out of that. C tries to tell him differently, but M resists. If FOX/FAUX is "liberal" I don't want to know their definition of "conservative!" Whatever.

C and M are in 7 of 8 classes together. In the last several weeks, their english class has been reading parts of the bible from a literary standpoint. Mostly Old Testament. Apparently this exchange occured a couple days ago:

M: "I feel bad for the Jewish kids in school having to read the bible. It doesn't seem fair."

C: "Uh, M, the Old Testament is the Torah. Well, some of it is anyway. It's okay."

M: "No it's not."

C: "Yes it is."

M: "No, it's not. Next thing you're going to tell me they worship the same God as Christians do.

C: "Dude, they do!"

M: "No, they don't! It's a completely different religion!"

C: "Dude, they do. Jews came first. Christians came from Judaism. Same God. Muslims, too."

M: "Nuh-uh! You're lying. You're so wrong."

And apparently it went from there. C says M still doesn't believe him. Props to M actually thinking about those in another religion - but that's about it. (Major pride in my C, however.)

And that's the day in Suburban Irony and Ignorance...