Pharyngula

People are already talking about Garrison Keillor’s ghastly opinion piece, the one that basically revels in anti-semitism and preaches that only a select few are allowed to enjoy Christmas.

Unitarians listen to the Inner Voice and so they have no creed that they all stand up and recite in unison, and that’s their perfect right, but it is wrong, wrong, wrong to rewrite “Silent Night.” If you don’t believe Jesus was God, OK, go write your own damn “Silent Night” and leave ours alone. This is spiritual piracy and cultural elitism and we Christians have stood for it long enough. And all those lousy holiday songs by Jewish guys that trash up the malls every year, Rudolph and the chestnuts and the rest of that dreck. Did one of our guys write “Grab your loafers, come along if you wanna, and we’ll blow that shofar for Rosh Hashanah”? No, we didn’t.

Christmas is a Christian holiday — if you’re not in the club, then buzz off. Celebrate Yule instead or dance around in druid robes for the solstice. Go light a big log, go wassailing and falalaing until you fall down, eat figgy pudding until you puke, but don’t mess with the Messiah.

It’s so over-the-top that there is a temptation to call it simply badly done satire, but Keillor has regularly spewed bile at gays and atheists, and the “he’s just joking” excuse is a bit tired. He plays one note and one note only on the subjects of atheism and homosexuality, and it’s not even played well.

But who cares? He can be a public bigot all he wants, especially when he does such a fabulous job of making himself out to be such an idiot. This is everyone’s time, not just the Christian’s; we don’t conveniently shuffle out to a nearby transdimensional shantytown and disappear for a few weeks while they pretend to be the only people on earth who enjoy a vacation and a nice party.

He is right, though, that we’re going to commit a little piracy (not spiritual piracy, though, which is nonsense — it’s more of an institutional hijacking, along the lines of the Crimson Assurance). We’re breaking into their smug little holiday, see, and making it ours, too. And everyone’s. I get to put Baby Cthulhu in my creche if I want to, and no antiquated sap gets to stop me, no matter how much they want to squeal. We get to mess with the Messiah all we want, and we will, and especially now that we know it will make Mr Keillor’s maudlin pablum all rancid and bitter.

Comments

#1 ultim8fury
December 21, 2009

“Christmas is a Christian holiday ”

Um, that’s just daft. Wasn’t it a pagan midwinter festival co-opted by christians because burning druids in winter is difficult when they’re cold and wet (they don’t light up so good) so you just might as well just steal their merriment instead.
#2 Glen Davidson
December 21, 2009

Yes, damn those Jews who wrote “White Christmas,” “The Christmas Song”, “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!,” “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” “Silver Bells,” “Santa Baby,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “Winter Wonderland”. Horrible treacle (ok, seriously, they’re not all great), not praising baby Jesus.

Christmas is Christmas, no more belonging to Christians than to the pagans from whom it was adapted. Keillor knows nothing.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
#3 raven
December 21, 2009

Christmas is a Christian holiday — if you’re not in the club, then buzz off.

The xians stole Xmas from the pagans. The pagans stole it back.

I’m surprised Keillor is so touchy about it. Xians are so easy to make fun of, it is all but impossible not to. And he is supposed to be a humorist commentator.

Who knows, maybe he is just getting old. “Hey, you kids. Get off of my lawn.”
#4 lose_the_woo
December 21, 2009

So maybe I’m confused. Which holiday is the one getting hijacked? Maybe my understanding of pre-xtian history is wrong.
#5 Reginald Selkirk
December 21, 2009

If you don’t believe Jesus was God, OK, go write your own damn “Silent Night” and leave ours alone.

Somehow, that reminds me of the rewriting of the Pledge of Allegiance by theists.
#6 Sven DiMilo
December 21, 2009

Chris Clarke sez it all.
#7 Jimmy
December 21, 2009

The Jeebans stole it so we’re just continuing the tradition by stealing it for ourselves. Dontcha just love tradition!?
#8 tsg
December 21, 2009

Christmas is a Christian holiday

Says who? Christians? The Pope^TM? Excuse me while I attempt to give a shit.

Nope, not happening.

No one has any authority over what Christmas means. Least of all, what it means to me.
#9 pdferguson
December 21, 2009

If you don’t believe Jesus was God, OK, go write your own damn “Silent Night” and leave ours alone.

I’ll believe Jesus was God when Jesus comes down my chimney on Christmas night and leaves me presents…
#10 lose_the_woo
December 21, 2009

This is spiritual piracy and cultural elitism and we Christians have stood for it long enough.

Pot, meet kettle.
#11 The Science Pundit
December 21, 2009

…but it is wrong, wrong, wrong to rewrite “Silent Night.” If you don’t believe Jesus was God, OK, go write your own damn “Silent Night” and leave ours alone.

Just to be a thorn in Keillor’s side: “Hey Garrison, check out this clip I saw on YouTube!”
#12 Fred Mounts
December 21, 2009

I’ve never understood how anyone could enjoy listening to his monotonous rambling, but to each his own. At least now I have no desire whatsoever to figure it out!
#13 Glen Davidson
December 21, 2009

Btw, I’m not especially in favor of re-writing “Silent Night.” But a lot of hymns have been re-written, such as “Amazing Grace”:

The original words are in brackets:

‘Twas guilt [grace] that taught my heart to fear
And pride [grace] my fears relieved
How precious did that pride [grace] appear
The hour I first believed.

? cited in Christianity Today, 1993.11.01

http://www.spectrummagazine.org/blog/2009/11/10/reflections_maine_event

And if it’s not copyrighted, it can be changed. Only if people like it will the change spread, so who cares what the Unitarians sing?

What’s Keillor doing, lashing out at the world for not caring about him like it used to do?

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
#14 Abdul Alhazred
December 21, 2009

I’m an atheist, and so was my father.

Of course we did Christmas. Plenty of fond childhood memories of a conventional kind.
#15 lose_the_woo
December 21, 2009

Go light a big log, go wassailing and falalaing until you fall down, eat figgy pudding until you puke, but don’t mess with the Messiah.

That poor, poor, messiah guy. Always getting picked on. Somehow never able to stick up for himself.

-sniffle
#16 Sven DiMilo
December 21, 2009

What’s Keillor doing, lashing out at the world for not caring about him like it used to do?

Probably. He’s a pretty obvious narcissist.
#17 delphi-ote
December 21, 2009

That HAS to be intentional satire. I refuse to believe anyone can be that ironic without doing it deliberately.
#18 Sastra
December 21, 2009

Ah, do I have to say it again? The trappings and humanistic rationale behind Christmas make it a secular holiday, and I call it Christmas for the same reason I use the words Easter and Halloween: tradition, and indifference to the literal meaning of the actual word itself. Keillor might as well be huffing and puffing that only Catholics can indulge in romantic love on their saint’s sacred day.

The most subversive move in the so-called “War on Christmas” is for atheists to use the word Christmas — and take the Christ right out of it!

Garrison Keillor should stop crying in his egg nog, and draw on some of his lauded Midwestern common sense. You’ve lost, babe. No freaking way nonchristians are giving up Santa because you’ve got a persecution complex. Time to grow up.

Christmas, Christmas, Christmas. The holiday was never just for Christians — and now we stole the word, too. No, you can’t have it back.

It’s just like when they whine about how “marriage” is, and always was, a holy covenant with God, and so the word should be ceded to them, as a religious sacrament. We atheists can have “Solstice,” the way gays can have “civil union.”

Heh. No concession from me, for either.
#19 https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawmVT1LBhwmO9ej9LNg7a5e9d-AVJ8ezfmE
December 21, 2009

Keillor has bile?? He’s such a droopy dog, with his mumbling delivery, I can’t imagine taking an insult from him any more seriously than anything else he says.

I’m sure he knows christmas is an appropriated pagan holiday. He’s fairly well-educated, even if he is believer.
#20 tim Rowledge
December 21, 2009

I’m quite happy to accept the Christmas is a christian holy day, if only because that is what it says on the tin. However one has to accept that because of the success they enjoyed for a long time in the cultural hegemony stakes the term has become generic. Like Xerox and xeroxing, Hoover and hoovering, Kleenex and …. tissues, etc.

The fact that they attempted with considerable temporary success to usurp yet another pre-existing celebration (how many does that make?) only serves to add irony. Hey, is there a day to celebrate irony?
#21 Abdul Alhazred
December 21, 2009

How can one tell when Keillor is “just kidding”?

His reputation for being a humorist means he must be kidding, is that it?
#22 Peter G.
December 21, 2009

“To be great is to be misunderstood,” for example. This tiny gem of self-pity has given license to a million arrogant and unlovable people to imagine that their unpopularity somehow was proof of their greatness.”
This little paste gem from Keillor’s rant is the one that caught my eye. Apparently Keillor believes the contrary to be true, that being understood by the most people is the proof of true greatness. Those with the simplest ideas, explainable to the simplest intellects are the truly great. That would place Keillor himself among the truly great now wouldn’t it. That is ,after all, his market.
#23 AH
December 21, 2009

Silent Night, Holy Night
Dashed with exclusivism, sprinkled with spite.
What’s with this hatred of atheists and Jews?
I thought Christ loved all, but to you this is news…
Such intellect, yet no class!
Garrison Keillor–you’re an ass!
#24 Sven DiMilo
December 21, 2009

The most subversive move in the so-called “War on Christmas” is for atheists to use the word Christmas — and take the Christ right out of it!

OK, fine, but please:
http://i.imgur.com/HoFee.jpg
#25 tsg
December 21, 2009

That HAS to be intentional satire. I refuse to believe anyone can be that ironic without doing it deliberately.

I have had arguments with people that could have written the entire piece and meant every word in earnest.

Even if he didn’t mean it, it utterly fails to denounce the position and, instead, only serves to solidify it. As such it fails as satire.
#26 KOPD42
December 21, 2009

If we can’t have “Christmas” unless we’re Christian, what does he call Wednesday? Or January? (Just to name a couple.) Get your own month, Christians. ;-p
#27 Kenbo
December 21, 2009

I found an old “Britannica Hut Companion” written by one Garrisonius Keilorius, some satyric druid who lived in some Roman province around 400 A.D., complaining how the Christians have totally stolen the midwinter solstice festival and are rewriting all the winter celebratory songs into songs that worship their “one, true” god.

Revisionist history at its finest.
#28 mrmorse
December 21, 2009

I’m just annoyed that he got the term for residents of Cambridge wrong. We’re Cantabrigians, dammit!
#29 Zifnab
December 21, 2009

Yargh! Spiritual Pirates ahoy, mate! Shivery me theological viewpoints. I be plunder’n yer scripture.

If we’re culling out all the copy write protected material of the other faiths, Keillor’s going to be carrying around a much smaller Bible once we get rid of all the Jewish texts. Also, not being a Puritian, I wonder how he spends Thanksgiving?

Also, also, why is this high holy stink always at Christmas? I rarely see these guys getting their knickers in a twist over Easter – painted eggs, anthropomorphic bunnies, and all. Given that the holiday festivities has such a thin connection to the Christian celebration, is it unfair to ask that Keillor get his Jesus out of my Easter, while I’m getting my Santa out of his Christmas?
#30 sasqwatch
December 21, 2009

Prairie Home Companion always made me want to puke for reasons I couldn’t quite figure out. Now it all makes sense. Thanks PZ.
#31 Glen Davidson
December 21, 2009

I don’t much doubt that he’ll say it was satire. But it appears to cross between the serious and the less than serious so facilely and without change in tone or subject that I don’t believe it’s honest satire.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
#32 Sir Eccles
December 21, 2009

Maybe if we didn’t have it rammed down our throats from August until January then maybe we wouldn’t get so grumpy about it and steal your songs.
#33 Donnie B.
December 21, 2009

I think I can detect Keeler’s mascara running: “Leave Christmas alone!!”

Hey, I’d be happy to ignore Christmas if that was possible. Let’s start by making Christmas NOT a national holiday. Move it to the day after Thanksgiving or something. Let the Christians take a vacation day like all the other faithists have to do on their holy days.
#34 tsg
December 21, 2009

I may have to go get some “Keep Thor In Thursday” bumper stickers printed up and send Mr. Keillor a few.
#35 Epikt
December 21, 2009

“This tiny gem of self-pity has given license to ~~a million~~ one arrogant and unlovable ~~people~~ fading quasi-celebrity to imagine that ~~their unpopularity~~ his singing somehow was ~~proof of their greatness~~ not a crime against humanity.”
#36 Sili
December 21, 2009

but it is wrong, wrong, wrong to rewrite “Silent Night.”

Yeah, damn that ungodly Franz Xaver Gruber and his vile Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht.

And Ingemann! How dares he sing about Glade Jul?!! Call is Kristmesse, or go back to your fscking pagan ways with trees and tinsel and whatnot.
#37 Lynna, OM
December 21, 2009

SciencePundit @11: Great clip. Thanks for the link. That was a terrific version of Silent Night. Gray guy with yellow teeth and one Christmas card — perfect. I’m not sure, but I suspect sexless Gray Guy was in his basement when he made that tape.

Sastra @18: Christmas! Christmas! Christmas! You bet, baby. We say it, and even mean for you to be merry whenever possible, but the less religion in it, the merrier. As Garrison Keillor amply illustrates by losing his cool over lyrics that mess with the messiah, religion injected into our winter festivals can be fucking depressing.
#38 Greg Laden
December 21, 2009

I’m holding out for badly done, idiotic satire. But it could be a mixture of inappropriate thinking on culture and bad satire.
#39 ConcernedJoe
December 21, 2009

I believe xmas was basically a secular holiday throughout history. Mostly an excuse for a rousing good time in the dead of Winter. All but the most fundy of fundies celebrated it as fun time of the year – those relatively few “Puritans” who were contrary mostly gave it short shrift altogether and viewed it as just a secular excuse for godless behavior.

At least that is my understanding. But empirically I’ve been around a while – a long while – and there has always been crying and gnashing of teeth by some religious or not religious person or group over the direction and use of the holiday.

But this historically is a universal holiday and far as I can tell it has always been a mixture (to varying degrees) of secular and religious merrymaking – presented for all and enjoyed by all people that take joy in life and the group dynamic of feeling a bit uplifted. Participants included Jews and atheists far as could tell as I saw it through my life. And religgious displays aside – no one really owned the time practically speaking.
#40 SteveM
December 21, 2009

The trappings and humanistic rationale behind Christmas make it a secular holiday

Yes, and that was the argument used when declaring Christmas to be a national holiday in the US (the only one with a religious background).

This is spiritual piracy and cultural elitism and we Christians have stood for it long enough.

Yes, Christmas itself is “spiritual piracy” by coopting an existing pagan celebration to hide themselves from persecution. Then, for most of Christianity’s history Christmas wasn’t even considered a holy day since the focus was to be on the resurrection, not the birth of Christ. Today’s Christmas celebration and trappings are all pretty modern inventions (re-inventions) of various and sundry ancient mid-winter celebrations confabulated purely for commercial purposes.

“Spiritual piracy”, indeed, just about every aspect of Christianity is “pirated” from some other religion. F U, G K.
#41 Quidam
December 21, 2009

However Johnny Marks WAS Jewish and did indeed write ‘Rudolph’ and many more of those tiresome Christmas songs that assault my ears in the shops. All of which distract me from enjoying the true meaning of Christmas i.e. a jolly good blowout of excess, eating and drinking and making a lot of noise to ensure the sun comes back in the spring.

Would the world be a better place without ‘Rudolph’? I think so.

Would the world be a better place without Martin Luther, Lutherans and Keillor’s insularity? Absolutely

“Reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed. Faith must trample underfoot all reason, sense, and understanding, and whatever it sees must be put out of sight and … know nothing but the word of God.” Martin Luther
#42 Abdul Alhazred
December 21, 2009

Oooh!

White Christmas — Irving Berlin
#43 daveau
December 21, 2009

If that’s satire, it’s pretty elusive. I guess it’s a fine line between being a humorist and being a douchebag.
#44 Lynna, OM
December 21, 2009

OK, fine, but please:
http://i.imgur.com/HoFee.jpg

Okay, Sven, you’ve posted that link multiple times! And every damned time I click on it … and it’s still funny. Holy crap and Happy Holidays, that’s a good one. I’m giving you eternal humor points.
#45 t3knomanser
December 21, 2009

*facepalm*

Oh, the inanity.

As has been stated: a Christian bemoaning “spiritual piracy” as their holiday traditions are co-opted by a broader cultural background is a lovely irony.
#46 Kevin.Gain
December 21, 2009

Satire…get it?…SATIRE…Who the fuck do you think his audience is?
#47 v.rosenzweig
December 21, 2009

The problem with “it’s a joke” is that if someone has to say it, either the humor didn’t work (which happens, we are all fallible) or it’s covering for “I didn’t expect to have to defend what I said.”

To be satire, something has to be noticeably more extreme than what’s being said seriously. Tom Lehrer announced that he was giving up satire the day Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize, because he couldn’t compete with reality.
#48 Abdul Alhazred
December 21, 2009

Satire…get it?…SATIRE…Who the fuck do you think his audience is?

The average newspaper reader?
#49 RamblinDude
December 21, 2009

This is the man who can do a scintillating episode of ?Guy Noir, Private Eye,? and follow it immediately with a gospel hymn in 3 part harmony complete with country twang. I suspect he?s being more tongue in cheek than he?s being given credit for, but this strangely senile-sounding screed reads a little too sincere to be funny.
#50 Ayhwh
December 21, 2009

If he wants to bitch about Christmas being Christian that is all well and good. But then the songs, editorials, commercials and all the bloody Jesus talk needs to be strictly confined to December 25th and possibly the night of the 24th. If it is not one of those days no one should mention the damn holiday.

The problem is that Christmas WAS a Christian holiday. Now it would be most aptly described as a Western Culture holiday. And honestly Santa took center stage of Baby Jebus about 100 years ago.

Dear Garrison Keiler – Let me enjoy my godless xmas presents, chestnut roasting songs, eggnog, and go fuck off. Thank you!
#51 Sigmund
December 21, 2009

Well I’m doing my bit to put Jesus back into the center of Christmas!
http://sneerreview.blogspot.com/2009/12/you-better-watch-out.html
#52 RamblinDude
December 21, 2009

Dang, I left off:

…and once again I find myself wanting to change the channel.
#53 tsg
December 21, 2009

Satire…get it?…SATIRE…

I fail to see how this “satire” differs from someone who believes this position saying exactly the same thing.
#54 SteveM
December 21, 2009

Garrison Keillor wrote:

Christmas does not need any improvements. It is a common ordinary experience that resists brilliant innovation. Just make some gingerbread persons and light three candles and sing softly in dim light about the poor man gathering winter fu-u-el and the radiant beams and the holly and the ivy, and you’ve got it.

Yet here he describes a perfectly pagan “christmas” as “you’ve got it”.

I’m confused.
#55 Sastra
December 21, 2009

Rereading the essay, I noticed something odd. Right after insisting that Christmas is a Christian holiday for the followers of Christ, Keillor gives examples of how it ought to be celebrated.

But they’re not religious examples. That is, there is no overt religion in the way he thinks Christmas must be celebrated. He doesn’t talk about church or worship or focusing on how wonderful Jesus was to die for our sins. Not even anything about the baby in the manger. Or God, for that matter.

Just make some gingerbread persons and light three candles and sing softly in dim light about the poor man gathering winter fu-u-el and the radiant beams and the holly and the ivy, and you’ve got it.

Well, okay.

And then he talks about the “most wonderful” Christmases ever, and there’s not a lick of traditional spirituality, let alone specific Christian content, in either one of them. He was waiting for his daughter to be born, and he had a lousy Christmas which would make every other one seem nice. These are odd illustrations for what’s supposed to be his main point, “Nonbelievers please leave Christmas alone.” Hmm.

After apparently railing at humanists taking the religion out of the Christian holiday, Keillor proceeds to describe an idealized Christmas which is pure humanism. I suppose he could have missed the irony here, but okay — maybe not.

If it’s satire, it’s subtle.
#56 Sastra
December 21, 2009

Ah, Steve M beat me to the same point…
#57 NewEnglandBob
December 21, 2009

Garrison Keillor has always been flat.

All of his writings and shows have something off about them. He has never been very tasteful or entertaining. I never understood how anyone could take more than a few minutes of his garbage.

I guess as he gets older he has a harder time holding in his racism.
#58 RBH
December 21, 2009

Keillor has been going downhill ever since he dumped Margaret Moos and took up with that Dane.
#59 Becca Stareyes
December 21, 2009

If it were satire, it would work better to at least hint that Christmas comes out of pre-Christian European midwinter festivals and Saturnalia as much as it does a Mideastern Mystery Religion that came out of Judaism. Or all the other stuff that comes from Grecian, Roman or Germanic religions that Christians have no problems using.

(Heck, my Catholic sister even learned from her church that Christmas was moved to take advantage of the season — she mentioned a couple of years ago that, taking the Bible at face value* would show that Christmas could never have been in December. How come the Biblical literalists never raise a fuss about those darn Catholics/Romans/etc. moving their holy days around as an excuse to overindulge?)

* Yeah, I know.
#60 Thunderbird 5
December 21, 2009

Then can we now expect an annual Keilor crusade against Christmas displays of evergreens and yule logs then?
#61 Lynna, OM
December 21, 2009

@29

Also, also, why is this high holy stink always at Christmas? I rarely see these guys getting their knickers in a twist over Easter – painted eggs, anthropomorphic bunnies, and all. Given that the holiday festivities has such a thin connection to the Christian celebration, is it unfair to ask that Keillor get his Jesus out of my Easter, while I’m getting my Santa out of his Christmas?

It’s the baby. They have their knickers in a twist because nobody should aim slings and arrows of disbelief at a baby. Oh, how the holy little unpotty-trained, smooth-skinned squallers may not be dissed!

Also, said squaller is here to save your ass from his daddy’s previous fuckups in the Garden of Eden, so remember to say grace and show gratitude before you eat the undercooked turkey that’s going to give you food poisoning … but Baby Jesus will save you with medical science if you are humble, and if you don’t fuck with the lyrics of Silent Night. I think I have that right.

My neighbors have erected inflatable Santas and Jesus babies on their snowy lawns. I’ve always wanted an inflatable bunny-on-a-cross for Easter, a baby-Jesus-and-Pope?-and-WiseMen-mafia scene for Christmas, and perhaps a Santa-in-lingerie. I do have a cow skull decorated with holiday lights, but this is actually acceptable in the weird world of western decor.
#62 Antiochus Epiphanes
December 21, 2009

Satire or not, this is far from Keillor’s worst offense, namely Prairie Home Companion which weekly inspires me to turn on the television. I’m from the goddamned Midwest and I don’t get it.
#63 Flea
December 21, 2009

“White Christmas” by Irving Berlin; he was an atheist and a jew… but, seriously, this is just an elaborate poe. It’s true that “Keillor has regularly spewed bile at gays and atheists”; but it’s just the genius of this precise poe! Other scenarios are simply too weird. Oh! wait…
#64 Naked Bunny with a Whip
December 21, 2009

Who the fuck do you think his audience is?

That’s an excellent question. Just who is paying attention to Garrison Keillor?
#65 destlund
December 21, 2009

Garrison Keillor? The left-leaning, mild-mannered, bespectacled yankee with the radio show that alternates between pleasantry and quaint charm? He of all people should hate the gays, the Jews, and the atheists? Oy gevalt! Don’t get him started on the shvartzers!
#66 Stewart
December 21, 2009

Huh! Looks like I inadvertently predicted this while helping out with the captioning chores:

http://lifewithoutfaith.com/?p=2972
#67 Hank Fox
December 21, 2009

Do spiritual pirates offset the loss of real pirates? FSM devotees would like to know.

And will there be a Talk Like A Spiritual Pirate Day?

Do spiritual pirates say “I’m not religious, I’m SPIRITUAL. Arrrr.”
#68 Lynna, OM
December 21, 2009

I shall give you my sincere advice First, to set fire to their synagogues or schools… Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. For they pursue in them the same aims as in their synagogues. Instead they might be lodged under a roof or in a barn, like the gypsies… Third, I advise that all their prayer books, Christmas Carols and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them… Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach, or to sing “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb… Fifth, I advise that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews… Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them and put aside for safekeeping… Seventh, I recommend putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow… In brief, dear princes and lords, those of you who have Jews under your rule: if my counsel does not please you, find better advice, so that you and we all can be rid of the unbearable, devilish burden of the Jews. Martin Luther

(With amendments to suit that other Lutheran, Garrison Keillor.)
#69 Michelle R
December 21, 2009

I have a christmas tree. I bought christmas presents. I call it christmas (In english only. I have no bloody idea what the hell Noel means.) I wish people merry christmas.

And guess what? I’m an atheist. That’s right, I’m hijacking your holiday! How does it feel now that it happens to you, scumbag? I bet the other religions you stole stuff from feel pretty much like pointing and laughing at you. Now your holiday was hijacked by godless people like US! Christmas? About Jesus? No way. Christmas is about SANTA and having GOOD TIME.

HAHAHA! Go Santa!
#70 SteveM
December 21, 2009

re 56:
Sastra wrote:

Ah, Steve M beat me to the same point…

But you expressed it far better than I.
#71 Anri
December 21, 2009

I’m honestly having trouble reading this as anything other than “STOOPID JEWEZ & HEETHENZ & YOUR STOOPID HOLIDAYS! Get the RIGHT GOD or SHUT THE HELLZ UP!”

Maybe I’m overreacting.

Anyway, is there any forum we can kindly suggest to Mr. Keillor that if he believes, truly believes that christmas is a strictly Christian holiday, that he should support the following:
That any and all federal, state, and local governmental recognition of it, or special treatment of it be considered a violation of the constitution and ceased at once.

Or would that be expecting too much?

Lynna, OM:

I do have a cow skull decorated with holiday lights, but this is actually acceptable in the weird world of western decor.

Try putting a halo on it, maybe…?
#72 aratina cage
December 21, 2009

Geez Keillor, even Baby Jesus got presents on Christmas.
#73 bcoppola
December 21, 2009

After my last comment on this on the other thread, I went out for a drive to do some errands. On careful consideration of the article while at a red light I thought: it wasn’t just bad satire, or just bile — beyond that, it was fucking incoherent.

Bernie Summers? Emerson? Christmas for Christians? WTF?
#74 skeptical_hippo
December 21, 2009

I do wonder if it’s satire… poorly done, but satire nonetheless.

My husband is a symphony musician and Keillor has been here a couple of times performing shows with the orchestra. He’s a big supporter of the arts, and, as far as I can tell, doesn’t require any kind of sexual orientation or religious litmus test for the musicians he features on his show. When the St Louis orchestra was locked out and lost health coverage a couple of years ago, he went down and donated a benefits concert to raise money for their relief fund. He surely must know that the classical music world is disproportionately non-Christian (large percentage of Jewish and Asian musicians) and quite gay-friendly (offering equal benefits to same-sex couples long before the practice went mainstream). So it’s hard to reconcile that view of him with anti-semitic and anti-gay bigotry.

I admit I get laugh out of his Lake Wobegon schtick. Having been raised Brethren myself, I can verify that the Brethren vs Lutheran bit is spot on. I have relatives who are quite certain that Lutheranism is NOT a Christian religion.
#75 tsg
December 21, 2009

You know you’ve failed at satire when the people who hold the position you are supposedly satirizing are rallying behind you saying, “Yeah! What he said!”
#76 Abdul Alhazred
December 21, 2009

He must be a pretty poor satirist if the only way to know it’s satire is to know the man personally.
#77 ralfnausk
December 21, 2009

It’s quite easy: Say “Merry Saturnalia” (Or rather “Io Saturnalia”. People have had their festivities this time of the year before thos Christians arrived on the scene, and if we manage somehow not to destroy our planet before time, they will be doing so after the hopefully disappear. So happy Holidays
#78 Natasha Yar-Routh
December 21, 2009

I always found Keillor to be smarmy, maudlin and smugly self superior. That he is also a hateful bigot doesn’t surprise me in the least.

Fuck him if he doesn’t like cultural appropriation, strip out all the appropriated bits from the bible and there would be nothing left. All of the bible was taken from older cultural & religous memes that were circulating at the time the various parts were written. Cultural appropriation has been going on since there were cultures worth appropriating. So get over it Keillor
#79 blf
December 21, 2009

I though this year’s official greeting was Happy Goats, and evolutionary change from last year’s Happy Monkey, and possibly short for Happy are the Goats who aren’t on Fire.
#80 Larry
December 21, 2009

And that wraps it up for another Saturday night in Lake Wobegon where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average, and all the hosts are bigoted assholes.

Good night, everybody!
#81 Sastra
December 21, 2009

tsg #75 wrote:

You know you’ve failed at satire when the people who hold the position you are supposedly satirizing are rallying behind you saying, “Yeah! What he said!”

Well, problem with that is that many of the people worthy of satirizing are apparently incapable of recognizing satire. Although this is true today with Stephen Colbert, I’m specifically thinking here of the old TV show “All in the Family.” Apparently, some studies discovered that conservatives with real-life Archie Bunker-ish views absolutely loved the show — because they thought it was primarily making fun of Meathead (and, of course, Edith). Archie was just “tellin’ it like it is” in refreshing fashion, an Everyman’s hero.

If they can miss that, they can miss anything.

When you satirically pretend to pick on a despised minority, you don’t just need to be pretty darn obvious: you need to be even more obvious than that.
#82 Panhead56
December 21, 2009

Just makes me happy to live in a country where we celebrate jul (yule) and don’t have to bother with that jesus-stuff if we don’t want to.
Today is the shortest day of the year, tomorrow we’re heading for summer and sunshine. Thats something worth celebrating.
#83 gr8hands
December 21, 2009

Keillor conveniently forgets that according to ~~the bible~~ myth . . . jesus was a jew.

His mother was a jew.

His followers were jews.

The wise men/magi, who started the whole gift giving tradition, were non-christians from the Orient!

So, if he doesn’t want all that jewish ‘taint’ touching christmas . . .
#84 Alsofish
December 21, 2009

On a more general note, I would say just that maybe everyone else should get a few centuries’ worth of kicks in on the Christians just to even the scales a little. They’ve been throwing their weight around and ramming their values (and holidays!) down everyone’s throats for a good, long time. Turnabout is fair play, and comeuppance is generally a bitch.

Besides, as an atheist, no one is telling me to turn the other cheek. I’m prepared to enjoy the show.
#85 Eamon Knight
December 21, 2009

I’ll agree with Keillor that most “Christmas songs” are inane, cloyingly sentimental crap, whatever the ethnicity of the writer. But then I’m a classical music fan who thinks the same about a lot of modern popular music, so just go ahead and call me a snob. Religious message aside, I do tend to prefer the traditional carols — after all, there’s a reason many of these things stuck around long enough to become traditional. Really, singing bass in the church choir is about the only thing I miss from my religious period.
#86 monado
December 21, 2009

Who the hell listens to Garrison Keillor? He is an ex-humorist. He is pushing up depression statistics. Etc.
#87 Strangest brew
December 21, 2009

‘Christmas is a Christian holiday — if you’re not in the club, then buzz off. Celebrate Yule instead or dance around in druid robes for the solstice. Go light a big log, go wassailing and falalaing until you fall down, eat figgy pudding until you puke, but don’t mess with the Messiah.’

So what happened to all that Christian respect and love for all mankind at this time of year?…

oh!…they were lying again…it was a joke!
Arseholes are useful…this one a little less so!
#88 https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawkL6rop7ope6a9ysVWsdSU1FNTAQmmW9gw
December 21, 2009

Relax people, GK is a Lutheran & the evangelist I accidentally listened to for a few minutes this weekend explained how Episcopalians, Lutherans & other non-Baptists aren’t real Christians anyhow.
#89 Sven DiMilo
December 21, 2009

Eamon Knight:
You’re a snob.

(hey, me too!)
#90 charley
December 21, 2009

I enjoyed him 25 years ago, but he is not aging well. I’m pretty sure this was satire, but honestly I think he losing touch with reality and should retire.
#91 MartiniConQueso
December 21, 2009

I’m sure as a (formerly) middle-class Christian White Guy from the Midwest Keillor has a keen insight into what it’s like to be the member of a persecuted minority. If only a Christian could get a fair shake these days, poor benighted souls like him might be able to make something of themselves in this country. Why, in time, Christians might be able to rise to the level of recording artist, beloved athlete or – dare I say it? – perhaps even hold national office.

Though it no doubt lies far in the future, one can only dream of the day when Christians, free of shame, can stand shoulder to shoulder with their Muslim, Bhuddist and Atheist comrades and hold their heads high, simply as fellow Americans happy to be joined by the bonds of brotherhood and citizenship.

Not with the Jews, though, Can’t let just anyone into the club and ruin it for the rest of us.
#92 PZ Myers
December 21, 2009

No, no, no. Again, Keillor is NOT a Lutheran. I’m an ex-Lutheran, I know. Keillor is an ex-Plymouth Brethren.
#93 bcoppola
December 21, 2009

#91:

Now that’s satire!
#94 raven
December 21, 2009

Relax people, GK is a Lutheran & the evangelist I accidentally listened to for a few minutes this weekend explained how Episcopalians, Lutherans & other non-Baptists aren’t real Christians anyhow.

Left out the Catholics, Mormons, and Unitarians.

Odd how most xians aren’t Real Xians(TM).

There are 26 sects of US Baptists. I suppose all but one of those are Fake Baptists too.
#95 Gus Snarp
December 21, 2009

If Christmas is solely a Christian holiday, doesn’t that mean it should no longer be a Federal holiday?
#96 Gus Snarp
December 21, 2009

I have to clarify your remarks on Keillor’s religion. If children should not be labeled Christian when they haven’t had a chance to choose, then it is not fair to refer to Keillor as “Not a Lutheran.” but “an ex-Plymouth Brethren.” Keillor is an Episcopalian, and he is an ex-Lutheran. These are the religions he has chosen for himself, so it is a bit unfair to saddle him with the religion of his parents.
#97 monado
December 21, 2009

Eamon, you can always join CAMMAC. Our city has a monthly choral music session on a weekend afternoon with local music enthusiasts. Perhaps your city does too. Also, it’s a great way to get in touch with smaller groups that want singers, e.g. for madrigals. Just click through to the site and look for your city.
#98 Kevin.Gain
December 21, 2009

Abdul Alhazred: The average newspaper reader is not his audience.
tsg: My dad used to identify w/ Archie Bunker and he never could understand why he came away from each episode pissed off. The Archie Bunkers of the world will never understand irony or satire. Does that mean we shouldn’t we shouldn’t engage in it?
Garrison Keillor does an excellent Archier Bunker.
#99 Strangest brew
December 21, 2009

“No, no, no. Again, Keillor is NOT a Lutheran. I’m an ex-Lutheran, I know. Keillor is an ex-Plymouth Brethren.”

Sooo!…he is a splitter and ain’t ‘The Judean Peoples Front’ then…or ‘The peoples Front of Judea’

But just might sneak in to the ‘Judean Popular Peoples Front’…they have vacancies methinks…that’s if the ‘Plymouth Brethren’ have had enough of him?
#100 John Frum
December 21, 2009

Wow, what an eye opening series of articles. I had long considered myself a fan of Keillor. I like his daily “Writer’s Almanac” quite a bit. Or I guess now I used to like it quite a bit. I had no idea he was like that.
#101 Brownian, OM
December 21, 2009

Is he kidding? Seriously, is he kidding?

Hey, Garrison:

The Indians want the word “Wobegon” back, you fucking cultural plagiarist.

(Yeah, I know it’s not really an ‘Indian’ word, but for a guy complaining about Christmas songs written by Jews…seriously, what a dipshit.)

I know it’s been a long time since I ~~had sex with a priest~~ was an altar boy, but are mirrors, cameras, still ponds, or other reflective devices somehow forbidden in Christianity? Piled together, the amount of beam-eyed mote-plucking among these assholes could attract and retain satellites and rings.
#102 ShockedISaid
December 21, 2009

“And all those lousy holiday songs by Jewish guys that trash up the malls every year, Rudolph and the chestnuts and the rest of that dreck. Did one of our guys write “Grab your loafers, come along if you wanna, and we’ll blow that shofar for Rosh Hashanah”? No, we didn’t.”

Um, yea, one of your guys did. And he published the anti-semitic crap in the Trib.

Twit.
#103 JamesBrown
December 21, 2009

Keillor is so ‘last century’ that I fear he is about to come into fashion again. Damn – I have been listening to him since 1974 and he is prone to repeat himself weekly.
#104 Sven DiMilo
December 21, 2009

Yeah, I guess he was probably kidding. As PZ’s title asserts, though, it fell flat. He should probably apologize.
#105 tsg
December 21, 2009

tsg: My dad used to identify w/ Archie Bunker and he never could understand why he came away from each episode pissed off. The Archie Bunkers of the world will never understand irony or satire. Does that mean we shouldn’t we shouldn’t engage in it?

No. It just means it isn’t always the best way to get the point across.

Your dad was at least pissed off, even if he didn’t know why. The people who identify with the position Keillor is supposedly satirizing aren’t. They think it needed to be said.

Garrison Keillor does an excellent Archier Bunker.

Without the rest of the characters as counterpoint, Archie Bunker is just a bigot spewing hatred and no longer satire. What Keillor has done here is given Archie Bunker center stage and kept Meathead mute.
#106 Alyson Miers
December 21, 2009

This is spiritual piracy and cultural elitism and we Christians have stood for it long enough. And all those lousy holiday songs by Jewish guys that trash up the malls every year, Rudolph and the chestnuts and the rest of that dreck.

Oh, those poor, marginalized Christians, held under the thumb of the evil, clever Jews! Won’t someone please think of the Christians! It’s not like they comprise over 3/4 of the most powerful country in the world, or anything! And why won’t those Jews ever leave us alone?! I mean, what did anyone ever do to them?!
#107 destlund
December 21, 2009

No, no, no. Again, Keillor is NOT a Lutheran. I’m an ex-Lutheran, I know. Keillor is an ex-Plymouth Brethren.

Wait, I’m confused. I always assumed that he focused his show’s jokes on Unitarians and Lutherans because Unitarians were funny and, well, Keillor was Lutheran. I thought everybody up there was. I’ve never heard of Plymouth Brethren until today, but does this fact mean that all his jabs at Lutherans aren’t good-natured self-effacing humor, but are instead intended to actually belittle Lutherans?
#108 Gus Snarp
December 21, 2009

@destlund – Keillor is an ex-Lutheran too. Plymouth Brethren was the religion of his parents, he chose to be a Lutheran and now an Episcopalian.
#109 bcoppola
December 21, 2009

Returning to the subject of great Christmas music, here’s a link from Greta Christina’s blog:

Christmas Rhapsody (after Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody)

“St. Nicholas has a lump of anthracite for meeee..,

for meeeee…

for MEEEEE!”
#110 Paul
December 21, 2009

I thought Kiellor was brighter than this.
“go write your own damn “Silent Night” and leave ours alone. This is spiritual piracy and cultural elitism and we Christians have stood for it long enough.”

Does he not realize that the piracy started with the Christians who stole a pagan holiday and made it “their own”. Atheists are not sealing anything, the holiday was ours to start with and we Atheists have stood for it long enough and are taking back that which is rightfully ours. Buzz off Kiellor get used to it.
#111 Dave Dell
December 21, 2009

It’s quite a ways from his first book where he roundly condemns the religion(s) and small town mindset of his youth.
#112 Mr T
December 21, 2009

I will continue to hurl insults at Garrison Keillor in the form of quotes from Shakespeare…

He is not his craft’s master; he doth not do it right.

O, he is as tedious
As a tired horse, a railing wife;
Worse than a smoky house: I had rather live
With cheese and garlic in a windmill, far,
Than feed on cates and have him talk to me
In any summer-house in Christendom.

I think thou art an ass.
#113 William
December 21, 2009

As a child growing up in a Catholic home, and because of less emphasis on the Nativity and more on the tree, I associated Christmas with Kris Kringle, up until I learned to spell and recognized ‘Christ’ in the word.
Now, at 62, I am amazed at my indifference, not just now, but back then. I must have been born a heathen.
#114 SteveM
December 21, 2009

I think it was satire. If only because I can’t conceive of a True Bigot juxtaposing the anti-jew diatribe with the “keep Christmas simple and homey” message of his last paragraph. I think he was trying to present a charicature of the “war on christmas” people by going way over the top complaining about secularizing the lyrics of Silent Night. No question it was poorly done and in very bad taste, but I think it was meant to be satire.
#115 'Tis Himself, OM
December 21, 2009

I gave up on Garrison Keillor about 20 years ago when I heard him ripping off Robbie O’Connell’s rip off of Gerard Hoffnung’s Bricklayer’s Lament.
#116 SteveM
December 21, 2009

No, I take it back. I guess a hateful bigot can indeed juxtapose those two paragraphs. [based on Keillor's reply to one reader's letter to him at the Chicago Tribune site]
#117 KOPD42
December 21, 2009

Do spiritual pirates wear an invisible spiritual eye patch over their invisible spiritual third eye?
#118 rick020200
December 21, 2009

This was NOT SATIRE as the following exchange in Facebook was documented at The Chicago Tribue:
jgcello sends to GK:

Dear Mr. Keillor, This is one of the most obnoxious and hateful things I have ever read from anybody in the media today. I can only imagine what my Unitarian friends must think; regarding your comment about Jewish songwriters, etc.: speaking as a Jewish musician who has played many a performance of Handel’s Messiah and other religious works to help my Christian friends celebrate their faith (and whose majority-Jewish university campus recently held a well-attended Messiah sing-in for that very same purpose), I think you owe the Jewish community an apology, bigtime. I’m amazed that somebody who puts on the air a weekly act of appearing compassionate, magnanimous, and warm is capable of writing something so alienating, bigoted, and hurtful. Having grown up being a fan of “A Prairie Home Companion” (I even recall you putting on a Hannukah themed show yourself) I am appalled and offended, and will not waste another minute listening to your show.

GK responds thus:

Mr. Gordon: Sorry I caught you on a bad day. If the little “Jewish guys” reference to
Irving and Johnny and Mel and the other authors of schlock is the most hateful and obnoxious thing you’ve ever read, then you are not
living in the same country I live in. As for the Unitarian rewriting of “Silent Night,” it’s a source of embarrassment to a lot of my Unitarian
friends. Your letter is a piece of pretentious claptrap and I won’t miss you as a listener. Hope things improve for you. Garrison Keillor

jgcello replies:

Dear Mr Keillor, Perhaps I should have written “This is one of the most obnoxious and hateful things I have ever read from you.” I would expect to read something like this from Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Michele Malkin,
Glenn Beck, etc.. That is their public persona, so readers and viewers expect that. But you have long put forth a different image and personality, and many readers and listeners who have been taken
aback as I am by your column would have thought you were above that kind of vitriol. If you fail to realize how anti-Semitic your commentary comes across, a quick perusal of the comments in the
Baltimore Sun will show you how anti-Semites are happily chiming in with you. If you don’t like a song, go ahead and call that song dreck. That’s fine. But to single out a particular group or religion of the song’s writer as you have done goes beyond that, and there is nothing pretentious about calling you out for it.
But have a Merry Christmas anyway.

GK replies:

Mr. Gordon, you wrote me an ugly and violent letter and when I read it to my friends the Friedmans and Mrs. Weil and Mr. Globerman who
came over after the show, they all shook their heads at the over-thetop violence of your language. Marty Friedman said, “I had a
wonderful uncle who shocked the goyim when a little thing went wrong, like a windshield wiper wouldn’t work, and he said, ‘First the
Holocaust and then this.’ He was a funny guy. But this Gordon schmuck would’ve called him an anti-semite. Well, f***k him.” I’ve got
wonderful friends. Goodbye and be happy not listening to my show. I am glad to see you go. People like you are the ones who’ve made me
angry ever since I was a kid and I was glad that my friends felt exactly the same way. And I’ll bet you’re a lousy stand partner. You look
dreadful. GK

I repeat-this was not satire. Keillor is a complete idiot.
#119 Somnolent Aphid
December 21, 2009

Keillor is right. The sooner we all stop celebrating Christmas the better. Enough lying to the kids and lying to each others too. Just call it Holiday, not that it’s all that much better. I’m sick of the Atheist display next to the creche. I mean how needy is that? And I’m really tired of the war on Christmas. And I for one am so damned sick of the damned Unitarians and their damned rewrites of perfectly respectable songs. They talk about the search for truth, but the but they’re perfectly willing to rewrite the script to meet their own needs. I was raised on Silent Night and that’s how I want it, dammit. You don’t see Christians re-writing or co-opting Unitarian songs, do you? Next thing you know the UU’ll be rewriting the Matthew Gospel, and that sure as hell ain’t right. Keillor completely missed the mark on spiritual piracy and cultural elitism though.
#120 CJO
December 21, 2009

People like you are the ones who’ve made me
angry ever since I was a kid

Jeebus. What a petulant little asshole. I’ve never been a fan, really, but I always thought he was a little more… together than this article and the ensuing exchange would indicate.
#121 Epikt
December 21, 2009

Sven DiMilo:

Eamon Knight:
You’re a snob.
(hey, me too!)

Welcome to the club.
#122 shonny
December 21, 2009

Oh, but the garrison got a point, and Tom Lehrer made his REAL xmas carol:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSlpCBek1_M

But keel-over should really know that it is YULE, – or is he just catering for the godbots?
#123 tsg
December 21, 2009

when I read it to my friends the Friedmans and Mrs. Weil and Mr. Globerman

Ah, the old “some of my best friends are” gambit.

This is only jgcello’s word that this is, in fact, Garrison Keillor’s actual reply, though.
#124 Douglas Watts
December 21, 2009

And all those lousy holiday songs by Jewish guys that trash up the malls every year, Rudolph and the chestnuts and the rest of that dreck.

Wow. Didn’t know that GK had a beef with “Jewish” songwriters.

This is his Mel Gibson moment.
#125 shonny
December 21, 2009

Keillor is an ex-Plymouth Brethren

Oh fuck, one of that super-loopy mob, heh heh.
We all may have our handicaps, but that one is a very major one. Like being born with no head.
#126 rick020200
December 21, 2009

tsg: excellent point. In fact when I saw the original article followed by that exchange I had to check the date–is it April 1 somewhere in the world?

Perhaps GK’s computer has been completely hacked such that someone submitted the article on his behalf and is now replying to Facebook messages as well.

Applying Occam’s Razor, I’ll assume that GK really is a twit, until further evidence is forthcoming.
#127 Douglas Watts
December 21, 2009

I guess this means he wants us to get off his lawn.
#128 Lynna, OM
December 21, 2009

How can the self-identified “English major” resort to accusing people of “cultural elitism” — or is Keillor’s brand of cultural elitism lite acceptable if it is rounded out with a gospel tune or two? And to think I used to enjoy the light-hearted approach to gospel music on Prairie Home Companion. I mistakenly thought, “Good, they’re not taking themselves too seriously. We can enjoy the music without the sermon.”

Maybe Garrison is suffering from Alzheimers Disease, in the earliest stages, and is falling back on bigoted attitudes he learned from his parents.

If the UU rewrites carols to make them even more white bread, that’s their loss. Just another good reason to stay away from church, stay away even from the UU with it’s “agnostics welcome” sign.
#129 aratina cage
December 21, 2009

SteveM,

based on Keillor’s reply to one reader’s letter to him at the Chicago Tribune site

Wooh boy. If this is satire, Keillor is poeing like mad. (His Wikipedia page says he suffered a stroke in September. Could it be related?) The exchange between jgcello and Keillor goes like this:

You can send Garrison Keillor a message on his Facebook page. Here’s what I sent:

Dear Mr. Keillor,

This is one of the most obnoxious and hateful things I have ever read from anybody in the media today. I can only imagine what my Unitarian friends must think; regarding your comment about Jewish songwriters, etc.: speaking as a Jewish musician who has played many a performance of Handel’s Messiah and other religious works to help my Christian friends celebrate their faith (and whose majority-Jewish university campus recently held a well-attended Messiah sing-in for that very same purpose), I think you owe the Jewish community an apology, bigtime. I’m amazed that somebody who puts on the air a weekly act of appearing compassionate, magnanimous, and warm is capable of writing something so alienating, bigoted, and hurtful. Having grown up being a fan of “A Prairie Home Companion” (I even recall you putting on a Hannukah themed show yourself) I am appalled and offended, and will not waste another minute listening to your show.
His reply coming up…

jgcello
—

Mr. Gordon:

Sorry I caught you on a bad day. If the little “Jewish guys” reference to Irving and Johnny and Mel and the other authors of schlock is the most hateful and obnoxious thing you’ve ever read, then you are not living in the same country I live in. As for the Unitarian rewriting of “Silent Night,” it’s a source of embarrassment to a lot of my Unitarian friends. Your letter is a piece of pretentious claptrap and I won’t miss you as a listener. Hope things improve for you.

Garrison Keillor
—

My followup to his reply:

Dear Mr Keillor,

Perhaps I should have written “This is one of the most obnoxious and hateful things I have ever read from you.” I would expect to read something like this from Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Michele Malkin, Glenn Beck, etc.. That is their public persona, so readers and viewers expect that. But you have long put forth a different image and personality, and many readers and listeners who have been taken aback as I am by your column would have thought you were above that kind of vitriol. If you fail to realize how anti-Semitic your commentary comes across, a quick perusal of the comments in the Baltimore Sun will show you how anti-Semites are happily chiming in with you. If you don’t like a song, go ahead and call that song dreck. That’s fine. But to single out a particular group or religion of the song’s writer as you have done goes beyond that, and there is nothing pretentious about calling you out for it. But have a Merry Christmas anyway.

jgcello
—

His followup to my followup:

Mr. Gordon, you wrote me an ugly and violent letter and when I read it to my friends the Friedmans and Mrs. Weil and Mr. Globerman who came over after the show, they all shook their heads at the over-thetop violence of your language. Marty Friedman said, “I had a wonderful uncle who shocked the goyim when a little thing went wrong, like a windshield wiper wouldn’t work, and he said, ‘First the Holocaust and then this.’ He was a funny guy. But this Gordon schmuck would’ve called him an anti-semite. Well, f***k him.” I’ve got wonderful friends. Goodbye and be happy not listening to my show. I am glad to see you go. People like you are the ones who’ve made me angry ever since I was a kid and I was glad that my friends felt exactly the same way. And I’ll bet you’re a lousy stand partner. You look dreadful. GK
#130 Somnolent Aphid
December 21, 2009

KOPD42 – Arrrrrr matey.
#131 aratina cage
December 21, 2009

Sorry rick020200 #118, I didn’t see that you already posted the exchange while I was getting it cleaned up for Sciblogs.
#132 llewelly
December 21, 2009

All of you people claiming Christmas was stolen by the Christians from the pagans are totally wrong. It wasn’t stolen. It was rescued. In the beginning of time, God Ordained that Holy Day as the right and proper Birthday of Jesus Christ, Our Lord. But, after Lucifer, the bad angel, rebelled against the Lord, Lucifer ordered his servant, Webster Cook, to enter the Holy House of the Lord under false pretenses, and steal the Holy Birthday of Jesus Christ Our Lord. And Webster Cook, being enamored of Lucifer and his works, held the Sacred Day hostage for many thousands of years. And so God was forced to have Jesus born on the wrong day, rather than on the 25th of December which the Lord Our God had intended. Not until the time of Constantine was the rightful original birthday of Jesus Christ Our Lord rescued from the clutches of the foul Webster Cook.
#133 Douglas Watts
December 21, 2009

This seems to be satire, with GK adopting the voice of a teabagger, but it doesn’t work, because a) it’s not funny and b) there’s a weird bitterness underlying it. The alleged responses by GK are truly weird, so much that I’d need a lot more proof before I’m convinced he wrote them. If he wrote them, then Mel Gibson moment.
#134 destlund
December 21, 2009

I don’t think the issue is with Jewish songwriters per se, just more of a “Get your ~~God damned~~ ~~savior-denying~~ non-Christian hands off the trappings of my Christian Holiday.” Of course it’s stupid because it ignores the fact that the Jewish songwriters were commissioned by Christians who wanted more consumerism and less midnight mass.
Also a lot of those carols that he likes so much, presumably because of their extra Christyness, were appropriated from older traditional songs anyway. Add to that his description of a patently secular Christmas display (no creche? no angels? no star?) and we have a case for premature senility.
I have always found his show irritating, mostly because I can’t stand the folksy music. I did put up with it, though, because I liked the humor/radio theater bits, especially regarding the Professional Association Of English Majors. Looks like I have one less radio date moving forward.
#135 Douglas Watts
December 21, 2009

Oh. Could we dispense with the “i never liked his show” comments? Who the fuck cares if you like his show or not? Of what possible interest or usefulness is this information to anyone but you?

Also. Without proof of the veracity of the “responses” by GK quoted above, I call typical internet lies and sophomoric bullshit. Anyone could have written these “responses” and most likely did.

I doubt GK actually sits around answering anonymous commenters on a newspaper site, in a fashion that is extremely offensive, where he knows that every word he says is going to be publicized.

This is all smelling hoaxy.
#136 Carlie
December 21, 2009

I don’t see that there’s any official Garrison page on Facebook. A search on his name only brings up 3 fan pages, all with a few hundred or fewer fans and all speaking of him in the 3rd person (and none claiming to be him), and a lot of groups that are about him, again none claiming to be official.
#137 aratina cage
December 21, 2009

I don’t see that there’s any official Garrison page on Facebook.

Hrmm… Can’t you make it so that your profile is not searchable on facebook? I wonder if jgcello (Joshua Gordon perhaps?) is available on facebook to corroborate the comments.
#138 Carlie
December 21, 2009

I would assume that if it really is satire, he will be aghast and offended by all of the remarks against him, and will write a retraction/explanation/notpology forthwith. If it’s for real, he’ll either ignore the brouhaha entirely or write an explanation that turns out to be even worse than the original.
#139 Kevin.Gain
December 21, 2009

tsg: Colbert provides no counterpoint and his brilliant satire is understood by his fans and misunderstood by those who think they are. I have to slap myself though, for thinking that GK’s piece was satire. Upon rereading, it appears not to be satire. Am I My Father?
#140 Carlie
December 21, 2009

In fact, if it was real, I would think the Chicago Tribune needs to be apologizing, and fast.
#141 Mr T
December 21, 2009

If it’s satire, then it isn’t funny, isn’t interesting, isn’t blatantly critical of the position being espoused, and is written so poorly that I fail to see how someone would print it.

Is it common to include satire in a newspaper’s opinions/editorials?
#142 Jack
December 21, 2009

Well, I’ve always disliked Keillor’s irksome brand of fake whimsy. Now I have a reason to dislike him as a person, too.
#143 John Frum
December 21, 2009

Colbert may not provide a direct counterpoint but his interaction with the audience provides the same effect. He often turns their boos or cheers around on them which makes them all laugh. The sidebar during “The Word” also makes it clear that it is satire.
#144 Meathead
December 21, 2009

A Prairie Home Pogrom?

Powder Milk Biscuits – now made with Jews?
#145 Meathead
December 21, 2009

What Keillor has done here is given Archie Bunker center stage and kept Meathead mute.

What, what now?
#146 stan.ferguson
December 21, 2009

This is credited to Mitch Albom just below the byline as part of “Tuesdays with Mitch.”

I just checked out his site. He writes about faith. Makes more sense that this uber-Christian wrote the opinion piece than anyone who could work closely with Robert Altman.

However, I am confused as to why Garrison is mentioned.
#147 Sven DiMilo
December 21, 2009

Holy shit: Stan’s correct. Was that byline always there?
#148 Sven DiMilo
December 21, 2009

ah, here’s the same piece under Keillor’s name:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.keillor16dec16,0,225627.story
#149 jupiter9
December 21, 2009

“This was NOT SATIRE as the following exchange in Facebook was documented at The Chicago Tribue:”

As others mentioned, there’s no proof this is GK’s response.

And hey, y’all fail at Facebook searching. Search for his name, then click on “people” on the left to get to only personal accounts. When you do, you find an account (second one down, picture with daughter) that seems quite possibly his. With no way to friend him, and no such dialogue.

Anyway.

I vote very firmly for satire. The more I read people saying, doesn’t he understand we stole it from the pagans, doesn’t he know Jesus was a Jew, doesn’t he realize that gingerbread men aren’t Christian, doesn’t he recognize the contradiction in complaining about the music in malls as commercial?

The more I believe, yes, he does know that. He’s not a moron. He’s pretty well-read and generally thoughtful, even though he tends toward bloviation.

I think some of you are so used to arguing with literalists that you’ve become literalists yourselves, unable to get a joke without a smiley at the end.

That’s not to say the satire was great. This one obviously failed. But he’d have to be a totally different person from the one who wrote his books to actually mean what he wrote, and for his worldview to really embody those contradictions without his realizing it.

If he does, I have to suspect actual brain damage. It’s totally out of character for Keillor.
#150 bcoppola
December 21, 2009

#146/7

The Mitch Albom byline is in error. The same Keillor piece originally ran in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Trib got it via syndication, I think.

See also post #19 (or thereabouts) in the “Yes Virginia, Atheists Celebrate Christmas” comments thread.
#151 T. Bruce McNeely
December 21, 2009

As a Unitarian (don’t laugh, please), I will accept Keillor’s suggestion to leave “Silent Night” to the Christians, if he will avoid the following songs:
Jingle Bells
It Came Upon a Midnight Clear
I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
Auld Lang Syne
- which are all composed by Unitarians.

He should also avoid reading or seeing the movie A Christmas Carol, since Charles Dickens was a Unitarian.

He should also avoid putting up a Christmas Tree, since a Unitarian Minister, Charles Follen, is credited with popularizing the tree in the US around 1835.

Anyway, I will be at our UU Fellowship on Christmas Eve, accompanying “Silent Night” on a guitar. The original version, by the way.

Happy Holidays, Mr. Keillor.
#152 stan.ferguson
December 21, 2009

Thanks for pointing that out Sven # 148. I’m going to have to go with satire and simply defer to #149.
#153 Alexander the Good Enough
December 21, 2009

Sad. Very sad. Garrison did indeed suffer a stroke this last September. http://tinyurl.com/yg6mm25 As well noted above, he seems to have been trending in this direction for a while now, but oh my… It’s sadly obvious that damage was and has been done.

I’m friends with some of the regulars on his show. I’m from a Midwestern Scandihoovian background. I listened to his first national broadcast 35 or so years ago. And I could always relate. But I’ve gone from being a huge fan, to enjoying the show, mostly, to turning it off lately. No more Powdermilk Biscuits for me I guess.

Over the years I’ve had the privilege of meeting and knowing to a degree several notable, famous even, humorists. To a person and for many reasons, underneath their funny surface I’ve found a very angry individual. Often I’ve suspected that if they couldn’t make people laugh they’d go postal. The anger is what kept their clocks wound.

I’m sure it’s no different with Mr. Keillor, and now his anger is no longer so well modulated. Sad, and not pretty.
#154 Cuttlefish, OM
December 21, 2009

I always liked Keillor. Have for years; I would love to have one of my verses read by him on either PHC or his daily whatchamacallit he does for NPR.

I see now I have very little chance of that.

Bummer.
#155 tsg
December 21, 2009

tsg: Colbert provides no counterpoint and his brilliant satire is understood by his fans and misunderstood by those who think they are.

I actually don’t watch enough of Stephen Colbert to comment except to say that the counterpoint to Archie Bunker in “All in the Family” is not necessary in every case.
#156 Carlie
December 21, 2009

But he’d have to be a totally different person from the one who wrote his books to actually mean what he wrote, and for his worldview to really embody those contradictions without his realizing it.

But again, if you have to know the person to get the satire, it’s failed satire. Nobody has to say “Oh, that John Swift, he doesn’t really hate the Irish.” And a lot of the comments within that article are exactly what you would expect even knowing a lot about Keillor, which is another reason it fails – you can’t switch back and forth from satire to straight within one piece.
#157 chelonian23
December 21, 2009

He can have Christmas. Fuck holidays.
#158 eyespy
December 21, 2009

Submitted for your review, my reply to Mr Keillor in the comments section:

“Wow. That’s some serious asshattery. Elitism by Unitarians? Pot, meet kettle.

Not one thing about Christmas is unique to Christianity besides the theology.

The date, singing, celebrating, gathering friends and family, eating and drinking things specific to the season, Yule logs, mistletoe, even the bloody tree are co-opted from ancient religious (particularly the myths of Mithras and Osiris) and pagan traditions.

We celebrate so wildly this time of year because ancient people with no understanding of astronomy needed to get it all out of their system in case the sun kept setting earlier and eventually went away for good.

Think of it as kind of like Mardi Gras; one last blowout before the world possibly began to end. Why do you think all the pagan monuments of Europe align with the midwinter solstice?

Also, there is no consensus that the 25th is the birthday of Jeebus. In fact, the gospels can’t even agree on what YEAR he was supposedly born, let alone the day.

So, Mr Keillor, take this bile-drenched paean to your own religious elitism and cram it in your secret parts.

You, know, like the hemorrhoids god smote the people of Ashdad, Gath and Ekron with in 1 Samuel 5:6-12.

And keep your three-headed zombie god out of my solstice festival.”

Thank you for your time and consideration. Feel free to correct or add anything you may think is necessary to increase effect or enhance clarity.
#159 Antiochus Epiphanes
December 21, 2009

I’m with chelonian23. I hate a holiday like a sickness.

Except for St. Crispin’s day, when I race out at dawn and defeat four Frenchmen singlehandedly, and appropriately hoard the glory all to myself. Some people have argued that it would be appropriate to wake them first, to which I reply, “But the French don’t celebrate St. Crispin’s day, do they?”

So that holiday is OK. But fuck the rest of them.
#160 Pierce R. Butler
December 21, 2009

We’re breaking into their smug little holiday, see, and making it ours, too.

Whaddya mean “we”, white M(innesot)an?

Us atheists haven’t even finished with our Rift, yet!
#161 hypocee
December 21, 2009

“Keillor has regularly spewed bile at gays and atheists”

And the part where you, and some of us, were wrong about that, and looked a bit foolish…?
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/03/go_back_to_lake_wobegon_garris.php#c376635
#162 jupiter9
December 21, 2009

Alexander the Good Enough: “Over the years I’ve had the privilege of meeting and knowing to a degree several notable, famous even, humorists. To a person and for many reasons, underneath their funny surface I’ve found a very angry individual. Often I’ve suspected that if they couldn’t make people laugh they’d go postal. The anger is what kept their clocks wound.”

I believe this is just as true of Keillor as the others you’ve met. Read his “99 Theses.”

He’s an angry young man, grown old.

Carlie: “But again, if you have to know the person to get the satire, it’s failed satire.”

Well, you have to know him so little that you think it’s possible he doesn’t know that a Yule log or gingerbread men aren’t based in the Christ myth.

Anyway, being a failed satirist is very different from being a bigot and an asshat.

Maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised people thought it was in earnest. Given the whole War On Christmas paranoiafest, I guess it is actually all too likely that an older white guy would really mean what he said. There’s a surprising number of commenters to the various sites where the piece appears who have posted to *agree* with him.
#163 Jungle Pig
December 21, 2009

I really think there is a possibility that it is intended as satire. While he knows that a great portion of his regular audience consists of Lutherans, and he never out and out challenges the faith of xians, he frequently nudges and pokes various faiths in ways that would make any thinking “member” question the validity of their creed and the silliness of their rites. I’ve personally always been pretty sure that GK was at least on his way toward personal atheism, if he wasn’t convinced already. He never seemed anti-semitic to me, any more than he was anti-Lutheran, anyway. I’ll need a little more to go on to jump on the bandwagon and label him thusly.
JP
#164 monado
December 21, 2009

It’s not satire; it’s a rant. Whether it’s funny or meant is hard to say.
#165 bad Jim
December 22, 2009

I still think that Keillor the character is distinct from Keillor the writer, not nearly the sort of parody as Stephen Colbert, but still not to be taken entirely seriously. I think the fact that he isn’t Lutheran supports my point, because his character does come across as Lutheran.

That being said, I have found for the last few years that I didn’t care for the sort of stuff he’s been writing for Salon. Since I wasn’t reading it it’s hard to say whether it was simply tired and cranky and worn-out or crude and sexist and so forth. Not that funny, not worth reading.

On the other hand, I didn’t think the Christmas piece was that bad. There’s nothing wrong with rewriting carols*, but I don’t like the way we Unitarians do it. (Why do Unitarians sing so badly? They’re busy reading ahead to see if they agree with the next line.)

* Not only do I sing “Greensleeves” instead of “What Child Is This”, I also sing “To Anacreon in Heaven” instead of “The Star Spangled Banner”.
#166 JeffXL
December 22, 2009

Poor Christian bully. He really needs to understand that no one owns December.
#167 Douglas Watts
December 22, 2009

Okay. This is pure satire. My father used to make up stuff like this. There’s an entire substructure of subtle jokes in here about different Protestant denominations that Keillor is playing with, overlaid with the scabrous, self-righteous voice of a typical Bill O’Reilly “war on christmas” teabagger. Keillor is throwing so many feints and jabs that it’s hard to keep track of them. The stuff about Unitarians is a very old Protestant joke (ie. they are basically atheists who still like to go to church and sing). The mention of Jewish songwriters is the obvious tell. As well as “if you don’t believe Jesus is God …”

Whether you appreciate Keillor’s humor or not, this is pure satire. If you believe otherwise, you’ve been punked.
#168 shatfat
December 22, 2009

Wow, talk about deja lu/entendu…

I quit listening to Garrison Keillor when he pulled this crap–was it last year? Or the year before? when he was whining about the glories of childhood Christmas cookies past and how our mean old pluralistic society had taken that away, and I just realized he was unfunny and boring and in a rut and restlessly changed the channel every time his worn-out retread show came on the radio. And that was before I’d ever heard of Pharyngula.
#169 shatfat
December 22, 2009

@118

Garrison Keillor–HL Mencken, round 2?

Some of my best friends are Jewish?

Sorry, bub, your words were Anti-Semitic. Irving Berlin wrote in a social and commercial context which was dominated by gentiles. Also, I love White Christmas. Up yours.
#170 shatfat
December 22, 2009

@169

Well, looked like I got punk’d.
#171 3B
December 22, 2009

Prairie Home Companion used to be a funny program on National Public Radio. NPR has changed quite a bit during the past twenty-five years as has GK. These days Keillor’s rants seem just right for National Pentagon Radio.
#172 truth machine
December 22, 2009

This is pure satire.

Did even read PZ’s second link? Just because someone affects a persona doesn’t mean that their own views are at odds with the persona.
#173 truth machine
December 22, 2009

And the part where you, and some of us, were wrong about that, and looked a bit foolish…?
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/03/go_back_to_lake_wobegon_garris.php#c376635

You might want to read a bit further in that thread, to http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/03/go_back_to_lake_wobegon_garris.php#c380325

My take: Keillor is an incompetent humorist.
#174 hypocee
December 22, 2009

Why yes, the goalposts did get shifted. We went from “Garrison Keillor IS. A. BIGOT1″ to “Mwell I don’t think he’s vury funny.” Are we going to do that again?

Battlepanda appears to have listened to a small quantity of Lake Wobegon. I have listened to a larger quantity. Most of the stories are happy, yes, because it’s mostly humorous, but lots of the people there are hurt by small-town life or conservatism; the example that first comes to mind is The Charismatic Lutherans, where a woman is trapped and unhappy from being too well-known and the internecine rivalry of Christian sects in the town. Of course, many of the people there are ridiculously foolish, often because of their small horizons and xenophobia. Wobegon is not held up as a utopia; it’s a place that’s pretty OK mostly.

I’m fine with people not finding this funny, obviously. I’ll throw in that I think Keillor foolishly sits between two stools on the frequency of his assumptions of a conservative persona, that I don’t think the pieces are very good. I’m objecting to the line I quoted, claiming that Keillor has “regularly” “spewed bile” at gays and atheists, when in the civil rights area, at least, the real world says that he once made gay people and those who support equal rights angry, then publicly and concisely apologized and stated that he did not hold the opinion. It’s OK that PZ didn’t edit an addendum to the article when Keillor apologized. It’s OK that he didn’t so much as post “oops” or try to do his own goalpost shifting in a comment; he’s a busy guy and the post was old by that point. I feel that linking to it as an example of Keillor’s “regular” ‘attacks’ goes too far, making a truth claim that has been directly refuted. That’s something, say, creationists do. I call it a lie.

I know it’s fun and exciting to get angry, but there’s enough outright evil in the world that I’m inclined to look twice and thrice before I pile onto a potential satire from a fiction writer who has previously been falsely tarred.
#175 Ralph Dosser
December 22, 2009

I’ve got to assume PZ is not familiar with GK’s style or substance. He’s as self-deprecating as they come, certainly not bombastic or hateful. If he ever comes across as such, it’s time to get out the irony scope.

I’m a fan of both PZ and GK – can’t we all get along?
#176 aratina cage
December 22, 2009

I can’t really tell if Keillor’s piece is supposed to be funny or not, but what is funny is the treatment it is getting on the web. Googling his name in the news today brings up:

“Cool it, Keillor!”,

“Garrison Keillor Rejects the Jews? Christmas Present”,

“Wow, someone’s cranky this Christmas”,

“Readers Debate Garrison Keillor’s Controversial Christmas Column”,

“Go Away, Garrison Keillor”,

“In defense of ‘dreck’”,

“Garrison Keillor, Uncensored For Christmas”,

“The News From Lake Jewbegon”, and

“The War on Christmas: Can Jews Celebrate Too?” among others.

I’d say he has successfully gnawed off his left foot and his right foot in a single opinion piece. Judging by what he wrote about his most memorable Christmases, that may be the exact kind of response he was looking for—his gift to us could be the informative public reaction against such anti-semitic, anti-UU, anti-secular, anti-atheist, killjoy, cantankerous ignorance.
#177 SirBedevere
December 22, 2009

If that’s indeed intended to be parody, Keillor’s guilty of bad writing as well as poor judgment (and he should apologize for both). Perhaps there’s an inverse of Poe’s Law: Rather than serious fanaticism getting so extreme that it’s indistinguishable from parody, Inverse Poe must be parody that’s so poorly (under)done that it’s indistinguishable from genuine kookery.
#178 Tom
December 22, 2009

If this is supposed to be satire then you don’t publish it in a newspaper where the majority of readers will have no clue that you are being satirical.
#179 tsg
December 22, 2009

Whether you appreciate Keillor’s humor or not, this is pure satire. If you believe otherwise, you’ve been punked.

He completely fails to denounce or otherwise deride the position he supposed to be satirizing. It’s not satire. Whether it was intended to be is a different argument….
#180 tsg
December 22, 2009

Why yes, the goalposts did get shifted. We went from “Garrison Keillor IS. A. BIGOT1″ to “Mwell I don’t think he’s vury funny.” Are we going to do that again?

It’s a bigoted statement whether he meant it or not. He may not believe it but the position is real and just as wrong.
#181 Rana
December 22, 2009

@Raven #94

Left out the Catholics, Mormons, and Unitarians.

Odd how most xians aren’t Real Xians(TM).

There are 26 sects of US Baptists. I suppose all but one of those are Fake Baptists too.

Actually, Unitarian Universalists (whose name Keillor consistently gets wrong) are NOT Christians.

That “unitarian” part? It’s a rejection of the Trinity. No holy son, no holy spirit… just god. So, not Christian.

This pantheist UU would be appreciative if you didn’t lump us in with the likes of Keillor. There are easier ways to attack us – how about a stale joke from the PHC?
#182 Rana
December 22, 2009

Drat. I always forget that line returns kill formatting. Corrected version:

@Raven #94

Left out the Catholics, Mormons, and Unitarians.

Odd how most xians aren’t Real Xians(TM).

There are 26 sects of US Baptists. I suppose all but one of those are Fake Baptists too.

Actually, Unitarian Universalists (whose name Keillor consistently gets wrong) are NOT Christians.

That “unitarian” part? It’s a rejection of the Trinity. No holy son, no holy spirit… just god. So, not Christian.

This pantheist UU would be appreciative if you didn’t lump us in with the likes of Keillor. There are easier ways to attack us – how about a stale joke from the PHC?
#183 Johnny Bowen
December 22, 2009

Right on, Garrison. We need to get rid of these Jewish/Pagan inspired “Christmas” songs and replace them with good God-fearing songs. I propose we change the lyrics on all these songs so they will reflect true biblical beliefs, like I did with “The Christmas Song”:

CHRISTMAS IN HELL

My nuts roasting on an open fire,
Maggots crawling from my nose,
Demons with tongs, with their tips all aglow
Are pulling my nails from all my toes; everybody knows
Some holly and some mistletoe
Are pagan symbols and not right.
Worship a yew, instead of You Know Who,
And you?ll be roasting with me some night.

You know that Satan?s on his way.
He has some horrible, terrible plans for me today.
And the next day, and the next day and the next day,
Because I?m here for an eternity, they say.

And so, I offer you these careful words
While Satan pokes me with his tail.
You better believe in God and JC,
Or you?ll be roasting in Hell.
#184 Johnny Bowen
December 22, 2009

Right on, Garrison. I propose we rewrite all those Jew/Pagan “Christmas” songs with new lyrics which promote true biblical values and beliefs, like I have done with “The Christmas Song”:

CHRISTMAS IN HELL

My nuts roasting on an open fire,
Maggots crawling from my nose,
Demons with tongs, with their tips all aglow
Are pulling my nails from all my toes; everybody knows
Some holly and some mistletoe
Are pagan symbols and not right.
Worship a yew, instead of You Know Who,
And you?ll be roasting with me some night.

You know that Satan?s on his way.
He has some horrible, terrible plans for me today.
And the next day, and the next day and the next day,
Because I?m here for an eternity, they say.

And so, I offer you these careful words
While Satan pokes me with his tail.
You better believe in God and JC,
Or you?ll be roasting in Hell.
#185 Jadehawk, OM
December 22, 2009

That “unitarian” part? It’s a rejection of the Trinity. No holy son, no holy spirit… just god. So, not Christian.

nope, merely not trinitarian. lots of ancient christians weren’t trinitarians.
#186 coyotecrossing
December 22, 2009

I see two hypotheses here.

1) Keillor’s essay was a bigoted rant.

2) Keillor’s essay only appears to be a bigoted rant, but was really intended to mock the position he seems to hold, despite the fact that it bears none of the actual field marks of satire, such as hyperbole, reductio ad absurdum, self-deprecation, etc. Public remarks made by someone claiming to be the essayist that would corroborate hypothesis #1 were made by an imposter, and we must necessarily reach this conclusion based on a body of work that uniformly lauds the very social mores the essay in question satirizes, because that body of work is also satire.

I know which way Occam’s Razor slices here.
#187 quarkscrew
December 22, 2009

Garrison’s just grumpy this time of year because the angel shortened his last name by two letters.
#188 quarkscrew
December 22, 2009

Mind you, the angel’s edict does also make a mockery of Garrison’s favorite hymn:

Si’ent Night, Ho’y Night,
A’ is ca’m, a’ is bright,
Ho’y infant so tender and mi’d,
S’eep in heaven’y peace.
S’eep in heaven’y peace.
#189 jupiter9
December 22, 2009

Posted by: tsg Author Profile Page | December 22, 2009 12:59 PM

Whether you appreciate Keillor’s humor or not, this is pure satire. If you believe otherwise, you’ve been punked.

He completely fails to denounce or otherwise deride the position he supposed to be satirizing. It’s not satire.

Really? Satire requires that one explicitly denounce or deride the position you’re supposed to be satirizing?

You don’t think making stupid oblivious easily-refuted comments about Christmas and Jews and Unitarians and the season would count?

How big do the winks have to be before you can recognize it as satire? Visible from the cheap seats? From Mars?

Actually, it’s probably more irony than satire. I like this quote from the Wikipedia article on it:

Irony (from the Ancient Greek ???????? eir?ne�a, meaning hypocrisy, deception, or feigned ignorance) is a situation, literary technique or rhetorical device, in which there is an incongruity, discordance or unintended connection that goes beyond the most evident meaning. It is the expression of one’s meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite. It is also defined by anything appearing to have, or to have, qualities, usually uniquely, pertaining to the element Iron.

coyotecrossing, what does Occam’s Razor say about a known liberal columnist who makes fun of Unitarians on a regular basis suddenly deciding to get all vicious about them, and the Jews, too?

If you don’t actually know his work, know his voice, you’re excused from deciding whether this is of a piece with it. You’re making huge assumptions.
#190 tsg
December 22, 2009

Really? Satire requires that one explicitly denounce or deride the position you’re supposed to be satirizing?

Uh, yeah, that’s what makes it satire.

You don’t think making stupid oblivious easily-refuted comments about Christmas and Jews and Unitarians and the season would count?

People make stupid, oblivious, easily-refuted comments about all kinds of things everyday. That’s not satire either. Keillor’s piece is indistinguishable from the actual position held by many people.

How big do the winks have to be before you can recognize it as satire? Visible from the cheap seats? From Mars?

Oh, yeah, it was so bloody fucking obvious only a complete idiot could miss it. Fuck you, too. I guess I can go tell racist, sexist, and homophobic jokes now and everything will be alright as long as I wink first.
#191 Randy
December 22, 2009

Unitarians (or Universalists) do NOT “listen to an inner voice”. Quakers do that.
#192 coyotecrossing
December 22, 2009

If you don’t actually know his work, know his voice, you’re excused from deciding whether this is of a piece with it. You’re making huge assumptions.

So far every rhetorical trope you’re using in Keillor’s defense is one that has been used on this blog to defend creationism or the existence of sky fairies. It’s laughable then and it’s laughable now.
#193 zhu-wuneng
December 22, 2009

If you have to be familiar with someone’s extended oeuvre to get their satire, it probably shouldn’t be published in the B-More Sun.

Just sayin!
#194 Douglas Watts
December 23, 2009

Some of you folks have been punk’d hard by GK, including our inestimable host.

Here’s the first lesson: context. PZ has only quoted a small section of the piece, which needs to be read in its entirety.

Second, apply Occam’s Razor. Why would GK write and submit such a ridiculously anti-semitic and hate-filled piece to the Chicago Tribune and Baltimore Sun?

Third, he’s a satirist. Shouldn’t that be a clue that this is most likely satire?

Fourth, turn all of the sentences backwards, as in they are intended to mean exactly the opposite of what the voice is saying. Then re-read it.

Fifth, as for: If you have to be familiar with someone’s extended oeuvre to get their satire, it probably shouldn’t be published in the B-More Sun, well you get the audience you get, not the one you might wish for.

It’s one thing to say you don’t find the satire to your taste, it’s quite another to say you’re offended by your interpretation of the text even when it’s obvious that your interpretation is not just wrong, but is exactly the opposite of what the writer was actually saying.

And if you don’t still get it, try reading a stack of Mad Magazines from the 1960s, or watching re-runs of Ernie Kovacs and Steve Allen or Bob & Ray. Keillor’s style is straight from these veins, esp. Bob & Ray.

So if PZ says the piece falls flat for him as a humor piece, he’s entitled to that conclusion. Not every schtick works for everyone, nor can it. But to imply that Garrison Keillor actually means any of this stuff is a fail of epic proportions.
#195 tsg
December 23, 2009

Some of you folks have been punk’d hard by GK, including our inestimable host.

Here’s the first lesson: context. PZ has only quoted a small section of the piece, which needs to be read in its entirety.

I read the entire thing. Twice.

Second, apply Occam’s Razor. Why would GK write and submit such a ridiculously anti-semitic and hate-filled piece to the Chicago Tribune and Baltimore Sun?

Because he’s a hate-filled anti-semite? That seems the simplest solution.

Third, he’s a satirist. Shouldn’t that be a clue that this is most likely satire?

That he’s a satirist doesn’t make it satire. It may have been intended as such, but it isn’t.

Fourth, turn all of the sentences backwards, as in they are intended to mean exactly the opposite of what the voice is saying. Then re-read it.

So when I say you’re a stupid, naive, unwashed waste of space, you should automatically take it as a compliment?

Fifth, as for: If you have to be familiar with someone’s extended oeuvre to get their satire, it probably shouldn’t be published in the B-More Sun, well you get the audience you get, not the one you might wish for.

And failing to recognize who the audience is is the fault of the author and no one else.

It’s one thing to say you don’t find the satire to your taste,

It isn’t satire. It does not ridicule the position in any way.

it’s quite another to say you’re offended by your interpretation of the text even when it’s obvious that your interpretation is not just wrong, but is exactly the opposite of what the writer was actually saying.

If the best you can offer is that he didn’t really mean it, then you fail. Irony is not simply stating the opposite of what you mean, and it isn’t satire without deriding or ridiculing the position. Whether he meant it or not, the piece supports the position that many people actually hold rather than denouncing it.

But to imply that Garrison Keillor actually means any of this stuff is a fail of epic proportions.

Whether or not he means it isn’t the issue.
#196 Clare
December 23, 2009

It must surely be apparent now that there is not so much a War on Christmas so much as a War on Santa. Christians have been ranting about the perversion of their festival for almost as long as they’ve co-opted it. And here we are, over a thousand years later, and not only have they not killed Santa, they don’t even realize that it’s a losing battle…
#197 Douglas Watts
December 23, 2009

Whether or not he means it isn’t the issue.

Umm …
#198 tsg
December 23, 2009

Umm …

Yes?
#199 destlund
December 23, 2009

Douglas Watts, what tsg means is that he said it is the issue. Not what he meant to say.
#200 tsg
December 23, 2009

Douglas Watts, what tsg means is that he said it is the issue. Not what he meant to say.

Yes, thank you.

The point is, whether he meant it to or not, the piece serves to encourage intolerance and hatred by solidifying the idea that some self-appointed arbiters of what Christmas “really” means are right in doing so. Saying “nudge, nudge, wink, wink, just kidding” to a select few who are in on the joke doesn’t change that.

Arguing whether or not he meant it is quibbling over whether it was the result of malice or merely incompetence.

I further predict a notpology where he blames the audience for not getting it.
#201 jupiter9
December 23, 2009

So far every rhetorical trope you’re using in Keillor’s defense is one that has been used on this blog to defend creationism or the existence of sky fairies. It’s laughable then and it’s laughable now.

I don’t recall anyone defending sky fairies with “it’s all irony, everything in the Bible is meant to be taken as its literal opposite.”

Which is my (and others’) position.

You may be thinking of the courtier’s reply, in which case, you’re confusing intentional contradiction of observable facts through obfuscation with actual real textual analysis.

Textual analysis of an individual’s writing does depend on other writing the person has produced. If you really do doubt this, then stick to test tubes and cyclotrons.

The point is, whether he meant it to or not, the piece serves to encourage intolerance and hatred by solidifying the idea that some self-appointed arbiters of what Christmas “really” means are right in doing so. Saying “nudge, nudge, wink, wink, just kidding” to a select few who are in on the joke doesn’t change that.

Actually, it seems to have provoked a full-on shitstorm of people screaming “don’t speak for me you horrible bigoted asshole.”

So it sounds like on one level it succeeded. Assuming, that is, that his point wasn’t to engender bigotry in others, but point it out and eradicate it.
#202 hypocee
December 23, 2009

No, that can’t possibly be true. Tsg has been aimed at him, therefore he is evil. That’s logic, my man.
#203 zhu-wuneng
December 24, 2009

I re-read it. He offers NO SIGN that he’s joking, although a couple of people have said that if you’re really familiar with his work, and the general canon of midwestern humor, there are subtle hints he means the exact opposite of everything he says. Problem is, he’s pretty consistently said that he doesn’t much care for liberal religion, so if he’s joking, he’s only joking about part of it, which is a dumb strategy right off the bat. Then he says nothing actually funny. That’s some really lousy satire. The defences I’m seeing are like asserting that George Lincoln Rockwell was just PARODYING Nazis; theoretically possible, I mean, the guy took part in D-Day, but ultimately, who would believe it? It’s sort of hilarious to me that people are just automatically taking the position that he must be joking because, well, he just must be. I don’t think I’m the one who got punk’d here.
#204 tsg
December 24, 2009

Actually, it seems to have provoked a full-on shitstorm of people screaming “don’t speak for me you horrible bigoted asshole.”

So it sounds like on one level it succeeded. Assuming, that is, that his point wasn’t to engender bigotry in others, but point it out and eradicate it.

There are enough real bigoted assholes without having to deal with pretend ones.
#205 eviltwit
December 25, 2009

I find it interesting how the title of this pathetic piece varies from place to place where the editorial appears:

“The Christmas Dividend” (The Chicago Tribune)

“Nonbelievers, Please Leave Christmas Alone” (The Baltimore Sun)

etc.

Probably the editors, but still interesting.
#206 hypocee
December 25, 2009

Problem is, he’s pretty consistently said that he doesn’t much care for liberal religion

[citation needed]

so if he’s joking, he’s only joking about part of it, which is a dumb strategy right off the bat. Then he says nothing actually funny. That’s some really lousy satire.

Nolo contendre. I’m not saying it’s a good piece, I’m saying that the balance of the evidence is that Garrison Keillor is not a foaming bigot, that this piece should be Poe-tested in light of previous events before breaking out the pitchforks, and that the one given example of Keillor’s ‘frequent’ attacks has been explicitly disclaimed and asserted as parodic.

The defences I’m seeing are like asserting that George Lincoln Rockwell was just PARODYING Nazis; theoretically possible, I mean, the guy took part in D-Day, but ultimately, who would believe it?

Had George Lincoln Rockwell previously stirred up a gibbering mob with a similar article, and said to them publicly and flatly, “No I don’t actually believe that, because I am not an abhorrent and stupid human being”?

It’s sort of hilarious to me that people are just automatically taking the position that he must be joking because, well, he just must be. I don’t think I’m the one who got punk’d here.

Ahhhh, the invincible argumentum ad lolium. To coin a phrase, I love it so. Nope! Just about everybody gets their feet of clay, unless they happen to die young. Randi publicizes denialist positions without checking them. Attenborough has built an entire scrupulously dishonest program around the Aquatic Ape ‘theory’. Hoyle – a man who spent his life studying stars, billions of years old – has creationist hands up his ass. I went into the linked ‘attack’ article thinking “Oh dear, here goes Keillor, so sad.” After reading it, I assumed he was anti-gay, because I assumed PZ had done his homework. But then, a funny thing happened! I read the comments, I read the linked apology and disavowal of the hateful interpretation of the article, and I changed my mind again in the face of new data; just a big wiffle-waffling flip-flopper, that’s me. Now, because virtually this exact event – a poo-flinging party over a Keillor article bearing many of his comedic mannerisms – has happened once before, I’m choosing to assume the correct explanation is the same as the eventual correct conclusion from before: that Keillor’s a little out of touch with the real world, and not great at judging satire.
#207 crackakilla
January 7, 2010

I really can’t stand his radio show or the program that broadcasts it. However, for him to get the pc fascist’s panties in a bunch is refreshing. Look at the bile from the comments above that he has incited. G.K. is an old school troll. The golden ashkenazi jews can write Christmas songs and we are supposed to gleefully thank them for doing so. If a Christian started using mass media to write songs about a major jewish holiday the kosher feces would hit the fan. Double standards rock. That’s why we support Obama killing Muslims. From Yemen to Afganistan Obama’s slaughter gets white liberal thongs and bedsheets stiff and funky.
#208 Rev. BigDumbChimp
January 7, 2010

Oh look! A racist fuckhead, and so early in the morning.
#209 Bobber
January 7, 2010

From Yemen to Afganistan Obama’s slaughter gets white liberal thongs and bedsheets stiff and funky.

And we know that stiff bedsheets make it tough for you to wear them comfortably during your “white person’s club” meetings.