Earlier today, managing director Richard Negrin decided he should change the name of “German Christmas Village” because a few people complained. In an effort to make the village more palatable to all comers, he decided to change the name to International Non-Denominational Unicorn Freedom Rainbow Village.
“I think we can all agree that there are very few things that people love more than unicorns, freedom, and rainbows,” said Negrin. “Therefore, in an effort to make 100% of the people happy 100% of the time, we have changed the name to that.” He said that he also considered adding the word “Cuddly” to the name, but thought it might offend large, hairy people. Most people visiting the village were ecstatic about the name change.
“I decided to bring my non-denominational friend whose ancestors are from an undisclosed nation to Christmas Village,” said Sally McJackson, “And I was expecting her to be humiliated by that outrageous and filthy word ‘Christmas’ being thrown in her face. So you can imagine how pleased I was when I saw they had changed the name. And she felt right at home. She loves rainbows.” Added McJackson, “Although I do wish they had made it a double rainbow“.
Not everyone was pleased. “I like the idea, but I’m worried about people thinking that unicorns aren’t dangerous by glorifying them in this manner,” said Corie Collar. “If they do indeed exist, one has to think that those horns are a safety hazard.”
When told of Collar’s complaint, Negin sprang into action. “He’s right! Someone could get hurt! Let’s get rid of the unicorns!”
They’ll also be getting rid of the Christmas tree at the Village and replacing it with a “Multi-cultural Majestic Happiness Bush.” When told that the word “happiness” might offend those with symptoms of depression, Negrin said that the word would be removed from the bush.
International? Isn’t that dismissive of our off-world friends at Area 51? The first adjective should be “Universal”.
I’m afraid “Universal” doesn’t work for me, Mike. I find it offensive. I don’t want alien life forms entering our country illegally and helping themselves to our social services, not to mention using our new and vastly improved health care system, even though we all know it’s going to be much less expensive for everyone now. “International” offends me also. Let the bastards go and celebrate Christmas or Hannukah or Kwanzai or gay rainbow day or whatever in their own native lands. References to “unicorns” would offend any sentient being, and don’t even get me started on homosexual “rainbows.”
Oh, and I find Germans offensive also. Let them eat strudel.
Sorry to disappoint you Bob, but the aliens aren’t here for health care. They’re here for Amercan Idol and Krispy Kreme donuts, which they consider the greatest accomplishments of our civilization. Frankly, I’m beginning to wonder just how advanced they really are.
A few years back, weren’t you whining about your “right” not to be offended by cigarette smoke in a privately-owned business you were perfectly free not to enter? You, Mr. Goodtimes, are a big fat hypocrite.
I’m not sure I see the connection here, but for the sake of debate I’ll bite nonetheless. I don’t see how the word “Christmas” affects anyone’s health. A bar is a workplace. People in a workplace make a decision if they want to harm their own health with cigarettes, and I am certainly not “offended” if they do. However, they should not be allowed to affect the health of others. Cigarette smoking affects the health of people around you, so now it’s disallowed. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/secondhand-smoke/CC00023I don’t think you can bite people you work with either. Same principle. As for affecting people’s feelings, I think that common sense is the best answer. Should they be allowed to have Nazi Village at City Hall? Of course not, people are grossly offended by it. Should they have a “Christmas Village”? Of course. Common sense. Just because people don’t celebrate Christmas doesn’t mean they are offended by it. I’m not Jewish, but you don’t hear me whining about the menorah in Rittenhouse. And if I demanded that it be removed, it would quite frankly make me a snivelling, whining crybaby. Just like the people who cried about the word “Christmas” in Christmas Village were snivelling, whining crybabies. Whiners shouldn’t always get their way. Sometimes common sense should prevail. It prevailed here, and it prevailed when they took a health hazard out of bars.
Actually, Johnny, while you might have a legitimate objection to a menorah on public property (as that does promote religious ritual), nothing about the “Christmas Village” sign promotes the Christian religion. It is a freaking flea market (now whether we should encourage consumption of touristy crap or whether Christians object to the use of Christmas to describe that plywood heaven is another issue). There is no constitutional prohibition on using the word “Christmas.” The constitutional restriction is on the establishment of religion.
Still, the guy who calls you a hypocrite is a douche. A bar or restaurant is a place of accomodation and is subject to the Human Relations and other laws involving the public. It is not a private club. You cannot invite the public and then blow smoke in their face. Sorry guy—go outside and smoke.
The health thing? Seriously? Do you object to people working in mines? Lumberjacking? Fishing? Driving trucks? Those jobs kill thousands every year. An adult is capable of choosing a risky job, unless it involves second-hand smoke? What a load of bullshit. About 5,000 people are killed crossing streets every year, but you’re OK with that.
Do tell about all the times you were clubbed over the head and forced into a bar. Where exactly does your personal responsibility as an adult factor in?
Study your Supreme Court rulings before you call someone a douche, Jon. Private business are still private even if the public is invited in (Lloyd v. Tanner). Anyone can be kicked out of any bar, as long as it’s you’re not constitutionally protected. Non-smokers are not a protected class, so in MY bar YOU have to go outside.
Religious imagery on public land violates my rights. The law of the land says the State may not compel a person to affirm a belief he does not hold. The state is affirming this belief on my behalf with religious imagery on public land. I am sick to death of other people’s religions forced down my throat. Religious imagery offends me. Offense causes stress, which is a proven killer, so there’s a health argument for banning it, just as compelling as yours.
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/stress-management/MY00435
Unlike you, I can easily avoid religious imagery on private property, but perhaps I should work to get it banned there, as well. Your religion offends me, so take it where I can’t see it. If you have the “right” not to be offended, so do I. Take your Christmas elsewhere.
100 years ago, over 1,000 men in the US died a year in mining accidents. Now less than 100 a year do. Why? Because the profession was made healthier, largely because the government passed laws to make the mining safer. Just like they also recently passed laws to make people working in bars healthier. I know that being a quizmaster is a far cry from being a miner, but that’s not my point. My point is that professions evolve to be made more safe, sometimes with an assist from the government. And now people who work in bars will lead healthier lives because they won’t be forced to inhale 2nd hand smoke. I don’t really think that’s debatable.
I’m not sure what “religious imagery” you are referring to. As far as I know, the religious imagery consists of the word “Christmas” and a tree. There are no crosses or heavy religious symbols used that I am aware of in this village (I could be mistaken, I haven’t been there this year, but there weren’t last year). And, let’s be honest, the word Christmas in this case is being used as an adjective. It describes the village. And if you honestly think that looking at trees with lights in them is more detrimental to someone’s health than sucking down carbon monoxide, cyanide, and formaldehyde, then I don’t know what to tell you. You must be under a LOT of stress if that’s the case.
Again, I don’t know where this notion of being “offended” comes from. Most of my friends are smokers. I hardly find it offensive, and to be honest I’d say that 90% of my smoking friends are pleased with the smoking ban. It makes food in the bar taste better, it makes clothes reusable, and smoking outside the bar is a great way to meet people of the opposite sex. If you are against the smoking ban, I respect your opinion, but I’m still not sure I understand how it ties into the word “Christmas” on a sign.
Nice try, but Lloyd v Tanner simply held that the First Amendment does not prevent a private shopping center owner from prohibiting the distribution on center premises of handbills unrelated to the center’s operations. It is a First Amendment case, not an Equal Protection case (in which the concept of a “protected class” would be relevant). Subsequent cases have made it clear that Lloyd does not limit a State’s authority to exercise its police power or its sovereign right to adopt reasonable restrictions on private property so long as the restrictions do not amount to a taking without just compensation or contravene any other federal constitutional provision. Public health in a business open to the public repeatedly has justified restrictions and smoking bans have been found to be constitutional under challenge from people making much more cogent arguments than yours. Thus, in YOUR bar, unless it is a private club NOT opened to the public, a smoking ban is legal and constitutional. And besides, you’re such a sweetheart we all want you to live longer and healthier, so the possibility that you might smoke less is nothing but a good thing.
Opening a window makes a smoky bar “safer”. And there are ventilation systems that make indoor air cleaner than outside. OSHA already did their tests and found that the levels of all those scary chemicals you mentioned were well below their permissible levels of exposure.
http://cleanairquality.blogspot.com/2007/04/bmj-published-air-quality-test-results.html
There’s benzene flying off every cooking grill, much much more than from cigarette smoke. There’s formaldehyde in every piece of carpet. So much that it corrupts tests of SHS.
Lets look at your numbers: 100 dead miners is A-ok.
Bartenders killed by SHS: 0. Go find one confirmed death from SHS.
Again I ask, what about the bartenders who prefer to work in smoking bars? Why aren’t they capable of reading your scary chemical stories and accepting or declining the risk as free adults?
They are free to choose to work in a mine instead. That makes no sense. It most certainly is debatable. I work in a bar that was nearly ruined by the ban. After about a month, the ashtrays came back out and screw the law. Anyone pissing about it is invited to leave. Our customers are 90% smokers. So are all the employees. Who here needs your protection?
Screw your Christmas sign. It offends me. Put your Jesus village on private property, not land I pay for with my taxes. You forced your beliefs on me on private property, now public land.
Bartenders who prefer to work in smoky bars? You mean, there are people who prefer to go home wheezing and stinking after a day of work? I don’t know too many of them.
Yes, most bars suffered for the first couple of months after the ban because smokers were convinced that they would just stay home. They didn’t. They’re back, and the bars are as busy as ever. It was realized by the smokers that walking 25 feet to smoke a cigarette really wasn’t that big of a deal, and that a smoke-free bar is a far better place to congregate than one covered in a thick haze of smoke.
That’s fine that your bar went back to smoking. Several bars did. I will never visit any of them. I am spoiled by shirts that smell good, fresh air, better tasting food, and negligent health risks. But if people want to smoke at your bar, that’s great. I’m not really sure what your beef is. Your bar can still have smoking, yet you’re angry about the smoking ban. And I’ve given up on figuring out how this ties into Christmas trees.
Mr. Widger, I am what is known is the trade as a lapsed Catholic, and am no longer a believer. But I fail to see how calling something a “Christmas village” constitutes an establishment of religion prohibited by the 1st Amendment. You must be very easily offended. Christmas has become as much a secular holiday as a religious one in our culture. And you might as well ban all public references to such days in the calendar as “Halloween,” aka “All Hallows Eve,” i.e. the evening before All Saints Day, and “Thanksgiving,” a holiday with religious origins going back to our Pilgrim ancestors. While we’re at it, we should remove all that annoying religious art, all those Madonnas and crucifixion scenes, from every art museum in America, lest they offend the Widgers of our brave new world. What is commonly referred to as our Judeo-Christian heritage is, unfortunately for your and your ilk, woven into the very texture of our Western culture. So man up, lad, and try to bear up under all those continuing assaults of religious based words and imagery on your finely honed secular sensitivities.
As for the smoking ban, I’m sorry you’re so pissed off about it, but by your own admission there are places you can go and puff away to your heart’s content, so why not go to those places and not impose your extremely unhealthy habit on non-smokers. (BTW, check out with a cardiologist sometime what smoking is actually doing to your “heart’s content.” Why not be really intelligent, and quit now rather than waiting until you get a diagnosis of coronary artery disease, or perhaps lung or some other cancer?)
Today’s Two Minutes’ Hate: Political Correctness (Holiday Version) Reason: Taking offense at the the WAY someone makes an effort to be nice is insane. You can wish me a Happy/Merry/Peaceful/Joyous (insert holiday of your choice) and not only will I smile and say, “Thank you, and the same to you and you family,” but I’ll actually mean it. And I pretty much despise organized religion in any form. But ANY other response to an honest expression of goodwill makes you a small-minded, hateful jerk.
If you are that offended by the WORDS someone uses to celebrate a holiday, I suggest you need to grow up and get a life and start worrying about things that really matter.
That said, I wish you a very Merry Christmas and I truly hope you have a prosperous, healthy, and happy New Year.
Would you still support smoking bans if you learned that “passive” smoke isn’t as dangerous as you thought it was?
ALL of the evidence shows there is a statistical increase in cancer and other disease from exposure to second hand smoke, especially for those who regularly stew in it (such as restaurant and casino workers). That’s all you need. And that leaves aside the pure human connection—it is rude to demand that I breathe your smoke in a public place. It is less of a burden on a smoker to take it outside than requiring that I not patronize as many bars and restaurants where smokers insist on the right to blow it in my face. If I were a smoker, I wouldn’t think of smoking inside where others might be bothered by it, unless it was a private home or club designated for smoking.
Now please tell me there is no human connection to global warming, too.
Using the strictest published permissible exposure levels for various substances, and the EPA figures for emissions per cigarette, calculated for an unventilated room approximately 20 by 20 by 9 (far smaller than the average bar) this is how many cigarettes need to be burning SIMULTANEOUSLY to reach those levels:
Acetone: 118,000
Toluene: 1,000,000
Formaldehyde: 1,790
Benzene: 1,290
Polonium 210: 750,000
Of course, this all changes in the tiny room if someone opens a door or a window.
PalestraJon, Your statement is incorrect. There are many null studies. The EPA meta study caused a bit of a scandal when they left the null studies out. I, for one, would never demand that any be forced to breathe smoky air. A sign on the door announcing that smoking is allowed on the premises should give you plenty of warning to choose not to enter. If you choose to enter a smoking venue, your exposure is voluntary.
Why is not entering a bar where smoking is allowed a “burden” to you? 90% of the restaurants were smoke-free before the ban. Why wasn’t that enough? The market would have shifted to the bars in time, as public perception of smoking becomes ever more negative.
It certainly isn’t rude to smoke where smoking is allowed. I see nothing wrong with some bars and restaurants that allow smoking, and some that don’t, according to the preferences of the business owner. This is not a “demand” to smoke everywhere. It’s a reasonable request for a choice for everyone.
You certainly have the right to your opinion, except for the ridiculous comment that prior to the ban, 90% of restaurants were smoke free. Nowhere near that number were smoke free….only a very small minority were.