Merry Christmas!

The following note is a piece of humor sent to me about 15 years ago; possibly more.  It is as relevant today as it was then.  

Friends: Rest assured!  If you greet me with "Merry Christmas", I'll be happy to return the kind gesture in the exact same manner.  My personal religious beliefs do NOT prevent me from wishing all my Christian friends a Merry Christmas.

Sadly, thanks to the effort by Liberals to outlaw any reference to the Creator, the following absurdity is slowly becoming the baseline norm.

"Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, our best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

We also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2017, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great.

Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than other countries or the only America in the Western Hemisphere, our wishes are without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

By accepting these greetings you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for herself or himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher.

This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher."

I'm cool with just saying "Merry Christmas".

Sincerely,

There is NO Santa Claus

Jerusalem

I'm pleasantly surprised that President Trump has officially recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.  The law has been on the books for 22 years.  It's a fact.  It's about time we got realistic about this.  Moreover, after the previous 4 years of the O'Bama Administration (The 2nd term was especially bad.) I think Israel badly needed a meaningful gesture of reassurance from the White House. 

In addition, the news media needs a definitive policy from the State Department that gets their story straight.  Now, no matter what dis-information the news media shovels at us, Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. It's really not a big thing.  Unfortunately, the news media hypes every little thing about Israel.  That's just the way it is.

I hope that the President plans a modest building in Jerusalem.  This is a guy who likes to build big, fancy buildings in high rent districts.  That's what he does.  He likes it.  He's good at it.  People try  to place obstacles in his way or stop him. That only makes him more determined to build it.  (Are you listening Tayip Erdogan?)

Our embassy should be functional and consistent with the current architecture of the modern area (i.e. the undisputed portion) of  Jerusalem.  I know it seems nice to the President to build something grand that would leave his legacy in Jerusalem.  However, with patience I think Donald Trump will find that the the State of Israel knows how to honor their friends.  There are 3 years left in this term of office.  That leaves plenty of work to do.

So... just as the diplomacy keeps it real, let's hope the building plans are kept realistic too.  For now, I'm happy that our President personally stood up against every anti-Semitic bully, coward, and (above all) every irrational human being on this planet.

The great philosopher, Ayn Rand once said: "You have to start with 'A is A'...."  Countries choose their capital.  The other countries move their embassies there.  It's just that simple.

Sincerely,

There is NO Santa Claus