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let the Christmas ranting begin

O joyful Christmas not-even-remotely-yet-season!
Let the assault upon our senses that is Christmas Musak begin!

Hartman's is particularly bad in this area.
During this season, I literally cannot stand to be in the store more than a few minutes, I run around grabbing a few items and trying to check out before the grating tunes they are blaring drive me mad.
Seriously.

The pirates who attacked the cruise ship, we are informed, we in part repelled by advanced sonic technology

As members of the crew tried to steer the ship away from the pirates, other crew members blasted the attackers with noise -- really loud noise, made possible by sonic technology conceived at Bath Iron Works and developed by American Technology Corp.'s division in Maine.
...
Its engineers and technologists were instrumental in developing the company's Long Range Acoustic Devices, or LRAD, which the military, law-enforcement agencies and others use to provide focused, long-distance broadcasts. (The technology was used earlier this year for crowd control during the Iraqi elections.)

Pirates Sent Fleeing

I don't know why they didn't just play some modern Christmas music, it would have been just as effective and much cheaper.

Don't get me wrong, I actually like much Christmas music. Traditional Christmas music. Sung by people who can actually sing, who appear to have some concept of the meaning of the words and the pacing of the song.

Instead, what I get at Hartman's is some pop-strumpet screeching, Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanta Claus iscomingtotown!!!!!!
Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaata Claus iscomingtotown!!!!!!

Rather than a reminder jolly sedate visit from a much-loved friend, it sounds like a warning, an urgent emergency alert.

Absolutely awful.

It's also the season of the perpetually-oppressed American Christians taking their subjugation deeply to heart, against the (admittedly stupid) people who want to genericize everything into some meaningly "holiday". "Happy and/or sad greetings or neutral indications of a seasonal holiday eventuality," we are supposed to proclaim.

This set-piece is so marvellous that I have to suspect whether Wal-Mart ("where you shop with Satan(tm)") engineered the whole thing.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Thursday that a customer-service employee named Kirby had written an inappropriate e-mail to a woman who complained that the retailer had replaced a "Merry Christmas" greeting with "Happy Holidays." It also said Kirby no longer worked for Wal-Mart.

Kirby wrote that Christmas resulted from traditions ranging from Siberian shamanism to Visigoth calendars.

"Santa is also borrowed from the Caucuses [sic], mistletoe from the Celts, yule log from the Goths, the time from the Visigoth and the tree from the worship of Baal. It is a wide wide world," Kirby wrote.

"Bring on the Baal tree!" I shall from now on proclaim.

So the above statement of course had the Catholic League up in arms, calling for a boycott of Wal-Mart, blah blah blah

Catholic League calls off Wal-Mart boycott

Fortunately, Thank God, Wal-Mart has given in to Christmas, it's a holiday shopping miracle! The boycott is lifted!

Could anyone possibly miss the point more?
Making Wal-Mart safe for Christians?
Hello, shopping at Wal-Mart is the express aisle to Hell.
Where would Jesus shop?
At a store that destroys its communities and treats workers like low-wage robots?

Considering his embrace of socialist poverty virtues, I'm guessing if he shopped at all, Wal-Mart would not be his megamart of choice.

Yeah, Love and Joy unto you, stupid Wal-Mart shoppers.
Suckers. posted by Richard at 16:23 / permalink (post) | permalink (numeric)