A Bit Rocky

Britain has snow! Woohoo! Now I keep loading up the weather forecast to see if we're getting any more. Not yet apparently.
There are some wonderful pics on the Graun's webbie, and I particularly like the one of Westminster Bridge.

There's a very good article on alternet about Sarah Palin's brand of feminism. It's brilliant. Anything you can't achieve or can't seem to change, like equal pay, or sexual violence, it's because you're just not capable and strong enough.
Backwards argument from a position of privilege.

Tomorrow is the beginning of Hanukkah, which continues for eight days. I intend to wish people a Happy Hanukkah throughout, but not because I'm being inclusive. Well, I am, but not in a good way, it's an attempt to share the hijacking.
I am squinting from a different angle at this.

You often get people here being all bent out of shape because other people get arsey about being wished a Merry Christmas, and fair enough, not to labour the point, but separation of Church and State and so on. Yes, I used to think that it was the non-Christians who were being put out by it. But in fact, I've realised it's the Christians who are being disrespected.
Forget the over-commercialisation of Christmas, the real problem is the complete denial that it has anything to do with Christianity.

This morning, Alex reminded me that last year, one of her friends simply didn't celebrate Christmas. He said he didn't want to encourage pointless present giving, that he ate nice food all year round, and that since he isn't a Christian, there was in fact no reason for him to celebrate their festival.
And I respect that, I respect it a lot.

She also pointed out to me that it's nice to have the trees lit up in December, and that day when the whole nation stays home and does more or less the same thing, and I agree.
But for the next eight days, I'm going to encourage the hijacking of Judaism. I mean, it's happening anyway, everyone has a Menorah these days, and it occurred to me last Sunday, when we were singing about Israel's Redeemer, that we had pretty well hijacked a big chunk of their faith anyway.
Although it's St. Andrew's day today, I already practised on the Salvation Army collector outside of Shopper's Drug Mart.

When we get to Christmas, Midnight Mass this year is going to have a mediaeval theme. But Alex and I were thinking, well, we don't really want to dress up in Mediaeval garb, we think we'll go Rocky Horror Show. No-one could object to that surely?