American Silliness; Nov 29, 2015

PUT THE MENORAH DOWN AND SLOWLY BACK AWAY FROM THE CHRISTMAS TREE!  . . . "And to my Christian friends: Please don’t go get assimilated on me either. That tree in the mall, town square, or your living room is a Christmas tree, not a holiday tree. Santa is not a secular character; he isSaint Nick. You have a nice tradition. “Keep the Christ in Christmas.” Don’t try to make it politically correct by taking away its religious nature. And don’t take away the religious nature of Hanukkah by shoving it down the collective throats of public Christmas displays." . . .   by Jeff Dunetz 

President Barack Obama’s Department of Veterans Affairs has banned employees at its facility in Salem, Virginia, from saying “Merry Christmas” to veterans.

…Public areas may only be decorated in a manner that is celebratory of the winter season. Displays must not promote any religion. Please note that trees (regardless of the types of ornaments used) have been deemed to promote the Christian religion and will not be permitted in any public areas this year.

. . . 

The email also bars Christmas music, saying that if a supervisor has allowed an employee to have music in his workspace, such music must “be secular (non-religious).”

How reality-TV programming affects the way we understand the very concepts of truth and authenticity."

"With the rise and dominance of reality television over the last twenty-five years comes the concomitant belief that humanity is knowable via the investigative camera, the first-person essay, and the webcam confessional." . . .

Some highlights of the student demands  . . .  " 'Among the enumerated items on lists of demands popping up at dozens of schools—at institutions like the University of Wyoming, San Francisco State University, and Amherst College—demands that college authorities take steps to dissuade or even sanction community members who express disagreement with the protesters are worryingly common.+

1. " 'Particularly concerning are calls for speech codes demanding punishment of constitutionally protected “hate speech,” mandatory trainings requiring students to voice agreement with certain ideologies (compelled speech), and rules about what faculty cannot, or must, teach.' ". . . 
2. Wesleyan protesters demand tracking system for faculty migroaggressions (seriously)  "The Demands include:
3. 5. TRACKING OF FACULTY & STAFF BIAS & MICROAGGRESSIONS

   By November 30th, 2015: Report on how student input will be integrated into the formation of an anonymous student reporting system for cases of bias, including microaggressions, perpetrated by faculty and staff.

   By Spring, 2016: Revision of end of semester professor evaluations to include a section dedicated for reporting classroom biases, including microaggressions, perpetrated by instructors.

   David Sessions, a Ph.D. student in History at Boston College, correctly assesses the situation as a demand for totalitarianism: