… “Swasti-Claus Is Coming To Town!”
Last week we broke the story on WTKK about the “holiday shop” at the Chelmsford, MA elementary school that bans any gifts related to the holidays. It’s a school fundraiser where parents donate small items and the PTO sells them to the kids in December in a special shop so they can do their own Christmas…Hanukkah…holiday…random, totally unrelated to any event in December shopping.
The story continues, and as we reported on the show Friday, the arguments in defense of the Christmas ban are getting dumber and dumber:
CHELMSFORD - After meeting with members of the Byam Elementary School PTO, two mothers asking to put the holidays back into the school's annual holiday gift shop say Byam isn't budging.
Kathryn McMillan and Kathleen Cullen, who both have children at Byam, asked school officials to allow all holiday items at the gift shop following a ban on Santa, candy canes, stockings, and all Christmas, Hanukkah and other "religious items."
But a meeting with some PTO parents on Thursday night grew heated as emotions got in the way.
Red and green tissue paper to wrap presents was also crossed off the list because it looked too "Christmasy," McMillan said.
"One of the parents said, 'If we allow Santa, what do we say if a child brings in a swastika? Do we allow that too?' " McMillan said. "All I could think of was, are you kidding? You're comparing a Christmas ornament to a swastika? It seems as if reason is lost somewhere and I just hope we can find it again."
A SWASTIKA? Is this really a problem at Massachusetts public schools? Is there even one family in the Commonwealth where Nazi symbolism is part of the holiday season?
“Come on, little Heinrich—another verse of “Adolph, The Aryan-Nosed Reindeer! Now, Greta, you haven’t finished putting together our manger scene. You’ve got Mary and Joseph, but where are the Three Obergruppenführers on the Panzers?”
And who can forget that Bing Crosby classic….
“I’m dreaming of a white Christmas
It’s white and blond and blue-eyed, too.
Where the tree tops glisten,
And Nazis listen, to see
if you sound like a Jew…”
"The truth is something [Warren] probably prefers not to confront. Harvard doesn’t come calling just because you’re a smart lawyer and a terrific teacher — not with Warren’s modest, Oklahoma upbringing and non-Ivy League education. She is not your typical Harvard professor. At a certain point, when the law school was under pressure to promote diversity, she represented a three-fer: a great lawyer with a national profile, a woman, and a minority, at least by virtue of family lore. "
-- Joan Vennochi
