Whether it’s One Laptop per Child, which apparently is a roaring success in Peru, among other places,

or it’s the New York Times Neediest Cases Fund,

or it’s the Clinton Global Initiative,

or it’s Teach for America,

or it’s New York Cares,

Americans are wild about giving.

Heads-up: There are 7 giving days left in 2007.

The Archbishop of Wales thinks that fundamentalism—especially something he calls “atheistic fundamentalism“—is one of the great problems facing the world.

In his Christmas message, the archbishop said: “Any kind of fundamentalism, be it Biblical, atheistic or Islamic, is dangerous.”

The archbishop said “atheistic fundamentalism” was a new phenomenon.

He said it advocated that religion in general and Christianity in particular have no substance, and that some view the faith as “superstitious nonsense”.

Worst of all—it advocates renaming “Christmas” to “Winterval.” Oh horrors!

Apparently, it was in 1998 that Britain first encountered the dread term Winterval:

Monday, November 9, 1998 Published at 11:41 GMT


UK

Winterval gets frosty reception

Birmingham: Multi-racial community

Church leaders have clashed with a council over its decision to call Christmas festivities Winterval.

Birmingham City Council used the phrase to describe its programme of festive family events over Christmas and the New Year.

The change is being made because city council officials hope to create a more multi-cultural atmosphere in keeping with the city’s mix of ethnic groups.

In 1998, the notion was called “political correctness gone mad.” The BBC article from November of that year continues, quoting Bishop of Birmingham, the Rt Rev Mark Santer [e.a.]:

“No doubt it was a well-meaning attempt not to offend, not to exclude, not to say anything at all.”

The message continues: “Now it seems, the secular world, which expresses respect for all, is actually embarrassed by faith. Or perhaps it is Christianity which is censored.”

His views were shared by his colleague, the Archdeacon of Aston, the Ven John Barton.

“It is a totally unnecessary example of political correctness to avoid sensitivities people simply do not have,” he said.

I can’t help but note that the Festivus holiday was established one year before “Winterval” was launched by the Birmingham City Council. Festivus had its launch on the Seinfeld episode titled “The Strike.” It aired on December 18, 1997, as Wikipedia notes:

George, Elaine and Jerry attend Dr. Tim Whatley’s Hanukkah party. Jerry meets an attractive woman with whom he sets up a date. Elaine meets a man in a bad denim vest (Kevin McDonald) and gives him her fake number. George is offended by Whatley’s gift to him, a donation in his name to a charity. George is also reminded of the Festivus holiday his father created many years ago.

On the other hand, as Vivek Chaudhary recounts at The Times, his not-Christian 3-year-old daughter had been very much looking forward to her first Nativity play in nursery school until …

The moment I was asked what sort of Christmas celebration would be “appropriate”, alarm bells started ringing. As I collected Roshini, my three-year-old daughter, from her nursery, the head teacher Miss T said she wanted to organise a nativity play “with a difference”.

So different that, from what I was hearing, it didn’t have a lot to do with Christmas.

“I think any play that we do has to make the children more socially aware, and I don’t want it to be too faith specific,” said Miss T.

Chaudhary was dumbfounded:

“When the children in the nursery celebrate Diwali, don’t you make it clear to them that it’s a Hindu festival, and when they celebrate Eid, it’s made clear to them that it’s a Muslim festival?” I protested. “So what’s wrong with Christmas being a Christian festival?”

This was obviously a sore point for Chaudhary, because he pressed his cause. He canvased the other parents in his daughter’s classroom and found that they too—although almost 90% of the nursery school is made up of ethnic minorities—wanted a “traditional” Nativity play in the class. Still, he had to twist the teacher’s arm:

I sensed that Miss T needed a bit more persuading so I threatened to alert the tabloid press how she planned to “break the hearts” of two and three-year-olds.

He also pointed out to her the obvious:

As I pointed out to Miss T, not a single parent had approached her and raised objections to a nativity play. She was the one who had a problem with Christmas: she automatically assumed that having a traditional nativity play would cause offence.

She protested that she was only trying to be sensitive, but she eventually admitted it was offensive and patronising of her to assume how I and other ethnic minority parents would react to a traditional nativity play.

In fact, for many immigrants, it is a point of pride when they acculturate in their adopted country. To remove Christmas and replace it with “Winterval” is not only an insult to these immigrants; it also robs them of partaking those traditional cultural traditions that the natives enjoy—and thus of feeling “native” in their countries.

Chaudhary continues:

I am often asked if I celebrate Christmas and my reply usually surprises people. I do not consider myself to be a Christian, but that does not stop me from taking part in what I consider to be as much a cultural festival as a religious one. I have plenty of white Anglo-Saxon friends who feel exactly the same way about Christmas.

The Christmas tree in the Chaudhary household went up last week. Christmas dinner is usually given a bit of an Indian twist with garam masala rubbed onto the turkey …

I know lots of other Asian people, particularly those of Indian origin, who celebrate in the same way. In fact, as far as the Indian community in Britain is concerned, it likes nothing better than a festival that brings together family, and involves eating and giving presents.

Hear, hear!

Bah humbug to stupid PC-ism, stupid anti-PC-ism, and to stupidity.

Merry Christmas, Happy Festivus, and Welcome to Winterval, y’all (from your favorite atheist).

In one of my favorite episodes (it was a while back) of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry and Cheryl argue about whether it’s enough to say “I love you forever” or whether you have to commit to loving your spouse forever and beyond.

That’s what came to mind when I read this report about a study about the nightmare scenario of nuclear war in the Middle East (by the U.S. Center for Strategic and International Studies), in which it was predicted that Israel would probably survive*** in some form but that Iran would be obliterated: [e.a.]

Anthony H. Cordesman, explor[ing] just such a nightmare scenario, not[ed] that it could lead to the death of between 16- 28 million Iranian civilians, and 200-800 thousand Israelis. …

Given certain conditions, Israel could potentially survive such a nuclear scenario, the study found. Iran, on the other hand, would be completely and utterly obliterated. “Iranian recovery is not possible in the normal sense of term, though Israeli recovery is theoretically possible in population and economic terms,” wrote Cordesman, who compiled this study entitled “Iran, Israel, and Nuclear War”

And a happy Christmas season to you, too!

—————

*** Wasn’t I just saying yesterday that the Jews should be renamed? that they should be called the Survivors?

The Forward notes that in Cairo, Illinois, 55 African American recently converted to Judaism:

A rural community described as “far away from everywhere,” Cairo, Ill., boasts 40 churches, 40 blocks and fewer than 4,000 people - and as of earlier this month, it also has 55 brand-new Jews. …

[The conversion] was the culmination of an 18-month spiritual journey that has brought a number of Reform and Conservative Jews into common cause with a group of spiritual seekers from a town that is predominantly black and poor.

“It was incredible. Who would have thought that rabbis in St. Louis and Memphis would increase the number of Jews of color in America appreciably?” said Rabbi Micah Greenstein, who attended the conversion ceremonies and serves as the spiritual leader of Temple Israel, a Reform congregation in Memphis. “Judaism saved my life,” one of the converts told Greenstein. “That’s the first time in 100 converts that I’ve ever heard that,” the rabbi said.

It all began with Phillip Matthews, a disaffected Baptist. Here’s what he appreciates about Judaism:

In Matthews’s view, rising to meet challenges is part of the essential message of Judaism.

“When you read the Bible, when you read the Old Testament, and you see all the things that the ancestors of old endured, you see what it is to have endured,” Matthews said.

Yes, that’s true. I’ve long wondered whether, if we just changed the name of “the Jews” to “the Survivors,” whether Jew hatred, which refuses to die out even in the hyper-politically correct world we live in, would dissipate somewhat.

After all, the Jews’ skill at survival against the odds is what’s so mysterious about them: how stubbornly they’ve managed to survive as a self-identified collective, so to speak, despite their many travails all over the globe for thousands of years, how resistant they are even to extreme privation and to efficiently planned attempts to exterminate and eradicate them.