I'll bet your mom is buying you presents right now. Isn't she ignorant? The sheep. Doing what the corporations have trained her to do. She doesn't know what real emotion is. Unlike you. Thanks for you chalky wisdom.
December 23, 2007
Graffiti on State Street, in Madison, Wisconsin.
I'll bet your mom is buying you presents right now. Isn't she ignorant? The sheep. Doing what the corporations have trained her to do. She doesn't know what real emotion is. Unlike you. Thanks for you chalky wisdom.
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"Doing what the corporations have trained her to do."
Indeed. Because before corporations, there were no Christmas gifts.
Then Herod called the magi secretly and ascertained from them the time of the star's appearance.
He sent them to Bethlehem and said, "Go and search diligently for the child. When you have found him, bring me word, that I too may go and do him homage."
After their audience with the king they set out. And behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them, until it came and stopped over the place where the child was.
They were overjoyed at seeing the star, and on entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother.
They prostrated themselves and did him homage. Then they opened their treasures and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
Matthew 2:7-11
As for "Stop the War," yes, by all means, once we defeat the enemy.
18 year olds.
Is there anything they don't know?
Stop the War
War has a pause/stop button? Who knew? Is there one for Poverty and Global Warming too? Must be that little icon over my search toolbar...
It's awfully neat lettering. And it's Madison. And it's naive. I suspect an teacher.
Magi don't have to biblical.
Feel The Love
There is joy in giving
But this the fools don't know,
It takes a lot of living
For gifting to grow.
And in that spirit,
Even you, silly scold,
It won't hurt, will it?
Come in, out of the cold.
Right, ricpic, I hope he does "come in out of the cold"--it must be awfully cold and lonely out there in his kingdom of self-righteousness.
I saw the same stupid graffiti in Milwaukee a few weeks ago.
Does The market is not a medium of emotion actually mean anything at all? It looks initially like it might be profound, but it is empty, really, of any content whatsoever. The first few inquiries into it show how badly it is sewn together, all glitter and glue, no real craft behind it.
If the market is not a way for me to express emotion, why does my wife like to receive a valentine card and flowers brought to the door, or a ring or a bracelet I could never learn to make myself, or a dinner out just us two, at a warm and inviting restaurant?
Must be all that false consciousness of hers.
Wait until this genius shows up at his girlfriend's place on Christmas Eve, sans a gift. He'll see emotion alright.
And the market is purely emotional. It's desire itself.
This is the thing that consistently fries my gourd about the hard left: they keep claiming to be the ones who understand the complexities of the world, the subtleties. Those with whom they disagree aren't just mistaken; they're stupid, even evil. But then they say things like this, and often are too cowardly to attach their name to it. Apparently, in their world, there are no material things that have sentimental value attached to them; there is no process by which they receive things and are touched by the thought and care with which the thing was chosen as an emblem of the giver's understanding of them or appreciation of them. One wonders with what they paid for the chalk to send their message or in what tender they contribute to causes they deem worthy. Are they living off the grid, paying no taxes lest they contribute to corporate welfare, growing their own food, making their own chalk sticks? How do these things come about?
Boy you really got the better of that argument with a wall!
I agree with some of the sentiments of the graffiti. We are way too focused on the gift-giving portion of Christmas. The real event of Christmas is the historical event of Jesus - when the transcendent God came down to earth to touch the lives of ordinary normal people and made the ultimate sacrifice.
Gift-giving is good but it has become the central tradition of Christmas and is obscuring the real meaning of the holiday. Christmas should be a day to focus on what is beyond the material, instead it has become a materialistic celebration.
Not all of us who are put off by the extravagant gifts are leftists who hate capitalism. Many of us simply want to focus on the spirituality not XBoxes, electronics and jewelry - we have 364 other days of the year to be obsessed by those things.
When rhhardin writes, "It's awfully neat lettering. And it's Madison. And it's naive. I suspect an teacher," I get the impression that he/she spent too much time hating Lefties and not enough time listening to those evil teachers. "I suspect an teacher?" Yikes.
Jimmy, I can sympathize to a point, but I would just change the phrase "ultimate sacrifice" to "ultimate gift." Somehow, my parents (both of whom were teachers and one of whom was a pastor's kid) managed to instill in my sister and myself the connection between the gift of God and the gifts we give each other, a reminder that the love we experience here on earth is a wonderful shadow of the love of God.
Unfortunately, that isn't at all what the graffiti says. Instead, as others have pointed out, it communicates an untruth: "The market is not a medium of emotion." Countless hundreds of millions of people know that not to be true from direct experience. Maintaining the spiritual connection from the concrete ("Wow, what a great present this XBox 360 is. Thanks!") to the abstract ("Wow, the birth of the Messiah in Christianity is awesome. Thanks!") is called "discipline," or, if you prefer, "discipleship."
Sheep are people too!
Clearly, the message is from a crafter.
For some people the market is a medium of emotion!
For others... an extra-large.
Thanks for you chalky wisdom.
Hey, be thankful for small favors. It could have been "spray painty wisdom."
The VOC's in spray paint are an environmental no-no, so we're back to pre-industrial ways in graffiti. Just think of it like organic farming for the puerile, soi-dissant leftist radical with a trust fund who needs to strike a pose.
And the lefty poseur graffiti writer has done a service for the actual working person making $12/hour who has to clean this up. The actual working person could have been out freezing and sucking fumes from VOC-containing paint remover, but now can remove this crap with a few squirts of a hose.
We should be thankful at this season that nonsense can be both wretched and temporary.
Actually, Jimmy, I'd disagree from a number of standpoints, with regard to the holiday season and what it means. (Though, I confess now to a certain awe over the Charlie Brown Christmas special having Linus read Luke 2:11.)
First, I don't think Christmas is theologically such a big day. Easter is the promise of eternal life, salvation and so on. As far as I know, none of the Christian churches split over the date of Christmas (unlike Easter).
Second, Christmas (and Easter) were positioned to take advantage of existing holidays. Christians should be generous enough to share the spirit of the season without becoming scolds.
Some possible bumper stickers:
Shopping is not the answer.
Shopping is not healthy for children and other living things.
Think globally, shop locally.
No blood for shopping.
Where would Jesus shop?
Doc: "I suspect an teacher?" Yikes
You're flaming him over a typo? Yikes indeed.
Since when are leftists truly concerned about the proper way to be a Christian?
What leftists don't like is that the shopping is peoples exercise of their freedom. The freedom to go and buy a gift for loved ones that communicates the spirit of the season; giving.
The notion that everyone are mindnumbed robots doing the bidding of TV commercials is typical leftwing cant: Only we leftists REALLY know what's going on, you poor Sheeple. It narcissism on display to show how "thoughtful" they are, when it is just another way to show thay they despise Christianity by criticising how others choose to celebrate.
They also don't understand that it's the freedom of the shoppers to choose that drive the demand and the competition, not the other way around.
Let's not forget the reason for the season: the Dionysus cult and the First Council of Nicaea.
No, Fen, I'm flaming because of the unprovoked attack on teachers. The delicious typo simply provides a handy place to grip my torch.
jfm
Jesus saves; he doesn't shop!
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