Ben Stein about Christmas

  • As I usu­ally end up say­ing, I just love Ben Stein. Here’s some­thing from his Web-site (link HERE):

    Here­with at this happy time of year, a few con­fes­sions from my beat­ing heart:

    I have no freak­ing clue who Nick and Jes­sica are. I see them on the cover of Peo­ple and Us con­stantly when I am buy­ing my dog bis­cuits and kitty lit­ter. I often ask the check­ers at the gro­cery stores. They never know who Nick and Jes­sica are either. Who are they? Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they have bro­ken up? Why are they so important? …

    Next con­fes­sion: I am a Jew, and every sin­gle one of my ances­tors was Jew­ish. And it does not bother me even a lit­tle bit when peo­ple call those beau­ti­ful lit up, bejew­eled trees Christ­mas trees. I don’t feel threat­ened. I don’t feel dis­crim­i­nated against. That’s what they are: Christ­mas trees. It doesn’t bother me a bit when peo­ple say, “Merry Christ­mas” to me. I don’t think they are slight­ing me or get­ting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all broth­ers and sis­ters cel­e­brat­ing this happy time of year. It doesn’t bother me at all that there is a manger scene on dis­play at a key inter­sec­tion near my beach house in Mal­ibu. If peo­ple want a creche, it’s just as fine with me as is the Meno­rah a few hun­dred yards away.

    I don’t like get­ting pushed around for being a Jew and I don’t think Chris­tians like get­ting pushed around for being Chris­tians. I think peo­ple who believe in God are sick and tired of get­ting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the con­cept came from that Amer­ica is an explic­itly athe­ist coun­try. I can’t find it in the Con­sti­tu­tion and I don’t like it being shoved down my throat.

    Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should wor­ship Nick and Jes­sica and we aren’t allowed to wor­ship God as we under­stand Him?

    I guess that’s a sign that I’m get­ting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are won­der­ing where Nick and Jes­sica came from and where the Amer­ica we knew went to

    .


    Related posts:

    1. So are we doing “Merry Christ­mas” or “Happy hol­i­days” or what?
    2. Get­ting all Christmas-d up here
    3. One Mus­lim woman’s criticism
    4. Dumb Christ­mas presents
    5. Late Sep­tem­ber

    December 12th, 2006 | Grace | 7 Comments |

7 Responses and Counting...

  • Deb 12.12.2006

    (snicker). I used to have the exact same reac­tion when Nick and Jes­sica were splat­tered all over the rags in the store. I guess i’m old too. I’ve never totally fig­ured them out — and don’t wish to be clued in either.

    Sure do miss Mr. Stein’s tv show.

    Deb

  • Erica

    Interesting…I’ve actu­ally heard sev­eral Jews say that they love “Christ­mas­time” they think it’s kind of fun.

  • Grace

    Deb,
    Yep, me too. I finally fig­ured out who Brad and Jen­nifer were (yes, I’m THAT out of touch), but I’m not going to get Nick and Jes­sica or Pam and Kid. And if some­one told me — which prob­a­bly wouldn’t take long — I’d be cer­tain to say, “Oh. And we care about them why?”

    The show was really cute, wasn’t it? Don’t know if you noticed back when I talked about Philadel­phia, but the Con­sti­tu­tion museum has one area called, “Ask Ben Stein ques­tions about the Con­sti­tu­tion.” You can watch a short movie that loops of Ben sit­ting in a cof­fee shop with a pile of let­ters with Con­sti­tu­tion ques­tions. Don’t know if the ques­tions are from real peo­ple, but he’s a very smart and well-spoken dude — and of course he’s funny. Wish there were more like him.

  • Grace

    Erica,
    Makes sense to me. When we lived in Eng­land, I thought Guy Fawkes Day was cool and when we lived in Saudi Ara­bia I even thought Ramadan was inter­est­ing. I don’t want to be totally insen­si­tive to people’s feel­ings, but I think that this is a mat­ter of some mal­con­tents grip­ing and peo­ple who never liked Christ­mas choos­ing to make a fed­eral case out of it.

  • Cather­ine K.

    Thanks for post­ing his com­ments. I guess that it’s been so long since I’ve been a reg­u­lar tv viewer that I needed remind­ing who Ben Stein is :) How­ever I love his com­ments and will check his web­site for more, thanks for the post.

  • Grace

    Well, it’s a lit­tle funny telling peo­ple who he is, because pop cul­ture lovers will know him most for his deli­ciously laconic roles in movies like “The Mask” and “Fer­ris Bueller.” But besides hav­ing that sta­tus as an iconic char­ac­ter actor, he’s got an impres­sive resume that you wouldn’t sus­pect: a lawyer, speech­writer, pro­fes­sor, econ­o­mist and columnist.

    I come across his writ­ings in con­ser­v­a­tive cir­cles, but I don’t think you have to be con­ser­v­a­tive to appre­ci­ate his won­der­ful and warm writ­ings, espe­cially since they’re abun­dantly laced with heart­felt expres­sions of his grat­i­tude and praise of God.

  • Grace

    BTW, here’s a Wiki entry with his pic­ture, in case any­one still can’t quite place the name.

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