{"id":249,"date":"2006-01-11T18:02:10","date_gmt":"2006-01-11T23:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=249"},"modified":"2006-01-11T19:02:00","modified_gmt":"2006-01-12T00:02:00","slug":"the-war-against-humorlessness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=249","title":{"rendered":"The War Against Humorlessness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From <a href=\"http:\/\/iowahawk.typepad.com\/iowahawk\/2005\/12\/yuletide_news_n.html\">Iowahawk<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n<big>WICCANS DECRY &#8216;WAR AGAINST SOLSTICE&#8217;<\/big><\/p>\n<p>Wiccan Coven Association President Ozrius Ravenclaw announced today<br \/>\nthat his group would continue a formal economic boycott against<br \/>\nseveral major US retailers &#8220;until they cease their relentless and<br \/>\ncowardly attack on the Solstice.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Retailers affected by the boycott include Target, WalMart, Dollar<br \/>\nGeneral, Mills Fleet Farm, Victoria&#8217;s Secret, AutoZone, and Hy Vee.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is &#8216;Political Correctness&#8217; gone crazy. Where ever you shop these<br \/>\ndays, it seems like it&#8217;s &#8216;Happy Holidays&#8217; or &#8216;Seasons Greetings,'&#8221;<br \/>\nsaid Ravenclaw, who was formerly known as Chuck Sundergard. &#8220;Whatever<br \/>\nhappened to a good old fashioned &#8216;All Glory to Gaia&#8217; or &#8216;Jhakkaa<br \/>\nSolztovo Chthulu?'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Tractor Supply Company spokesman Kevin Neves denied accusations that<br \/>\nhis company instructed sales clerks not to use traditional Wiccan<br \/>\ngreetings.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We welcome everybody to TSC, regardless of how they celebrate the<br \/>\nseason,&#8221; said Neves. &#8220;We even stock a nice assortment of seasonal<br \/>\nanimal sacrifice altars, back in Lawn &#038; Garden.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>I&#8217;m a Wiccan.  Been one for thirty years.  (Yeah, yeah, &#8220;I was a<br \/>\nWiccan before it was cool&#8230;&#8221;).  Now, if I were the kind of humorless<br \/>\ngink at which Iowahawk is aiming, I&#8217;d be spluttering with indignation at<br \/>\nthis insensitive and hurtful fling at my personal religion thing.<\/p>\n<p>But you know what?  I think it&#8217;s pretty funny.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>See, unlike most members of huge evil monotheistic death cults, I<br \/>\nunderstand that serious is deadly.  Any spiritual tradition that can&#8217;t<br \/>\nlaugh at itself, that can&#8217;t step outside its own dogmas and admit how<br \/>\nabsurd it can look from the outside, has already become a cancer.<\/p>\n<p>If you notice that damn few religions can pass this test, you&#8217;re<br \/>\ngetting the idea. There aren&#8217;t more than a handful fit to take up room<br \/>\nin a sane human being&#8217;s head.  Thankfully, Wicca is still one of them.<br \/>\nIt hasn&#8217;t become deadly serious. Yet, anyway.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, Iowahawk isn&#8217;t actually flinging at Wicca at all.  He&#8217;s<br \/>\nusing the entirely fictional &#8220;Ozrius&#8221; as a reductio ad absurdam of Christian conservatives<br \/>\nwho really do behave like this.  Joke &#8217;em if they can&#8217;t take a fuck.<\/p>\n<p>I take issue with his satire on only one minor technical point.<br \/>\nWhat&#8217;s up with this &#8220;Jhakkaa Solztovo&#8221; nonsense? Everybody<br \/>\nknows the <em>correct<\/em> greeting in the name of Cthulhu is <em>&#8220;Ia! Ia! Cthulhu<br \/>\nR&#8217;lyeh fhtagn!&#8221;<\/em> Harrumph&#8230;you&#8217;re never<br \/>\ngoing to successfully invoke any hideous all-devouring Elder Gods if you<br \/>\nkeep <em>that<\/em> up&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From Iowahawk: WICCANS DECRY &#8216;WAR AGAINST SOLSTICE&#8217; Wiccan Coven Association President Ozrius Ravenclaw announced today that his group would continue a formal economic boycott against several major US retailers &#8220;until they cease their relentless and cowardly attack on the Solstice.&#8221; Retailers affected by the boycott include Target, WalMart, Dollar General, Mills Fleet Farm, Victoria&#8217;s Secret,&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=249\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The War Against Humorlessness<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}