Posted on 12/08/2004 12:21:57 AM PST by torqemada
Saturday after Thanksgiving is the traditional day to purchase stamps for my annual Christmas card mailing... [snip] So, shortly before noon on that most recent post-turkey day, I sauntered into a neighborhood "U.S. Postal Store," [snip] and headed for the stamps-only section. I quickly found a packed wall of display racks offering a panoply of first-class postage devoted to the various elements of the year-end holiday season, specifically:
1) Christmas, featuring colorful, contemporary designs of Santa Claus with an array of inanimate, secular Yule symbols;
2) Kwanzaa, with not just one but two stamps promoting a totally fabricated "harvest holiday" for African-Americans, [snip]
3) Hanukkah, the ancient Jewish festival that marks the rededication of the temple wrested from the savage control of Syria's King Antiochus IV; and
4) Eid (Arabic for "festival"), a two-part, post-Ramadan feasting period for Muslims.
Beholding such philatelic diversity in a simple American post office truly is a multicultural moment that a few weeks earlier would have reduced John Kerry to tears of joy.
Something, however, was missing. "Where," I asked the attending postal clerk, "are the traditional Madonna & Child stamps?" (Postal authorities for years have issued both nonreligious and religious commemorative stamps for this holiday season, to satisfy equally those citizens who groove exclusively on office-partying and those who quaintly still revere the birth of Christ.)
"Those stamps," said the clerk with an odd, ecumenical smile, are here in this drawer, "under the counter." She slowly pulled open the discreet trove and withdrew samples of the Virgin Mary and her Baby Jesus for my fascination, as if they were products of an eccentric artist with copious red body hair who works at night, alone in the P.O. attic.....
Read the rest of the article at: http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=5906
(Excerpt) Read more at humaneventsonline.com ...
I am at an absolute loss for words over this one. If you're not, please feel free to comment.
Send the postmaster a postcard with a picture of a lump of coal.
Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, and now we have Eid. Now everybody can celebrate shopping season!
Send the postmaster a photo of a FedEx truck with your naked butt mooning him out the window.
Celebrating the real meaning of Christmas, the birth of Jesus Christ, is subversive.
Dare I say, even counterculture.
;-)
Who decided the real meaning of Christmas?
Like what it means and how it should be celebrated.
Should it be some kind of religious ceremony or service or decorations and gift giving?
If someone really wanted to do it right where would they look to know for sure?
Just a little friendly advice. Don't believe everything you read in the newspaper or hear/see on the news.
CBS, NBC, USA Today, The New York Times, LA Times, Boston Globe, BBC, and The Mirror have all been caught fabricating news items.
Celebrate the true meaning of Christmas EVERY DAY. Easter too.
They are great things to celebrate.
Myth? Hardly. I specifically asked for stamps with a religious image. They had to go into the back of my local post office to get some.
I will find out today. I am headed to my local PO to get my usual 50 or $60.00 worth of stamps. I still have a bunch of Flags so I'll be looking for the Christian religious ones.
Psst. Hey kid... want a Santa? Only 37 cents... this time.
Since I began buying commemorative stamps, they always place the special new commemoratives in the drawers of each booth for each Postal clerk.
The "regular" or most published stamps can be purchased in a machine, on a roll, in the grocery store, at Costco, etc.
The limited editions including Christmas stamps, are kept in a folder in a drawer along with all the other special issues.
This author is looking for problems, looking for something to gripe about.
There are many negatives to be found in the US Post Office, but this author just tried to make something out of nothing. It must be desperate times for the author.
Several years in a row the "new" Christmas stamps included the Madonna either in painting or sculpture, etc. There have been angel Christmas stamps, Santa Claus stamps, Christmas stamps with new toys, old toys, etc.
On your next trip to the Post Office, ask the clerk what the new commemoratives are since October, if they still have them, that is. Casual amateur stamp collectors often buy them up in bulk and your local Post Office may be sold out. Sold out does not imply religious discrimination.
THE CHRISTMAS LINKS PAGE
http://www.truthusa.com/CHRISTmas.html
It's more like a boatload of poetic license.
I may be completely wrong about this.
But....I think the meaning of Christmas may, possibly have something to do with the first six letters in the word. Christ
Like I said I may be wrong.
The post office would have no problem having a Madonna the pop slut on a Christmas stamp to buy in plain view.
And be sure to use a Mother and Child stamp on it.
I get your point but I think you missed mine.
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