At least, that’s what I’m predicting will happen after churches learn that a Tyson Foods poultry processing plant will no longer have a paid day off on Labor Day but will instead be granted the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr.

The change was part of a new five-year union contract at this single plant, which employees about 1,200 people, about 700 of whom are Muslim. That’s a little more than 58% of employees at this particular plant.

There have been no other major changes in the company’s holiday plan, a spokesman says. There were eight holidays before the switch and there are now eight holidays after the switch. Labor Day, which Congress made a federal holiday in 1894, was designed to celebrate the strength and spirit of labor and trade organizations. It is traditionally celebrated on the first Monday in September.

Eid al-Fitr, marks the end of the Muslim holy month of fasting, Ramadan. This year, Eid al-Fitr falls on October 1st.

The contract also calls for the construction of a special prayer room for the Muslim workers. A former employee who identified himself as being a Christian complained that if Christians at the plant want to pray, they have no special room to go to. A company spokesman says Christian employees have never demanded one.

I can imagine Christians everywhere ready to protest, ready to call for boycotts of chicken, long a staple for traditional Sunday meals, (although far from the only option).

I’m a Christian, and here’s my response: I’m still going to eat chicken. Hopefully more often grilled than fried, to keep my cholesterol in check. But I hold no ill will toward Tyson.

Actually, it’s a good example of a problem too many Christians fail to consider: in America, the majority is supposed to rule. That’s pretty much what a Democracy means. In this case, the decision was the result of contract negotiations, but it was still a negotiation designed to benefit the majority of people involved.

There are a lot of people who would argue that if Muslims wanted to stay Muslim, they should have stayed where they were rather than coming to America. But because this is America, we’re all supposed to be guaranteed the same religious freedom, no matter what that particular religion happens to be.

You can’t demand that everyone should be “forced” to be a Christian and expect them to be faithful followers. You’ll recall from your history books that religious freedom was one of the reasons this country was founded to begin with.

As for the notion that Christians didn’t get their own prayer room, I’d suggest this: where does it say that Christians need a prayer room? I can pray any time. No one even has to know that I am praying. I don’t have to get on my knees and close my eyes, hands folded over my chest, just to talk to God. I talk to God often without doing any of that. Today, I did so in my office in between the crises typical in television.

Those Christian employees who are bothered by the majority of colleagues, it seems to me, should either transfer to another plant where Muslims aren’t in the majority, or stay there and try praying for those colleagues they’re having a problem with. Or at least respecting the other person’s views.

There are a lot of Christians who believe every Muslim is an American-hating terrorist. By this same logic, all Christians must be murderers, like those self-appointed Christian executioners who targeted doctors who performed abortions. We must also be rude, hate-filled, spiteful people who protest at funerals of soldiers while suggesting that our God, who we say is a God of love, really hates. We must also be adulterers and embezzlers, like several high-profile televangelists.

The sweeping generalizations cut both ways.

Here is an excerpt from one of Andy Rooney’s essays.  The topic, appropriately enough, is Memorial Day.  This was from a segment first broadcast on May 29, 2005:

“Tomorrow is Memorial Day, the day we have set aside to honor by remembering all the Americans who have died fighting for the thing we like the most about our America: the freedom we have to live as we please.

No official day to remember is adequate for something like that. It’s too formal. It gets to be just another day on the calendar. No one would know from Memorial Day that Richie M., who was shot through the forehead coming onto Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, wore different color socks on each foot because he thought it brought him good luck.

No one would remember on Memorial Day that Eddie G. had promised to marry Julie W. the day after he got home from the war, but didn’t marry Julie because he never came home from the war. Eddie was shot dead on an un-American desert island, Iwo Jima.

For too many Americans, Memorial Day has become just another day off. There’s only so much time any of us can spend remembering those we loved who have died, but the men, boys really, who died in our wars deserve at least a few moments of reflection during which we consider what they did for us.

They died.

We use the phrase “gave their lives,” but they didn’t give their lives. Their lives were taken from them.

There is more bravery at war than in peace, and it seems wrong that we have so often saved this virtue to use for our least noble activity - war. The goal of war is to cause death to other people.

Because I was in the Army during World War II, I have more to remember on Memorial Day than most of you. I had good friends who were killed.

Charley Wood wrote poetry in high school. He was killed when his Piper Cub was shot down while he was flying as a spotter for the artillery.

Bob O’Connor went down in flames in his B-17.

Obie Slingerland and I were best friends and co-captains of our high school football team. Obie was killed on the deck of the Saratoga when a bomb that hadn’t dropped exploded as he landed.

I won’t think of them anymore tomorrow, Memorial Day, than I think of them any other day of my life.

Remembering doesn’t do the remembered any good, of course. It’s for ourselves, the living. I wish we could dedicate Memorial Day, not to the memory of those who have died at war, but to the idea of saving the lives of the young people who are going to die in the future if we don’t find some new way - some new religion maybe - that takes war out of our lives.

That would be a Memorial Day worth celebrating.”

I don’t know that a new religion is the answer.  I suspect that if more religious people actually behaved as if they were, that in itself would be a good place to start.

“Age is catching up with us and time is running out.”

—William Paynter, 91
World War II Veteran

A front-page story in Sunday’s Post and Courier covers several groups’ efforts to preserve the personal stories of veterans before they are lost forever.

Once there were 16 million U.S. World War II veterans. That number has shrunk to about 2.5 million. Some estimates predict that by 2020, there will be no more WWII veterans still alive.

There are only 12 verified World War I veterans* still alive, and just two of them live in the United States. Both are 107 years old. The oldest of the dozen lives in the UK and is 111. He is also the oldest verified man in Europe.

These men have had a lifetime to relive the horrors of war that they witnessed long before there was a condition known as “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.”

They have spent a lifetime trying to suppress the painful memories of watching their comrades, their friends, die in service of the country.

I suspect even the passage of decades doesn’t make that a great deal easier when those memories come rushing to the surface.

There’s no practical way to tabulate the human story of each and every loss this country has suffered in every war ever fought. Reciting a bunch of numbers seems almost inhuman.

Because it isn’t about numbers; it’s about people.

Do you think you can spare a few minutes today to think about those fallen soldiers yourself? It isn’t the least you can do, but it’s pretty close.

* This is information according to Wikipedia, so it may or may not be completely accurate. Take it as you will.

For those of you who stopped by to check out this week’s edition of the Saturday Six, you will have noticed that there was no outside meme this week. The reason for this is, simply, that I couldn’t find one on the subject of racism that wasn’t blatantly racist itself or just plain silly.

Had it not been for the “recent developments in the presidential campaign” which prompted the questions I selected this week, I would have surely geared the questions toward the celebration of Easter, which is tomorrow.

So for those who were hoping for an Easter-related meme, let it not be said that I disappoint my readers: here’s my answer and the link where you can find your own to the all important question, “What is your Easter Egg personality?”

What Your Easter Egg Says About You

You are cheerful, friendly, and open minded. You do your best to make sure everyone is happy, including yourself. Empathy comes easily to you. You are very forgiving. You don’t hold grudges. You easily forget about any negativity in your life.

The Easter Egg Personality Test

Yesterday in Columbia, as everyone was celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, an educator was sent home because of going “over the top” with his costume.

Michael Rice, an English teacher, coach and U.S. Army Reserve Staff Sergeant, reported to his mentoring job at Lower Richland High School wearing a green hat in the style of Shaft and light green “alien” sunglasses. Underneath the cap, he had dyed his short black hair green, also in honor of the holiday.

Rice was called to the principal’s office shortly after the first block of the day ended, local station WLTX-TV reported, and was told by the principal that the hair color was “over the top.”

Clearly, with that hat and the sunglasses, it was dyed hair that was over the top!

Rice explained that he wore his hair that color in honor of St. Patrick’s Day. (No one explained why anyone would need to explain something so obvious.)

Rice says he wanted to give fellow staff members and students “a good laugh.” But the principal wasn’t laughing, apparently having decided that Rice was not dressed professionally.

Seriously. This guy, who works as a 9th grade mentor, helping kids prepare for college, gets sent home over green hair.

When I was in school, we’d have loved such a “deviation” from the norm. It wouldn’t have disrupted anything; if anything, it would have made this particular teacher seem more hip, more cool, and worth more of our attention. Even if only for a day.

It certainly wouldn’t have caused a complete breakdown in the educational process. But learning that the principal actually sent this guy home because of the green hair sure would have.

I bet that’s all they’ve been talking about ever since. Maneuvers like this aren’t exactly what it takes to get South Carolina out of the cellar when it comes to state rankings of educational performance.

Today is St. Patrick’s Day.

Patrick is an Irish name that became famous because of St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. Patrick was a man, of course, and Patrick is a male name.

Patricia, it should go without saying, is a female variant of Patrick. Patty is a nickname for Patricia; Patty is the feminine form.

If you want to abbreviate St. Patrick’s Day, it’s St. Paddy’s Day, not St. Patty’s Day: Paddy is the masculine nickname for Patrick.

Most seem to know that once it is mentioned, yet just count how many people try to wish you a “Happy St. Patty’s Day!”

America paused to honor the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. today.  Here are a few words of King’s wisdom, every bit as applicable and important today as when he first delivered them.

“When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.”

“Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.”

“Let no man pull you low enough to hate him.”

“Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man’s sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.”

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

“Faith is taking the first step, even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”

“Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars… Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”

“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” 

It’s 2008!  I know this because I watched Dick Clark count the new year into existence at midnight.

It’s just not the new year without America’s Teenager (not nearly so young-looking anymore) ushering it in.

I had lunch with my parents, and had the traditional black-eyed peas and collard greens.  In our family, the collard greens represent money and the black-eyed peas represent health.  You eat both in the hopes having those things in the new year.

I suspect that no two families associate exactly the same meanings for the foods they eat on New Year’s.  Some families, for example, eat collard for paper money and the peas for coins.

But that’s okay.

Whatever your own traditions tell you to eat to have a nice new year, I hope you had plenty.

And that you’ll get the results you’re hoping for.

Now that Christmas is over, perhaps we can finally be rid of those ridiculous campaign commercials in which candidates attempt to make everyone believe that they’re actually taking a break from campaigning to share with you their take on the real meaning of the holiday.

The highlight for some was that infamous cross image behind Republican candidate Mike Huckabee, the one who started all of this holiday Christmas madness. The cross is actually the intersection of shelves in a white bookcase.

The Huckabee campaign says that there was no intention to subliminally insert the image of the cross into the spot, during which their man offered his own reminder of what Christmas is supposed to be about.

Huckabee himself said of the accusations:

“I wish we had been so smart as to be able contrive every frame of the shot.”

You may well have been one of Huckabee’s critics, who scoffed at the notion that it could have been a “happy accident.” You may well have cited some great conspiracy to “force” Christianity into everyone’s homes. Some of his critics would have happily sworn on a bible that there was no way such a “coincidence” could really happen.

I’ve worked in television for more than 16 years, and the reality — as unreal as it may seem — is that sometimes, a coincidence like that really does happen, and it’s the sharp-eyed viewer with absolutely no videography experience sees it and begins accusing the filmmakers of trying to pull a fast one.

I’ve seen it happen in local television, when someone spots something in a background and tries to make something out of it that no one intended…or even noticed. We were left to sit around scratching our heads wondering either why we didn’t see it or how someone else did.

I’m sure we’ve all snapped a photo that we’ve taken an extra moment or two to frame, only to discover some element in the background that we hadn’t noticed when we took the shot itself. For me, that’s an extra appeal of photography: discovering new details you didn’t notice the first time around.

And even big league film crews miss little details. Continue reading “The Christmas Campaign”

In this week’s edition of the Sunday Seven, I asked you to show off some classic art images you associate with the image of Christmas.

A few weeks back, there was an interesting sermon at my church that tackled this very subject.  My preacher showed a few familiar images like Domenico Veneziano’s Madonna and Baby pictured to the left.

Some people love Thomas Kinkade, the “Painter of Light,” whose artwork features a glowing effect achieved through lots of contrasts between light and dark and warm tones that remind the viewer of nostalgia and family.  (And contrary to what some believe, there’s no glow-in-the-dark paint involved.)

Others look at Norman Rockwell’s paintings of Santa Claus for inspiration and amusement over the holidays.  His Christmas-themed covers for the Saturday Evening Post were instant classics that still recall the magic of childhood.

Then there were the selection of hand-colored lithographs of Christmas images offered by printmakers Nathaniel Currier and J. Merritt Ives that take some back to those beloved “simpler times.”

My preacher then started talking about what Christmas was really about:  Jesus Christ taking our place in terms of being burdened by sin and pain, giving his life so we can live forever.  It is about His love for us paving the way for us to find strength and peace despite misery all around us.

He then displayed the image he said best reminds us what Christmas is really about, which you’ll see after the jump.  Continue reading “The Image of Christmas”

Here’s my score:

You Know a Lot About Christmas

You got 7/10 correctYou know tons about the history and traditions surrounding Christmas. When you celebrate the holidays, you never forget their true meaning - or all the little fun details. Random Christmas fact: December 25th was not celebrated as the birthday of Christ until the year AD 440.

How Much Do You Know About Christmas?

At sundown tonight, a Jewish holiday celebration began.  So I would like to wish my Jewish friends a Happy Hanukkah.

For the benefit of those who haven’t taken the time to learn anything about the significance of Hanukkah, dismissing it as part of someone else’s religion and therefore no concern to them, it is an eight-day celebration commemorating the the Maccabees’ victorious reclaiming of the temple on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem.

As the temple was being prepared for rededication, it was discovered that there was only enough oil to burn a candle for a single day.  However the candle stayed lit — miraculously — for eight full days.

The celebration of Hanukkah involves a Hanukiah, a candelabra with nine candles.  (It is sometimes called a menora, but a menora actually only has seven candles.) The center candle is used to light the remaining candles over the course of the eight days.

Some interpret the eight candles to symbolize the story of Hannah and her seven sons.  Her sons were tortured and executed when they refused to bow to a statue and taste pork, after which Hannah committed suicide.  This story is told in the Talmud and in the Book of Maccabees.

A friend of mine has promised to bring me a latke, which, by his description, sounds like a somewhat diet-unfriendly food; I can’t wait to try it!

Oops…I was supposed to tell this story earlier this week!

Anyway, it was the day before Thanksgiving, and I had made a reservation for an eight-pound ham to take to the parents’ house as part of the big Thanksgiving (diet-unfriendly) feast.

A co-worker of mine had reserved one as well, and since he’s new to the area, he asked if he could follow me to Honeybaked Ham, where our slabs of delicious pork were supposed to be waiting. He asked me how long it should take, and I made a tremendous mistake: I answered the question.

“Oh, about ten minutes or so. They have their process pretty streamlined, so you go in, give them your reservation number, they get your ham and you’re on your way pretty quickly.”

If he hadn’t asked, or if I hadn’t answered, I’m sure it would have gone that way.

Instead, we arrive in the shopping mall to find a line that goes halfway down the strip. This isn’t good, I thought to myself, but tried not to let on.

After a few minutes of standing there, and realizing that the line hadn’t moved an inch, I couldn’t pretend any longer: something was wrong. But what? Fifteen or twenty minutes into the wait, my co-worker and I learned (through word-of-mouth) that the store had run out of hams.

Let me say that again: Honeybaked Ham ran out of ham.

That’s like Chick-Fil-A running out of chicken. Or a salad bar running out of lettuce. But the difference is that when you order a ham, you have to call them in advance and reserve it. So they know how many they’ll need. By the evening before Thanksgiving, it’s unlikely that anyone is going to be successful if they just show up unannounced for a ham.

The bigger problem, from a customer service standpoint, was that we were learning this information second-hand, from whispers that made their way down the line. No one from the store was making the effort to walk down the line and explain the situation. I called the store for details, explaining that I was in line waiting for an explanation as to why we found ourselves in this situation. They apologized for not sending someone to “brave the crowd,” and said that a truck that had been expected earlier still hadn’t arrived, and that a second one had just left Columbia (about an hour-and-forty-minute trip).

We decided to give them a half-hour, then we’d just leave and try again later in the evening. They had assured us that they wouldn’t close until everyone who had reserved a ham for that night got their ham. Within those thirty long minutes, we were told that the first truck was now just twenty miles away. So we decided we’d stay put until it arrived. Twenty miles, after all, shouldn’t be more than about a half-hour since it was traveling mostly by interstate.

The wait, as you have seen from this post’s title, ended up being two hours. My co-worker joked that his ham better be the best ham he’s ever tasted. I added that it should be one you remember for the rest of your life.

Honeybaked, to its credit, did give everyone in line $10 off their bill for the inconvenience. It was a nice gesture and certainly a reasonable one given the circumstances.

It was a very good ham. I haven’t checked back with my co-worker, yet, so I don’t know whether he expects to still remember it in 2057 or not.

One can always hope.

I just wanted to take a moment to wish all of my readers a Happy Thanksgiving.

I hope you have an enjoyable time with friends and family and that you have a great Thanksgiving meal.

And while my profession might lead you to believe that I’d hope you’d spend the day in front of the television, I hope you make room for some real quality time with your loved ones.  That’s infinitely more important than November sweeps.

My last hope on this autumn day is that you take a few moments to think about the things you are thankful for.  No matter who you are, or where you are, there are reasons to be thankful.  I hope that you can find them.

Tomorrow, I’ll tell you my “2-Hour Ham” story.

I spent the evening Sunday night with my parents and my best friend’s family. My best friend and his wife and kids live in Florida, and I normally get to see them only a few times a year.

I’m still not used to that.

When I lived in Columbia, and it has nearly been five years since I did, my friend and I worked together at the same television station, so we saw each other every day for about ten years. For at least three or four of those years, we were also roommates.

They say you should never move in with a close friend, because the constant proximity would be enough to ruin any friendship. That wasn’t the case with Chip and I, and I’m very grateful for that.

I remember the first time Chip invited me to visit his parents’ house for the weekend. I grew up in something of a “closed” house; because my parents (and I) are packrats, we rarely had visitors, and when my friends came over to play, we played in the back yard. So while I had been in other people’s homes, I was still a little uncertain of what to expect.

From the moment I walked in the door, I was one of them. It was as if they had known me my whole life. That’s rare, and I’ll never forget how welcome they have made me feel over the years. I’ll always love them for that.

Chip and his wife, Lynne, have been married for ten years now. I was one of their groomsmen. I’m very close to Lynne, too. She and I often gang up on Chip; she and I are always right, of course, although I suspect he might suggest otherwise. At their wedding rehersal dinner, I made the following toast:

“I’m so glad that these two found each other. They’re a perfect match: there’s Chip, who thinks he’s always right, and Lynne, who almost always is.”

I can’t imagine a husband and wife complementing each other better, on multiple levels. On my more cynical days, watching the two of them makes me at least a little less cynical.

They have three kids now. Three beautiful kids who amaze me a little more every time I see them.

Their oldest is now six, going on eighteen. I don’t know the minimum age one must reach before they could become a rocket scientist, but I suspect she could be ready for the job in a matter of months if she wanted to. As we were leaving, she was sitting at the computer, typing up what she described as a homework assignment for her teacher! I looked over her shoulder and saw that the topic was weather. She was making complete sentences with words like precipitation, evaporation and condensation. At the risk of sounding somewhat less than modest, I will assure you that I was not a dumb kid. But I don’t think I had quite that vocabulary when I was starting out in first grade.

Their middle child is almost four. He’s my Godson. He’s the quiet one of the trio. He is coming out of his shell and is talking more and more, but for a while it seemed like he was content to soak up what everyone else was saying.

Their youngest just turned two a few months ago. (His middle name is Patrick!  How cool is that?) He recently took a tumble off of a ladder on his swing set at home, and his arm is in a bright red cast. It doesn’t seem to have slowed him down at all, although when Chip was showing me how he had learned parts of the body, like the eyes, the ears, the neck, he asked the boy where his arm was, and when he pointed to his arms, he acknowledged the cast, saying, “Arm hurts.”

I am well aware, lest anyone wonder, that the kind of friends that feel literally like members of the family are extraordinarily rare. I thank God for the day Chip and I crossed paths. I’m an only child, so it’s difficult for me to imagine what it would be like to have a brother. But if I’d had one, I don’t think I could have possibly been closer to him than I am to Chip.