You may have already seen this, but I just had to mention it.

This week, White House staffers had to apologize for an invitation sent to leaders of the Jewish community.  The invites were to a Hanukkah reception at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  There’s nothing so out-of-the-ordinary about that.

The reason for the apology was for the image on the front of the invitation:  it depicted a horse-drawn cart pulling a Christmas tree to the White House, which is decorated with a holiday wreath.  Spokesman Sally McDonough said it was one of those things that just “fell through the cracks.”

There are a lot of things I can imagine might easily fall through the cracks.  Putting a Christmas tree on a Hanukkah invitation isn’t one of them.

Replacement invitations, depicting the White House’s menorah, were scheduled to be sent out on Thursday, though I’m not sure whether they meant Thursday of this week (which would have been a postal holiday) or next week.

At least one of the Jewish leaders took the gaffe in stride:  Isaac Abraham of Brooklyn said, “It’s obvious what’s going on here: The Christmas tree is being taken out of the White House and the menorah is being brought in the back.”

Just when retailers thought things were getting about as bad as they could going into Black Friday, the first day of the Christmas shopping season, some merchants in downtown Charleston got a nasty surprise this morning:  vandals had superglued the front door locks at more than 70 — and as many as 90 — stores.

By putting the glue into the keyholes, the merchants weren’t able to turn the tumblers to unlock the doors, leaving them closed for business and fuming for payback.

One store owner decided to throw a cinder block through the front door so they could at least get customers lined up during the early morning hours inside.

The real winners this Black Friday in downtown Charleston seem to have been folks who never get much attention on a day like this:  local locksmiths.

Remember my post from last Friday — that was 08/08/08, incidentally — about the sheer number of eights people were trying to embrace for special events?

Here’s another, though it’s more in the coincidence department:  a baby in Minnesota was born on 08/08/08 at 8:08 am.  Her weight?  Yep…eight pounds, eight ounces.

No, really.  I am not making this up.

This video clip is a perfect example of why I don’t get into competitive sports.

Anyone who gets into this much really, really needs to talk it out a bit.   Without a racket in hand.

Just sayin’…

Last week, some young Christian men in Bulgaria did something quite odd as part of a religious practice.  It is believed that the first person to complete the task is blessed with good health for the year.

The task, you ask?

Stripping down to their underwear or bathing suits and jumping into icy rivers and lakes into which a priest has thrown a wooden cross.  The event is the commemoration of St. Jordan’s Day.

A 22-year-old student was the first to reach the cross this year, so it is presumed that he will be the one to enjoy good health.  Unless, of course, he succumbs to pneumonia from the frigid swim.

One might wonder exactly why God would want his followers to undergo such a ritual.  It seems, on the surface, a foolish act.

And what if someone really did get sick from exposure during such a ritual?  Would that have been God’s will?

Sometimes we do strange things in pursuit of a closer relationship with God.  Sometimes I wonder if He isn’t looking over us chuckling in disbelief.

I received this in an email forward today.  Why am I posting it?  Two reasons:  first, it’s a collection of pretty good pieces of advice, and second, well, you’ll have to check out the next post for that.

Enjoy!

1. Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.

2. Marry a man/woman you love to talk to. As you get older, their conversational skills will be as important as any other.

3. Don’t believe all you hear, spend all you have or sleep all you want.

4. When you say, ‘I love you,’ mean it.

5. When you say, ‘I’m sorry,’ look the person in the eye.

6. Be engaged at least six months before you get married.

7. Believe in love at first sight.

8. Never laugh at anyone’s dreams. People who don’t have dreams don’t have much.

9. Love deeply and passionately. You might get hurt but it’s the only way to live life completely.

10. In disagreements, fight fairly. No name calling.

11. Don’t judge people by their relatives.

12. Talk slowly but think quickly.

13. When someone asks you a question you don’t want to answer, smile and ask, ‘Why do you want to know?’

14. Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

15. Say ‘bless you’ when you hear someone sneeze.

16. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.

17. Remember the three R’s: Respect for self; Respect for others; and Responsibility for all y our actions.

18. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship.

19. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.

20. Smile when picking up the phone. The caller will hear it in your voice.

21. Spend some time alone.

Just yesterday, I was walking into a coffee shop when I heard a man sitting right outside the front door sneeze.  As I passed by him, I said, “Bless you.”  He seemed surprised, and thanked me.

I looked around the coffee shop, read the menu to decide which over-priced concoction I wanted, picked up a copy of the newspaper and got in line.  When I reached the cash register, who was behind the counter but the man who had sneezed outside.  He saw me and asked if I was the one who had said, “Bless you” to him.  When I said I was, he thanked me again.

Sometimes, small courtesies do make an impression.

In today’s Post and Courier, there was an interesting article about an Arizona woman who hosts Tupperware-style parties at her home, but it’s not plastics that she’s selling: her product is the Taser.

Her target customer is women who want to protect themselves from possible attackers.

There are plenty of ethical questions that can be raised about the public being able to buy Taser C2 “personal protector” weapons. The one good thing, perhaps, is that Taser requires a criminal background check before it will release the code that will actually enable the device to work.

That aside, one particular quote from the seller jumped out at me:

“Shafman says many of her female customers love that the C2 is small enough to fit in their purses and that it comes in a variety of colors. When it comes to choosing weapons, she says, a lot of women want them in pink.”

Seriously. I am not making this up. Go read the article for yourself if you don’t believe me.

We’re talking about a weapon that could disable a potential kidnapper, rapist, or killer. Who gives a damn what color it comes in? It’s supposed to save your life, not match your shoes.

Some people are so stupid.

As if yesterday’s news that “Ho ho ho” is no longer a politically-correct way for Santa to laugh, now teachers in Seattle are being warned to be sensitive when teaching students about Thanksgiving, because it’s not a pleasant holiday for everyone.

No, I’m not talking about people who happen to live with lousy cooks who therefore have nothing to look forward to when the big meal comes to mind.  I’m talking about Native Americans, for whom Thanksgiving is a holiday is a sad reminder of the loss of their territories.

This year’s Thanksgiving will be, by my estimation, America’s 386th observance of the holiday.  And this is a problem now?!?

Actually, the article states that these concerns first cropped up about three years ago.  (That explains it all, right?)

I’d have to agree with one of the parents quoted in the article:

“I think anything you are thankful for is great.”

There’s nothing wrong with trying to be sensitive to different viewpoints.  But I suspect that things are going a bit overboard here.  (And for what it’s worth, I’m part Native American.)

In the old days, traditions were traditions.

Not anymore. Now, no tradition is safe, because someone might become offended.

Santa Clauses in Australia are being instructed not to use the icon’s famous trademark laugh, “Ho ho ho,” because it might be “offensive” to women. The word “ho” is often used by rappers and others as a derogatory term for women.

So Santas are being asked to say, “Ha ha ha” instead. Of course, what will end up happening is that the kids will ask their parents why Santa is saying it wrong, the parents will have to explain that “ho ho ho” is offensive to some people, the kids will ask why it’s offensive, and the parents will then have to explain the very controversy these worry-wort Santa organizers are trying to avoid to start with.

Ironic, isn’t it? Some people really need a reality check.

I wonder how long it will be before hoes disappear from the aisles of gardening stores because their mention is offensive.

Would you want to go to Disneyland to die?  Even more outlandish, would you want Disneyland to be your final resting place?

The idea does nothing for me, but apparently there are those who wouldn’t agree with me:

“…a Cast Member [Disney employee] watching the security cameras noticed a woman in the back of a boat throwing a powdery substance into the lavishly decorated sets in the cavern scenes near the beginning of the [Pirates of the Carribean Haunted Mansion] ride.”

That powdery substance, it turned out, was someone’s cremated remains.

The ride had to be shut down while a hazmat crew was called in to clean up the remains, since there was no way to know without checking whether the woman was a terrorist in disguise.

Whoever it was who wanted to spend eternity at Disneyland is now, unfortunately, spending it inside a giant Electrolux.

The best-laid plans….

It’s quite amazing to see the reaction on AOL’s message boards (Keyword: News Community, click “Crime & Courts” link) about the 20-year-old Wisconsin college student who was found alive after a four-day disappearance, and the follow-up story that her claims are no longer being considered credible by police who are investigating the incident.

There are scores of them who doubted her story. A few of them were convinced from the start that her story didn’t make sense. Some of them were so sure, in fact, that they held nothing back in denouncing her as either a “nutcase” or “psychotic.” For reasons I cannot understand, they now seem to be reveling in their shrewd, early observations, as if they’ve won the weekly football pool!

Some of these armchair detectives based their theories on the notion that she was found without life-threatening injuries. How, they ask, could someone be kidnapped at knife-point and not have life-threatening injuries? “Life-threatening injuries” are those which, if not treated immediately, will result in death. Life-threatening injuries would include gunshot wounds, stab wounds, internal bleeding, etc. But the absence of “life-threatening” injuries does not mean she had NO injuries, as some have assumed. A kidnapping victim can be struck, even beaten, by an assailant without receiving a “life-threatening” injury. Elizabeth Smart was found without “life-threatening injuries.”

Others said her story didn’t hold water because she wasn’t raped. Not all kidnappings are about rape. There are cases in which people are abducted for other reasons, including ransom, and that a sexual assault does not automatically occur.

Then there are some of the posters who are really “out there.”

A few claim that if the student had been black instead of white, no one would have cared about her disappearance. I can’t relate to this one: when I heard a 20-year-old college student had gone missing, I didn’t ask what color she was, it just seemed like an interesting story. But I suppose there are those — of both races, to be sure — who enjoy making race an issue in everything. I just wonder if those who do so realize that they are being racist, too?

Others claim she was just out for attention, and that she knew “the media would hype the story.” They fail to mention the fact that their own obsession with the story is why the media would focus attention on it to begin with, but that’s another story.

The most outrageous post I’ve seen so far, made after news that the student had changed her story, is written by someone who claims that the student deserves to be raped for lying. No one deserves to be raped, not even someone who would say something so cruel as cruel as that! These people need to talk to a rape victim and ask her if she felt she deserved what she went through. Then talk about punishment.

It makes me wonder why people are so obsessed with the story, and why they felt such a need to be right in thinking that her story was bogus. The posts don’t say much about our society, or our capacity for compassion for our fellow man. Let’s hope they’re not representative of a large segment of our population.