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Jesus never asked for Christmas
 The news is out. Santa is in big trouble: he’s
too fat. Given the recent absurdity reported in the news linking fat people
to cancer, it will be interesting to see how the ‘left’ uses
this argument to get rid of Christmas. I predict that an all out war is
coming against Santa Claus; he is politically incorrect.
It will be interesting to see how churches and
Christians in general explain this one to their kids. Christmas has nothing
to do with Jesus’ birth. Come to think of it, this is the only issue
that I agree with the left, when they argue this holiday isn’t
Christian: they’re right.
The reason Christians have trouble putting Jesus back
into Christmas is because he wasn’t in it in the first place. Search
your New Testament: you won’t find one scripture telling us to
celebrate Jesus’ birth. Even Jesus himself instructed the church to
celebrate his death. Why? Because his birth doesn’t help anyone.
It’s his death which dealt with our sin.
And given the fact that the bottlers of Coke are the
ones who created the current image of Santa Claus, even they will have to
deal with this problem.
Earl Banks, North Vancouver
Heed the voice of First Nations
The Speech from the Throne included an apology to
Residential School survivors. But the First Nations Leadership
Council rightly said it saw “many gaps” in the speech. These
concerns are especially relevant in B.C., where most land is still unceded
and untreatied.
B.C.’s political denial of aboriginal rights and
sovereignty is contributing to Third World conditions in native reserves;
to over half of the kids in foster homes being aboriginals; and to making
most of us British Columbians illegal occupiers of this land.
Canada was one of four countries to vote against the
United Nations’ Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. That
was in sad contrast to an overwhelming 143 countries in favour of the
adoption.
Unless we want to be recorded in history on par with
colonies like the former South Africa, we should consider heeding the voice
of the First Nations and calling our government to do what is just.
Bill Chu, Canadians For Reconciliation
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More is needed to fight poverty
At the Montreal Millennium Summit in early November,
minister of international cooperation Beverley J. Oda explained well why
Canada’s aid to Afghanistan is $100 million per year: aid is needed
during and after conflict. Granted.
How about prevention of conflict? Child soldier Ishmael Beah and Senator
Roméo Dallaire both pointed to abject poverty as the root cause of
conflicts. Abject poverty also kills 9.7 million children each year.
UNICEF’s Kul Gautam lauded CIDA’s
participation in the Accelerated Child Survival and Development Program,
and hopes Canada will increase its yearly contribution to $100 million,
saving 200,000 lives and improving the health of 20 to 40 million children.
Mrs Oda, please notice it’s $100 million
‘per year,’ like in Afghanistan. Make us proud.
Pamela Walden-Landry, Montreal
Free papers offer public very little
What has changed for the better since 24 Hours and Metro Vancouver came into being?
Yes, we commuters have easier access to free
newspapers, some people now have jobs as greeters and some people have jobs
as news editors, columnists, et cetera.
But the Lower Mainland would be better off without
these newspapers because they have very little to offer the public in terms
of legitimate, intelligent news writing.
An extremely negative aspect of these new papers is the
excessive focus on advertising. Even worse, they have introduced us to some
pretty bad columnists, and some very boring writers reviewing TV programs
which should have been dumped after the first episode.
How can we hope to have a world class city when we are
poorly served by many of our media representatives?
Patrick Longworth,
Surrey
December 2007
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