Holy Covenants!
I do my best to refrain from commenting on such trivial "news," but I can't hide my amazement at this story coming out of Colorado.
A couple of well-meaning folks hung a peace-symbol shaped Xmas wreath out on the wall of their home and now their busybody (and wooden-headed) neighborhood association wants to fine them for refusing to remove it.
The perpetrators of this horrible crime apparently live under one of those notorious housing development covenants in which groups of American families volunteer to surrender their first amendment rights in favor of cleanliness, order, uniformity and general blank-mindedness.
But some of these dolts acutally say they are "offended" by a Xmas wreath expressing a generic hope for peace. No doubt these are the same folks who moan all day and night about what a victimization society we live in.
The chief dolt in this case is one Bob Kearns who holds the exalted title of President of the Homeowners Association. "The peace sign has a lot of negativity associated with it," Kearns is quoted saying. "It's also an anti-Christ sign. That's how it started."
Some will interpret this incident as one more symption of creeping Christo-fascism. Personally, I wouldn't dignify it that much. To me this is proof that the world is full of tiny, little people with tiny, little, itsy-bitsy minds.
The good news is that when they make themselves too public, as Grand Wizard Kearns has done, other people with common sense step forward to over-ride them. If you read deep enough into the piece, you'll see the entire Architectural Committee (!) of the Homeowners' Association resigned in protest of Wizard Kearn's idiotic antics.
I've never experienced the pleasure of living in such a controlled community. I do live in the L.A. burbs, however, where the neighbors are a bit too conscious of property values. A handful of years ago -- in between gardeners-- I let my winter lawn grow raggedy and brownish. One morning I was awakened by the noise of a psychotic neighbor who lives five houses down the street frenetically and angrily mowing my side lawn!
I let her finish in peace. And then I told her she was welcome to come every week and cut it for free if it made her happy. She never came back. Too bad.
November 27th, 2006 at 5:45 pm
I’m glad that we dropped old topics like Iraq to get to something really important–fighting the homeowner’s association. In case you wondered, I think the wreath is fine. For something at least as important, who do you think that Alabama will hire as its new head football coach?
November 27th, 2006 at 5:47 pm
Hmmm…I wonder what the homeowners’ association in Riyadh would say about a Christmas wreath, no matter how it was configured?
November 27th, 2006 at 5:54 pm
The homeowner associations don’t just pick on peaceniks. If your American flag is too big, or you wash your car in the driveway, you can be in big trouble. These outfits usually are harmless or even useful, but when they get out of control, they can be the bourgeois analogue to the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution.
Small cities like Laguna Beach also try to micromanage people’s lives, with local boards exercising unfettered discretion over all kinds of things. Although without castor oil and rubber hoses, it may be hyperbolically styled “environmental fascism.”
I don’t agree with Woody that this stuff is trivial. If we can’t have a bit of breathing room in our own condo or neighborhood, why even bother with things like the incarceration of Judith Miller or the peccadilloes of John Kerry and Trent Lott?
I despise the Nanny State whether it’s next door or in Washington DC.
November 27th, 2006 at 7:54 pm
Maybe Doc is just one of those folks who pass through, share their screed, and are never heard from again. This has always been standard fare from those who counter any criticism of the US with the citation of a more repressive, less enlightened, and less tolerant regime somewhere else, either behind the Iron Curtain, in the Middle East, or in a banana republic.
November 27th, 2006 at 10:30 pm
I agree with Doc. We have freedom of speech here in America, du-u-de. So shut the fuck up.
He is right about Saudi Arabia, though. In Bahraini shopping centers, they play Christmas music. It’s pretty live-and-let-live. (So was Iraq at one point–Saddam’s foreign minister was of Christian stock.) Saudi Arabia, though … a shop owner who dares stock Christmas cards will soon be visited by the police, and there are no Christian churches operating openly.
Which kinda makes you wonder: how is it that Bush, an ostensibly virtuous born-again (despite the fact that one of his favorite words seems to be “asshole”), feels comfortable strolling hand-in-hand with Prince Abdullah?
Ah, I see why:
politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blbushabdullahhands.htm
November 28th, 2006 at 6:33 am
We don’t behead people when we execute them either. So there.
November 28th, 2006 at 7:41 am
Guillotines were apparently more painless than the often-three-times-tried painful torturous “lethal injection.”
November 28th, 2006 at 8:17 am
So sorry to disappoint you; here I am again with my ‘screed’ (nice vocab, dude). Just dishing out the standard fare when anyone has the moral incompetency to fail to realize that we are at war with global Islam.
As far as Bush and the Saudis go, I totally agree. We should have gone after them first, IMO, but I’m not a military strategist. Okinawa, Iwo Jima, the Phillipines, Guam; hey, I don’t care which order they did them in, that’s up to the generals. Similarly Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, etc; I don’t care which order we do them in, as long as they either surrender or seriously reform themselves along the way.
November 28th, 2006 at 9:42 am
but I’m not a military strategist
Talk about belaboring the obvious . . .
November 28th, 2006 at 10:34 am
Hey Doc, since you’re on a mission to reeducate the world, may I ask what politicians you support? I don’t remember any platform announcing that we are in the midst of a globabl war with Islam. And George Bush has specifically said that Islam is good force in the lives of millions, but some are using it to justify their own barbarity. So who has come out and said we’re in a global war against Islam? Or are you here trying to gin up votes for your own 2008 candidacy?
November 28th, 2006 at 1:41 pm
Interesting argumentative turn to make the bridging comparison of the homeowners association in Saudi Arabia…
…but how about Marc’s neighbors! Mr. Cooper, don’t you live in the San Fernando Valley which supposedly has a very unique ‘underground film industry’?…did the lawn mower have ‘acting’ talents?…
November 28th, 2006 at 6:10 pm
Rob the grammarian in me has to admonish you. There are no degrees of uniqueness.
Covenants and restrictions are silly but I guess we’ve made progress of a sort when they restrict peace signs and not selling to people of the Hebrew or Ethiopian Persuasion as our late Chief Justice’s property deeds in Arizona did.
November 28th, 2006 at 7:04 pm
As a member of a homeowner assoc. in a 24 unit cluster of town homes, I got tired of the drab brown and tan color scheme and re-modled with sea green trim and white siding. 3 or 4 neighbors decried the change, but said nothing for some 18 months until one who was mad at my wife and I brought it up at an annual meeting. Fortunately, the association ruled that since no one complained formaly for a 12 month period, the change had to be accepted. Now we have some 18 of the Townhomes in different colors. Homeowner associations can be a good thing, or a real pain in the butt. Looks like Mr. Bob Kearns is a member of the latter type of association member.
November 28th, 2006 at 7:05 pm
RLC, I already recognized the misspelling… no being a spelling nazi now!
November 28th, 2006 at 11:34 pm
“As far as Bush and the Saudis go, I totally agree. We should have gone after them first, IMO, but I’m not a military strategist.”
Oh, yeah, smart move, Doc, if you want the muslim world to eventually capitulate. We take the muslim nation that contains the world’s largest reserves of oil (lending credence to the claim that we’re “stealing their oil”) AND that also contains the two holiest cities in Islam. One billion people suddenly at war with us. That would be so militarily strategic.
“Okinawa, Iwo Jima, the Phillipines, Guam; hey, I don’t care which order they did them in, that’s up to the generals. Similarly Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, etc; I don’t care which order we do them in, as long as they either surrender or seriously reform themselves along the way.”
You’ve got “battle”, “theater” and “war” seriously confused, Doc. Not to mention total naivete about politics. Small islands in the Pacific momentarily populated with far more troops on both sides than they ever had natives. Entire nations keen to throw off the latest imperial oppressor and welcoming us for helping out. And then invoking Okinawa, a textbook case that frontal assaults on foreign soil might eventually result in running out of troops to throw at the the problem. Yes, you’ve got a lot of things confused here, but you’re seriously confused anyway, so I’m not surprised. You remind of commentators who say in the death of Zarqawi the final turning point toward victory in Iraq, with some even comparing the event to shooting down Admiral Yamamoto’s plane in WW II. Iraq can’t be solved without learning the lessons of history, and applying serious brainpower where those lessons leave off. You’re not even glancingly acquainted with the lessons of history, and your brain is clearly off the hook.
November 29th, 2006 at 5:50 pm
Doc: “Just dishing out the standard fare when anyone has the moral incompetency to fail to realize that we are at war with global Islam.”
You give the Muslim extremists far too much credit. They have the power American conservatives ascribe to them only in their wettest fucking dreams. Christian fundamentalists probably have more power to do harm to this country than their Muslim counterparts.
Just in case though you should really leave the light on when you go to sleep tonight. The bogeymuslim may crawl out from under your bed to get you!