For Christ's Glory, I Dream Devotions, advice, and book reviews from science fiction and fantasy author Andrea Graham

We’ve all recieved, from well meaning friends, stories in our email inboxes that, are, shall we say, less than true. It takes a couple minutes to check them out at resources, such as urbanlegends.about.com, but most of us think with our hearts and not our heads.

I’ll admit, the commentary attributed to Ben Stein almost fooled me, in part because I don’t particularly care who Ben is. It also turns out to be half true, unlike most internet flotsam. Ben actually did give such a commentary on CBS Sunday morning, but, the story grew as it circulated and words he didn’t actually say got put in his mouth. I won’t repeat the misinformation, but this is what Ben Stein actually said:

I have no [censored] clue who Nick and Jessica are. I see them on the cover of People and Us constantly when I am buying my dog biscuits and kitty litter. I often ask the checkers at the grocery stores. They never know who Nick and Jessica are either. Who are they? Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they have broken up? Why are they so important? I don’t know who Lindsay Lohan is, either, and I do not care at all about Tom Cruise’s wife.

Am I going to be called before a Senate committee and asked if I am a subversive? Maybe, but I just have no clue who Nick and Jessica are. Is this what it means to be no longer young. It’s not so bad.

Next confession: I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don’t feel threatened. I don’t feel discriminated against. That’s what they are: Christmas trees. It doesn’t bother me a bit when people say, “Merry Christmas” to me. I don’t think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn’t bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a creche, it’s just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don’t like getting pushed around for being a Jew and I don’t think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can’t find it in the Constitution and I don’t like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and we aren’t allowed to worship God as we understand Him?

I guess that’s a sign that I’m getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we knew went to.

I suspect the part about getting old was tongue in cheek, because no one over the age of eighteen would consider me old, and I agree full heartedly. Apparently, so did someone else, and they decided to add in that Nick and Jessica are idols and unfortunately that’s not in the original. Though, frankly, Hollywood is looking more and more like Baalism every day to my eyes.

Note he also didn’t try to guilt people into forwarding a chain letter. My salvation does not depend on me forwarding an email, and neither does the country’s. If you really want to save the country, forget forwarding a chain letter, and check out my husband Adam’s talk shoe podcast. Or just download the mp3: Are We Latent Culture Warriors?

Trackposted to Rightwing Guy, Wake Up America, Outside the Beltway, Perri Nelson’s Website, Don Surber, stikNstein… has no mercy, Blue Star Chronicles, Pirate’s Cove, Renaissance Blogger, Stuck On Stupid, Dumb Ox News, Conservative Cat, High Desert Wanderer, Pursuing Holiness, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.