{"id":2347,"date":"2011-11-29T15:00:31","date_gmt":"2011-11-29T21:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/?p=2347"},"modified":"2011-11-29T15:00:31","modified_gmt":"2011-11-29T21:00:31","slug":"what-i-am-against","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/2011\/11\/what-i-am-against\/","title":{"rendered":"What I am AGAINST"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saturday, 26 November 2011<\/strong><\/p>\n

The American Family Association has released their yearly “Naughty or Nice” list.<\/a> This is an extraordinarily helpful list; elegant in its simplicity.<\/p>\n

The AFA gives retailers a color rating. Green is the best – like the stoplight, Green mean GO, as in, “go shop there.” Yellow indicates caution is warranted when shopping at the retailers, and Red means stop shopping there.<\/p>\n

Both box and online stores achieve one of these colors by their attitude toward Christmas. Green, for example, indicates the company is “for” Christmas.<\/p>\n

“But wait!” you say. “How can the AFA determine a company’s attitude toward Christmas?”<\/p>\n

Oh, that’s easy, they simply calculate the number of times the company uses the word “Christmas” in their advertising and other forms of communicating. A store like Menards, what with its Christmas Wonderland in each store, thusly scores a green. (Modestly, the AFA awards their own online store a green rating, too.) A store that does not use the word “Christmas” is given a red rating a deemed to be “AGAINST Christmas” (capitalization theirs).<\/p>\n

Hm. So, let’s say I open a new store and I decide to use what’s going on in the community to help me sell my trinkets. In August, for example, I tout my store’s school supplies. In May, I set out my selection of Mother’s Day cards. In December, I naturally set out evergreen wreaths and plastic baby Jesuseses and on the door I write “Hallelujah, He is Risen! Give Praise for Jesus’ birthday arrives!”<\/p>\n

So far so good. The AFA would probably rate me bright green.<\/p>\n

But then, I notice some men with silly hats and pigtails walking down the street. And then I notice what looks like a headless Darth Vader (but is probably just a woman in a burka) moving in across the street. So, thinks I, “How can I get their business, too?”<\/p>\n

So I tell my employees to stop saying “Merry Christmas,” and to instead say “Happy Holidays.” I also wipe off the Christian sentiments on the door and draw some snowflakes and snowmen.<\/p>\n

In my savvy haste to make my store more inclusive and to remain competitive in the marketplace, the AFA will now rate me Red. Since I no longer use the word “Christmas” in my ads, I am defaulted to being AGAINST Christmas.<\/p>\n

Using this logic, I can’t help but wonder what else I am AGAINST. Of course, I don’t own a store, but I do own a house (well, I have to pay the bank lots of money every month to say that, but I think you know what I mean). So as I look around my house, I am forced to ask: “What, dear self, am I obviously AGAINST since there’s no signage to indicate otherwise?”<\/p>\n

First, I am AGAINST gay rights. You can tell I am AGAINST gay rights because my house is not painted pink, and I don’t have a “Homos are awesome” neon sign in my window.<\/p>\n

Second, I am AGAINST a cleaner environment since I don’t assign my children shifts to stand outside and hug our tree and my kitchen floor is not made out of soy-free gluten-free reconstituted reclaimed cork.<\/p>\n

Third, I am AGAINST democracy, since my children did not duly elect me to be their father. Also, my garage door is not styled as an American flag.<\/p>\n

Finally (since this post is already too long), I am against dogs since I do not own any canines, I do not want the neighbor’s dog to poop on my lawn, and we have no time pieces in our home that accurately measure the passing of dog years.<\/p>\n

Yes, AFA, peg me Red on all these counts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saturday, 26 November 2011 The American Family Association has released their yearly “Naughty or Nice” list. This is an extraordinarily helpful list; elegant in its simplicity. The AFA gives retailers a color rating. Green is the best – like the stoplight, Green mean GO, as in, “go shop there.” Yellow indicates caution is warranted when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2347"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2349,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2347\/revisions\/2349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}