Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

In reaction to the news of late (see the articles below)….I am compelled to Blog!

It has all come to this. There is no way to win. There is no way to please anybody any more. No matter what you do, you offend someone. And no matter what you do, someone is going to sue you. Welcome to the American Dream!

Someone wake me up!!!!!! It’s not a dream, it’s a nightmare! And it’s real! It’s not only happening in your dreams at night, it’s happening every day on “main street” on “wall street” on the “back street.” And I can some it up in one word…..entitlement!

The entitlement attitude that governs most Americans today is sickening – and it is the reason we are in the economic situation we are in today, it is the reason the future of our country as a strong, international force to be reckoned with, is questionable.

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Call it the “Christmas Season” and offend the Jews and the African Americans, not to mention the Atheists! Call it the “holiday season” and Focus on The Family will boycott you! And I’m angry because I spend money every year at this time for my Dad’s birthday, and my brother-in-law’s birthday, both of which fall on December 7th! Hey, no one advertises to me that it’s Birthday Gift buying season! That’s it, I’m done! I will have to find somewhere to shop that “speaks to me, only me, and my needs!”

How about we stop saying anything at all! Why? Because you can’t win! So why try anymore! Let’s just go about our business from November 1 – December 31 like it was any other time of the year. Run sales and specials – promote items, but just do it “because” – no reason! Just a sale. Forget the holidays – forget the religions – forget the decorations and the holiday – woops I mean “Christmas” – no “Chanukah” – oh never mind, forget the “seasonal” music!

Let all employees celebrate any religious holiday they want – whenever they want – on company time or personal time – they are entitled to it, right? Hey, this way, there won’t be any workers to decorate the stores with “holiday” flair anyway! They’ll all be out celebrating some holiday or another. There, that solves the problem. Plus, there won’t be much money to spend in the shops during “the holidays”, because no one will be working much, and because of the lack of work, businesses will have turnover and higher labor budgets, driving prices sky high anyway. So even if you wanted to buy it, you won’t be able to afford it.

Entitlement – the driving force behind the American Economy! And look where it’s gotten us…………


Article #1
Focus puts retailers on a naughty and nice list for Christmas
November 14, 2008 - 5:09 PM
MARK BARNA
THE GAZETTE

Focus on the Family wants shoppers to know which retailers are naughty and which ones are nice - at least when it comes to holiday lingo.

On Thursday the Colorado Springs-based ministry's political action arm launched its second-annual holiday campaign by posting an online shoppers guide with three categories: "Christmas-friendly" retailers, "Christmas-negligent" retailers and "Christmas-offensive" retailers.

The "friendly" retailers are so designated because they prominently use "Merry Christmas" and other Christmas-specific references in their catalogs and in-store promotions. Those on the Christmas-offensive list use secular phrases such as "happy holidays" and have "apparently abandoned" the use of the word "Christmas," Focus said. Christmas-negligent companies "marginalize" their message by using "Christmas" in some cases and "holidays" in others.

The ministry - which made its determinations based mostly on an examination of retailers' print and online holiday catalogs - encourages shoppers to patronize the Christmas-friendly stores, but does not tell them to avoid the other retailers.

"It is not a boycott," said Sonja Swiatkiewicz, Focus' director of issues response. "Consumers can do what they wish with the information."

Even so, the online guide includes an electronic petition shoppers can sign that tells retailers "I plan to consult Focus on the Family Action's Shopping Guide ... while making my Christmas purchases this year."

The Focus shopping guide is another weapon in the growing battle against what social conservatives several years ago labeled the "War on Christmas" - the notion that Christmas is being secularized, in part by retailers trying not to offend non-Christians by using terms like "holiday season," "winter season," "shopping season" and "holiday trees."

Some of the tactics have paid off.

In 2005, Sears, Kmart, Walmart and Target received threats of a boycott from Christian groups for their "holiday season" advertising. The companies soon adopted the Christmas-friendly language.

The idea for the Focus shopping guide was hatched last year after the success of "Merry Tossmas," a video by employee Stuart Shepard that was first shown on citizenlink.org on Nov. 1, 2007.

In the video - which Shepard updated in a sequel that premiered Thursday - he tosses catalogs that use generic holiday language into a waste can.

Shepard's first video received 2.2 million online visits. Emboldened by the response, Focus launched its first shoppers guide during the 2007 holiday season.

This year's campaign kicked off in April, when Focus sent letters to 33 retail executives asking companies to use Christian language during the holiday shopping season. Eight agreed, three were noncommittal and the rest have not responded.

One corporation that has two companies labeled "Christmas-offensive" and another designated "Christmas-negligent" received the Focus letter but has no plans to alter its holiday advertising.

"We are a diverse global retailer, aware that our customers come from many faith backgrounds," said Melissa Swanson, spokeswoman for San Francisco-based Gap Inc., which owns Gap, Banana Republic and Old Navy. "We honor that by not advertising toward people of any one faith. We want all of our customers to experience a warm and friendly shopping experience."

Article #2
Plant lays off Muslims who staged walkout

JBS Swift & Co. fires about one-fourth of 400 workers who had walked off the job, demanding break time to pray during the holy month of Ramadan. The union local says it will fight the action.

By Nicholas Riccardi
September 11, 2008 in print edition A-17

A meatpacking company Wednesday laid off about 100 Muslim immigrant workers who walked off the job last week in protest of the firm’s refusal to give them time to pray during the holy month of Ramadan.

When Ramadan began Sept. 1, workers said supervisors informally gave them time to break their daylong fast at sundown.

But non-Muslim employees protested, and on Friday, JBS Swift & Co. officials refused to give workers break time to pray and eat.

About 400 workers left the company’s meatpacking plant, which dominates this city of 90,000. By Tuesday, 250 had not returned, and Swift warned that those who didn’t come back faced immediate termination.

“This action is a direct violation of our collective bargaining agreement,” Swift said in a statement released Wednesday afternoon.

Greeley police were called as angry workers who had arrived for the 3:15 p.m. shift were given their layoff notices.

The United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 7, which represents workers at the meatpacking plant, said it would fight the firings.

“The workers weren’t given enough notice to get back to their jobs,” said union spokesman Manny Gonzales. “We don’t feel this was a terminable offense to begin with.”

The Muslim workers, mainly Somali immigrants, have recently flocked to the plant, replacing many of the 262 workers, mostly Latinos, who were detained as illegal immigrants following a federal raid in late 2006. Many of the Muslim employees who walked off their jobs last week had been in Greeley only a few months.

One of them, 35-year-old Iman Ibrahim, left Boston for Greeley this summer because a friend told him about jobs at the meatpacking plant.

Ibrahim said Swift supervisors had shut off water fountains Friday evening to prevent Muslim workers from having their traditional drink to break the fast, and in one case a supervisor grabbed an employee by the neck, yanking him from his prayers.

“If I’d known there was a problem with prayer, I would have never come here,” Ibrahim said.

Nonetheless, he had returned to work by Wednesday and said supervisors were informally giving time for the requisite sundown prayer. “I like working,” he said. “We like to live in this country. We didn’t come to cause trouble.”

Some other Swift workers, however, were angered by the Muslims’ requests for extra prayer time. “Somalis are running our plant,” worker Brianna Castillo told the Greeley Tribune. “They are telling us what to do.”

Non-Muslim workers complained they had to do additional work when Muslims went to pray, which devout followers do five times a day.

Aziz Dhies, a local nurse who represented Somali workers in negotiations with Swift, said he believed workers of all creeds should share in the breaks.

He added that Muslims had no choice in the matter. “This is not something we’re making up ourselves,” Dhies said. “This is something written in [holy] books that we have to do.”

In its statement, Swift officials said the company was “grateful to employ a multicultural workforce and works closely with all employees and their union representation to accommodate religious practices in a reasonable, safe and fair manner to all involved.”

Union officials argue that the contract allows for the extra break time.

“Many companies pay time and a half for working Christian holidays,” Gonzales said.

“It’s a different time now, and we should respect different people’s values.”

nicholas.riccardi@ latimes.com