Why I pulled the plug.

In the last episode of SCeNeDRiVeR, a reference was made to an episode that was supposed to be released on 12/25 but never saw the light of day. The show in question was to be a ‘news and views’ episode where Eric and I would comment on two items that had to do with Christmas decorations and political correctness. The idea was to discuss one or two items that had been in the news and that were also in keeping with the holiday season.

One of the items we chose concerned an incident in Seattle where a certain Rabbi Elazar Bogomilsky felt that, with all the holiday decorations that adorned the Seattle/Tacoma airport, Hanukkah was under represented. Apparently the good rabbi was so incensed that he threatened to sue the airport over it. The other concerned a woman from the Colorado Springs area who had been reprimanded by her co-op board for displaying a Christmas wreath made in the shape of a peace symbol.

We went ahead and recorded the show on December 22nd. I was supposed to upload it on Christmas day but after listening back to the show several times, I decided not to post it. There were lots of little things that bothered me like the way my voice sounded the day we recorded and that I felt there wasn’t enough music in the show but the real issue I had was with our choice of news stories.

If we were going to discuss topics as ridiculous as which holiday decorations are appropriate in an airport, an equivalent amount of time should have been given to discussing why the issue is so ridiculous and in this case to every institution that creates the issue.

It’s far too easy to paint Rabbi Bogomilsky as the “Grinch who stole Christmas” and perpetuate a negative stereotype. Moreover, I don’t believe topics such as the political correctness of Christmas trees and wreaths deserve to be discussed unless we can also discuss separation of church and state, freedom of expression, the legislation of morality, abortion rights, school prayer, the existence of a supreme being in the first place and all other topics of the like.

Since I felt we hadn’t done that, I pulled the plug on the show. There’s more to it then that but I’ll have to elaborate as time goes on. Meanwhile we’ve put together a much better episode.