The War on Xma$

By Will Durst, AlterNet. Posted December 23, 2005.

If corporate America doesn't have a merry, profitable Xma$, then the terrorists have won.
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Fox News is right. There is a war on Xma$. And one of the dastardly fiends behind the hostilities is me.

I'm stuffed to the gills with incorrect holiday sentiments here, and I've only been to a mall a couple times. The first holly-covered trigger that set me off was the flacking for this shopping season began the week before Halloween. Red and green bumped orange and black. That's not right.

Not to mention the whole turkey thing getting shunted behind a deluge of commercials featuring a car with a giant red bow on it. No, that's not going to stir up the vanishing middle class at all. Repeatedly imagining other people buying each other Lexuses as gifts. And now, now, the retail industry is not happy with the degree of greed with which we've been consumed, so before the yule log has even been lit, much less embered down, they're already pushing After-Xma$ Sales.

Hey, settle down. We got a couple days to go here. OK, I've lost and Xma$ has won. I've come to the dark side and realize that if I don't do everything I can to make sure corporate America has a Merry Xma$, the terrorists will win. So, in the spirit of giving till it hurts, let me offer up to the least deserving of us my annual scathingly incisive yet perennially trenchant:

Will Durst's 2005 Xma$ Gift Wi$h Li$t

# For former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, who says he's thinking of running for the presidency in 2008: Second thoughts.
# For hotel heiress Paris Hilton: A yearlong sabbatical in Kazakhstan. Actually, that gift is for the rest of us.
# For Bill O'Reilly: A four-day, all-expenses-paid trip to the Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco.
# For Gavin Newsom: A copy of the unrated version of "Requiem for a Dream," so he can see what sexist and offensive really looks like.
# For Hillary Clinton: A new best seller entitled "It Takes an Impeachment."
# For the Democratic Senate: The gumption to continue the fight for the rights of minorities. Even if the main minority they're fighting for these days is themselves.
# For San Francisco Police Chief Heather Fong: A sense of humor.
# For Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice: One blessedly quiet year in a Donald-Rumsfeld-free zone.
# For the Democratic House of Representatives: A spine.
# For George W. Bush: An approval rating higher than his average test scores in college.
# For televangelist Pat Robertson: A "Clue Train" Fast Pass so he can ride for free for 30 days.
# For Supreme Court Justice nominee Samuel Alito: A Harriet Miers Swimsuit Calendar.
# For Cindy Sheehan: Whatever it takes to prompt more cries from Rush Limbaugh that she's just a political tool.
# For Harriet Miers, Bush's personal lawyer who called him the smartest man she ever met: A round-trip ticket to anywhere she wants, as long as it's not Texas.
# For Vice President Dick Cheney: A five-gallon tub of sneer removal.
# For Barbara Bush: Fewer photo-ops (and I only remember one).
# For Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens: Permission to drill for oil in his own butt.
# For the King of Pop Michael Jackson: Enough sense to stay the hell in Bahrain.
# For California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger: A shoehorn necklace to assist in his chronic foot-in-mouth disease.
# For all members of our armed forces currently involved in this mission to extricate our oil out from under their sand: A safe return and, yes, that does include our mine-sniffing dolphins.

Political comic Will Durst is willing to help Sen. Stevens out. Personally.

Don't forget: Will Durst. Willie Brown. The Will & Willie Show. Starting January 2nd. Mon.-Fri. 7-10 AM. The Bay Area's 960 AM, the Quake. Also don't miss the Big Fat Year End Kiss-Off Comedy Show. December 26th through the 31st. Will Durst, Jim Short, Deb & Mike, Steve Kravitz and Arthur Gaus. WillDurst.com or 415.820.9628 for details.