Just Drink Your Coffee Already

Well, we've passed by Hallowe'en, and Thanksgiving is just on the horizon, so it must be time for the annual battle of Christmas.

Sorry; the holidays.

The past couple of days, social and actual media have been polluted with noise around an (in my opinion, imagined) slight of Christmas by the Starbucks coffee company.  Apparently, this year, Starbucks have decided that their "holiday" cups will be simple, red paper cups with the corporate logo.  In the past, also apparently, the cups have featured themes of trees and ornaments with holiday messages on them.

Wintry scenes (e.g., polar bears sledding) have also appeared - not sure the link between Christmas and polar bears, aside from CGI of them drinking Coke.

The move has been ginned into an almost literal tempest in a teapot - or at least a teacup - when a previously unknown bigmouth called Josh Feurstein decided to make an issue, declaring that Starbucks was trying to kick Christ out of Christmas.

Starbucks have said that the move was not anti-Christian, but rather, were going for a "purity of design that welcomes all of our stories."

Seems reasonable to me.

I have no idea if Starbucks is anti-Christian - previously, they've stuck to using poorly brewed, over-priced coffee to offend.

I don't like to talk too much about my own religion - itself a personal matter - but I believe in God, I regularly attend church, and I am not offended.

But you would think, from the reaction, that the Pope himself is asking for a new crusade against the Seattle-based company.  The Washington Post headline screamed that Christians were "outraged."  Social Justice Warriors are falling all over themselves trying to show just how 'correct' they are in attacking the ostensible hypocrisy on display (and make no mistake, the noise generated by Feurstein is hypocrisy).

But the huge "controversy" and Christian "outrage" amounts to largely the rantings of some off-kilter guy screaming into his iPhone camera. That, and the apparent venal sin of people telling the "baristas" that their name is "MerryChristmas," to "force" the guy filling the orders to write "Christmas" on the cup.

Where is my fainting chair?

If DailyKos (who in one WaPo story apparently have been following this guy for years) and the SJWs had not reported on this, who would have heard of Feurstein?  A quick Google search returns several thousand hits, the first eight or 10 pages of which are links that virtually all contain the word "nut job" or similar.

The biggest noise here is not the initial, silly complaint, but the echo chamber of the Right Side of History Gang each trying to outdo the other to show how righteous his views are.

When I hear overzealous religious people beating their breasts and proclaiming how strong their faiths are, I often ask, whom are you trying to convince?

In this case, I ask all those who feel compelled to bleat about Josh Feurstein and the massive problem of Christian hypocrisy here, whom are you trying to convince of your rectitude?

By all means; tweet memes about what a swell, right-thinking person you are.

Then, please.  Just go have your coffee in your plain red cup and leave the rest of us alone.