O'reilly and the "War on Christmas"

The following post is not about EMS, but rather about my local community. The following is my analysis of a bit of patent absurdity put out by none other than the master, Bill O'reilly. The video in question can be found on his own website, misleadingly titled "Global warming vs. christmas.":


In my opinion, there is no higher form of praise than to be directly vilified by Bill O'reilly. Our town - Great Barrington - has recently received this highest of accolades by becoming the newest front on his "war on christmas" - by limiting the town's holiday lights, which consist of two or three marquee-style banner lights stretched across downtown main street, from being lit all night. Not, mind you, from being put up at all, or lit period, but from being lit after 10:00 pm. Normally, they would run until midnight, but the town selectmen decided to turn them off for an additional two hours in order to save power. Now, O'reilly's points fell into three categories:

1. The lights are a traditional part of the "small town" asthetic of GB, which is being ruined by "rich secular elitists" from New York and elsewhere.
2. The selectmen refused to call the lights "christmas lights," instead referring to them only as "holiday lights," and
3. The lights attract people to downtown main street and are therefore good for business, and turning them off hurts these folksy, religious local shopkeepers.
4. Small attempts to save power like this are pointless and have no effect at all on global warming.

Now, point by point, these are ridiculous claims. First off,

1. The decision was made by the locally-elected selectmen and not by rich NYC insurgents. I've spoken directly to these people, and certainly believe that they adequately represent both interests. Additionally, I would say that it is in fact the rich elitists that would prefer they stay on in order to make their tourist nest that much more resemble santa's little village.
2. The selectmen preside over a town that consists of a large and growing jewish population, among others. The lights in question are festive and attractive in my opinion, and contain no religious symbols of any kind- they look like banners and snowflakes. As far as I know, Christ didn't say anything regarding snowflakes only representing his birthday. In fact, if we want to get technical, the idea of a white christmas is a distinctly non-bethlehem tradition, global warming or no.
3. We're talking about turning them off AFTER 10 PM. As anyone who has visited Great Barrington after 10 pm knows, you are not impacting the number of people shopping by dimming the lights at this point. The number is reduced from 0 to 0. All of the stores are closed, and the only places open are bar/restaurants that will get their customers lights or not. Also, this is only on downtown main street, and other parts of town are not affected at all.
4. Small attempts like this spread across multiple communities have a cumulative effect, and every step counts. Plus, it saves town money, and I'd rather have better plowed streets than festively lit ones when no one is there to see them anyhow.

The interview was full of clearly out-of-context quotes from people on the street and direct attacks on our selectmen. You can view it here and have a good laugh at the theater of it all.
http://www.foxnews.com/oreilly/#

That link may not display the story as current for too long, but for now it's easy to find.

Happy Holidays!
Simon's Rock College grad, local resident & voter, and Great Barrington volunteer EMT,
Peter Tiso

EDIT: After reading a few people's reactions to the fox news segment, including people who e-mailed the town saying that they have chosen a different holiday destination because of the fox news segment, it seems that O'reilly did more to hurt local shopkeepers than a two-hour period in which an empty downtown turns off its holiday lights ever could.