Now I’m hiding in Honduras,
I’m a desperate man.
Send lawyers, guns and money.
The shit has hit the fan!

- Warren Zevon, Lawyers, Guns and Money

§ § §

You may have seen the following Christmas missive floating about the Internets recently, then again maybe you haven’t.  It’s funny and at the same time all too painful considering the place we’ve all arrived at.  Must not offend anyone of any stripe, colour or — Yahweh, Abraham, Allah and God forbid! — religious leaning (did I miss any deities…?!)

What makes this so funny and indeed a true reflection of our times is that I received this from a politician I am acquainted with.  He sent this out attached to a ‘traditional’ classic Santa cartoon graphic to many of his friends and colleagues and tomorrow will be called on the carpet for having offended someone with it.  That’s right - someone (who DIDN’T vote for him as it turns out) wants to ‘whack his peepee’, as Cheech and Chong used to say.  Ironically, his lawyer says the disclaimer at the end of it may shield him from any ‘action’.  I shit you not - this is true!

Humour - it’s not just for breakfast anymore!

And so it goes…

I wanted to send holiday greetings to my colleagues, friends and family… In today’s world though, it is so difficult to know exactly what to say without offending someone, especially after all my recent court ordered training on being ‘culturally sensitive’.  So I met with our solicitors yesterday, and on their advice I state the following:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally-conscious, socially-responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter/summer solstice holiday, practised with the most enjoyable traditions of religious persuasion or secular practices of your choice with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

I also wish you a fiscally-successful, personally-fulfilling and medically-uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2007, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make our country great (not to imply that it is necessarily greater than any other country) and without regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms:
This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

Disclaimer: To protect the privacy of those that know me, this message is being sent as a blind copy. I am not responsible if you receive more than one copy because someone else I know happens to know you as well. No trees were harmed in the sending of this message; however, a significant number of electrons were slightly inconvenienced.

Whatever it is you celebrate, enjoy. And if you don’t, you have my sympathy!