“A Festivus for the rest of us!”

The annual Airing of Grievances

By Alisa Farenzena
From the December 2006 Print Edition

Well, it’s that time of the year again. For many of us, it’s the most wonderful time of the year. The reason for this, of course, is that we celebrate Festivus on December 23. If you’re sick of the Christmas carols you’ve been hearing since October, take heart in the fact that this is a holiday for the rest of us! Oh, who am I kidding? I do celebrate Christmas — but that hasn’t prevented me from celebrating Festivus too. If you also celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah, make sure to include Festivus in your calendar of holiday celebrations.

To celebrate the day, let’s pull the Festivus Pole out of the crawl space and gather around the table for a big Festivus dinner. The most personally fulfilling part of the holiday is the Airing of Grievances, and, like last year, I’ve got a lot of problems with you people:

Chancellor Robert Birgeneau: I aired a grievance against you last year for your irresponsible comments at the UC Berkeley Diversity Forum in March 2005, and I must now air another grievance against you for a similar offense. Your announcement on August 23 of your intention to hire a "vice chancellor of equity and inclusion" was appalling. Any reasonable person can see that your goal is to have this person subvert the voter-approved Proposition 209 — and waste public dollars to do it.

ASUC President Oren Gabriel: How could you reasonably believe that it is OK to force the Cal student body to pay your personal legal bills? Student fees are mandatory, unfortunately, and should be used for student activities and groups, not for intra-ASUC nonsense. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

Al Gore: I thought you had finally pulled yourself together after losing the 2000 election by shaving off the beard and finding a nice little hobby in your global-warming crusade, but you proved me wrong by visiting campus on October 23 to stump for Proposition 87. I’m sorry, Al, but what right do you have to try to impose $4 billion in new taxes on California? Go ruin your own state for once. Oh, and that also goes for your friend Bill Clinton. Californians had the last laugh, though — those of us who actually live in this state rejected Proposition 87 resoundingly.

Berkeley pedestrians: I mean, it’s as if you’re trying to make us guilty of vehicular manslaughter. You’re almost as bad as the militant bicyclists. It sickened me when I stumbled across your 150-member facebook group dedicated to how you "don’t have to obey traffic lights" because you’re in Berkeley now. How are you going to feel one day when you finally realize the convenience of driving and hordes of lawbreaking little twerps try to prevent you from getting to where you need to go?

People who say, "Happy holidays!": Now, I am by no means a religious person, but we have gone way too far with political correctness when we’re not even allowed to say, "Merry Christmas!" anymore. I’ll be thinking of you jerks as I decorate my Christmas tree. I will not be using any tinsel, though, since "I find tinsel distracting."

San Francisco Board of Education members Dan Kelly, Sarah Lipson, Eric Mar, and Mark Sanchez: You have once again told the entire nation that my fair city is out of touch with reality by voting last month to send the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps packing. Blaming the "Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell" policy was a truly pathetic excuse, since the JROTC program does not discriminate against students for being gay. Citing a whiny need to keep the military out of schools was just as ridiculous: The program itself is not militaristic. It teaches responsibility, respect, and leadership skills. Students who complete the program are under no obligation to join the military; even if they do enlist, you might want to consider that that’s — gasp! — not a bad thing, especially if you don’t want to see our country bring back the draft.

New York Representative Charles B. Rangel: Speaking of bringing back the draft, your announcement last month that you plan to do just that is detrimental to our military’s flexibility. Although you have always failed when you have tried to do this in the past, your shameless attempt to tie the president’s hands for political purposes would hurt our national security if you ever were to succeed.

Those are all the grievances I have to air this year. Happy Festivus, and to all a good night. Well, not quite yet — we haven’t done the Feats of Strength yet. Someone pin me to the ground!

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