Ben Stein on CBS Sunday Morning
The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary on August 30, 2006:
Here at this happy time of year, a few confessions from my beating heart: I have no freaking clue who Nick and Jessica are. I see them on the cover of People and Us constantly when I am buying my dog biscuits. I still don’t know. I often ask the checkers at the grocery stores who they are. They don’t know who Nick and Jessica are either.
Who are they? Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they have broken up? Why are they so darn important?
I don't know who Lindsay Lohan is either, and I don’t care at all about Tom Cruise's baby.
Am I going to be called before a Senate committee and asked if I am a subversive? Maybe, but I just have no clue who Nick and Jessica are.
If this is what it means to be no longer young. Umm, not so bad.
Next confession: I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautifully lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don' t feel discriminated against. That's what they are: Christmas trees.
It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, "Merry Christmas" to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me one bit there’s a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a creche, fine. The Menorah a few hundred yards away is fine too.
I do not like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution, and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.
Or, maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him?
I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too.
But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we used to know went to.
