The War On Christmas: Foiled So Far!

by hilzoy

One of my favorite things about the Christmas season is being able to see what, if anything, will befall the Gävle goat: a huge goat made of straw that is built each year in Gävle, Sweden, and usually destroyed. Last year I wrote about the incineration of the 2005 goat here:

"That's my ancestral country for you! When Swedes declare a war on Christmas, they don't just ask cashiers to say 'Happy Holidays', or call 'Christmas trees' 'friendship trees'. (...) No: in Sweden, they don't go in for such pathetic half-measures. When they declare war on Christmas, they burn down the Christmas goat! Repeatedly! Except for the years they decide to run it over with a car, or blow it up! Now that's what I call secularists gone wild."

Wikipedia has an amusing article on the Gävle goat, from which I learned that the goat has, on various occasions, been lit on fire, kicked to pieces, run over by a car, "sabotaged" (?), and (my personal favorite): "burned by unknown vandals reportedly dressed as Santa and a gingerbread man by shooting a flaming arrow or molotov cocktail at the goat at 21:00 on 3 December."

Also: "One year when they had guards posted around the goat the temperature dropped way below zero. The guards thought they ought to go inside to get something to warm them up. They went into a nearby restaurant, but before they even had a chance to raise their glasses they saw flames shooting from the goat outside the window."

Various protective measures have failed: in 1979, "the goat was burnt even before it was erected. A new one was built and fireproofed. It was destroyed and broken into pieces"; in 1985, "even though the goat was enclosed by a 2 m (6.5 ft) high metal fence, guarded by Securitas and even soldiers from the Gävle I 14 Infantry Regiment, it was burned down in January"; and in 1987, "a heavily fireproofed goat was built. It got burned down a week before Christmas." Webcams have been tried and foiled, and "on 2004-11-27 the Gävle Goat's homepage was hacked into and one of the two official webcams changed to display "Burn Bockjaevel" (translation: Burn F*cking Goat) in the left corner of its live feed."

And there are those who say Swedes have no sense of humor.

In any case: I am thrilled to report that as of now, the Gävle Goat still stands:

"Vandals tried to set fire to a giant straw goat in central Sweden but failed to burn down the traditional Christmas monument, which has been soaked with flame-resistant chemicals, officials said Friday.

The overnight raid was the season's first attack on the 43-foot-high Christmas goat in the city of Gavle, 90 miles north of Stockholm. The goat has been burned down more than 20 times in the last 40 years in what has become a yule tradition.

"Somebody tried to set fire to the right front leg, but the flame-resistant chemical worked 100 percent," said Kurt Lagerholm, chairman of the goat committee.

"There's smell of gasoline and the ribbon is a bit smutty, but otherwise it's unhurt," he said."

For now, at least.

Here's the goat's webcam, and here's a picture. Isn't it impressive? And wouldn't it be a shame if something were to happen to it? (Heh heh.)

Comments

[liberal japonicus]

Hil, you think it is satire, but what you don't realize is that they are actually serious...

[Ugh]

burned by unknown vandals reportedly dressed as Santa and a gingerbread man by shooting a flaming arrow or molotov cocktail at the goat at 21:00 on 3 December

Ah, now if someone could do that to the giant balloons at the Macy's Thanksgiving parade all would be well.

[Sir Talen]

That's a nice giant straw goat y' got there, Guvnor. Be a shame if someone, y'know, *broke* it.

[Slartibartfast]

Strawgoat...some new logical fallacy?

[double-plus-ungood]

And here my family and I have been burning goats for years to celebrate Christmas.

Wait. Straw? What?

[Ugh]

1m in ur t0wn, burn1n' str@w g0tz

[cleek]

Ugh beats me to it. Ugh!

[Steve]

The Gävle goat doesn't look all that much different, to my eye, from the infinitely cooler Dala horse.

[rilkefan]

How soon they forget Troy.

[Anarch]

This cracks me up:

2001 Goat set on fire on 23 December by Lawrence Jones, a 51-year-old visitor from Cleveland, Ohio, who spent 18 days in jail and was subsequently convicted and ordered to pay 100,000 Swedish kronor in damages. The court also confiscated Jones's cigarette lighter with the argument that he clearly was not able to handle it. Jones stated in court that he is no "goat burner", and believed that he was taking part in a completely legal goat-burning tradition. After Jones was released from prison he went straight back to the US without paying his fine. As of 2006 it is still unpaid.

[Ugh]

The court also confiscated Jones's cigarette lighter with the argument that he clearly was not able to handle it.

Actually, I think it's clear that he was able to handle it, just not to the court's liking.

[Dickie Flatts]

T b cnsdrd "cnsrvtv" mst n jst b mntll chllngd r d y hv t b fll blwn rtrd? Frthrmr, r thr bns pnts fr bng clstd hmsxl r dr drnk? Jst wndrng ... r s Bsh wld s, "wndrn'."

[Francis]

FYI

100,000 Swedish kronor = about $15,000 US.

[matttbastard]

Dickie: please read this.

(FYI: memorandum just picked this as a 'featured post', so there may be some new folks comin' by.)

[Keir]

Ah! the joys of the troll. Is there a possibility of this fool's vowels going the way of the goat?

[Anarch]

A troll and his vowels are soon parted...

[hilzoy]

Anarch: truer than you know...

Dickie: what matttbastard said.

[matttbastard]

Oh, and 'Burn Bockjaevel' would make an amazing name for a grindcore band...

[Ugh]

Shorter Dickie:

1m on ur bl0g, j@kkin’ duh thr3ad*

*I'll stop at some point.

[Jesurgislac]

Wow, the Swedes know how to celebrate. In my home town, we just get drunk.

We should have a goat. I feel cheated now.

[Batocchio]

Vikings can get bored on a long winter's night. ;-)

[matttbastard]

Just for Ugh.

(Special strawgoat bonus.)

[sean carter]

I read about this somewhere else. its really shocking. wonder why people have become so destructive these days. Its such a beautiful thing too.
Peep into my Holiday Blog for some unique gift ideas and loads of other fun stuffs.

[Steve]

I asked my friend the Swedish expat if he's familiar with this tradition. He said "oh yeah, every year they vow it won't get burned down, and every year it gets burned down."

[kid bitzer]

since I assume this is something of an open thread....

hilzoy, would you like to expatiate some time, from a professional point of view, on why there might be problems with the line, popular among the Republican leadership and their apologists right now, that what we are doing in iraq is justified because there might well have been a civil war there some day anyhow?

In particular, could you say a few things on why this means we never have to listen them again when they bring up the doctrine of double effect in the context of abortion?

just a thought in case you run out of things to blog about over the christmas holidays.

[hilzoy]

kid b: geez, are they saying that? What about the following analogous argument:

Killing someone is OK, since everyone dies anyways.

I mean: if whether or not you, in particular, do something is irrelevant, and whether some harm comes to a person now or later is irrelevant, and even (in the civil war case) whether or not the same victims die/are injured is irrelevant, then pretty much anything that bears any resemblance at all to something that would have happened anyways is OK.

[Slartibartfast]

popular among the Republican leadership and their apologists right now, that what we are doing in iraq is justified because there might well have been a civil war there some day anyhow?

Gosh, haven't heard that one. Not that what I have or haven't heard should be used as any sort of gauge.

[Fledermaus]

So THAT'S where the straw goat that my mom always took out at christmas came from. Yes, I come from a Swedish family. I never thought to burn it; perhaps it's for the best that a can't make it home this year.

[Josh]

How can I get on the goat committee?

[Batocchio]

We're burning straw goats in Sweden so we don't have to burn them here.

(Straw men, on the other hand, are back-ordered at the GOPUSA! webstore.)
;-)

[kid bitzer]

"Many people write as if the sectarian warfare in Iraq was caused by coalition intervention. But it is surely obvious that the struggle for mastery has been going on for some time and was only masked by the apparently iron unity imposed under Baathist rule. That rule was itself the dictatorship of a tribal Tikriti minority of the Sunni minority and constituted a veneer over the divisions beneath, as well as an incitement to their perpetuation. The Kurds had already withdrawn themselves from this divide-and-rule system by the time the coalition forces arrived, while Shiite grievances against the state were decades old and had been hugely intensified by Saddam's cruelty. Nothing was going to stop their explosion, and if Saddam Hussein's regime had been permitted to run its course and to devolve (if one can use such a mild expression) into the successorship of Udai and Qusai, the resulting detonation would have been even more vicious."

hitchens in slate.

[rilkefan]

"Nothing was going to stop their explosion"

This seems fairly likely to me.

"and if Saddam Hussein's regime had been permitted to run its course and to devolve (if one can use such a mild expression) into the successorship of Udai and Qusai, the resulting detonation would have been even more vicious."

This I don't know how he knows.

Doesn't touch justification either way from my perspective (since I didn't think we could successfully intervene), just the argument about how bad the invasion was.

[matttbastard]

Good discussion @ Crooked Timber re: Iraq invasion and sectarian divisions.

[rilkefan]

"Our Security Officers will not test or taste formula or breast milk."

[Samuel Sutter]

hilarious - but at the end of the day, the war on Christmas is going to be lost to commercialism and commerce. :-)