Fourth grade chorus concert. (And by the way, I would happily see my taxes increased if I thought it would result in auditorium chairs with even a hint of cushioning, because the involved-parent thing is hard on the ass.) A marvelous, politically correct little walk through holidays of all cultures -- not an inappropriate thing, as our schools are becoming more diverse than they used to be. There was a story mixed in between the songs. The kids did a wonderful job, and they had a lot of dialogue to memorize, so that alone was pretty amazing. So it went something like this: Story of Christmas, followed by Christmas song. Story of Hanukkah, followed by Hanukkah song. Story of Kwanzaa, followed by, yes, a Kwanzaa song (people have doubted me on this one, but why wouldn't there be a Kwanzaa song?). Story of Ramadan, followed by . . . well, a story of something else, because, really, there are no Ramadan songs. They talked about fasting, they talked about Allah, they talked about how it sometimes overlaps the Christian holidays, but no song was sung.
In a pinch, I would think they could have dressed up "O Tannenbaum" into "O Ramadan," don't you? "O Ramadan / O Ramadan / How lovely is thy fasting," something like that.
Please, no fatwas. I may be going to hell, but this won't be the reason.
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