My Holiday Can Kick Your Holiday's Ass

Scurry to save holiday parade

Mobile canceled its Jolly Holiday Parade on Thursday afternoon, only to scramble a few hours later to revive what it could of Saturday's Christmas season event.

At 3 p.m. Thursday -- citing e-mail and telephone threats from residents opposed to a parade without the word Christmas in its title -- Mobile Christmas Parade Inc., a separate nonprofit organization that has an eight-member board of directors, announced there would be no parade this year.

Wow.  Threats because a word was removed from a parade name.  A word removed so that people from other faiths and other traditions would feel more invested in the parade.

Threats for Christmas.   I can't say that seems like a Christian ideal.

The group, which organizes the event, said it was concerned about the safety of the 2,600 children who had signed up to march downtown. Mobile Mayor Mike Dow then said he would not accept the cancellation of a parade with a history dating back to 1945.

Three hours later, volunteers with Main Street Mobile, a city-staffed organization formed to promote downtown, announced that a parade will roll, beginning at 1:30 p.m. Saturday. It will be called the Mobile Christmas Holiday Parade.

Mayor Dow, returning from New Orleans, said he was "shell shocked" by the news of the cancellation. "We're a better community than this."

Better than what?  What should the rest of America think of Mobile, Alabama?