Sean Ryan has asked that a Festivus Pole be placed on Green Bay City Hall's holiday display, which currently features a nativity and a Wiccan star.

A practicing Catholic who would prefer to see no religious displays at a government office, Ryan said his request to put up an undecorated six foot aluminum pole was intended to showcase how deciding what religions to include in the display can turn to the absurd.

"I was turning over how extreme things could get and how loosely things could get interpreted," Ryan said.

"The real feat of strength would be for the mayor to stand up and say this is absurd," Ryan added. "Let us keep nativity scenes where they belong in the churches, in our homes and in our hearts."

The mayor, Jim Schmitt, has said that the Festivus Pole is a bit of Pop Culture and only things associated with religions should be put on the nativity display. Apparently, he forgets that back in the Roman Empire, Christianity was a bit of pop culture, and look where it is today.

Have you seen the commercial that shows "Dangerous Catch" Type fisherman hauling plastic bottles of water out of the ocean? Does that disturb anyone else? All that plastic floating in the ocean? What about bottled water in general?

When I was a kid, when my dad took us somewhere, he would fill a big cooler with a spigot on it with ice, then add water. When we got thirsty, we had the coldest water in the world. The last time we traveled, we tossed bottled water in the ice chest.

I recently decided that I would no longer buy or use bottled water. I think it is not ecologically sound. So at the beginning of every work week, I buy a bag of ice at the local Kwik E Mart, and put ice in an insulated mug and drink tap water.

Turns out, I was ahead of the curve. The Green movement has caught up with me! Restaurants in San Francisco are serving tap water! Mike Kossa-Rienzi, general manager of Chez Panisse, said, "Shipping bottles of water from Italy doesn't make sense."

Bravo! We strike a blow against consumerism and pretension at the same time!

Like my blog? Sometimes it's a chore to come up with something to write, but content, they say, is king. You have to have it to sell ads. That's why I have Adsense, Amazon ads, and a couple of other ads. So even reading a stupid blog isn't free.

I have four email accounts. Each day I get 60-70 emails in each account wanting me to buy penis enhancing drugs, breast enlarging drugs, Canadian prescriptions drugs, car insurance, home insurance, second and third mortgages, plasma tvs, mp3 players. . . You name it, they try selling it. And email is cheap! And no amount of anti-spam legislation can stop the flow of junk into my free email account's inbox.

I watch a lot of TV and have noticed that in the 60s and 70s hour long TV shows were about 50 minutes long. Today, they are down to about 43 minutes. And that's not even counting the credits, which are played over the last few minutes of the show to make more room for commercials, or are shrunk to a teeny tiny square while commercials are played alongside.

I go to the movies, and besides the ads before the film, there are ads in the film. Anyone remember what candy E. T. liked? Practically every scene has product placement in it somewhere.

There are ads on public buses, taxis and buildings. Soda companies pay huge amounts of money to advertise at school, candy companies pay the same to advertise on educational TV stations played on school buses and between classes in some schools.

There are even marketers who have huge erections when they think about beaming ads into our cell phones or other blue tooth devices.

And ads in video games don't make the games any cheaper.

During election time there are ads along the roadsides telling us that a particular candidate is better than another.

I don't have a solution. Do any of you?