"To celebrate the holidays in his public high school science lab, Stuart Ross Rosenthal decided he would make a 'chemist-tree.'"

"He pieced together a colorful branching array of test tubes and Erlenmeyer flasks, and a few antique chemical stock bottles, filled them with various salt and mineral solutions, and then stacked them on a stand of porcelain rings. After encircling the base with a wintry-white towel, he placed a few glistening rock 'presents' under the tree and surrounded them with Bunsen burner 'candles.'"

And to celebrate the holidays in my public internet creative writing class, continue the story. What happens next?

In the actual case of the high school chemistry teacher — Stuart Ross Rosenthal — there was no discord and divisiveness and certainly no — to use James Madison's phrase — torrents of blood. Rosenthal (who's Jewish) is able to affably quip:

"If people say, 'Oh, I like your Christmas tree,' I say, 'It's a chemist-tree – nondenominational... People can argue about religion, and they can even argue with science – but you can't argue with scientific glassware."

Oh, yeah? If you are working on the creative writing exercise in my class, I'll bet you can concoct — or decoct...



... a vicious fight over the the scientific glassware. Rosenthal has substituted an exaltation of science for the celebration of Christ! This is the government's insidious effort to establish a religion of secularism!