reconciling Ash Wednesday and K Mart..or not

It's a sacred form and yet it's also incredibly annoying and profane because it's the soundtrack in shopping malls across the country. I'm interested in reconciling this phenomenal event -- the incarnation of God -- with Santa Claus and blue-light specials at Kmart and the weird preoccupation we have with buying a lot of junk and giving it to each other."
--Sufjan Stevens in Rolling Stone on his new album, Hark! Songs for Christmas


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CBS New York correspondent: "Is there any significance to holding this press conference on Ash Wednesday and staging the first date in Las Vegas ?"

Bono: (teasing) "A-ha - Ash Wednesday ! That's very well spotted ! I reckon the combination of Ash Wednesday and K-Mart just about sums U2 up, and therein lie our contradiction and the cross we carry..."
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LATER NOTE: Watch it at 6:50 in the clip below (after you watch the classic first twenty seconds)
The whole press conference in four parts is now on YouTube part one, part two, part three, part four....like everything else!:





Here's U2 playing "Holy Joe" (the only song I know based..loosely..on the evangelistic CHICK TRACT of the same name)live at K Mart, after the press conference mentioned above (in part 4 of the conference, they field a question about this song as debunking and accepting their "sainthood" (5 min mark and ff above..BTW is that an intentional middle finger salute Bono gives the interviewer at the  5:38-40 mark?)