A Christmas propaganda

By Alex P. Vidal

“The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.” —George Carlin

THE apparent Christmas propaganda looks so effortless but has been swallowed by innocent children for centuries hook, line, and sinker.

It’s about “a fantasy peddled by generations of Christmas cards to divert attention away from what is, undoubtedly, the most spectacular research and development outfit this planet has ever seen,” Roger Highfield writes in the Physics of Christmas.

Apart from the occasional slip up with drunken reindeer, narrow chimneys, and blizzards, Santa manages to deliver millions of gifts on Christmas Eve, maintaining his smile and composure all the while, observes Highfield.

Santa’s support team: a few reindeer and a handful of diligent elves.

“I have good reason to believe that Santa has drawn on the benefits of centuries of inventions and insights generated by a scientific effort that would make the likes of Albert Einstein weep with admiration,” Highfield asserts.

Somewhere in the North Pole, or perhaps buried in a vast complex under Gemiler Island, original home of Saint Nicholas, the author theorizes “there must be an army of scientists experimenting with the latest in high-temperature materials, genetic computing technologies, and warped space-time geometries, all united by a single purpose: making millions of children happy each and every Christmas.”

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“Put yourself in Santa’s boots,” Highfield suggests: “How does he know where children live and what gifts they want? How can he fly in any weather, circle the globe overnight, carry millions of pounds of cargo, and make silent rooftop landings with pinpoint accuracy?”

Some years ago, Spy magazine examined these issues in an article that has since proliferated across the Internet.

The piece concluded that Santa required 214,200 reindeer and, with his huge mass of presents, encountered “enormous air resistance, heating the reindeer up in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth’s atmosphere.”

In short, the article concluded, the reindeer “will burst into flame almost instantaneously, creating deafening sonic booms in their wake.”

The article continued: “The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity…If Santa ever did deliver presents on Christmas Eve, he’s dead now.”

The point is that Santa is now dead.

He delivers presents every Christmas Eve, as reliably as Rudolf’s nose is red.

And he overcomes the kinds of problems outlined above with the aid of out-of-this-world technology.

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WHAT WOULD WE DO? We forgot and left the cooked rice on the counter after lunch. Is it OK to reheat it and serve it for dinner?

WHAT WOULD WE DO? The milk in our refrigerator has a “sell by” date that passed three days ago. It smells OK; should we drink it?

BRIEF PRAYER. I haven’t gone to church for a long time and so I offer this brief prayer today: “Light of the sun, splendor of fire, swiftness of wind, depth of the sea, stability of earth, firmness of rock. I rise today through the strength of heaven. Amen.”

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE. The founder of Syracuse, New York-based Blackworld has revealed on CNN that Tiger Woods was a victim of domestic violence. His Swedish wife allegedly once chased him in the middle of the night with a deadly weapon believe it or not.

‘NECKLACE.’ In Tasmania, widows are required to wear their dead husband’s penis around their neck for a period of time after his death. A similar law is enforced in Gippsland, Australia. (Apple News)

DANGEROUS TOYS. Amazon, Walmart and Target have stopped selling water beads marketed toward children due to numerous safety concerns, CNN has reported. Water beads are tiny balls made out of extremely absorbent polymer material that can expand up to 100 times their size when exposed to liquid. Because they can grow inside the body once ingested, the beads can cause intestinal blockages and life-threatening injuries, the Consumer Product Safety Commission says. More than 145,000 emergency department-treated injuries last year were associated with toys for children 12 years and younger, according to a CPSC report. Scooters, balls, balloons, and toys with small parts were involved in the majority of incidents.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two daily newspapers in Iloilo.—Ed)