Dear Santa:
Forgive me if my letter seems particularly early this year. When I saw Second Cups ads in the newspapers encouraging people to order their holiday gift baskets I thought Id waited too long. Then I realized it was only Labour Day. Whatever happened to waiting until summer was at least over before cranking up the greed machine? How can you think Christmas while youre salving the last sunburn of the year? Oh well, maybe this little display of untimely avarice will move them closer to Starbucks as the coffee people love to hate.
More pragmatically though, I wanted to write early because I figured if youve been keeping tabs on all the weirdness going on youll be getting an early start yourself. Im not sure you can do it all in one night this year Ol Boy. It may take the better part of December just to clear security and customs when you fly into the USofA. And dont even think of including toy guns in this years bag. Ditto razor blades though why anyone would want razor blades for Christmas is beyond me. Theyre so Halloween.
If my list seems long this year forgive me. Considering how little of it you can actually deliver Im sure it wont place any undue burden on you and the elves.
Might as well start off with the biggie. For most of my life Ive considered you to be the raison dêtre of the holiday. Dont blush Nick, you know its true. So what Id really like this year is once and for all to take Christ out of Christmas. Dont get me wrong, I dont mean to pick on Christ or even Christianity; Im an equal opportunity agnostic. But with so much evil being wrongly done and lets not even get into historical atrocities in His name, be it God, new testament or old, or Allah, or Vishnu or whatever, the world would be a demonstrably better place if we left whomever we believe in to our hearts, not our politics. Think of it as a small, unilateral step towards peace.
Now Im sure the most reverend Jerry Falwell and his sidekick Pat Robertson will vehemently object to this but hey, I havent forgotten them. Please tuck half a brain in your bag for them to share. Its a whole lot more than either of them seem to have. They think what happened last week in New York was Gods way of punishing the USofA for becoming a secular, homo-toleratin, feminist bra-burnin, civil liberties kind of place instead of the intolerant, fundamentalist Christian dogma one theyd prefer. And please bring all the people who think theyre right one of those high-powered Petzl headlamps. It just has to be really hard for them to see much with their heads so far up their butts.
For George W. Bush, his Chiefs of Staff, his cabinet and the Intelligence Community no wisecracks, they might be listening a large dose of sober second thought. Please let them think long and hard about sending flesh and blood troops into what will surely be a meatgrinder: Afghanistan. The mujahedeen have been at war for longer than most of Americas troops have been alive. They know no other reality. It is their way of life and all the bravado in the world wont make a dent in their inhospitable, mountainous hideaway. And please, no talk of nuclear weapons as an alternative. I dont want to spend the rest of my life ashamed that my country will go down in history as the most heinous mass murderer the world has ever known.
Breast plates and thinking caps for my birth countrymen, please Nick. Somebodys gonna collapse a lung with all the chest thumpin going on, not that chest thumpins a bad thing in a feelgood, symbolic kind of way. But Im sure if they put the thinking caps on and, well, think about it for a while, theyll realize the multitude of battles fought for the last 225 years to define civil liberties under the US Constitution have been way too important to give up in a moment of scary insecurity. Dont trade our freedoms for the warm protective arms of even a benevolent government; theyre the reasons most of the rest of the world want to get inside our borders to begin with. Only the truly crass think its just because they want to shop at the Gap.
For my adopted countrymen, resolve and backbone. Canada, being more a haphazard collection of good intentions than it is a country, will need both if it is to continue to set its own course in the world. Canadians have long defined themselves in terms of how they differ from their neighbour to the south. Now is not the time to roll over and play dead and let Washington unduly influence who you are. Sure, a couple of terrorists may have slipped into North America through Canada. But all of them eventually slipped through US Customs and Immigration and, so it seems, most of them came in on student visas to learn how to fly planes. Dont be bullied into something youll eventually regret.
To the harried boys and girls who comprise airport security, meaningful reforms. It is highly unlikely anyones going to hijack a plane with a handful of Gillette Mach III razor cartridges. Nor is anyone brandishing a memo recorder going to engender as much fear as humour among the flight crew. Yes it was traumatic but lets get real.
Hearts and minds please for the terrorists of the world. They obviously have neither. I dont know what combination of grinding poverty, religious brainwashing, charismatic leadership and hopelessness goes into making a terrorist but the sooner we begin to figure it out, the sooner we might begin to figure out how to put an end to it because we sure as hell arent going to round em all up and march em all to the ovens.
Last but not least, Santa, peace in the Middle East. I know, I know. Never has been; probably never will be. I wouldnt even know where to start but some kind of Palestinian homeland might help. Id still be pissed if someone took mine away in an act of contrition for having let a madman slaughter millions of people just because they chose to follow a Jewish God.
Fifty years into the drama its probably too late to establish a new Jewish state but Id be willing to pony up Florida for the cause. Similar climate; better neighbours.
Best get to work Santa. Its going to be a tough year to stay jolly.
Sincerely,
Max