Santa Claus: Fascist Vigilante or Iron-fisted Voyeur?

Much has been made of this man, but not enough is known.

Santa Claus (for those unfamiliar with him) is a man who lives in the North Pole, and rewards conformity with toys, and punishes disobedience with humiliation and lumps of coal. Such a punishment would not affect grown adults to any great extent - it would just result in disappointment and possible resentment, but the idea becomes far more disturbing when one discovers the target of his manipulations: Children.

Young, innocent (and impressionable), and given the raised expectations and anticipation the prospect of not receiving an expected toy to a child is akin to a heroin addict being denied his/her fix - or possibly closer to waking up one morning to the discovery that one's house has been cleaned out by burglars during the night. Furthermore a child will have to face his fellows in a school-yard who are all enjoying the toys they received, and will be forced to admit that due to his or her unorthodox behaviour, all he or she was considered fit for was the fabled lump of coal.

The threat of such humiliation and devastation to one's child is - understandably - too much for some parents. In reality, even the brattiest children are far too innocent to commit any act of what could be considered evil by any stretch of the imagination. But Santa Claus does not consider this to be so, and has an unrealistically black-and-white "bad or good" system. This has lead parents of the so called "bad" children to cover their own failures by telling them that Santa Claus does not even exist, and to buy the presents themselves to preempt Mr. Claus' judgement.

But that would all be well and good in the normal run of things - indeed, one could argue that Mr. Claus is under no obligation to provide toys to any children, and that we should be grateful for his generosity, until one considers the more sinister, Orwellian side of this arrangement.

Santa Claus is watching you and yours - especially your children - all the time. There is no action one can take that is not under the microscope of this self-appointed moral controller. Indeed the song, Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, by Haven Gillespie and J. Fred Coots warns of threats considered despicable even to Michael Jackson (he and his family reiterated the warning by covering the song at a later date).

The song warns,

He knows when you've been sleeping / He knows when you're awake / He knows when you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness' sake!

Note the tone of fear in the lyrics as they explain that there is no escape from Santa Claus' prying eyes and imply that one has no choice but to be "good", or else!

The song also outlines examples of what is considered bad, which illustrates my point about his unreasonable moral standards - indeed, crying, a natural tool evolved to allow children to warn parents of problems before they can take care of them themselves, is considered to be immoral by Santa Claus. When one considers that crying is an almost involuntary reaction to a child when they feel pain, frustrated or depressed, one can only assume that one is required to suppress all negative emotion or be convicted of thoughtcrime as Orwell described it.

An image of a jolly, friendly fellow has been painted by the Mass Media, which suggests he may have friends in high-places (indeed, his links with corporate giant, Coca Cola are incontravertible). He is dressed in a warm brightly coloured uniform, with an old, but not too wrinkly face. This combined with the facial hair is portrays an image of wisdom, a technique similar to one used by Stalin, but the fact he is overweight and laughing is to show that while wise, he is not too sensible or stodgy to be attractive to children. Without this image, and the fact that he resides in the North Pole, (a place free from the laws of any nation), he would never be able to continue his activities without being checked, audited, or even asked to explain what he does with the vast amounts information he receives or who he gives it to.

In all honesty, would you allow any fully grown man to watch your children all the time and promise annual toys to them in exchange for their obedience, were he not the embodiment of jolliness and friendliness that is portrayed to you by the television, movies, magazines and advertisements?

a 1000-word essay

Write a 1000-word essay on the inside of a golf ball. EXACTLY 1,000 words. And only one golf ball.

How to win any pub argument in 3 easy steps.

I read this in an email years ago, so I'll share these tips with you loyal readers... I don't have the email any more so really I'm typing from memory.

Here are three infallible tips on how to win any pub/dinner-party/fag-break/social-gathering argument, no matter how radical your claims. Use them wisely and sparingly (lest someone cop on), this should also arm you to counter others who try and use these techniques.

1) Make up quotes and statistics. Invent papers or journals written by fictional writers which "prove" your point. You're in a pub, no one's going to check them out, and if they get a chance later, you can berate them for going on too much about what was just a pub argument. Things like "85% of doctors say that passive-smoking is only harmful in enclosed areas smaller than 3 cubic metres per lighted cigarette" or "According to a government funded report by Dr. Cornelius Kelly, drink driving only contributes to 5% of car accidents - over 30% are caused by panic because of the fact that there are some situations not covered by a driving test".

2) Use clichées and old proven axioms - if some of what you say is true it must be all true, things like, "You can't compare apples and oranges" or "Where there's smoke, there's fire". No one can argue with that. This is an old technique used by advertisers, it has the effect of making the listener think, "Yes, it's true, where there's smoke, there is fire. Therefore the Guildford Four must have been guilty".

3) When all else fails, when every avenue of logic and rationality has been taken from you, when your opponents are about to land the coup de grace and you have no other choice, you have one trump left: the Nazi card. "Didn't the Nazis propose something similar in 1938?" or "That sounds like something Hitler would say". In fact with a little research into the Nazis and Hitler you'd be amazed at the application of this tool.

Warning. This post may contain abusive language. You Have Been Warned.

This is the first post to A1000wan. Seemingly I am the first person in the history of the Earth to ever post these exact words to this exact web site, it's mind-boggling, isn't it?

But if this is an infinite universe, then every possibility must be happening again and again. This means that a long time ago in a galaxy far away, there is a person with my name who looks identical to me, making this exact post to a website identical to this one, all the while, unaware of me, but speculating of my existence.

Ever since my previous home got burned down (http://www.csn.ul.ie/~colm Don't worry, no one I liked got hurt), I have felt that new ground must be broken in the field of me on the WWW. So the one who is called Reese The Law Girl (http://www.somethingdifferentnow.blogspot.com) gave me some inspiring words that would alter the course of history forever*, saying "You should start one". So I did.

* Figure of speech meant for dramatic purposes only, actual degree or duration to which the course of history was altered is purely speculative and is not implied or guaraunteed and is not the responsibility of anyone who if it was their responsibility would result in my being held liable.

The Da Vinci Code (Jesus & Mary Magdelene)

I'm going through a brief philisophical phase so I've been thinking about this question according to allegations by Dan Brown in the Book, "The Da Vinci Code", which is supposedly partially based on fact.

I haven't read the book so the information I'm getting comes from the TV programme presented by Tony Robinson, "The Real da Vinci Code". The allegation is as follows: According to Leonardo da Vinci, Jesus was in an intimate relationship with Mary Magdelene. This was then covered up by the Christian church authorities, presumably so as not to spoil Jesus' image of purity. In fact if you look at the painting, "The Last Supper", you'll see that there is a woman sitting beside Jesus, and the shape made between their shoulders and their elbows is a "V" or triangle shape, which at the time was the symbol of fertility. Furthermore the shape made by Jesus & "Mary"'s bodies is an M whch could stand for Mary.

This has been much the subject of pub discussion, so let me address the question - did the church cover up the fact that Jesus had a relationship with Mary Magdelene?
The answer is an almost definite...
No.

The mere allegation is its own undoing. It's not a question of beliefs - I'm not a staunch Christian - it's a question of simple logic.

The only document which records the events is the Bible. Now the only thing holding the Bible with any iota of possibility of truth is the belief that when scholars are writing the Bible, it's such a holy book that God Himself intervenes to ensure that it gets written correctly. This makes it impossible to lie in the Bible. That is why the word "Gospel" is often used as a synonym for the absolute truth. The Bible - according to this idea - must be absolutely true, we have God Himself on the job making sure. For the church to attempt to cover some of it up would be inherently impossible.

But perhaps that belief is wrong. Maybe God doesn't ensure that the Bible is absolutely true. If this is the case, then surely, I hear you say, it must be possible. I'm afraid not. If God isn't ensuring the Bible is the truth, then no one is. In which case, the whole thing could be true or false, it's just a bunch of 2000-year old stories - we'll never know whether *any* of them are true, whether there was a Jesus and if so, whether He had any relationship with God - if there is or ever was a God. Arguing over whether the church covered up one detail is pointless when faced with the possibility that they could have made up the whole Bible. It makes about as much sense of accusing the Irish government of covering up an illicit affair between Cúchullain and Queen Maedbh. Indeed, there may have been a guy called Jesus Christ born in Bethlehem, who later went on to meet a woman called Mary Magdelene, but without the guarrantee that the Bible is true to make them important, who cares - other than Fair City viewers - whether they had an affair or not? I'd be more worried about the fact that the church have been conning millions of people for centuries by falsifying the entire Bible.

Either the Bible is completely true, or it is almost all false. It would be a great miracle indeed to have a 2000-year old non-divinely-guarded document to be only missing that one detail.

No I'm afraid all Leonardo da Vinci was doing with his V & M was predicting the rise to fame of Van Morrison.