There’s only one Santa
Today is Christmas Day, when every interpretation of anything is possible:
‘Greece should write off part of the
53 billion euros ($70 billion) of outstanding taxes owed to it
as it will only be able to collect up to 20 percent of that
amount, a report by the European Union and International
Monetary Fund showed.’
Secret IMF/Bondholder Report
‘For our part, we see the conflict between different sections of the ruling class and their state apparatus as being part of the break-up of the capitalist order in the face of the developing world socialist revolution. We hope that the different bourgeois factions do the greatest possible damage to each other, and in doing so prepare the way for the successful British socialist revolution, that will completely smash up every part of the British capitalist state, to bring in socialism.’
British Workers Revolutionary Party
“We have identified most of the external details of his cerebral cortex. The complexity and pattern of convolutions on certain parts of Einstein’s cerebral cortex is striking and unusual in comparison to brains from normal individuals. This is especially noticeable in the prefrontal cortex, which is important for advanced cognition, the parietal lobes, which are important for spatial and arithmetic reasoning, and the visual cortex. The primary sensory and motor cortices are also extraordinarily expanded in certain parts.”
Guardian neuroscience blog
‘President Obama said he hoped the holiday would give lawmakers perspective. “Everybody can cool off, everybody can drink some eggnog, have some Christmas cookies, sing some Christmas carols, enjoy the company of loved ones,” Mr Obama said.
Financial Times on the fiscal cliff
‘The Health and Safety Executive says it is fed up with being cited as an excuse for preventing people from taking reasonable risks as they go about their lives. The organisation’s chairman Judith Hackett told BBC Breakfast it is time for people to stand up to ‘jobsworths’ who wrongly use the health and safety mantra as a barrier to common sense.’
BBCNews website
‘The standard rules of business behavior and management are precisely the opposite of what it takes to build an innovative company. We are told to hire people who will fit in; to train them extensively; and to work to instill a corporate culture in every employee. In fact, in order to foster creativity, we should hire misfits, goad them to fight, and pay them to defy convention and undermine the prevailing culture.’
John I. Dutton
‘Arguing that a belief in Santa Claus injects magic into childhood is, in my view, rather cynical. It tacitly implies that the world by itself is insufficient to inspire a child with awe and delight. That is simply untrue. A child can be astounded by the smallest brush-flick of nature – the spinning sycamore seed, the sea, snow – they don’t need to be lied to. Children are perfectly capable of being happy without their parents recoursing to Santa stories. I think this speaks more about the jadedness of modern adulthood than anything else.’
Daily Telegraph blogger
‘When, as a child, I first encountered the idea that Santa Claus might not be real, I balked. Once infected with doubts, however, they didn’t escape me, and I began to wonder how one soul could possibly stop off at every single house and deliver toys; besides, my house didn’t even have a chimney. With chagrin, I slowly resigned myself to the fact that there was no Santa Claus.’
Psychology Today
When one surveys most people’s attitudes to politics, economics, money and investment in the West, you can see how easy it is to persuade children that Father Christmas is for real. With a little more effort, the neocon propagandists could persuade most adults today that Santa Claus married Mary Poppins, and they have six beautiful children called Geithner, Draghi, Merkel, Hunt, Balls and Monti.
So for your delectation this Christmas morn, here are a few of the more risible efforts at Father Christmas is Real from the year just gone:
The Slog 