Hi Gar, Happy Holidays to you and your mom, Peter Gar Lipow wrote: > For some reason this season made me think not about the real meaning > of Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanza, Ramadan, Solstice or any other > holiday, but about the real meaning of Santa Claus -- and all the > valuable lesson Santa teaches for living in corporate America. > > Think about what a kid learns on first discovering there are is no > Santa Claus. She learns (if she does not already know) that authority > figures lie, and that lies by authority figures are good lies, lies > you are rewarded for believing, lies you should go believing for as > long as possible. > > If (as is usual) it is another kid who tells her there is no Santa , > she learns that those who expose the lies of authority figures are > wicked destroyers of innocence, that the proper response to learning > that an authority figure has lied is to protect others from the awful > truth. > -- > Gar W. Lipow > 815 Dundee RD NW > Olympia, WA 98502 > http://www.freetrain.org/