Yes, Bailey, There is a Santa Claus

In her most recent post, MinivanMom spoke of her dilemma regarding whether or not to tell Bailey the "truth" about Santa. Of course, we've had this discussion before, and I considered posting my opinion as a comment. I thought, though, that this might be an opportunity for me to jump back into the blogosphere. This particular debate is one that I struggle with as well, because I want to be honest with my children (to a degree), but I hate to burst the bubble of magic that surrounds the Christmas holiday.

Should we allow our children to discover the truth on their own, or should we lead them to truth before they find out from less reliable sources? Dr. Jacqueline Woolley, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, believes that the Santa myth discourages healthy skepticism in children:

The adults they count on to provide reliable information about the world introduce them to Santa. Then his existence is affirmed by friends, books, TV and movies. It is also validated by hard evidence: the half-eaten cookies and empty milk glasses by the tree on Christmas morning. In other words, children do a great job of scientifically evaluating Santa. And adults do a great job of duping them

The evidence, though, supports the idea that children are not scarred by the misinformation. In fact, in one study Dr. John Condry of Cornell University interviewed more than 500 children and found that not a single child was angry at his or her parents for telling them Santa Claus was real. According to Dr. Condry, "The most common response to finding out the truth was that they felt older and more mature. They now knew something that the younger kids didn't."

So what do we do? I think it has to be a matter of personal preference and, in our case, a manner that continues to sustain the environment of trust and honesty we've fostered in our house. When Bailey asked where babies came from, we didn't balk. There was never any talk of storks in our house. So, wouldn't our choice to be complicit with this societal myth contradict the ideals we claim to espouse.

Not really…because, you see, I believe in Santa Claus. Oh, maybe not the jolly old elf in the red suit made famous by Thomas Nast. Perhaps he doesn't live at the North Pole, or come down the chimney with a bag of gifts, but he is very real. Bailey is completely right when he says, "we asked Santa for a Wii and a DS for my sister this year, and that's like over 400 dollars and there is NO WAY my Mom and Dad have 400 dollars to buy us that stuff. So Santa must be real." The kid has a Playstation2, Playstation3, and a Nintendo DS. There is no way I would buy him a Wii. But Santa would.

Perhaps the best explanation of my belief in Santa comes from Francis Pharcellus Church in 1897. 8-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon wrote The Sun and asked, "Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?" Church responded in an unsigned editorial:

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

The whole editorial is wonderfully written, and I make sure to read it every Christmas. Soon, I think, we'll be reading it to Bailey. It is important to realize in life that just because something can't be seen or heard or felt, doesn't mean it's not there. In fact, some of the most real things in the world are those for which no empirical evidence exists.

Yes, Bailey, there is a Santa Claus. He lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Bailey, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

That One

I Eat my Candy with Pork and Beans, and that guy from Shoes

I'm a big fan of Weezer to begin with, but I love this video! Take a look and see how many of the extras you recognize. They're all YouTube celebrities....


Embedding was disabled, so click here to watch it.

I'm Raising David Wooderson

Yesterday, when dropping Lucy off at daycare, Sam's pre-school teacher called me aside and handed me a birthday invitation for Sam. Sam, now in Karate Camp before attending Kindergarten in the Fall, is sorely missed by all of his friends, she said. They talk about him every day.

Really? Every day?

Really. In fact, they fight over who gets to be best friends with Lucy, because she's Sam's sister. Whenever Sam comes into the school with us, you'd think it's a freakin ticker tape parade for a local hero. He's showered with hugs, high-fives and calls from across the building. All this he takes in stride with a shy smile and a shrug of the shoulders.

Suddenly, I see images of Dazed and Confused and I begin to worry.

Observe the evidence if you will...

And we can't ignore Mr. Wooderson's preference for altered states...

You see my cause for concern.

This morning, when we got in the car after dropping Lucy off, Sam turned to me and said, "That's what I like about these pre-school girls, Dad. I get older, they stay the same age."

Okay, not really.

What do you Think?

On Monday, July 14, 2008, The New Yorker released it's weekly edition with the following cover:

For the last few days, I've been reading the backlash. I've been considering the imagery and the alleged intentions, trying to figure out what it is about this cover that really bothers me.

Barry Blitt, the artist behind the controversial image, says,

"I think the idea that the Obamas are branded as unpatriotic [let alone as terrorists] in certain sectors is preposterous. It seemed to me that depicting the concept would show it as the fear-mongering ridiculousness that it is."

The New Yorker's top editor, David Remnick, defends Blitt saying:

"The intention is to satirize not Barack Obama and Michelle Obama, but, in fact, to hold a pretty harsh light up to the rumors, innuendos, lies about the Obamas that have come up — that they are somehow insufficiently patriotic or soft on terrorism…Satire doesn't run with subtitles. A satirical cartoon would not be any good if it came with a set of instructions."

I get that. I do. Satire is not beyond me. And yet something doesn't quite fit. I do not believe that there was any intent to slander Barrack Obama here. The New Yorker is a traditionally liberal periodical, and Blitt's past covers have been critical of the current administration. So, obviously it's satire, right? Obviously, it lashes out against the ridiculous fear-mongering imagery propagated by right-wing conservatives, right? Right?

Here's the thing I just realized today thanks to a blog comment on Slate. A commenter calling himself Expectator said:

"Put the same drawing on a TV screen with the Fox emblem in the corner and a pair of couch potatoes parked in front of it--put that on your cover, and you've got satire."

Aha! Context! The image is in the wrong context. Good satire should, at the very least, display the object being satirized. Otherwise, there is a cognitive disjoint and you run the risk of your image being used to further the injustice it represents. In the end, it really amounts to an awkward and ineffective attempt at satire, a poor decision by editors of the New Yorker to publish and defend it, and a moderate opportunity for the Obama camp to lash out at someone during a campaign that has been quite boring so far.

Now I feel better. What do you think?

And just in case you wanted a true journalist's take on the whole situation, watch this:

Because You Asked for It...

Blessed are the Asshats...

I'm back! I have been out of pocket for what seems like an eternity due to trial commitments, but now I'm back and finally able to weigh in on a most interesting question. Does hell exist? Minivan Mom and many of her friends have presented thought-provoking personal views of the afterlife. But, for me….I need empirical evidence. I'm a scientist at heart. When I want know the answer to something, I seek out the source.

It was for this reason that I decided to have a chat with my friend Iesu Nazarenus. Joshua bar Joseph. J of N. BMIH (Big Man In Heaven – that's kind of an inside joke between us, because, really, the guy is like 5'8". Have you ever met a Nazarene?)

Anyway, here's our conversation:

Saint Richard
Yo, J-Dog, what's the Word?

Jesus
Hello, my son. I am the Word made flesh: that is what holds me together standing before you in the image of God.

Saint Richard
George Bernard Shaw? Seriously? If you're going to quote yourself, shouldn't you at least quote the bible?

Jesus
Have you read the Bible? Shaw, at least caught a little of my flair for showmanship. Matthew writes like a four-year-old. By the way, what gives with "Saint Richard?" I seemed to have missed the canonization.

Saint Richard
Don't start…It's all tongue-in-cheek.

Jesus
Why not "Little Dickie's Almanac"? Yes, I quite like that.

Little Dickie Saint Richard
Stop it! Look, I came here for a reason….I've got an important question for you: Does Hell exist?

Jesus
You mean like fire and brimstone? No. Doesn't exist. That's all a creation of the Roman Catholic Church, and solidified by artists and authors like Dante and Milton.

Saint Richard
But what about all that talk about Hell in bible.

Jesus
Leaving out the discussion of biblical accuracy (that's a whole other discussion), let's focus on the question of Hell in the bible. Do you know how many times the word "Hell" is used in the bible.

Saint Richard
I don't know the exact number, but I would say something like fifty.

Jesus
Zero.

Saint Richard
Zero?! No, I have a bible right here and I bet I can find one in no time.

Jesus
Which Bible is that?

Saint Richard
uhhhh….King James.

Jesus
I'll save you the trouble. The word "Hell" appears sixty-two times in the King James Bible.

Saint Richard
Aha! See?!

Jesus
That is an English translation of the bible. A very subjective translation at best. Most of the times "Hell" shows up in the King James, it is a translation of the word "Sheol." In Hebrew, the word Sheol means "the unseen." It was a word used to describe a place of death because it meant passing out of the world of the living. Hundreds of years later, the word Sheol was translated into Greek using the word Hades. The early Greeks also understood Hades to be the place where the souls of the dead went to rest, not necessarily punishment. Later, though, medieval Christians translated the Bible into English, substituting the word Hades with the word Hell.

Early Jews had no concept of Hell. It simply didn't exist in their minds. Their idea of the ultimate punishment was an untimely death. Thus, if God was angry, they would be sent to Sheol.

Saint Richard
Okay, but what about the other times?

Jesus
In the "Gospels," I'm often quoted using the word Gehenna as a place for sinners. Later cultures would translate that into Hell as well, but that wasn't what it meant. Again, you need to think about it in context. Gehenna is a translation of "Ge Hinnom," literally "Valley of Hinnom." The Valley of Hinnom was a valley to the south of Jerusalem. If you read the Book of Jeremiah, you'll learn that the residents of Hinnom were worshippers of Moloch, and sacrificed their children in pits of fire, foreshadowing the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar the Great.

Later, that same Valley of Hinnom was turned into Jerusalem's dump, and the fires of Gehenna burned constantly. It was reputed to be a place where dead criminals and animals were thrown to be burned. Remember, now that I was speaking to Jews who believed that the body and the soul are intertwined, and consider cremation an act of desecration.

So, now do you see why the idea of being cast into Gehenna would be a pretty powerful threat to the people I was talking to? There was never any threat of eternal damnation.

Saint Richard
Wow…So there's no Hell?

Jesus
Not in the way you think of it. If you were to ask me to describe Hell, it would be simply death outside of a communion with God.

Saint Richard
So, then it's true that you need to believe in the Judeo-Christian God in order to gain access to heaven?

Jesus
No…John totally messed that up. John chapter 3, verse 16, from your King James bible says "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." This has been referred to as the "Gospels in a nutshell." But that's not quite right. It's not that you need to believe in me, it's that you need have faith in my message. And what was my message? What was it that I came to say?

Saint Richard
Uh…Blessed are the meek? No, wait…the Golden Rule!

Jesus
Right! The Golden Rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And what story did I use to introduce the Golden Rule?

Saint Richard
Uh....you're really testing my bible memory here...Let's see Sermon on the Mount...The Good Samaritan?

Jesus
Right. A story about a non-Jew. I was the embodiment of that message. If you have faith in me - faith in the Golden Rule - if you practice it, you will be granted communion with God. It's as simple as that. And don't get me started on the Beatitudes…Between Matthew and Mark, they missed about half of them.

Saint Richard
Like what?

Jesus
Like…
Blessed are the asshats and the fucktards, for whilst they are persecuted, they shall be redeemed in heaven.

Saint Richard
That's funny.

Jesus
I have more.

Saint Richard
uh…I have to go. Say "hi" to Mary for me. Later.


And there you have it. Hope that helps.