(First published in Bali Advertiser, December 21, 2005)That would be harsher punishment for parole violators, Stan … and, world peace. – Sandra Bullock as undercover FBI agent Gracie Hart answering a beauty pageant question in the movie Miss Congeniality
Dear Santa
It’s been a few years since my last letter. I did write a couple of times after I stopped believing in you – just in case, you know – and it is in that spirit I write again.
Beauty queens are always saying “world peace” is what the world needs most. What I want, though, Santa, is a rational world, because that would bring peace, as well as bureaucrats that aren’t automatons, companies that don’t poison potential customers, countries that don’t demand people die for a flag, adults who behave as adults, children who behave as children. And, if, you know, you exist, Santa, I’d like this rational world to include
- Messy jungles – “I really like your jungles. They’re so neat,” a friend of a friend said after flying over hectares and hectares of palm oil plantations on her way into Kuala Lumpur. Now I’ve belatedly learned that some genius wants to create the world’s largest palm oil plantation in the “Heart of Borneo.” The proposed project, to be funded by China, will cover 1.8 million hectares, or about half the area of The Netherlands, according to an August article on the World Wildlife Fund Web site (
www.panda.org). I am not an environmental wacko, Santa; I just wish people would take more time to think before chopping down trees. This project sounds a particularly bad tree-killing idea. A mature American attitude on guns – Each year in the US around 30,000 people die in gun deaths – most are suicides or homicides. Only about 300 are from “legal intervention,” according to statistics for 2002 quoted on a Web site for the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence (www.ichv.org). Yet no progress is ever made against the guns-don’t-kill arguments of the National Rifle Association. The fact is guns are killing machines. They are the weapon of choice of armies, police, and gangsters precisely because they are more efficient at killing than bows and arrows, swords, and baseball bats. Americans don’t have to ban guns; they just need to recognize that in a civilized society guns are seldom more than dangerous toys. Tolerant religions and freedom from the wrath of God – People keep killing other people because of what somebody said God said a long time ago. I don’t expect people to give up their religion or faith – I just want them to learn the difference between what they know and what they believe. Maybe then religious disagreements will turn deadly less often. And, if we can’t reasonably expect a year free from earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, and killer hurricanes, let’s at least be free of the dubious prophets who claim natural disasters as the judgments of their personal petulant God.Sober political debate – To avoid redundancy, Santa, see the above, and make note of a Christmas wish that folks would stop getting a jolt from the thought that the founding fathers of their country hung the lowest and swung the widest. Fair income distribution – I’m not particularly Marxist, but I can see no reason for the average CEO to make 400 times more than the average production worker in 2004, as the Economic Policy Institute reported, according to the Web site www.politicalaffairs.net (Marxist Thought Online). No one can be worth that much more than a production worker. A CEO making 400 times the average salary of 2,000 workers could increase their salaries by almost 20 percent and still make 25 times their base (without changing the payroll total). If his ego called for it, the CEO could raise the workers’ salaries 15 percent and still get 100 times their base. Can’t we have some kind of agreement that the ‘suits’ are worth only so much? Or can’t you give them a sense of shame, Santa? Clean oceans and rivers – I was watching a nature special on whales last night, and I just think it’d be nice if they and other water creatures could swim in oceans and rivers unclogged by plastic and un-poisoned by chemicals. It’d make me feel better about the water I drink – even if fish do go to the bathroom in it.
If you still have some magic left over after taking care of the above, you can also do a few things just for me. First, I’d like to misspend my lost youth again. Second, I never did get that mini-submarine I asked for when I was eight. Lastly, if nothing else, just keep my family and me safe, healthy, and out of News of the Weird in 2006 -- we’ll do the best we can about the rest.
Your old unfaithful friend,
Lee Roy LeRoi
Copyright © 2005 Lee Roy LeRoi
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