NORAD and Santa

So I'm watching Monday Night Football. And amid the traditional holiday crap (group shots of the MNF crew, Xmas bumper muzak, etc.) Mike Tirico sincerely announces that NORAD (whose primary function is to track incoming nukes) is "tracking Santa." Then I talked with Rani on the phone and she also had heard the NORAD tracking Santa announcement on another station. This is hardly surprising, TV and NORAD have been doing this since I was a kid (the Reagan years, of course.) But before tonight I never realized how emblematic of the sickness of American culture this is. It's like a 7-layer burrito of dysfunction.

Now call me Scrooge (a good tale of populism, btw), but I decided this year that if I were to have kids someday (due to some birth control malfunction no doubt) I wouldn't feed them the old Santa Claus bullshit. If I'm going to buy my kids the latest gaming system, I don't want them thanking an imaginary pedophile.

Instead of:"Be good kids, Santa can see you and then no toys."
It'll be: "Beer me, Junior, or I'm selling your PS9 on eBay."
Much Better.

Besides, when the polar ice caps melt, then what?

"Santa's gonna drown dad!"
"It's because you forgot to say your prayers, kids."

But in the meantime, as a single American who has yet to father any future National Guardsmen for World War V, I have to listen to TV tell me that NORAD is tracking Santa Claus every fucking year. Thoughts that come to mind:

1. I live in DC. How can Santa deliver toys to DC without violating the White House Airspace? Will there be another crater in Pennsylvania? The hero elves of Santa Sleigh 93 attacked and killed the bearded terrorist Santa Al Clauz. They beat him to death with Bratz dolls.

2. Why do we have to be reminded of impending Nuclear Annihilation every Xmas Eve?

3.Wouldn't this be the perfect time for North Korea to squeeze off an ICBM at us over the North Pole?

What kid knows what NORAD is anyway? Is this when every kid turns around to his 50s pipe-smoking dad and asks, "Hey dad, what the hell is NORAD, and why is it tracking Santa Claus?" That's when most of American dads say, "Shut up, I'm trying to watch the game." But those who actually know the answer to the question will probably be inspired in a Jingoistic Xmas frenzy to say, "Those are the good people who live in a mountain with all the keys to the Nukes. If two guys both turn some keys, we all die. Then we get to see Grandpa."

Thank you Military Industrial Complex for somehow creeping onto EVERY LIVE BROADCAST ON CHRISTMAS EVE to talk about the extinction of the human race. And if you're a poor kid, you wake up the next morning to some "Toys for Tots" Marines handing you a GI Joe action figure. Jesus would be psyched!

Good thing NORAD sounds about as believable to a kid as Santa Claus does. Kid:"Let me get this straight--there's some guys who live under a mountain who spend their time tracking a fictional character. Sounds like a Dungeons 'n' Dragons club."

Now THAT sounds scary.

"Merry XMas!"

Hi folks. I'm Salil.

This is my inaugural post. I actually had another one in the works that I'll polish up and release soon enough. But I'm home in Memphis, TN, visiting my family.

And I just wanted to share some true joy from the heart of America. I'm feeling a bit Grinch-like lately, thanks to a variety of inanity I've run across, and most of it is religious in nature. Well, 'tis the season to act holy, or at least more than thou, so I guess it's my turn!

First, a letter to the editor in my hometown rag, the Commercial Appeal. This is it, unedited, in its entirety (12/24/2007):

"Recently my grandson was cleaning his gun and accidentally shot himself. He was transported to the Regional Medical Center at Memphis. Since his condition was not critical, I waited until the next morning before I came to see him.

"Being from out of town and unfamiliar with the location, I could not find handicapped parking, but I did find a space across the street. Just entering the hospital from the parking space [sic] I was approached several times by different pandhandlers who requested money. They were rude and frightening when I refused to donate. Several police cars were patrolling the area, but none seemed to notice the situation.

"Isn't there something that can be done about this?

"Barbara Greenlee - Corinth, Mississippi."

I feel like that one is almost Zen-like in its ability to sum up everything that is wrong with the South. Clearly, someone has forgotten that Jesus is the Reason for the Season. But I really wish I could reply to her plaintive "isn't there something that can be done about this?" Such an easy retort!

"Yes, Barbara. We could take you out behind your trailer and let your grandson clean his gun again right next to you. Odds are that next time the situation will work out better for the whole planet."

This is immediately followed by a series of letters to the editor about whether the X as it's sometimes used in "XMas" is offensive or not. I cannot make this shit up. Seriously. But apparently quite a few fine upstanding Southern folk out there think that it is. Allow me to quote from another reader of this newspaper, a Mr. Dalton Cooper of Memphis, TN:

"The use of X is just another attempt by the small group of atheists to malign a belief of the vast majority of the American public: a belief in God and Christ."

An imperial presidency; an America characterized by xenophobic fear of the other that is fast losing its technological and intellectual edge in every economic sector you can shake a stick at; the environmental movement in tatters; the Constitution reduced to an inconvenient afterthought...and it's using an "X" in XMas that's offensive. Gotcha, Dalton. Glad to see you have your priorities straight.

Next up, an article in the same newspaper that my sister forwarded to me. I'll keep the commentary to a minimum. Read on, fellow teeth-gnashers.

"What happens here is funded entirely by Bellevue Baptist, a 30,000-member church in Memphis, the nation's second-largest Southern Baptist congregation. Every year, Bellevue shells out $5.5 million -- one-fourth of its $22 million annual budget -- for missionary work around the world. At any given time, Bellevue is supporting missionaries in more than two dozen countries, and annually sends its Memphis congregants on international mission trips to Central America, South America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

"India is particularly important for the congregation. The country is at the center of what Bellevue and other evangelical churches refer to as the '10/40 window' -- the area 10degrees to 40degrees north of the equator, from North Africa to Japan, where 95percent of the people are 'unevangelized' and where only 8percent of evangelical missionary dollars are spent.

"It's really called 'The Last Frontier,' says Steve Marcum, Bellevue's minister of missions."

The comments on this one are particularly finely wrought. You've got the most xenophobic racist evangelicals proclaiming their superiority over the heathens and their God-given obligation to bring their beautiful faith to the barbarians, since they just don't know any better. You've also got angry uncles proclaiming that India is really pretty swell, and you've got the BJP taking political advantage of the whole thing, too. It's like a perfect holiday three-ring circus, except the clowns are waaaay too scary for kids.

Okay, I think I'll end with that for now.

So when you're praying to whoever it is you pray to about the things you think are important, try and remember that there is no God, and even if there were, he's not listening to you, because you're retarded. Then visit the Betty Bowers website, and enjoy what the holidays are really for: getting away from your idiotic coworkers, and getting drunk in a bar after spending too much time with your family.