To: Santa Claus

      North Pole

Dear Santa,

If you’re really there, and if this minimally-addressed letter actually finds its way to you, and if you even take the time to read it, (in lieu of delegating the task to some grumpy elf), and if I haven’t mistaken your purview with that of the Tooth Fairy, could you please consider an idea?

I’m not old enough to know if the world was always run by idiots, (there are history books, of course, but there’s evidence to support that many of them were written by idiots as well), but it’s certainly the case today.  At a time when we should be using quantum daily leaps in technology to ease every life’s burden, we have chosen, instead, to behave like ill-mannered playground brats, pushing, kicking and grabbing at the sand toys and cutting the slide line.  Too many of us have taken to watching changing graph plots, (market fluctuation has certainly become the world’s most popular spectator sport, but we poll everything now, from candidates to toe nail fungus), as a touchstone for our comfort/discomfort quotient.  Somehow, in its simplistic naiveté, the concept of doing the best and doing it now is no longer an option.  We seem to be capable of identifying our shortcomings and the problems they’ve created, but we sheepishly accept proposed solutions with unreasonably drawn out time lines, (safety standards for such-and-such will go into effect by 2018; auto and factory emissions caps will kick in by 3022…).  World leaders are preoccupied trying to deal with the “Global Economic Problem”, (which, of course, is not a problem at all), and this distraction from the real dangers of hatred, hunger and greed and their inevitable by-products of genocide, disease and despair is…well, idiotic.

So, Santa, here’s where you come in.  Since you’ll be doing that stop-by-everybody’s-house-in-one-night thing in a few weeks, there must be some post-hypnotic suggestion or aromatherapy or a drug or, as a last resort, a subliminal threat that could nudge us back on the right track.  Could you please, please give this some thought?

Your friend,

Joel

PS – oh yeah…and a pony