Slashdot Mirror
Children Turn On Santa
nullspace writes "I know this is a little late for Christmas, but in Chile several children stoned Santa when he refused to throw them candy from a truck. In the end the children climbed on the truck and stole several toys from Santa's bag. The story is found on Yahoo!. "
you know, that subject could be misconstrued...
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Celebrate the finer things in life
I suppose that perhaps the childern are raised differnetly, but they should be taught the spirit of Christmas!
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It's OK to be social, just don't tell anyone about it.
that is TERRIBLE, how do you think the children would feel, the spirit of christmas ruined by some stupid santa.
oh and, FIRST POST
I AM NOT AS I CRAZY AS I THINK I AM! or am i??? -GODriel
Only dead fish swim with the stream...
You're a sick man, Hemos.
--- Dirtside | "Spirituality" is the irrational belief in the supernatural
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Apparently, these children never got the point of Christmas... And the Santa missed it, too.
What kind of a Santa ignores a child?
What kind of child then gangs up and beats Santa into submission, and then steals toys and candy?
This is a case where everybody was in the wrong. heck, Santa even used some kind of caustic glue for his fake beard! (not to bright, eh?)
I used to think printing on on Unix sucked. Then I figured it out. Printing on Unix *does* suck. Like a Kirby.
I didn't realize that the United States' no-holds-barred attitude about the Christmas season had spread that far...
Apparently, of the rich, by the rich, for the rich.
OK I don't know of anything to say except "That's messed up." That's it. I think anyone who would attack a santa-claus guy is just messed up, I don't care if they're kids and don't know any better.
Restating the obvious since nineteen aught five.
I hope the little brats get punished but good.
I noticed some posts blaming the "Santa". That's absurd.
There's no reason for a sig here.
Diggs
If guns are so evil, how come Sarah Brady can hold one and not turn into a raving lunatic?? Oh yeah, she is one already.
How about this one this one where santa is taken away by security guards - although I can't say I blame him - I think the mom was evil ....
In this day and age, nothing suprises me. I think this sets a precedent we should uphold though. I ordered toys for my children through Toys'RUs and EToys and neither of my orders made it in time for Christmas. Therefore, I believe we should stone the CEOS to death, or barring that, stone (ie, DoS attack) their websites to death. Everybody get your Mac OS 9 systems ready!
that it should be GNU/Santa. While Santa and the elves are the operational part, without GNU, Christmas would be incomplete
There was an article in the local newspaper
(really local, it covers maybe 10 sq miles), about
a santa being stoned by youths. Eventually they
abandoned the 'tour' of the area, and hid in the
truck.. IIRC, a couple people were injured in it.
--
David Taylor
davidt-sd@xfiles.nildram.spam.co.uk
[To e-mail me: s/\.spam//]
- The 300-pound Parenti was heading to a neighborhood in Tocopilla, 960 miles north of Santiago...
Was that the nearest city they could point out on a map? Gez. That makes it sound like Santa had one hell of a road-trip ahead of him.Ok, this story is amusing and sad, but does is it really entitled to such passionate responses?
IMHO these kids are merely reacting in a manner consistant with what I call the "the Spirit of Xmas" (Christmas without Christ) that is consistant with the level of commercialism attached to this season of oh-so-many-dollars-spent.
While I realize that the anti-religous zealots may be offended by my association of Jesus w/ Christmas *boggle*, the "spirit of christmas" spoken of in most of the previous posts died long ago...
-@d
Why say "OH, AND FIRST POST" if it isn't? Check your facts, smart guy.
Now we know.
Maybe I should have read past the headline before posting... naaah.
fish and pipes
So, here are your options:
a)Ignore articles you don't feel fulfill the mission of slashdot.
b)Ignore article posters that you don't like (You have to be logged in to do this, but hey... that has a lot of other benifits too)
c)petition rob to change the title of the main page to "Slashdot:News for Nerds And Other Stuff that Matters."
300 lbs, and 960 miles in the back of a truck, wearing a Santa suit? Whats wrong with this picture? Can you imagine how bad he would have looked when he finally arrived? Would have scared the little ones half to death!
Damn glad I dont live in Chile.
More race stuff in one place,
than any one place on the net.
an intern turned on the stoned President of the United States a while back only to see the situtation get hard then blow up in her face...
- - - - - - -
Though the whole story sounds like something that you would hear about on Jerry Springer. I've got this mental image of the big bald headed security holding back Santa as he tries to charge at one of the kids...
I don't think I've been getting enough sleep lately.
-dvorsd
I went to some frisbee throwing tournament in San Diego (where I live) in '92.. some radio station that had a big Penguin as their mascot (I have to wonder about their inspiration :) attracted the attention of several 6 year old kids... They started kicking the Penguin and stuff.. one of em kept spitting on the little mesh screen that the guy in the suit was breathing through.. At the time it seemed funny.
:D
Of course, it must have been Doom's fault.
-Warren
...serves the bastard right for screwing me this year. I think I'll throw that Packard Bell monstrosity at the next reindeer I see :)
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Oscarfish.com: tropical fish with attitude. Way t
I keep seeing reposts of stories from drudge, mmmphmm, maybe it's that same money-making sensationalistic style that is taking over /.?
The first and only good Southpark episode. Get a copy here and teach your children the true meaning of christmas.
Every Christmas kids from all over steal the baby Jesus from Creches. That certainly isn't in the holiday spirit either.
Children turn on santa..i thinkthisstory needs a name that cannot be interpreted a some form of sexual inneundo.. If santa doesn't give you any good presents PELT HIM WITH ROCKS!now theres morals for ya
Oh, and I think race had something to do with it too...
Slashdot is entertaining like pro wrestling is entertaining
Since most early Christians were put to death, celebrating Christ's coming in an open way was suicide. So they celebrated his coming at the same time another celebration occured. The "church" as you know and refer to didn't exist per se during the time the first Christmases were celebrated.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
those kids got coal that christmas.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
I have this picture of a 6' tall man with brass knuckles, wearing an Elf suit...
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
2 gig? I have more mp3's than that!
These kids might be smarter than we give them credit for.
"I have a good idea why it's hard to verify programs. They're usually wrong." --Manuel Blum, FOCS 94
The only annoying thing I find about this whole GNU/Linux naming incident are the hounds of /.ers that complain about it incessantly, while I haven't heard RMS even mention it once in many many moons.
Didn't the event in question happen in Chile? Not the United States? Or am I missing something?
Santa: And what would you like under the tree this year little one??
Kid: 40,000 US dollars, used and unmarked.
Santa: 40,000 US?? Why not a nice football?
Kid: Look here fat guy, you drop 40,000 US under my tree or I'm going to tell my mom that you have your thumb up my ass.
Okay... maybe I'm going over the top here, but I see all of the political corectness that is being shoved down our throats starting to rear it's ugly head. I'm pretty sure it's not why these little ingrates stoned the big fat icon of capitalism, but I'm going to expound anyways.
I think that by forcing people to think in politically correct terms we are actually forcing people to be repressed "programmed" people, just waiting to blow. Mark my words, in 5-10 years we are going to have this society of human robots filled with rage, blowing up all over the place.
Why can't we call a spade a spade, I think it leads to better mental health.
A genius writes code an idiot can understand, while an idiot writes code the compiler can't understand.
This is no different than letting Quake be open sourced so that everyone can cheat! I'm sure those children thought they were acting in the right. Were there any arrests? Gee, they're just minors, afterall. And so with cheating in Quake--it's not cheating, it's open source!
I'll bet the real reason the kids threw rocks at him was he was trying to give them Windows 98 for Christmas.
[gd&r]
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
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CAIMLAS
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
They would have deserved it you know! I say splatter the little shits
If Santa can't handle the little bastards, then you can always send in the clowns. Now those are professionals who know how to handle their own, and while a bunch of six-year-olds may be able to subdue one overweight bearded man in a suit, they surely can't subdue a legion of goulish fiends in warpaint and attack shoes. Remember Poltergeist? I thought so.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
Non do anus ratti (conversational) or Ego non do anus ratti (emphatic).
Cheers.
spawn_of_yog_sothoth
Wow, you're awesome. I want to bear your children. Can you teach me to be as cool as you someday?
I think I found a bug in slashdot. When I click on #include's user info, my user info page is loaded. I experimented a little bit and it appears that
http://slashdot.org/users.pl?op=userinfo&nick=#
followed by anything after the # loads up my user page. I'm assuming that it will load other people's user page as well? Can anyone verify this?
see topic
Christ was the first Icon for CHRISTmas, which is the the day we celebrate his birth (reguardless of the actual day of the event)
A few years after the initial event the people he came here for (israel) turned on him and had him killed.
now we have an addition icon for christmas, santa claus. and now the people he's was created for (childern) are turning on him....
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -- Homer Simpson
You know, sometimes I wonder what I would do with my spare time if I didn't have so many handy distractions.
I hope Santa turns them into reindeer food.
...who found the story hilarious? Or am I merely the only non-xtian who bothered to post? Personally, if I never have to listen to the shite that is passed off as music during the xmas season again, I'd be very, very happy. ---The Heathen Bastard
When I was a Senior in High School I was our school mascot, Wally Wolverine (although I really think it was a cheap chipmunk costume because they couldn't find a wolverine). At the pep rally, once people realized that it was I under the costume, they (my friends and enemies) started to beat the crap out of me, thinking it was funny and that their punches did not hurt. However, I could really feel their fists through the foam and it really hurt. I retired after the pep rally and this really annoying girl took over, but of course because she was a girl nobody beat her up, even though she might have deserved it.
Ben
Wow, all my kids do when they don't get what they want is cry or yell. Then again, a guy wearing a heavy red coat and hat in December doesn't stand out as much in the northern hemisphere, so perhaps kids here have a harder time picking a single target.
When I was small I believed in Santa Claus
...
Though I knew it was my dad
And I would hang up my stocking at Christmas
Open my presents and I'd be glad
But the last time I played Father Christmas
I stood outside a department store
A gang of kids came over and mugged me
And knocked my reindeer to the floor
They said:
Father Christmas, give us some money
Don't mess around with those silly toys.
We'll beat you up if you don't hand it over
We want your bread so don't make us annoyed
Give all the toys to the little rich boys
Peace and love, y'all
The Chi-Rho XP is one of the most popular Christian symbols of antiquity. Still seen in the worship and liturgy of the Catholic Church, the CHI RHO was formed of a combination of the two Greek letters chi X and rho P. They form a monogram for Jesus Christ's name. The X makes the "ch" sound and the P makes an "r" sound in the Greek alphabet. Its XP, not just X. Try XPian or XPmas if you don't want to be accused of talking Christ out of Christmas.
That would kick so much ass.
Santa
Christmas
Presents
Gifts
GIFs
JPGs
PNGs
ping
smurf
smurfette
DoS
DOS
Microsoft
Windows
Linux
Slashdot.
This is very sad. They say the kids here are bad.
Now Santa finally knows the meaning of Open Sores
You dignified my stupid remark with a comment. All I have to say is: I have seen some pretty crappy countries and I am GLAD to be an american. This is just one example of that. It isn't this one incident that led me to this opinion. I have seen adults beat up children for food in Somalia, and petty arguments destroy millions of dollars worth of military work in Haiti. So don't be too quick to judge. I think it's terrible that CHILDREN would act this way preiod. Thier parents should be ashamed. But it has been my experience that parents of kids who would act this way, are shit too.
"If you love someone, set them free. If they come home, set them on fire." - George Carlin
Usually I don't respond to flames, but when someone has no sense of humor I kind of think it is pathetic. The story is of course true, but I told it tongue and cheek hoping someone would get a laugh out of it, I do everytime I tell it. But you obviously took it seriously, thinking I was someone that needed a shrink. That is pretty funny in itself. And as for your comment on my physical attributes, I am 6'3, 200 lbs....and I am dating a blond...not to be a braggard or anything. Lighten up.
Ben
Hey, thanks for ruining Slashdot. I really appriciate all the time and effort you've spent destroying something that's really cool.
"Blond" refers to a male person, "blonde" to a female one. Just thought you'd like to know.
This sounds just like a South Park episode, doesn't it?
Epiphany - A church festival celebrated on the 6th of January, the twelfth day after Christmas, in commemoration of the visit of the Magi of the East to Bethlehem, to see and worship the child Jesus; or, as others maintain, to commemorate the appearance of the star to the Magi, symbolizing the manifestation of Christ to the Gentles; Twelfthtide.
And they broke Piggys glasses...
moderate this up =)
Don't worry about it. At least you've mastered the art of the shift key.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
Not even close. The decision to have Xmas be on December 25th was a purely political decision on the part of Constantine, the first christian emperor of Rome. He chose to have December 25th be xmas because a competing belief system, Mithraism, had its god's birthday as December 25th. Mithra was also said to have died and been reborn to save mankind, along with a lot of other thing that people attribute to Christ. Many Roman senators were followers of Mithra, so this was a way of taking power away from them.
Evil Overlord X.
Coming to a third world country near you!
'Loose' is when your pants are three sizes too big. 'Lose' is when you misuse 'loose'.
IIRC, December 25th was the start of the Roman Saturnalia, a holiday that was deliberately set a few days after the solstice and notorious for its "debauchery" since it was a brief period when certain laws were not enforced. So, it acted as a pressure release valve by allowing the controlled violation of certain morality laws.
In Christianity, it goes without saying that God never blinks and a Saturnalia isn't permitted. Like all zero-tolerance laws, you can make a strong argument that it's been a disaster. (E.g., is it better to suffer adultery one week per year, but otherwise have a solid marriage, or have a sham marriage because the straying spouse figures that Hell won't get any hotter if the marriage vows are broken 1000 times instead of just once?) But our "secular" society is still so chi-centric that most people look at you like you have truly lost your mind if you suggest that there's historical precedence for a one-week "get drunk, get stoned, get laid, gamble, lie and cheat!" break from the normal rules of society.
Finally, your "Jesus was born on the sixth of January" sounds like a very odd distortion of the Orthodox Church's calendar. The Catholic and Protestant churches follow the Gregorian calendar, but the Orthodox and Coptic(?) churches still follow the Julian calendar. The difference is almost 2 weeks, so 25 December (Julian) = 6 January (Gregorian). That's also why the Russian "October Revolution" occured in early November - Czarist Russia was Orthodox, but atheist communists ultimately switched to the Gregorian calendar.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
>Since most early Christians were put to death
Like I always say, society has gone downhill lately. We need get back to the good old fashioned values.
Like killing Christians. Perhaps thats what all those conservatives meant. Yeah, forcing all the kids in that public school sure will stop shootings. If I were forced to chant bullshit in a supposed "place of learning" I would be ready to kill too.
You can't blame on DOOM. DOOM shareware didn't come out until December 10, 1993 [grin].
:)
Blame it on Wolfenstein 3D [grin].
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Seems to me you posted that comment specifically to get a rise out of someone, so that you could flame them.
'Flamebait', indeed.
- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)
- Jeff
.
So someone got to that four minutes after the story was posted.
Shocked, shocked am I!
I never had a chance.
you know, kids are just doing what we're telling to do, which is: 'take matters in your own hands' :) :)
in today's society we expect our youngsters to do well, getting a good job, etc. not a big surprise if they start early. maybe it's not making the big bucks in a private business, but they're starting early - by taking care of what santa owes them
--- d'oh
Just because they are from some other country doesn't mean they are "raised to stone people".. My guess is that the "children" where 14 or 15 years old. Imagine a bounch of teenagers asking santa for candy..
Is there a link to the story on that newpaper? (I can read spanish..)
--
--
Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
...santas like the one in Futurama. After being stoned by a group of chillian kids, I can almost guarantee total evil santa..
Movie News - "Entertainment news, bitch!"
A few things to note:
Santa has candy, kids don't.
Santa could have just given them some candy.
These kids are undoubtedly poor. By North American standards quite poor -> think Appalachia 60 years ago.
Poor people with time on their hands often (not always) = violence.
I doubt that there was very much under the tree for any of them. Think about it.
I been there, I seen it, I know.
...vividly encapsulates that post-Watergate/pre-punk/coked-up moment when you could trust no one, least of all yourself.
I disagree.
Being a pacifist, I prefer this idea. [And, no, I didn't write it.]
Entirely agreed, provided that there was implied sarcasm in what you said. Standardized education should not exist. It works for most people. Great. It's hell for the rest. Great. That just helps us (at least, it helped me) realize what's really so wrong about it.
First of all, in the American education system, a lot of time is wasted with incessant repetition intended at metaphorically pummeling the ignorant with facts until they hit home -- and then CONTINUING to pummel the now-enlightened with those SAME facts until those facts become "practiced"/"comfortable". Sure, most people can learn things that way -- provided they don't borrow each other's homework and copy the answers without ever going over the material. Oh. What's that you say? Lots of American students just borrow each other's homework and copy the answers without ever going over the material? I guess they must not like standardized education, either. More power to 'em.
Second of all, in the American education system, a lot of time is wasted with pummeling the "ignorant" with a government-regulated selection of facts. An individual should have the right to learn whatever he/she wants to learn (or, in the words of Pink Floyd, "We don't need no education. We don't need no thought control."). Instead, the government makes it a legal requirement that you go listen to what the government wants you to hear. Hmmm. Un-Constitutional right there?
Granted, if there weren't a sort of standardized education, a lot of what goes on in today's society would never be able to go on. But who says today's society is the best possible society humans could have? Who says today's society is any better than past societies? Who says everything we do as a civilization doesn't go to waste once everyone who cared about any particular undertaking dies off (even if that takes until when robots take over, when the sun blows up, when the universe collapses, when the polar icecaps melt and flood the land, when the sky falls, when the Dreamer awakens, or whenEVER)? Civilization can change. Civilization SHOULD change, and it should CONTINUE to change. Change is good.
So, I suggest a change: merely that going through an education system should become OPTIONAL -- done only for personal growth -- and have no effect on, say, salary. Salary should be based on effective use of ability and effective use of creativity and not on droneness/willingness to work with the system in the way the people who run the system want it to be worked with/mental prostitution or even on PAST RECORD of productivity, cooperation, or ANYTHING, for that matter. Besides, if some arbitrary future-person doesn't know who won the Civil War a thousand years ago, well, shit, I guess he wasn't interested in the Civil War, and, well, shit, I guess that means he won't go into a career as a Civil War expert, and he'll actually have to find a career that has something to do with something he's actually interested in. Damn.
Anonymous only to avoid criticism for feeding a troll (criticism with which which I normally agree, but this troll has potential).
dont u think ur taking it alittle out of context? and taking what was once a fun tradition for little kids, into the Michael Jackson scandel of the year. and maybe people should look at the fact that America always needs some sort of icon for everything. Santa is nothing more than the act of giving to others. thats what he should be seen as. just like God is for good, and the Devil is for evil. if we taught this to our kids, instead of just telling them its some big jolly fat guy who likes to give ya presents, maybe those kids wouldnt of stoned him.
First Lizard man and now Santa. Slashdot == Weekly World News
I bet the kids were Slashdotters and Santa expected the kids to buy the candy, huh?
I am from Chile, and let me explain: This santa was hired by a group of people from a very poor neighborhood to bring candy to their children. The poor guy was as poor as the people who hired him - So as he was driving by an even poorer neighborhood, he denied the children there candy because the candy wasn't his, it belonged to the ppl who had hired him. So thats when the other children began trowing stones at him - that's the story as it was seen from here... Not good is it? well, if it had happened in the USA, the kids would have been carrying guns, wouldn't they? Sebastian (sebastian@yifan.net)
Sadly this seems to fit with the way kids are these days. Parents are getting softer and less responsible and the TV is becoming more powerful and influential on today's youth. The media tells kids what they want, and parents will get it for them to keep them happy. My prime example is Pokemon. I don't know whether it was a TV show or card game or video game first, but whichever, it's not that the idea was bad but they took and marketed the hell out of it, add the other two of those three, as well as a movie and tons of merchandise. Add weird lingo that makes it "cool" and slap a slogan on it like "gotta catch em' all" and it'll be unstoppable. Kids today are used to getting what they want so I guess those kids felt stoning santa claus was a neccessary means to an end since he wouldn't cooperate. It's a sad day when kids without a good moral background rule the world. It seems to me that one of Scott Adams' prediction in "The Dilbert Future" is closer to the truth than it might have been meant. He prophesized that eventually advertisments would be worked down to a science so that if we saw them we would be powerless to resist purchasing whatever they were selling.
I didn't grow up in the states, I did in a third world country, and transporation is not as common as it is over here. ...because of this I learned to jump into moving cars and jump out of moving cars. It was pretty funny, you learn that at 10, if you need to go somewhere, you just find a car going that direction, jump onto it and hold the back, when you get to where you are going, or when the car is going another direction, you jump off. pretty dangerous, but I have never seen anyone get hurt. Reading this story about the children jumping into the moving vehicle brought back the memory. Quite some time the drivers got very mad, I remember when me and my friend jumped on to the back of a truck, and after around 3 minutes, the driver noticed, he got very angry, he stopped. we jumped off, he sped away, we chased after him and jumped on again. He decided to teach us a lesson. He sped off this time at a very fast speed that we couldn't jump out, after a minute, he slamed on the brake and we were thrown violently into the truck by the force, before he got out, we were lucky to recover and run away. Darn, wish I was a kid again. This sounds like the kind of things I would have done then, I don't blame the kids, all they wanted where candys. Santa could have even given them 1 candy for two people and told them to share, instead he ended up getting hurt and losing more toys. I am for the kids!
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
I think it's funny how so many in this discussion are yelling about this being the result of over-commercialism and lack of religion in Christmas. I see a bunch of high-minded, patronizing, moralistic postings about the loss of Christmas's meaning.
But they forget THIS IS IN CHILE!!!!! While not the third-world, it certainly is very different from the US/Europe. In such countries, commercialism is MUCH less pronounced (heck this whole thing happened in a VERY poor area - commercialism indeed!) and Latin America tends to be much more religious than most areas of the US/Europe. They keep MUCH more religion in Christian holidays! I just think it amusing that many of these people spouting off about the reason for this (morbidly funny) incident - citing all this degredation of religion and rise of corporatism - are WRONG in this case! Yeesh... you'd think people would see this in the context of the region in which it happened!
This is not to say that commercialism is not a problem and Christmas is becoming less religious, it is...but I doubt it is in Chile! Besides, people look back falsely with nostalgia in these matters - people forget that earlier this century, Christmas was still heavily commercial and people complained about it then too!
Respectfully,
Kevin Christie
kwchri@wm.edu
Santa Claus, wherever he has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his "natural superiors", and has left no other nexus between people than naked self-interest, than callous "cash payment". It has drowned out the most heavenly ecstacies of religious fervor, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom -- Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.
Santa Claus has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honored and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage laborers.
Santa Claus has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation into a mere money relation.
The Santa Claus has disclosed how it came to pass that the brutal display of vigor in the Middle Ages, which reactionaries so much admire, found its fitting complement in the most slothful indolence. It has been the first to show what man's activity can bring about. It has accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put in the shade all former exoduses of nations and crusades.
Santa Claus cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real condition of life and his relations with his kind.
The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere.
Santa Claus has, through its exploitation of the world market, given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of reactionaries, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilized nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature.
Santa Claus, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilization. The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it forces the barbarians' intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilization into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image.
Santa Claus keeps more and more doing away with the scattered state of the population, of the means of production, and of property. It has agglomerated population, centralized the means of production, and has concentrated property in a few hands. The necessary consequence of this was political centralization. Independent, or but loosely connected provinces, with separate interests, laws, governments, and systems of taxation, became lumped together into one nation, with one government, one code of laws, one national class interest, one frontier, and one customs tariff.
Santa Claus, during its rule of scarce one thousand years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together. Subjection of nature's forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalization or rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground -- what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labor?
support gun control: take guns from cops
We teach our kids, from birth, to believe in a "Jolly Old Elf" who will bring them presents on Christmas morning. Allegedly, this "Elf" only brings presents to good girls and boys, but since I always got something I can attest to the fact that he is not very observant.
Then, when the kid turns 7 or so and figures out that it's all humbug, we enlist them in the conspiracy to fool their younger relatives and subject them to dire threats if they fail to lie to their younger siblings.
Am I the only one who sees how absurd this is?
-- Slashdot sucks.
Not a creature was stirring not even a mouse.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that Saint Nicholas soon would be there.
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugarplums danced in their heads.
And Mama in her kerchief and I in my cap
Had just settled down for a long winter's nap
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter
Santa was being stoned, his glasses were shattered.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Got my rocks ready and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave a luster of midday to objects below.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear
But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer,
With a little old driver so lively and quick,
He was almost able to dodge my well thrown brick!.
I say po-tay-to, you say po-ta-to.
I wonder if Dan Quayle was referring to female tubers?
-Vel
I say, death to all clowns!
Seriously. I cheered when I heard the news yesterday. Some clown for Barnum and Bailey was killed when their train wrecked. I felt kind of bad when they showed his family, but secretly, deep down, I felt that it served him right for being a clown.
Yes friends, clowns are the spawn of evil, straight from the nethermost regions of hell.
Do your kids a favor. Kill a clown today.
P.S. okay, this was a joke.. well.. partially a joke anyway...
---
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Also being raised in the old European tradition of Saint Nicholas day, celebrated on the 19th, which has nothing to do with Christmas, I also get irritated seeing a fat man in red clothing. Sure St. Nick gives gifts to kids, but he's dressed in golden preistly robes, and commands respect.
I don't blame those kids one bit, for striking out at ugly perversions of an ancient tradition. I say if Santa wants to be part of Christmas, they should nail him to the cross.
My 2 kopecks...
No offense meant, but haven't you been paying the least bit attention to stories posted to slashdot? After etoys.com used judicial thugery to get etoy.com (an articstic sight in France operating since 1994) shut down, how could you possibly give them your business in good conscience? My gut reaction (no flame intended) upon reading your comments was (and, truth be told, remains) "you deserved not to get those gifts in time!"
Karma (the metaphysical stuff, not the slashdot numerical kind) in action, I would say.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
This story happened in Chile. Not everything in the world happens in the USA, ya know.
I didn't flame anyone, I posted that comment cause that's how I felt. If noone likes it, tough. If I on't like someone's comment I grumble / chuckle to myself. I never flame people ( Not even the IDIOTS On my mailing list )
"If you love someone, set them free. If they come home, set them on fire." - George Carlin