Letter to President Obama #45 | Subject: Santa, Ghosts, That Stupid Dog That Laughs At You In Duck Hunt

Dear President Obama,

Each holiday has its own associated stories and tall tales and characters, and as Christmas just passed, I’ve been thinking about Santa and the elves, and other holidays too. When separated from their holiday context, some holiday stories don’t make a lot of sense. Some are even a little creepy. Santa Claus is a good example.

Santa Claus

I mean, consider Santa Claus. If you walked up to me and told me that an obese bearded man who lives at the North Pole on a bunch of pack-ice knows if I’ve been naughty or nice because he’s been watching me and is planning to sneak into my home via my chimney and then abscond with milk and some of my freshly baked goods, that’d be creepy.

But, if you were to add that he’s going to bring me a toy, that’s not creepy. That’s wonderful, wonderful news. The presents make all the difference. They make logic superfluous.

Like most kids, I loved Christmas, but I didn’t believe in Santa for very long; the jig was up when I was about 5 or 6. I still remember going to the kitchen table and calling my parents into the room, telling them that there was something I wanted to discuss. I sat with my hands folded, and like a miniature lawyer, I outlined my case. Santa visits every house, but there are far too many houses to visit in one night. More importantly, he visits every house, but the world is full of all sorts of poor people and they don’t seem to get any presents. If they did, the sleigh would have to be a lot bigger, and it’d be full of chickens and cows and sandwiches. I admitted that this might be possible to deliver in a very large boat of some sort, or perhaps a wagon train or caravan of some sort, but that wasn’t how the story went.

When I realized that my parents were Santa, it made me realize how kind my parents had been to me and my sister, as we weren’t rich, by any means. One of my favorite Christmas moments came soon thereafter; my parents asked me what I wanted for Christmas, and I told them a Nintendo, as I’d been trudging over to my friend Jeff’s house to play Nintendo, and specifically, my favorite game, Duck Hunt. My friends were partial to Mario Brothers and repeatedly told me that Duck Hunt was lame.

Back then, a Nintendo was expensive, about $100, and I knew we didn’t have a lot of money, so when my mom told me that we couldn’t afford it, I was disappointed and I told her that I understood. Well, on Christmas morning, there was a large rectangular box under the tree, and when I opened it up, I couldn’t believe it. Strangely, it was then that my parents informed me that I’d have to go to bed an hour earlier, at 8 instead of 9. This was a small price to pay, but I wondered why until one night when I was lying in bed and I could hear furtive whispering in the background. It was my parents.

Mom: Are they in bed?

Dad: Yeah, I put them to bed ten minutes ago.

Mom: Do you think they are asleep?

Dad: Yeah, OK. Turn the game on. Give me that controller, I want to be Mario.

Sure enough, my parents were playing the Nintendo, and through the crack in the door I could see my mom leaning with the controller while trying to avoid the goombahs and koopa troopas.

That was fine with me, as I got to play Duck Hunt as much as I wanted. I still like that game, and I don’t even like hunting. I also don’t like the Duck Hunt dog; you know, the one that jumps up after you miss and laughs at you despite your fruitless attempts to shoot it? What kind of hunting dog laughs at you if you miss? That’s like a seeing-eye dog chuckling as you tumble down the stairs at the mall.

The Tooth Fairy

While Santa was at least convincing for a short time, I never really believed in the tooth fairy. There wasn’t much of a back story there. So let me get this right: My tooth falls out, I put it under my pillow and some fairy comes and gives me some spare change for it?

That leaves a little too much to the imagination. What does he or she need them for? Does the tooth fairy simply collect teeth, like some people collect stamps? Weird. In retrospect, that sounds a little Ed Gein to me. I suppose an argument could be made that maybe other kids needed those baby teeth (babies?), so maybe it was a really gross form of recycling.

The whole tooth fairy thing also seemed to encourage violence. I remember many occasions when my sister and I, strapped for cash, discussed how we would split our haul the next morning after we punched a few teeth out of each other. My parents thought that we were always punching each other because we didn’t along, but they were wrong, we were simply good capitalists in it for the money.

The whole tooth fairy charade came crashing down after I lost a pair of teeth when I was five or so. I put them under my pillow and woke up the next morning, only to find my teeth and a bit of a bloodstain, which I thought was gross. OK, so the tooth fairy was late. So I slept a bit more. When I awoke, same thing. I tried to sleep a bit longer, and when I was just about to fall asleep I heard a jingle, jingle and felt my pillow being wrenched up while the teeth were yanked out. I opened my eyes to catch my mother with the change in one hand and the teeth in the other. Then she started laughing and couldn’t stop; this happens sometimes.

Halloween

Halloween is another holiday that I really enjoy, as there is candy involved. It is a holiday that can get rather strange at times, as you never know what you’ll get from your various neighbors. For instance, one lady on our block was a little bit loony. For instance, when her mailbox fell off, she tied it back on with a bra, and when her dryer broke, she hung up her clothes in her trees. On Halloween, instead of handing out candy, she gave us a choice, we could have a dime or a pencil. It always seemed like a trick question. I usually picked the dime, and then used the dime to buy a piece of candy from my sister.

Sadly, Halloween is sometimes considered a ‘bad’ holiday, as some people object to the inclusion of witches, ghosts and goblins and the general veneration of the “occult.” Personally, I think that the religious holiday on November 1, “All Souls Day” is far creepier, as it sounds a lot like a death metal band name. I don’t see the harm in Halloween, as I don’t believe in demons, witches or ghosts. (While I don’t believe in ghosts, I do believe in really, really white people. I’m one of them! I’m kind of like those snow hares that turn pure white in winter, except I stay that way all the time.)

I don’t really believe in Ouija boards either. Every time I play with one, I try to communicate with one of the Parker Brothers, or at least one of their board game representatives (e.g. the Monopoly guy) as they sell the Ouija board and it says Parker Brothers in big letters on the side. I figure, if I can’t get in contact with them, or at least supernatural customer service, then the game totally must not work.

Wow, this letter really got long! Well, as you can tell, I like holidays, and I sometimes talk a lot. My apologies for that. In any case, thanks for reading, and take care.

Brett Ortler

P.S. After a break, I'm back at the letters to President Obama. Here's the deal: I write him a random, zany letter, then I send it. Here's to hoping to getting a response. Read them all at this link: brettsletterstothepres.blogspot.com

If you like these letters, PLEASE help me get the word out. I am the world's worst marketer, so please tell your friends, post them on social networking sites, and whatnot.

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Letter to President Obama #44 | Subject: The “War on Christmas”

Dear President Obama,

So Christmas has come and gone once again, and with it, we can say goodbye to the perennial fight about the so-called “War on Christmas.” But come every October or November, we can look forward to various political groups and news commentators bewailing how Christmas is under attack. (I won’t point fingers, but the last name of the guy I’m thinking of rhymes with “Nosmiley.”)

Now I think I understand their main concern: They feel like the culture at large is hostile to Christianity, and such hostility, they argue, is readily apparent in the media around Christmastime, especially in the marketing campaigns of various national retailers, which prefer to produce inclusive marketing campaigns and use terminology like Happy Holidays or Season’s Greetings. They feel that such companies are purposely excluding Christianity and denying it its rightful place as the primary cultural influence on American society. After identifying such groups, they take action—usually by boycotting that establishment until it relents and includes the terms “Merry Christmas” or ceases running the ad.

First of all, I don’t really think it is my place to tell a retailer how to phrase their marketing campaigns. Though now that I think of it, I’d like to consider creating an advocacy group to make sure some of my favorite holiday phrases are included in the corresponding holiday advertisements.

I’m an agnostic, so maybe I could band together with other agnostics to have retailers reflect our uncertainty about our metaphysical beliefs. It could feature banners and ads with the slogan: Happy Agnosticism Day?

Similarly, I’d like all Thanksgiving ads to include LOTS of gobbling, to the point where the viewer wonders if it will ever stop. (Gobbling jokes are inherently funny.) I’d like all Halloween advertisements to include a kid draped in a sheet in the old stand-by ghost costume. This is probably my favorite costume, despite the unexpected consequences that it may bring, as I learned on one Halloween in college: I didn’t have a costume so I cut a couple holes in a sheet and walked around the dorm trick-or-treating. Unfortunately I had pretty poofy hair, so much so that I kind of looked like a clansman. I didn’t realize this until I came to an African-American’s door. He answered, looked at me and simply said, “Oh, you came to the wrong door!”

And really, I don’t think that including the phrase “Merry Christmas” in a Gap commercial is going to do all that much. It’s not like one could ever forget which holiday is coming up. By the end of December, I’ve already heard Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” at least a hundred times, and it includes the word “Christmas” seven times, so I’ve heard the word “Christmas” at least 700 times from that song alone. (Don’t even get me started on the 12 days of Christmas.)

And even if Gap does include the phrase in their ads, it’s not likely to convert all that many people. The Gap isn’t exactly a theological powerhouse. Theology is simply not what they are out to do; they are out to sell dorky pants and sweaters and socks to fairly rich white people.

Even the outright inclusion of Christian proselytizing in Gap’s ads wouldn’t solve the problem. I mean, let’s say they put Jesus in Gap jeans and one of those puffy winter jackets and have imploring you to buy Gap jeans or face eternal hellfire. That’d be blasphemy, and it would make for really creepy commercials.

And then there are the problems with the individual phrases themselves. I’ll deal with each one by one.

Merry Christmas

The problem with this phrase is that it’s really specific. Christmas occurs on one day, but it’s bookended by a number of different holidays. In December and January alone, we’ve got Christmas, New Year’s Eve/Day, Hanukah, and sometimes Ramadan.
First, there is the problem of accuracy. If you tell someone Merry Christmas in November, that’s weird and will probably make that person want to buy you a calendar.

And then there’s the problem of people with different belief systems. Saying Merry Christmas to everyone you meet is more than a bit inconsiderate, as assuming everyone shares your beliefs seems a bit pushy if you ask me. I usually like to get to know someone first, before bringing up my personal religious convictions. (My parents always told me—it’s not polite to talk politics or religion to strangers, and this seems to be such an instance.) Sure, once you know someone is in fact, a Christian, then Merry Christmas away! I said it a whole bunch of times over the holiday. (On the other hand, telling a Jewish stranger Merry Christmas doesn’t seem like the nicest thing to do).

Season’s Greetings

Season’s Greetings is problematic for a different reason. Since it’s a possessive, I imagine we’re talking about what each season might say as a greeting. This got me thinking: what exactly would a given season say? I suppose it depends on where you’re from—the seasons in the Sahara probably have the same message (I hope you brought water and sunscreen), just as all the seasons in Antarctica might say something like (Here, watch these crazy birds in tuxedoes as you freeze to death!)

Since I’m in Minnesota and we have four distinct seasons, I suppose the seasons would say something like this:

Spring: Do you like mud and slush? If so, you’ll enjoy March and April!
Summer: Go fishing and drink beer in the sun while you still can!
Fall: Watch out, I’m going to throw leaves at you!
Winter: Misery!

As Christmas occurs in winter, “Misery” doesn’t seem like an appropriate tagline for such a joyful season, so I’d say skip this term.

Happy Holidays

That leaves us with Happy Holidays. To me, Happy Holidays seems the most accurate phrase. Let’s face it: there are several widely celebrated holidays toward the end of December. So it’s always accurate, it’s got that nice alliteration, and it helps one avoid being too presumptive in the company of strangers. As marketing campaigns are designed for the general public, this makes sense for major retailers to use.

Most importantly, the whole “Merry Christmas” fight seems to be diverting attention from the theological problem I think Christians should be more attentive to—the commercialization of Christmas. I mean, we’re talking about a guy who seems to be pretty anti-wealth.

The Gospel of Mark (10:25) comes to mind:

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

It’s a bit hard to marry that verse up with Black Friday and customers sprinting through stores for the latest electronic gadget. Then again, I suppose that’s a topic for another letter.

Take care,
Brett Ortler

P.S. After a break, I'm back at the letters to President Obama. Here's the deal: I write him a random, zany letter, then I send it. Here's to hoping to getting a response. Read them all at this link: brettsletterstothepres.blogspot.com

If you like these letters, PLEASE help me get the word out. I am the world's worst marketer, so please tell your friends, post them on social networking sites, and whatnot.

You can also join my gather group here: letterstothepres.gather.com

Become a fan on Facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/Brett-Ortlers-Letters-to-the-President/211691443300?ref=ts

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Letter to the President #43 | Subject: Health Care, Abstinence, Weddings, etc.

Letter to the President #43 | Subject: Health Care, Abstinence, Weddings, etc.

Dear President Obama,

Since everyone in the country is talking about health care right now, I thought I’d chime in too. Well, actually, I’m not going to chime in on the whole health care bill. In particular, I’ve been reading about the feisty debate that’s sprung up around abstinence-only education and certain provisions that were proposed in the healthcare bill. From what I’ve read, several measures in the bill will fund abstinence-only education.

Now, I have to be honest, Mr. President, I don’t know if this is such a great idea.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand why people would suggest that abstinence is the answer. A number of health-related issues—teen pregnancy, the spread of STDs—certainly stem from the result of sexual activity, and if there is no sexual activity, there’s no chance of these problems. Some groups have therefore been popularizing the idea of “abstinence rings” in order to combat sex-related ills; these rings symbolize a purity pledge that the wearer takes, which states that they promise to remain a virgin until they are married.

This doesn’t seem like a very good idea for several reasons. First, it probably is setting up our young people for unhappy marriages. Let’s be honest; certain aspects of marital life take a bit of practice, so giving one’s teenage bride-to-be an abstinence ring seems a little like saying, “Here, the first night of our honeymoon is going to be really, really awkward.”

Of course, the bigger problem has to do with how humans (and especially young people) seem to work: First, we’re hardwired for reproduction, so we’re automatically going to be aware of the subject. (There was a reason Baywatch was popular. It wasn’t acting.)

And then there’s the psychological factor; prohibition is almost always the doorway to overindulgence. This is probably why our culture is permeated with sex—we want what we’re told we can’t have and we compensate. This is also why there will never be an Amish Britney Spears; clearly very few people care what Spears or Lady GaGa (what IS she saying in that Bad Romance song?) or Rhianna are actually saying, many of us (like it or not) are interested in their low-cut tops and the hip thrusting.

(Then again, I suppose my mention of an Amish superstar is a bad example. Yes, the Amish are quite chaste and Amish women do not generally wear revealing clothes, but an Amish superstar would necessarily depend on the use of electronic gear, microphones, and whatnot, so that kind of goes without saying. Perhaps one day there will be an Amish singer with a really, really loud voice and really catchy lyrics in Pennsylvania Dutch, but I doubt it.)

And then there is the problem of failure. For instance, let’s say you have one of those promise rings on as a teenager, and you break your pledge. What do you do the next day? You can’t take the ring off, obviously, or your cover is totally blown. So then you either have to fess up (have fun with that) or lie until you get hitched. (I suppose you could lose the ring in a freak accident.) In any case, then the ring becomes something much more negative; a harbinger of impending doom. (OK, I didn’t have to type that phrase there, but I really wanted to type “impending doom.” It’s a lot of fun to type. Try it!)

I digress. In short, rejecting our healthy, innermost urges seems arbitrary and counterproductive; instead, tempering them and shaping them seems a wiser course of action. Guilt is almost never a healthy educational tool. Unless you are a Catholic. Then it is the only educational tool. (I’m kidding, Mom!)

In addition to the abstinence-only approach, why not push sexual education too? This sounds like the best of all words. Abstinence-only education is a bit too much of a “one size fits all” approach; it doesn’t consider much nuance (i.e. a teenager who is well-adjusted, smart and ready for such activity at that age).

In this respect, it’s a little like proposing marriage by having a skywriter write, “Will you marry me?” in giant letters above the horizon. Sure, it’s romantic (if the skywriter can spell), but what about the innumerable other wholly-committed-but-hitherto-unmarried couples down below in sight of the same proposal? What does one to say to the poor sap stuck with a gushing girlfriend who is crying because she thinks he is finally proposing and then is crying the whole way home once he explains that he doesn’t have a ring (yet) and that’s it’s probably for someone else.

[The same goes for writing wedding proposals in chalk at the park. This too could make for awkward moments; what if two friendly, but single coworkers were on a walking lunch in the park, and after crossing a stone bridge see “Marry me?” in big letters. For a moment there would probably be awkward silence and then perhaps a polite refusal, or worse, a sudden acceptance.]

In any case, there are certainly other options at hand, so I’d like to see a proper sexual education provision added to the Health Care bill.

Take care,

Brett

Letter to President Obama #42 | Subject: Politics

Letter to President Obama #42 | Subject: Politics

Dear President Obama,

I guess you could say that I’m a political junkie. I’m pretty interested in politics—I read all sorts of articles—everything from Wall Street Journal and the slightly-crazy Washington Times to the New York Times and the sometimes-cartoonish Huffington Post. (I’m sorry, but I can’t take the name “Huffington” seriously. I always think of Harry Potter—you know, the “Hufflepuff” house— and in turn, the word Hufflepuff makes me think of little marshmallow people waddling about.)

Sometimes the word “Huffington” makes me think of the three little pigs story. You know, the one with the wolf that huffs and puffs? This story never made sense to me. So there are pigs…and they live in…houses. Now I never knew about the suspension of disbelief as a kid, but OK, I’ll roll with it. So each pig lives in a house, and each house is constructed of a different material. The first has a house of straw (ok?), the second has a house made of sticks (I guess his neighbors weren’t beavers), and the third had a house made of bricks. As the reader becomes aware, the structural integrity of these materials becomes quite important to the story, as the wolf huffs and puffs and blows the first two houses into oblivion and eats the inhabitants. (Yeah, what a great message to pass on to four-year-olds.)

In the end, only the third pig survives, because he lived in a brick house. As a child, I had one response—utter terror. Specifically, I wanted to know—did wolves like this actually exist? I quickly realized that I lived in a house that was made largely of wood. That is to say, sticks. I soon begged my father to get the .22 from the basement and to shoot any wolf-like creatures he saw. Unfortunately, my cousins were outside and one of them had one of those rat mullets so popular in the ‘80s. He was seriously grazed by a bullet. I still feel guilty about this.

Anyway, back to politics. So when I’m reading these political stories, there are often “comment” buttons at the bottom of each story where one can chime in and say whatever they want about, well, anything. These buttons should probably be renamed. If the buttons said “share your hasty generalization” or “we’d like to hear your conspiracy theory” then these buttons might be more accurate. Occasionally I’ll take the time to offer a reasoned opinion, but thanks to the anonymous nature of the web, when I do I usually called a bunch of names. (What exactly is a pinko, anyway?)

Now political ranting happens all the time across the political spectrum (the Bush years anyone?), but for some reason people on the right have been particularly vocal lately. They’ve got some pretty inaccurate ideas about you—that you’re not an American, that you hate white people, that there will be death squads for grandparents if the health plan passes.

Don’t get me wrong, everyone has a right to an insane opinion, but it’s just that all that stuff is clearly untrue. Such slander is harmful, because it interrupts the difficult process of compromise—if we keep flinging around insane accusations, then we won’t get any real work done. (Then again, maybe that’s the point.)

Anyway, I assumed that those ideas would seem laughable to any reasonable person, as they’ve been debunked by serious folks from across the spectrum. (When the National Review—the same publication started by William F. Buckley—debunks the birth certificate notion, then one thinks this sort of thing should be settled.)

But people still believe this sort of thing, so to try to make light of the situation, I started adding my own “facts” to these comment sections. I tried to make things as outlandish as possible—to fight misinformation with hyperbole.

There’s been a lot of bad mouthing going on about Canada, so I told everyone that not only were you not an American citizen, that you’re actually from Canada, and that you secretly planned to merge the governments of both countries into a new country, Americanadia. This would mean we’d all have to have Canada’s apparently-dreadful healthcare—in Canada, surgeons use hockey skates as scalpels and the end-of-life care there is particularly chilling—you’re provided with an iceberg and told to “fall asleep” as you float into the nebulous dark.

And I told them that any of us younger survivors would have it bad too—we’d all have to go to (hockey) camps where we’d be given “swine-flu” shots (mind-control!) and then subjected to vigorous “re-education” where we’d have to swear allegiance to the new nation and its flag, which would feature a Canada Goose pecking at a defenseless bald eagle chick.

The problem was, people started to believe me.

Let me know what you think,

Brett

P.S. This is letter #42 to the President. Brett is sending them all to the White House and has gotten two form letters in response. If he gets a real response, he'll let everyone know. If you like these, please tell your friends by sharing them. Please join my Facebook group here. Above all, thanks for reading!