Let's skip California, Santa

by David Grand
December 31, 2003

Wouldn't be surprised if his reindeers didn't urge him to, what with the earthquake that rumbled along its coast two days before Christmas, making it nearly impossible for them to spot the rooftops on the tens of thousands of homes that had lost power; and coupled with the deadly mudslides that slid down into a canyon of the San Bernardino mountains on Christmas Day engulfing a church camp full of children.

But apparently Santa didn't pay 'em any mind as he told them to begin their decent, admonishing them that he wasn't about to disappoint the kids after those disasters that'd rocked the Golden State- the former being an act of nature and the latter the direct result of the fall wildfires in those mountains that set the stage for the horrendous mudslides by having burned off the vegetation that normally would help shore up the mountain terrain.

By no means, however, did California monopolize the news here and elsewhere in the world during Christmas week. For example:

The ancient Iranian city of Bam getting bammed by an earthquake that made the one in California seem like a minor ripple, killing more than 20,000 people and destroying 70 percent of the buildings, including a fortress that had stood for over 2,000 year. Only the quake that struck that country in 1990 had a higher death toll of 50,000. Crossed as Iran is by several major faults in the earth's structure, they can only pray that the ones to come won't be as deadly. Part of the "axis of evil"as they may be, they're still deserve all the help the world community can provide.

An initial effort to contact Europe's first Mars lander named Beagle failing on Christmas day. The 143-pound lander, the size of a car tire, is supposed to unfold its solar panels and send a signal back to the mission control center in Germany. Personally, I believe it had either been shot down by ray guns or smashed to smithereens by the Martians, who've growing tired of earthlings trying to invade their privacy. I'm surprised that by now they haven't come up with a missile system to serve as a protective shield from incoming spacecraft's, a la the one we're developing in our "Star Wars" program. I'm sure they'd do a better job of it than we have.

"Holy cow," or worse, is what I'm sure those who make their living in the beef industry must've have exclaimed in hearing early in the week of that Holstein in Washington state coming down with the mad cow disease, and dreading the possibility of their being faced with the same costly ordeal that Europe went through in 2000, having to destroy hundreds of thousands of animals. And as we quarantined their meat during that period, so too are they (along with Japan) now quarantining ours. Let's hope it's quickly contained. Otherwise, MacDonalds' golden arches would come tumbling down.

Let's see. What did I leave out? Oh yeah, the flu epidemic is still running rampant causing the death of 43 children; six of our soldiers were killed in Iraq in separate incidents on Christmas and the following day (hardly front-page news); and the top banana in Homeland Security Tom Ridge was yelling "the wolf is at the door" in announcing that the anti- terrorism status was being raised to orange or high level. But he's sung that song so many times since 9/11 (4 times to be exact), I know all the ominous words and phrases by heart. And it always ends on the same contradictory note: despite the threat of an imminent attack on this country, at anytime and anywhere, "don't be alarmed" and "go on with your normal lives." That's like the captain of the sinking Titanic telling passengers to enjoy their last meal.

Speaking for myself, I put more stock in Nostradamus' predictions made 500 years ago of future events than the Bush administration's, foretelling as he did both the Gulf War and 9/11.