My Letter to Santa
December 9th, 2009
Santa Claus
The North Pole
Canada
H0H 0H0
Dear Santa,
Hello old friend. Please do not take offence at my use of the word old. I use it to reference the fact that I have known you all my life, not that you are super old. How is Mrs. Claus? I was thinking of her the other day when Mom baked banana bread with chocolate chips. Let the elves know that I am working on a Christmas play called The Twelfth Elf. It will be ready for production next year.
Have you run into Dear Sister in the north yet? She is very excited about being on call on Christmas Eve.
On a scale from 1 to 10 I would rate my good performance somewhere between a 5 and a 6; generally good with a couple of serious slips, but with enough mischievousness to keep life fun. I know we need to do more and I will keep that at the front of my mind as we go into the Holiday season and the New Year.
If you wouldn’t mind I would appreciate the following for Christmas:
• A new car adapter for the ipod. Someone stole mine (technically it belongs to Kate) from Little Whitie (the car) last week. I did love and use my car adapter, but would understand if you think there is already too much plastic in the world. Can you buy a ipod car adapter that isn’t made in China?
• Clothing (in any variety, but with special attention to socks)(Value Village/Frenchie’s gift certificates would be perfect)(mismatched ones found in Gagetown would suffice).
• A new journal-sketchbook
• A Pony
• World Peace.
This will be the twelfth consecutive year that I have asked you for world peace for Christmas. As we close 2009 there are 82 ongoing conflicts in the world. The greatest military power of our time is at war on two fronts. In 2009 the United States spent 680 billion dollars on its military. That isn’t even like a real number. US spending makes up almost half of the world’s entire budget military wise. In the last twelve months Somalia has escalated its already brutal civil war. The number of people being executed in Mexico’s Drug War is rising sharply. 8,463 drug executions have taken place since 2006. Politicians in the Philippians are murdering their opposition. The Goma agreement failed to produce peace in The Congo this year. Darfur's UNAMID couldn’t even convince the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudanese government to sign a peace agreement. The Lord’s Resistance Army in northern Uganda employs thousands of children as soldiers. According to human rights watch as many as 70,000 boys serve in Burma's national army. There is no law in Chechnya. Torture in Chinese prisons has been described as epidemic (by Amnesty International, not just anyone).
“If through our wisdom we could secure elementary human
needs, there would be no need for weapons of war.”
Mahatma Ghandi
Just a few other things:
Tibet isn’t free. Land minds still injure and kill 26,000 civilians every year. Refugees: there are at least 35 million people (more people than the population of Canada) who are temporarily or permanently displaced from their homes; half of them are women and children. One-third of the world’s population lacks access to essential medicines so every year millions of people die of preventable diseases because they can’t afford the medicine they need to survive. In Botswana one-third of the adult population is infected with AIDS. 10.4 million children are orphans because their parents have died of the disease. There are 125 million children in the world who will turn 18 without ever stepping foot in a classroom. Another 150 million will drop out of school before the end of grade five. 25 percent of adults in the “developing” world are illiterate. Four fifths of the world's population live below what countries in North America and Europe consider the poverty line. 1.1 billion people don’t have access to clean drinking water.
We talk a lot about the connection between conflict and poverty; both internationally and here at home in terms of crime and domestic violence. So, maybe I am not asking for the right thing. End poverty and let’s make some peace. Because change has happened, progress has been made and peace can be achieved (or so Barack Obama and Ghandi lead me to believe). http://www.hrw.org/en/about/success-stories
I know it is simplistic and won’t fix everything, but let’s just all try to be nicer (and cooler), love a little more and be kind to our fellow human beings that we are forced to share our ever more destabilized planet with.
Please tell the elves and reindeer that I am thinking of them during this busy time and that I miss them.
Love,
Emily
PS- Clearly this isn’t an exhausted list of what is wrong with the world. I didn’t site, but clearly I don’t know us military spending at the top of my head so here are some sources.
http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spending#USMilitarySpending
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/kristin-bricker/2008/12/mexicos-drug-war-death-toll-8463-and-counting
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3075537.stm
http://www.resolveuganda.org/
www.warchild.org
www.nationalgeographic.com
http://www.worldrevolution.org
Santa Claus
The North Pole
Canada
H0H 0H0
Dear Santa,
Hello old friend. Please do not take offence at my use of the word old. I use it to reference the fact that I have known you all my life, not that you are super old. How is Mrs. Claus? I was thinking of her the other day when Mom baked banana bread with chocolate chips. Let the elves know that I am working on a Christmas play called The Twelfth Elf. It will be ready for production next year.
Have you run into Dear Sister in the north yet? She is very excited about being on call on Christmas Eve.
On a scale from 1 to 10 I would rate my good performance somewhere between a 5 and a 6; generally good with a couple of serious slips, but with enough mischievousness to keep life fun. I know we need to do more and I will keep that at the front of my mind as we go into the Holiday season and the New Year.
If you wouldn’t mind I would appreciate the following for Christmas:
• A new car adapter for the ipod. Someone stole mine (technically it belongs to Kate) from Little Whitie (the car) last week. I did love and use my car adapter, but would understand if you think there is already too much plastic in the world. Can you buy a ipod car adapter that isn’t made in China?
• Clothing (in any variety, but with special attention to socks)(Value Village/Frenchie’s gift certificates would be perfect)(mismatched ones found in Gagetown would suffice).
• A new journal-sketchbook
• A Pony
• World Peace.
This will be the twelfth consecutive year that I have asked you for world peace for Christmas. As we close 2009 there are 82 ongoing conflicts in the world. The greatest military power of our time is at war on two fronts. In 2009 the United States spent 680 billion dollars on its military. That isn’t even like a real number. US spending makes up almost half of the world’s entire budget military wise. In the last twelve months Somalia has escalated its already brutal civil war. The number of people being executed in Mexico’s Drug War is rising sharply. 8,463 drug executions have taken place since 2006. Politicians in the Philippians are murdering their opposition. The Goma agreement failed to produce peace in The Congo this year. Darfur's UNAMID couldn’t even convince the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudanese government to sign a peace agreement. The Lord’s Resistance Army in northern Uganda employs thousands of children as soldiers. According to human rights watch as many as 70,000 boys serve in Burma's national army. There is no law in Chechnya. Torture in Chinese prisons has been described as epidemic (by Amnesty International, not just anyone).
“If through our wisdom we could secure elementary human
needs, there would be no need for weapons of war.”
Mahatma Ghandi
Just a few other things:
Tibet isn’t free. Land minds still injure and kill 26,000 civilians every year. Refugees: there are at least 35 million people (more people than the population of Canada) who are temporarily or permanently displaced from their homes; half of them are women and children. One-third of the world’s population lacks access to essential medicines so every year millions of people die of preventable diseases because they can’t afford the medicine they need to survive. In Botswana one-third of the adult population is infected with AIDS. 10.4 million children are orphans because their parents have died of the disease. There are 125 million children in the world who will turn 18 without ever stepping foot in a classroom. Another 150 million will drop out of school before the end of grade five. 25 percent of adults in the “developing” world are illiterate. Four fifths of the world's population live below what countries in North America and Europe consider the poverty line. 1.1 billion people don’t have access to clean drinking water.
We talk a lot about the connection between conflict and poverty; both internationally and here at home in terms of crime and domestic violence. So, maybe I am not asking for the right thing. End poverty and let’s make some peace. Because change has happened, progress has been made and peace can be achieved (or so Barack Obama and Ghandi lead me to believe). http://www.hrw.org/en/about/success-stories
I know it is simplistic and won’t fix everything, but let’s just all try to be nicer (and cooler), love a little more and be kind to our fellow human beings that we are forced to share our ever more destabilized planet with.
Please tell the elves and reindeer that I am thinking of them during this busy time and that I miss them.
Love,
Emily
PS- Clearly this isn’t an exhausted list of what is wrong with the world. I didn’t site, but clearly I don’t know us military spending at the top of my head so here are some sources.
http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spending#USMilitarySpending
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/kristin-bricker/2008/12/mexicos-drug-war-death-toll-8463-and-counting
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3075537.stm
http://www.resolveuganda.org/
www.warchild.org
www.nationalgeographic.com
http://www.worldrevolution.org