{"id":14432,"date":"2011-04-15T10:50:21","date_gmt":"2011-04-15T17:50:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=14432"},"modified":"2011-04-15T11:26:36","modified_gmt":"2011-04-15T18:26:36","slug":"the-santa-clause-nation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/14432\/the-santa-clause-nation\/","title":{"rendered":"The Santa Claus Nation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I love Christmas&#8230;just so you know. And no, I&#8217;m not on drugs, this being just past the start of Spring. But it occurred to me today that we are becoming a Santa Claus nation. Let me explain.<\/p>\n<p>It all started when I read that the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/42603824\/ns\/us_news-weird_news\/\">U.S. Post Office had just issued a stamp that depicts the Statue of Liberty.<\/a> The story indicated that the <em>picture<\/em> of the Statue of Liberty was not actually the real one, but rather a photo of the Statue of LIberty in Las Vegas! Of course, when I read the article, I assumed that this mistake would make the stamp valuable, and that the real Statue would quickly replace the fake one. But&#8230;.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The United States Postal Service admitted the mistake but said it planned to stick with its Lady Liberty &#8220;Forever&#8221; stamp.\u00a0 &#8220;We still love the stamp design and would have selected this photograph anyway,&#8221; Roy Betts, a post office spokesman, told the Times.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\u00a0<br \/>\n<strong>Really?<\/strong>  While I happen to love the movie &#8220;Miracle on 34th Street&#8221;, and am delighted each time I watch it, I&#8217;m no longer 6 years old, and (spoiler alert) understand the difference between Christmas and Santa Claus.  Can&#8217;t wait for December?  Want a reminder?<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"700\" height=\"394\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/uFpX0arnPqc?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The difference between Christmas and Santa Claus just doesn&#8217;t seem to have been clarified to our government, the Post Office for example, does it?  What we&#8217;re now going to get is a depicture of a depicture.  A replica of the real thing.  They&#8217;re giving us Santa Claus.  I want Christmas.  <\/p>\n<p>This is really a post about government in general, of course, NAR specifically, and an awful lot of the world we&#8217;ve colorized in attempt to feed the masses chaff instead of grain.  I&#8217;m a man who was once a boy, working in a profession run by boys who never act like men, in a country where our government now openly promotes imitation over the real deal.  If you&#8217;re on the street today showing homes, and if you come upon an old woman with wrinkles, look away.  Somewhere there&#8217;s a Photoshopped Gravatar <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/14432\/the-santa-clause-nation\/#more-14432\" class=\"more-link\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I love Christmas&#8230;just so you know. And no, I&#8217;m not on drugs, this being just past the start of Spring. But it occurred to me today that we are becoming a Santa Claus nation. Let me explain. It all started when I read that the U.S. Post Office had just issued a stamp that depicts [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,212,2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-14432","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-casual-friday","7":"category-flourishing","8":"category-general","10":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":315,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/315\/my-911-prayer\/","url_meta":{"origin":14432,"position":0},"title":"My 9\/11 prayer . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 10, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Cathy and I watched The Path to 9\/11 on television tonight. I had forgotten that we were in Metro New York for the Turn of the Millennium. My father lives in Connecticut, and we went there that year for New Year's Day. The photo you see is my son crawling\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1912,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1912\/my-911-prayer-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":14432,"position":1},"title":"My 9\/11 prayer . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 11, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"This is me, this time last year:Cathy and I watched The Path to 9\/11 on television tonight. I had forgotten that we were in Metro New York for the Turn of the Millennium. My father lives in Connecticut, and we went there that year for New Year's Day. The photo\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Egoism in Action&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Egoism in Action","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/egoism-in-action\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4342,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/4342\/my-911-prayer-3\/","url_meta":{"origin":14432,"position":2},"title":"My 9\/11 prayer . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 11, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"[This is me, from 09\/10\/2006. --GSS] \u00a0Cathy and I watched The Path to 9\/11 on television tonight. I had forgotten that we were in Metro New York for the Turn of the Millennium. My father lives in Connecticut, and we went there that year for New Year's Day. The photo\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Egoism in Action&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Egoism in Action","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/egoism-in-action\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16961,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/16961\/my-9-11-prayer\/","url_meta":{"origin":14432,"position":3},"title":"My 9\/11 prayer&#8230;","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 11, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"[This is me \u2013 Greg \u2013 fourteen years ago, when this blog was still a mewling baby. It astounds me to think that the children who were pre-conceptual on 9\/11 \u2013 aged 0 to 5 \u2013 are now the jihadis attempting to destroy Western Civilization from within. We need to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Egoism in Action&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Egoism in Action","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/egoism-in-action\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":17639,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/17639\/overnight-news-is-curbside-recycling-santa-claus-for-adult-babies\/","url_meta":{"origin":14432,"position":4},"title":"Overnight News: Is curbside recycling Santa Claus for adult\u00a0babies?","author":"Greg Swann","date":"December 26, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"It's Boxing Day, which was not invented by Amazon, all the empty boxes notwithstanding. We are obliged by the City of Peoria to separate our trash into one of two 80-gallon wheeled bins \u2013 garbage and recycleables. We generate one 13-gallon bag of actual garbage a week, but thanks to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Group Therapy&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Group Therapy","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/group-therapy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ya think it's easy?","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/BHBNewTopImage-300x225.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7888,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/7888\/americans-today-are-taxed-at-levels-most-of-our-forebears-would-have-considered-unthinkable-by-our-own-nations-historical-standards-we-are-outrageously-insanely-overtaxed-and-yet-we-shrug-our\/","url_meta":{"origin":14432,"position":5},"title":"&#8220;Americans today are taxed at levels most of our forebears would have considered unthinkable. By our own nation&#8217;s historical standards, we are outrageously, insanely overtaxed. And yet we shrug our shoulders and say, well, at least we&#8217;re not France&#8230;&#8221;","author":"Greg Swann","date":"April 15, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The American Spectator:How did it become \"fair\" for an American family to give to government a third of its income? How did it become \"fair\" for an American family to give to government half of its income? When Parliament passed the Stamp Act in 1765, Americans had never before experienced\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Big Mother&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Big Mother","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/big-mother\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/54"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14432"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14448,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14432\/revisions\/14448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}