King Kong Santas

All things careen toward the holidays, toward that point where we must quickly jump on and catch the ride. The neighborhoods are awash with blow-up Santa's slowly rising up and out of bulging chimneys and tipsy toyland merry-go-rounds circling slowly behind transparent plastic. On my way to work I pass deflated Grinches (the handiwork of bored teenagers) and enormous top-heavy King Kong Santas weaving to and fro in the cold morning air, dwarfing the tiny houses in dark midwest lawns.

Bigger is better, of course. Especially if it's plastic. Yesterday, driving to work in the dark, I was reminded of the The Buddhas of Bamyan, two monumental statues of standing Buddhas carved during the 6th century into the side of a cliff in the Bamyan valley of central Afghanistan.They were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001.

And now midwestern sons and daughters, raised in these tiny houses surrounded by the garish plastic monoliths of their religion, are in Iraq. Recruiters have been given unprecedented access to high school students through provisions of No Child Left Behind, and these rural poor kids, raised with "Support Our Troops" ribbons on their cars and "patriotism = support the war" mentality, think the military is a way to solve their life.


The Buddha said everything is impermanent. We can destroy, we can sacrifice our statues, our King Kong Santa's, our sons and daughters, but love will startle our worst intentions. Won't it?