High life | 17 December 2011

Let’s start with the bad news: in honour of China’s economic rise, a Chinese-looking woman was the first Christmas Grinch here in the States. The sourpuss teacher in upper New York ruined the Christmas spirit for a class full of seven- and eight-year-olds when she told them that there is no Santa Claus, and that the presents under their trees did not come from the North Pole and St Nick but were put there by their parents. Boo, you stupid woman, it’s outrageous that a teacher would strip children of their innocence and demystify something as precious as Christmas.

Then there’s always the Brooklyn Museum and its annual attack on Christian sensibilities in the name of free speech with its disgusting exhibition whose name I will not mention. The show features a video in which ants crawl over a bloody crucifix and Jesus. The author of this crap fortunately died of Aids 15 years ago, but the museum’s director, one Arnold Lehman, includes it in order to show how trendy he is.