As a devout atheist, I have to say that Santa Claus is not a valid secular substitute for God. If anyone can tell me how lying to their children for the first eight or so years of their lives teaches them anything about love, compassion or "being good," please do so. When a house is filled with love and compassion no symbols are needed.

My kid will be the one on the playground that tells your little one that there is no Santa Claus, no Easter Bunny, no Tooth Fairy and where babies really come from. You better watch out!

-- Dave Magaro
Pittsburgh

All parents have to face the curious (or disenchanted) child's Santa question sooner or later, and we all hope that we have a quick and plausible retort when that time comes. When my son was in kindergarten, we were shopping for Toys for Tots. I thought it was such a good idea to include him so he would learn to think of others. He asked, "Why doesn't Santa bring them anything?" I mumbled something about how some move and he doesn't know where to find them.

I better prepared for his Santa question several years later when he asked it in front of his younger sister. "Do you believe really believe in Santa, Mom? Do you really think some guy goes around giving away free stuff like that?" "Yes, I do," I said with gusto for my daughter's ears -- "and we all take a turn being him some day," I whispered in his ear.

-- Georgine Cooper

Elizabeth Bobrick fails to explain why, exactly, it is bad for a child to believe that what one gets in life is connected, however remotely, to one's choice of behavior. I don't know where she got her notions about religion, but if you believe that any major religion, whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim or Hindu, teaches that "no one is out there watching you," you need to do a little more studying of religion and a little less about myth. One wonders how life in Littleton, Colorado might have been different if Klebold and Harris had believed that someone was out there watching them. What has become apparent this week with the release of their video tapes is that the thing that animated them most was their fervent belief that no one out there was watching them.

-- Ken Miller

Sharps & Flats: "EP + 2"
BY CARLENE BAUER
(12/15/99)

Carlene Bauer doesn't like Mogwai -- OK, fine. I'm at a loss to understand why this should mean that those who do -- and who happened, at this show, to be primarily men -- are somehow false or insincere in their enthusiasm. If she's complaining about the sexism of the indie-rock critical establishment, her point might be stronger if two of the four indie fave artists she mentions weren't female (Cat Power and Sleater-Kinney).

Are Mogwai critical faves because they're men? Are Cat Power or Sleater-Kinney because they're not? Granted that Sleater-Kinney's press coverage has overplayed their gender -- but generally it's in order to praise the band members' strong but non-doctrinaire feminist stance.

If Bauer wants to write an essay about excessively male crowds at indie rock shows and the discomfort she and other women feel because of that fact, fine -- but don't blame a band for its audience.

-- Jeffrey Norman

Carlene Bauer is dead wrong about Mogwai. If she were to listen carefully to the sequence of albums, she might be less inclined to make the simplistic pronouncement that the band is making the same song over and over again. "Young Team" (1997) is full of distortion and violence, and operates on a clearly defined loud/quiet formula. It was a decent album. Now listen to "EP + 2." Something lovely has happened. Suddenly the songs are elegiac, softer, prettier, relying less on the punctuation of harsh guitar outbursts and more on beauty qua beauty.

Meanwhile, Bauer is wrong in claiming only indie boys like Mogwai; in fact, I was introduced to the band by a woman. Bauer should ignore the hype and listen closer.

-- Erik Kraft

It's bad enough that Carlene Bauer dismisses Mogwai's music as wank -- their performance on the closing night of this year's Glastonbury Festival was brilliant -- but it would seem to me to be grossly unfair to call them soccer thugs based on the fact that they are male, from Glasgow, and play music that she doesn't like.

-- Simon Hall

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