Starry-eyed children writing letters to the jolly man at the North Pole this holiday season likely won't get a response from Santa Claus or his helpers.
The U.S. Postal Service is dropping a popular national program begun in 1954 in the small Alaska town of North Pole, where volunteers open and respond to thousands of letters addressed to Santa each year. Replies come with North Pole postmarks.
Last year, a postal worker in Maryland recognized an Operation Santa volunteer there as a registered sex offender. The postal worker interceded before the person could answer a child's letter, but the Postal Service viewed the episode as a big enough scare to tighten rules in such programs nationwide.
OK, so the idea of a sex offender writing letters to kids is creepy. But, is cancellation of a national program necessary for what was essentially a local screw-up in Maryland? I don't like sex offenders either, but they have become a sort of kids' version of climate change for true believers; anytime a sex offender rears his head, we turn everything upside down to alleviate a threat that may not be there. Lame.
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