Published October 24, 2004 in the Hibbing Daily Tribune
The Danish people have struggled to get a seat at the head table of nations for years, probably since their royal family killed itself with poison-tipped swords. But the Danes are back – and they’re taking over the North Pole. That’s right, Santa: Ho-Ho-Copenhagen.
In a Reuters news report posted online at Yahoo.com earlier this month, Denmark aims to claim the North Pole to drill for vast oil reserves beneath the ice. Scientists there assert that the minerals under the polar ice cap are a natural extension of the island of Greenland, a Danish territory. Santa’s Workshop is apparently perched atop a mess of bubbling crude (Kringle’s Tea).
Now Russia, Canada and Norway will conduct competing research to see if THEIR lands include the natural formation beneath the Pole, according to Reuters. The article also states that the United States may also make a claim. I have no idea on what grounds the U.S. might claim the North Pole, though my mind drifts to the following scenario:
PRESIDENT BUSH: We’ve got to get some of that North Pole oil action. How about we can say the penguins represent an emerging terror threat. That worked last time.
ADVISOR: Actually, sir, penguins live in Antarctica … wrong pole.
BUSH: Listen. Penguins are a threat. Penguins live in the cold. The North Pole is cold. Either you’re with me or you’re with the penguins.
ADVISOR: (exasperated sigh) OK. I’ll call Rummy.
BUSH: Hey and make those pictures look real this time. Call up Hollywood and fix us up with them robot penguins from Batman.
Gasp! Such partisanship. And in an election year! Here’s an equal time parody featuring a hypothetical President John Kerry:
KERRY: I’ve always believed that the United States can lay claim to the gargantuan natural resource reserves beneath the North Pole because, when you consider the science of plate tectonics, land masses are not stationary but in fact quite mobile and thus no longer should we, as residents of this great American nation-state, rest on our laurels with the notion that land is unchanging, but instead we should rejoice in the knowledge that land can move. I’ve seen it move. I’ve always said that.
ADVISOR: (Snaps awake, spraying drool on Kerry).
But seriously, the North Pole used to be this happy, independent place, devoid of all life-sustaining elements, where Santa and his elves made nice toys for good boys and girls. Now a Danish energy conglomerate will dispense inflated stock options to good children and sell coal to bad children at fixed prices.
CHILD: But, Father Christmas, I asked for a bike!
SANTA: Talk to Mr. Anderssen. He says you signed for a metric ton of bituminous.
CHILD: (cries)
SANTA: Coal train only runs one way, kid. Santa’s got a lot of stops.
OK, I’m talking about coal now, which is different from oil. You Google coal and oil and see which one is funnier. I made the right call.
You have to admit that, especially with oil prices being so high and so many gas-guzzling cars running around, more oil would be nice. It’s good that, according to the Reuters report on the Danish claim, oil drilling at the North Pole has been made possible by the surprisingly fast melting of the polar ice cap.
I wonder how that happened? Oh, but there I go again. Meantime, kids, enjoy your last year of toys not covered with a thin film of crude oil.
Aaron J. Brown is a columnist for the Hibbing Daily Tribune.