Robot Santa would not approve of sweatshop X'mas ornaments

I saw one of the Futurama Christmas episodes the other night, and therein is a scene where Robot Santa, upon observing a behavior he believes to be naughty*, says, "Good God! That is so naughty, I've got to put that on my list right now!" At which point he pauses to write the offense down in his book, while everyone uses the opportunity to escape from hyper-righteous Clausian justice.

Well, I'm a lot easier than Robot Santa, but in posting the following I'm pretty much pausing to write it down in my list, because it is so very, very naughty--

Christmas ornaments made in China sweatshop: report

By Karey Wutkowski

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Christmas tree ornaments sold at Wal-Mart Stores Inc and other major retailers were made in a Chinese sweatshop employing workers as young as 12 and others who work more than 100 hours a week, a Democratic senator said on Wednesday.

"There is virtually no enforcement anywhere on these issues," Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota said at a news conference to release a study about how Chinese sweatshops provide cheap goods for the U.S. market. "Our country needs to insist that our trading partners enforce their own labor laws and respect international labor standards...." (read more)

I'm quite sure this is nothing new; someone just got caught this time. Nevertheless, it is disconcerting, being antithetical to the essential spirit of Christmas. But maybe I'm just being overly idealistic, eh? Because this sort of thing does go hand in hand with the rampant commercialism of Christmas....

For my part, this simply strengthens my resolve to shop locally, buying products either made by locals, or at least supporting the businesses of locals. Creature of conscience that I am, I find the idea of a having a "Merry Christmas" riding around on the backs of the impoverished deeply distasteful. That's like a real old fashioned Christmas - as in medieval - where the starving peasant child got a moldy orange and a couple of rancid walnuts in his sock, while the King dined on roast venison and Wassail.

Next year is the year I begin to make all my Christmas ornaments. It will be creative and fun - all ribbons and shiny paper (if I can find any ribbon and shiny paper not made in China), all popcorn and cranberry garlands.

Now that's an old-fashioned Christmas I can get behind in good conscience.
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*"Robot Santa," in Futurama, is a robotic Kris Kringle who was created with the best of intentions in mind. However, the "naughtiness parameter" in his logic chip was set too high in the beginning, and thereafter - with a few notable exceptions - he has found almost everyone naughty. Because of this, being caught outside your house by Santa on Christmas Eve is very dangerous, and potentially lethal. Robot Santa made a list, and he checked it twice; in fact, he makes thousands of megachecks per second, and his head is reinforced with paradox-absorbing crumple zones.