An MSNBC writer has a sad, angry take about NORAD’s annual Santa tracker

American Thinker.com ^ | December 26, 2021 | Andrea Widburg

[Kaslin]

I will be blunt: There’s very little newsworthy happening around the holidays but media outlets still have pages, either on paper or in the cyber world, that need to be filled. This is the time when you get a lot of cozy human interest stories and cute cat and dog photos. But still, there’s yawning empty space and looming deadlines. That’s when writers dig deep into themselves and write those essays that come most easily to them: They go public with their pet peeves. And that, undoubtedly, is why an MSNBC writer decided that the best thing to write for Christmas Eve was a post complaining that NORAD’s Santa tracker dangerously militarizes good old Santa Claus.

You know me and my need for context so, for those readers unfamiliar with NORAD’s Santa tracker, here’s the down-and-dirty (yet sweetly wholesome) back story: In 1955, a Colorado Springs newspaper misprinted an advertisement that encouraged children to call a phone number so that they could talk to Santa. Instead of going to the Sears Santa, the number went to Col. Harry Shoup’s top-secret hotline at NORAD’s predecessor, the Continental Air Defense Command.

As soon as Shoup realized he wasn’t being pranked but was, instead, getting calls from children who were certain Santa was on the phone, the buttoned-up military officer instantly went into Santa mode for the children on the phone. He even assigned a couple of airmen to handle the many calls that came in.

Someone in the department thought it would be a good joke to draw a little Santa in his sleigh on the glass board tracking airplanes over the U.S. and Canada. Shoup called the local radio station and announced that the Combat Alert Center had located an unidentified flying object that looked like a sleigh.

[SmokingJoe]

There is no sane MSNBC writer.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Nor is there one who possesses a soul.

[SES1066]

Mr Brown is just another advocate of the LEFT. They say that they don't hate our country but they certainly hate a lot of its traditions, heroes and, apparently, about half their neighbors (give or take). Since it appears that this feeling is returned, MSNBC & its political cohort, CNN, remain on our cable channels as subsidized outlets of their equally political & big-corp masters.

Mr Brown is obviously related to Dr Seuss' greatest villain, The Grinch! Unfortunately, his heart is very unlikely to grow as these people of the LEFT, aka Karens&Kens, enjoy their prisons of misery. Probably because they blame the rest of us for making them miserable with such Christmas traditions like this.

[maddog55]

Hayes Brown... Typical leftwing gender questioning half man useless dipshxt.

[MCEscherHammer]

I smells me some CIA infecting this Leftist clown...?

[JPG]

Probably still upset the tooth fairy never left him anything under the pillow.

[ealgeone]

If it wasn’t for conservatives viewing pmsnbc....who would??

[Kaslin]

That would not surprise me.

[Kaslin]

MSNBC: What is that?

[Rastus]

She was probably afraid of getting bitten.

[SMARTY]

“...a sad, angry take about NORAD’s annual Santa tracker....”

Hmmm....is that in any way comparable to the Kathy Gifford stunt?

Just asking.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

I remember Dec 24, 1962. The US had just that October gone through the Cuban Missile Crisis, and a possibility of nuclear war and we were still on edge.

Then, on Dec 24, there was a break in TV programing to report that NORAD had spotted something flying over the DEW line in Canada heading South.
All the stresses of October came back! Were we going to be immolated in a nuclear blast? Would we even see the future?

Then they showed a chintzy illustration of Santa and his sleigh with cheap cotton ball clouds floating by.
We were relieved but at the same time upset for the scare NORAD had just caused.

I mentioned this to my brother last night and he remembered that THAT incident caused a lot of people to have anxiety attacks on Dec 24,1962.

We relive that night every time they have a break about something flying over the DEW line.

[Inspectorette]

Kathy Griffin.

[SMARTY]

The same

[Trillian]

He’s mad that biden got punked.

[Sans-Culotte]

I remember Dec 24, 1962. The US had just that October gone through the Cuban Missile Crisis, and a possibility of nuclear war and we were still on edge. Then, on Dec 24, there was a break in TV programing to report that NORAD had spotted something flying over the DEW line in Canada heading South. All the stresses of October came back! Were we going to be immolated in a nuclear blast? Would we even see the future?

That is interesting. I was only about six years old then and while I remember the tensions about the possible war with the Russians (my dad was in the Army then), I did not experience the terror you did. Talk about bad timing!

In my young life at that time, I had no concept of the history that had gone on before. When the show Combat! debuted in 1962, I di not understand why the US soldiers were fighting Germans instead of Russians.

[Sans-Culotte]

One thing I do not understand about the NORAD story. Why was Biden taking calls, and was the dad from Oregon part of NORAD? For years I have seen local news stations mention the NORAD tracking of Santa but how did the call happen?