Swimming with dolphins

They call him Flipper, Flipper
Faster than lightning
No one you see is smarter than he
And we know Flipper lives in a world full of wonder
Lying there under
Under the sea
--William Dunham & Henry Vars, theme song from “Flipper”

An enormous Christmas tree has gone up directly outside the New York Stock Exchange. I first saw it Saturday morning as I left my apartment building for a walk with Ilsa. Standing in the center of Broad Street, workers swarming about it, the tree looked like King Kong being fitted for a suit. It's that imposing.

We watched, chilled by a brisk early morning breeze, as two men in cherry pickers strung lights along the upper branches while others sawed away at the low branches to clear walking room (for security reasons that block of Broad Street is closed to all but pedestrian traffic). Christmas orbs as big as soccer balls, some bearing the “NYSE” logo, were meticulously hung. A gift box the size of a piano crate and adorned with a huge red bow was placed over the tree's stand.

Wall Street does everything in a big way, and ‘tis the season of the bull market’s return and mammoth Christmas bonuses, so why not a gigantic Christmas tree?

I don’t know why, but I’m not particularly keen on Christmas this year. It’s not that things are bad. My first year running my own business hasn’t gone as well as I would have liked, but it hasn’t been a complete disaster either. I see potential. In fact, I’m hopeful the company will break into the black in ’06.

I don’t really know why I’m out of sorts about Christmas. If I had my druthers, come December 25th, I think I’d rather be doing something unusual rather than traditional. I could see myself in Florida, perhaps at one of those marinas where you can swim with dolphins. My Christmas with Flipper.

Or maybe I’d head north to Canada for a word with Paul Hellyer, who said recently,“UFOs are as real as the airplanes that fly over your head.”

For those not counting, we now have, in addition to this former Canadian defense minister, two former US presidents (Carter and Reagan), three former astronauts (Gordon Cooper, Edgar Mitchell, and Storey Musgrave), a former British defense minister (Lord Hill-Knorton), a former CIA director (Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter), and a world-famous theoretical physicist (Michio Kaku), all reporting their own UFO sightings and/or stating publicly their belief that UFOs represent a phenomenon worthy of serious scientific scrutiny.

In 1999, an extraordinary report, prepared by high-ranking French government officials, scientists and defense personnel and issued to President Jacques Chirac, concluded that UFOs are real and the extraterrestrial hypothesis is the most logical explanation for their existence.

Dr. Richard Haines, a recently retired senior research scientist for NASA, has compiled a database of over 3,400 aircraft encounters with UFOs dating to the dawn of human aviation.

And yet one finds the ridicule factor surrounding UFOs is so entrenched, no mainstream media source—indeed, not even the blogosphere—will tackle this subject seriously. The possibility of extraterrestrial visitation just isn’t as sexy as the Jessica Simpson-Nick Lachey split, Washington scandals, corporate malfeasance, or Howard Stern’s $500,000,000 contract with Sirius Satellite radio.

Frankly, this year, I’ll be glad to see the holidays end and that King Kong–sized tree taken down. It’s kind of blocking my view.