Dear Santa

These are a few of  the things I'd like to see this year. I've been pretty good most of the time and kinda bad once in a while.

CEOs that run banks which receive federal bailout money need to go to prison. It wasn't complex derivatives that led to the worldwide financial collapse, it was greed. Lenders gave money to uneducated customers for short-term gains. They gave lines of credit to people that would have been turned down for video rental cards, "Sure, buy the bigger house, you have five years to figure out how you'll make the payments described in the fine print on page seventeen of our agreement. Besides, we're going to sell your mortgage tomorrow so it won't be our problem."

Give money to the auto industry? Maybe but only if the folks in charge resign. It isn't enough for them to agree to work for lowered wages. Capitalism, which they believe in, is about survival of the fittest. A three-legged crippled deer doesn't deserve protection from the wolves because its survival would weaken the whole herd. Clearly these people lack the ability to run these corporations without help.

Raise the standard of behavior expected of professional athletes. Shoot yourself in a club, choke a dog to death, or spout off about the flaws of your exes, and lose the privilege of making millions of dollars to chase a ball or puck around. Make it clear that if you are a less than stellar member of your community in college, you will not be eligible for future consideration at the professional level.

Let anyone marry anybody, once. You can marry a man, a woman, a man that used to be a woman, a woman that used to be a man or a man that wants to be a man but thinks he's a woman. Do what ever you want but it really means till death do us part. Get a divorce if you need, but realize that you will be ineligible to try again. No more practice marriages. Everyone deserves a chance to be as miserable as the straights.