I received several calls today about our “street sweeper” question in the paper. This is a daily vox pop where we ask people to comment briefly on a topical issue.

The controversial question was: “Should young children be led to believe in Santa?”

I had more complaints about that than anything else in the past 12 months, including the dead cat photo on page 3 (dumped in a recycling bin) a few weeks ago.

My previous provocative piece was at Kalgoorlie when we published a photo of an escaped surgical patient running naked (except for his theatre gown) down the main street with a catheter attached.

The callers today were concerned that young children might read the Santa question and have their innocence shattered.

Hello there! A lot of what we print in the paper is much more confronting.

Some items that come to mind include reports about child sex abuse, animals being abandoned, domestic violence, etc.

Anyhow, I explained to the callers that my youngest children are five years old and will probably believe in Santa until their are eight; that children below 12 rarely read anything in the paper except look at pictures and the kids’ page.

It’s funny what people can become agitated about.