Tis the time of year when everybody is busy. No time for blogs, only traffic clogs, snowy slogs and occasional fireplace logs. So I will just go ahead and wish everyone a Happy Holi - Oh, what the heck. I'll go out on a limb: Merry Christmas!! There, I said it. And I will leave you with a philosophical drumstick to gnaw on over the holidays. When Judy and I built this place, we used a variation on a method called cordwood masonry, a combination of logs and mortar where the logs are placed so that when you look at the wall you see the end of the log. Some of the logs were perfectly round with an even grain and uniform color. They were beautiful. But the ones that caught our attention were the ones that were misshapened, the grain warped and discolored. These became faces, bird's heads or anything the imagination could think up. We discovered that these logs were diseased or suffered from some other stress. From that followed the realization that people are the same. It is our afflictions that make us interesting. Happy Holidays.

The other day, my wife and I were thinking of a political cartoon. Unfortunately neither of us is talented enough in the visual arts to render it properly, but I will try to describe it. The image of Uncle Sam is lying face up in the dust of a Texas town. His hands are gnarled and his face is twisted in a death grimace. Three buzzards ready to feast surround the corpse. These are labled "A.I.G.," "Citi-Corp" and "Bear-Stearns." Three more circle overhead, "GM," "Ford" and "Chrysler." To the side is the image of George W. Bush in cowboy garb with a large, a very large, cowboy hat. He is blowing the smoke from the barrel of his six-shooter. No caption. No words.

OK-here it is. It's like we are passengers on a boat sailing down a river and for some time now over 80% of the passengers have realized that we are headed for a waterfall. The people rowing the boat know about the waterfall; the captain knows about the waterfall, yet, against the protest of the passengers, the boat is being piloted toward the waterfall. So the people elected a new captain, one who promised to turn the boat. The people are happy, except that the new captain has paused as he is about to accept the tiller. He is choosing many of the same rowers who have rowed the boat toward the falls supposedly because they know how to row.
We can hear the roar of the water. We can see the mists rise above the cataract. Let us take our place at the oarlocks, put our oars in the water and give way together. Speak. Write. Shout. Demand the boat be turned. Let us dip our blades deep and pull hard. Let us put our backs into it.