fast away the old year passes

December 31, 2002


A few gentle snowflakes turned to freezing drizzle this morning and then warmed up to plain ordinary drizzle as the day wore on. Drizzly warmth on top of a foot of snow makes for some downright impenetrable fog. Not to mention difficult birding. Oh well.

Meanwhile on TV, the children being dispatched to the Persian Gulf to fight for America look to be about 14. I know they have to be 17 by law, but those faces look so young. Not innocent. Just young. And the faces of the South Koreans look so angry. Angrier than the North Koreans even. The President looks angry. Colin Powell looks angry. Rumsfeld on the other hand looks avuncular. I can imagine him dandling his favorite nephew on his knee, eyes twinkling. And nowhere is there anybody who can make a case for peace. How is it that at this season of supposed peace, love, joy, and hope that all the world's religions have failed utterly to give humankind an alternative? War we will always have with us. The constant creak and trundle of the army carts echoes across centuries upon centuries. The old ghosts counsel the new ghosts and the ghosts yet to come march on.

At midnight the old year becomes history and we start the same narrative all over again. When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn?

Today's Reading
Lafcadio Hearn's Japan edited by Donald Richie, A Patchwork Planet by Anne Tyler

This Year's Reading
2002 Book List

 


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Copyright © 2002, Janet I. Egan