A new star in the firmament

Igor Panarin has a dream. Or rather, a prediction. He predicts a break-up of the United States, a repetition of what happened to his own country.

Igor, you see, is a professor in an academy that trains Russia's future diplomats. But his résumé also includes membership, during his halcyon USSR days, in the KGB. While most serious Russian foreign policy experts dismiss Panarin's ideas as absurd, Kremlin-controlled state television has been avidly discussing his predictions twice a day, according to the Wall Street Journal. The Russian government is showing strong interest in Panarin's thoughts.

In summary, here lies our American future: A civil war next fall, triggered by mass immigration, economic problems, and "moral degradation." The dollar collapses. In late June or early July, 2010, the country breaks up into six pieces, just as did the USSR twenty years earlier. Where will you live?

1. The California Republic. Includes the seven western states. Annexed by or a protectorate of China. "Niihau, dudes!"

2. Atlantic America. May join the European Union.

3. The Texas Republic. Includes Texas and New Mexico, and most of the old South. Annexed by or a protectorate of Mexico.

4. Central North-American Republic. From the Rockies to the Ohio. Will either be annexed by Canada or become a Canadian protectorate.

5. Hawaii. Will be annexed by either Japan or China.

6. Alaska. Tough lucksies, Gov. Palin. Alaska rejoins Russia. Mr. Panarin has a satellite photo of the Bering Strait in his office. "It's not there for no reason," he grins.

Very interesting. Although I wonder how much Igor Panarin knows about domestic fault lines in the United States. Why, for example, would Georgia and Alabama join the Texas Republic and eat fajitas and quesidillas, while North and South Carolina would join New York and New England in an Atlantic America? Would the good citizens of the Palmetto State really submit to bureaucratic regulations issused out of Brussels?

But in the off chance that Igor is on to something, I think it behooves us here in Seattle to tweak his predictions in the most advantageous manner. Canada has spent decades on the verge of disintegration. If Québec ever breaks off, many question whether British Columbia wouldn't also seek some form of independence, something that would distance it from Ottawa's stifling control.

The good people of Seattle and Portland have more in common with Vancouver than they do with Cleveland or Miami. Vancouver residents have more in common with us than they do with Montréal or Toronto. Washington, Oregon and British Columbia should jump at the opportunity presented by any Panarinian chaos to unite into their own union. Maybe we should also grab some of the choicer parts of northern California while we're at it, but always remembering the caution that Los Angeles begins at San Jose.

We could form our own Swiss-style confederation and republic, or even retain ties to the Crown if that would satisfy sentimental urges of former Canadians.

Think of the advantages. An open border to Seattle's north. No more Homeland Security agents roaming around our highways, checking for illegal immigrants -- terrorists, probably -- from Yellowknife, Prince Rupert and Saskatoon, and searching our cars for weed in the process. Tidy customs posts in the Siskiyous, ensuring that Californian motorists are visiting only as tourists and don't plan to immigrate. (We would still grant residency to highly educated Californians who are long-time members of the Sierra Club, and who pass psychological tests designed to ferret out Californians with stereotypically loud mouths, annoying whines, and aggressive tendencies.)

Every cloud has its silver lining, even dissolution of America as we know it. Hail to thee, Evergreenia! Live long and prosper!

Map © Wall Street Journal (12-29-08)

------------------

After publishing the above post, I discovered on Google a number of citations to the "Evergreenia Republic," a camp in Kyrgyzstan for teenagers from the former USSR nations, designed to teach them how democracy works. Obviously, my proposed Evergreenia Republic in the Pacific Northwest has no relationship whatsoever to this worthy project.

More snow in Seattle

In Which a Lad of Very Little Brain Watches the Snow Fall and Wonders How He Will Ever Get to California for Christmas

"Hallo, Eeyore," said Christopher Robin, as he opened the door and came out. "How are you?"
"It's snowing still," said Eeyore gloomily.
"So it is."
"And freezing." >
"Is it?"
"Yes," said Eeyore. "However," he said, brightening up a little, "we haven't had an earthquake lately."

A Good Hum

(such as is hummed hopefully)

The more it snows

(Tiddely pom),

The more it goes

(Tiddely pom),

The more it goes

(Tiddely pom),

On snowing.

And nobody knows

(Tiddely pom),

How cold my toes

(Tiddely pom),

How cold my toes

(Tiddely pom),

Are growing.

© 1928 E. P. Dutton & Co.

A Winter's Tale

On the street where I live ...

Snow's so infrequent in Seattle that it's fun and exciting when it arrives. As it did this morning, beginning at 5:30 a.m. The flakes started falling with two gigantic explosions of thunder and lightning that made my hair stand on end. And that caused my cats to leap from the bed and duck into wherever they've located their bomb shelter. It's been snowing ever since, and now, in mid-afternoon, we have about four inches here in my neighborhood. Lots more in the surrounding suburbs, especially the hills. More snow is expected, and temperatures below freezing are anticipated until Christmas.

Snow also is infrequent enough that it causes major transportation problems when it arrives. I hear laughter from around the country. "Four inches? Transportation problems?" But yes, such is life here in Little Eden that "weather" is almost synonymous with mild temperature and gentle drizzle.

I have a personal stake in our local transportation problems. I'm scheduled to hop on Amtrak's "Coast Starlight" Sunday morning, at 9:45, for a 35-hour ride to Los Angeles, en route picking Jesse up from UC Davis early Monday morning. To do so, I need only show up at the King Street Station at the appointed time, waving my ticket.

Aye, there's the rub. How do I get there? I planned to take a taxi, but they've been reported to be in short supply -- and unreliable in making their appearance -- during this confluence of snowy weather and Christmas travel. Shuttle Express is accepting no more reservations until at least after Sunday. The Metro bus that runs along the arterial nearest my house would be an obvious alternative, but that line has been re-routed during the inclement weather, so as to avoid having to struggle along its usual route up and over Capitol Hill.

I'd risk driving, but there's no long term parking near the train station. I'll be gone for over a week, which guarantees I'd be towed from any illegal parking space I squeezed my car into.

I guess I'll try getting a cab Sunday morning, and, if I can't, I'll trudge for a mile and a half with my baggage to the nearest functioning bus stop. This hardly makes me a martyr in the eyes of residents of Cleveland or Buffalo, but I'm a spoiled West Coast guy. If you don't see any posts on this site during January, please ask the Seattle police to search for my frozen carcass.

In Christmases of yesteryear, folks just snuggled up in a blanket, letting their sleigh glide over the river and through the woods, when to grandmother's house they went. Life was simpler then. More Christmassy, too. (I suppose some poor, cold, underpaid serf had to harness the sleigh to a horse -- I never worry about details like that in my fantasies.)

Aw, shucks. Maybe I'll just pray that it warms up and rains by Sunday!

Order of the Shoe

Muntadhar al-Zeidi is quite the hero this week around the Middle East. No, make that around the world. He's the Iraqi journalist who lobbed his shoes at George Bush during the Great Decider's final triumphant "Mission Accomplished" tour this week.

Insofar as the shoes represented any threat of injury to President Bush, I'm sure virtually all Americans, including me, would deplore the assault. My understanding, however, is that Muntadhar al-Zeidi's intent wasn't to assassinate or even physically harm the president, but to express his utmost contempt and disapproval. The sort of "expressive conduct," like flag burning, protected by the First Amendment here in the USA.

"This is a farewell kiss, you dog," al-Zeidi yelled in Arabic as he tossed his shoes at Bush. "This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq."

As do many other Eastern cultures, Arabs consider the human foot -- and by extention the shoe, especially the sole of the shoe -- to be "unclean." I'm not sure of the exact symbolism when a shoe is thrown at someone, but I suspect it's like thrusting your stinking feet in the target's face. In any event, Arab commentators tell us that no other act could have been as insulting.

From our point of view, the merits of the Iraqi invasion can be argued dispassionately, taking into account not only American self-interest, but an entire range of geopolitical and economic factors. Just as from the British point of view, as we all recall from our high school history books, policies adopted to regulate and tax the American colonies were intended to benefit not only the British motherland, but also the American colonists themselves -- to maintain good government and to prevent the colonies from being overrun by Indians, by France and by other imperial powers.

Our response, when British statesmen explained these grave matters of colonial and foreign policy to us, was the Boston Tea Party, our hit and run terrorism at Lexington and Concord, the Declaration of Independence, and several years of warfare, both conventional and guerilla. What if, in the midst of all this conflict, King George III had had the chutzpah to come sailing into Boston -- smirking and glad-handing and and pinning medals on his generals and admirals -- and telling us colonial hicks how bloody lucky we were to have England on hand to protect us?

Well, we weren't as sophisticated and cultivated back in those days. His Majesty would have been lucky to have gotten out of Boston free of tar and feathers, and with his wig still in place. He would hardly have noticed a couple of shoes tossed his way by a colonial newspaperman.

So let's go easy on the impetuous journalist. Save one of those shoes and have it bronzed, Mr. President. You can brag to future guests at your Texas ranch that it's the "Distinguished Order of the Shoe," presented to you by the grateful people of Iraq -- a people whom you saved from themselves.

Simplement une pensée

Elitism is spelling "élitism" with an accent.

Merely a stray thought of mine, inspired by the New Yorker's weighing of elitism (or, as the magazine's editors would have it, élitism) within various presidential administrations. The writer concludes -- by counting Ivy League graduates who held cabinet-level appointments -- that Gerald Ford had the most élitist administration of the past forty years. Clinton had the least élitist.

"LEET!" as young dudes (who probably never even touch the New Yorker, don't you know?) might exclaim. "1337!"

Wishing you a frozen Christmas

Talk of your cold!
Through the parka’s fold
It stabbed like a driven nail.

If our eyes we’d close,
Then the lashes froze
Till sometimes we couldn’t see;

It wasn’t much fun,
But the only one
To whimper was Sam McGee.

Photos this week of New England -- the lush and beautiful New England I visited in August -- have displayed a world embedded in ice. No power for 1.5 million homes, probably for days. We can only imagine families wrapped in blankets, huddled with no light and no heat. Just before Christmas.

Here in the Northwest we feel pretty safe from natural calamities, barring the occasional earthquake or volcanic eruption. This fall's been unusually mild, with highs in the 50's and lows in the 40's virtually every day. But -- lest we get too smug -- an Arctic air mass is moving in tonight. Very cold temperatures are expected for at least the next ten days, with snow falling most days next week.

The weather honchos are predicting a low of 11 degrees Monday night. That may seem comfortably moderate to all those poor suckers who've spent their entire pathetic lives in Buffalo, Bangor or Boston -- or to Sam McGee and his fellow Yukon prospectors. But around these parts, eleven degrees is very rare. It's the kind of temperature that allows kids to skate on lakes, just like in olden times, instead of on a rink at the mall. It's the kind of temperature that runners won't run in, for fear of freezing their lungs. It's a world in which mittens become mandatory, when even the most determined teenager won't walk to school in a t-shirt!

But still it's exciting, especially at Christmas. It allows us to join with our East Coast and Mid-West brothers and sisters in a frozen solidarity. It recalls Christmas scenes of an earlier, Dickensian London. It plucks us out of our bland Northwest drizzle and places us into a real life snowy Christmas card or into a painting of Hans Brinker racing on silver skates down frozen canals.

Yup, I love the picturesque. I can ignore for a week the sound of the furnace burning oil unceasingly, and I won't mind at all having my fingers grow numb and my nose red whenever I run down to the store. I don't even mind negotiating a bit of snow on the road as I dash downtown for last minute shopping.

But please -- no multi-day power outages.

A modest proposal

Nothing but trouble comes out of Serbia? Don't you believe it. The country that gave us Gavrilo Princip -- the assassin who started the ball rolling for World War I -- has now redeemed itself by giving us Rod Blagojevich, a governor whose conduct may offer a whole new paradigm in state government financing.

Gov. Blagojevich's snuffling around in the muck for the juiciest truffle he could get in exchange for Obama's former Senate seat -- an appointment that he found himself happily holding in the palm of his trotter -- may seem distasteful to the brahmins and puritans among us. But once you hose off the slime of personal greed, the Illinois governor's conduct actually suggests a wonderful remedy for state insolvency, especially in these harsh economic times.

For several years, a lot of states have relied on state lotteries to help themselves balance their books. These lotteries have, in fact, proven excellent sources of revenue. Unfortunately, lottery profits come disproportionately from the elements of society least able to afford them -- and they shield the wealthiest members of society from increases in their own state income and property taxes.

The Blagojevich Plan -- for want of a better term -- would avoid this regressive effect. Each state government would put Senate vacancies, as they occur, up for auction. The seat would go to the highest bidder. The auction would be managed by the state treasurer, with the governor obligated by law to give the winner his formal appointment. All proceeds would go to the state's general fund, together with conventional tax revenue.

At present, the Seventeenth Amendment would permit this method to be used only for Senate vacancies occuring in mid-term. But radical right wing groups have been agitating for repeal of that amendment, permitting state legislatures once more to appoint Senators. Liberals can join that movement, while urging states to use their new freedom to adopt the Blagojevich Plan. There's no cash to be had from making appointments for political rather than economic reasons, and so the states can be trusted to make the rational decision.

Will the the Blagojevich Plan cause a decrease in quality of our esteemed Senate? Don't be silly. Take a look at who's sitting in the Senate under today's system!

Don't send Blagojevich to jail. Give him the Nobel Prize for Economics.

Burning dim

The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.
--Sir Edward Grey (August 3, 1914)

As I wandered around downtown today, observing the wonders and curiosities of Seattle, Sir Edward's famous words kept circling through my brain -- at times, I found myself almost humming them. Those lines were uttered by the British foreign secretary in the opening hours of World War I, as he pensively watched a lamplighter light the gas street lamp outside his office window.

Downtown Seattle looked beautiful, as it always does at Christmas. I passed one upscale shop after another, all lavishly decorated for the season, selling every luxury anyone could desire or imagine. The streets and shops were bustling with shoppers. The only gaps, the only places along the sidewalks not lined with prosperous-appearing shops, were the construction sites, marked by giant cranes. Skyscrapers, mixed-use buildings designed for both retail and residential use, continue reaching for the sky.

The usual homeless hung out on the sidewalks, holding their hand-written cardboard signs. But if we overlook them, as we in fact do, life could hardly look finer in the great Pacific Northwest.

So it was in Europe in 1914. Only the old folks could remember a time when life hadn't been peaceful and prosperous. Everyone was excited by new technological advances, scientific wonders. The arts were thriving. Everyone looked forward to the future. The lamps of civilization burned brightly.

But then ... the armies began to move.

In Seattle, today, not all is well behind the glossy surface. The shops are crowded with shoppers, but actual sales are reported to be unnervingly poor. Towering buildings are being erected by mobs of hard-hatted construction workers -- but, if you notice, no new construction has begun within the past six months, maybe even a year. The streets at lunch hour are packed with office workers, but each day the newspaper carries stories announcing new lay offs.

Washington Mutual, one of Seattle's proudest jewels, employing thousands in its glittering new national headquarters building, has collapsed and has been acquired by Chase Manhatten; eighty percent of WaMu's Seattle workforce have received their termination notices in place of a Christmas bonus.

Still, for most of us, life continues normally. The usual happy family Christmas lies ahead. We know all about the banking crisis, the stock market crash, the auto manufacturing crisis, the layoffs around us -- but so far we are safe. Our stock portfolios are down, but we'll be patient. The stock market hits a bear phase every so often, right? The bulls then return and the stocks climb even higher than before. We can wait.

And in August 1914, as the young men -- boys, really -- marched off to war, everyone cheered and said the war would be short. The boys would be home for Christmas. But it wasn't. And they weren't.

We read the news, but so far the news -- well, it just hasn't hit home. But when you're fired, as our neighbors are being fired, you don't buy luxuries, or maybe even necessities. And when you don't buy goods and services, the businesses that sell can't meet their payroll. And when they can't meet their payroll, more employees lose jobs, who in turn stop buying. Pretty soon, that wave of distress, sensed in the distance, draws close. It hits and washes over you.

It took us quite a few years, but that's the kind of economy we've ended up with, an economy that hits the rocks when people stop buying. Even when they just stop buying things they don't need. Because we can't keep a full economy going selling just goods and services that people actually need. This is the inherent contradiction of capitalism that Karl Marx said would eventually cause its collapse.

What results is called a deflationary spiral, and that's where many economists think we're heading. Once it starts, it feeds on itself, because people who are scared don't spend. They hang on to whatever money they have. Women don't buy haute couture dresses and gowns, men don't buy Hummers, when their families may need that money just to eat. Unless something breaks the spiral, we end up all unemployed and all hungry.

Christmas 1915 was not a happy time for most British families. I wonder what Christmas 2009 will be like here in Seattle? In America?

I think the lamps may be going out.

The studio saved by a dog

This blog generally aims at topics of universal interest, but its author is, after all, human. And when you have a close relative employed by a major film studio, matters related to that studio draw your attention. And so I break with usual practice, and base this brief post not on my reading of a book, but on my reading of a book review. Not a practice that I'm proud of, to be sure, but our world is entering a depression, and I'm not inclined to go out and spend the $50 list price just so I can more fully do the book justice.

When we see the Warner Bros. logo, I suspect many of us think of a certain rabbit with a carrot. "Eh, what's up doc?," and all that. But a new coffee table book, available for Christmas purchase (only $31.50, actually, from Amazon), shows that the studio -- founded by four brothers named Harry, Abe, Sam and Jack -- was once exemplified by a much nobler animal. A dog, a dog whose popularity saved the studio from bankruptcy. The dog's name? Rin Tin Tin. The famous canine hero, much later popularized in a television series, was the star of Warner Bros. in the 1920's, and the subject of 19 films, most, unfortunately, now lost to history.

According to the review, the book suggests that for most of its existence, Warner Bros. films were notable for telling bleak stories with unhappy endings: a long line of gangster films, Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon, the films of director Stanley Kubrick, and even some of the later films including some of Clint Eastwood's. These films, according to the book, were marked by an "existential chill, the air of fated hopelessness."

Whether this early reputation continues for a studio that has released, in more recent years, such films as March of the Penguins, The Polar Express, the Pokémon movies, Scooby-Doo, and the entire Harry Potter series, I'll leave to the reader. Certainly, however, the Batman films and the Matrix series display a darkness of theme and ambiguity in resolution that would be worthy of the studio's Casablanca days of the 1940's.

So if you have the spare loot, buy the book, read the history, enjoy the scads of photo stills from nearly a century of movies, and -- for Tawny's sake -- plunk down the price of admission to the next WB film that shows up in your local theater!

-------------------------------

Richard Schickel and George Perry, You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story, Running Press, $50. Reviewed by Stephanie Zacharek in today's NY Times.

Musical legacy

Seattle is home to one of the world's finest private collections of classical violins, violas and cellos, including six violins and one cello crafted by Stradivari in the early 1700's. The collector, David Fulton, has trimmed his collection down in recent years to the fifteen instruments he likes best, including a violin built by Guarnerius del Gesù, the "Lord Wilton," valued at $10 million.

Who knew? I certainly didn't until last night, when I viewed a documentary ("Homage") that Fulton arranged to have filmed on the stage of Redmond's Overlake School, showing off each instrument, both visually and audibly. In the film, violinist James Ehnes chooses and plays a short piece that will best display the characteristics and capabilities of each violin and viola. Sound and cinematography are both outstanding.

Both Fulton and Ehnes were present at last night's showing of the documentary -- on the UW campus -- to subscribers of the Seattle Chamber Music Society. Both offered introductory remarks and took questions following the film. Fulton explained his purpose in making the documentary as a desire to preserve for posterity the sound of each instrument as it plays in 2008. He noted that the sound of a string instrument gradually changes over time, as it ages and its physical condition changes. Musicians today would love to know what these famous violins and violas sounded like a century ago, when they were already about 200 years old.

The music was dazzling. But Ehnes's commentary, before he played each number, drove home to me how superficial my own appreciation of music remains. Ehnes observed how each instrument's musical "color," tonal volume, and relative musical flexibility or rigidity made it most appropriate for the chosen piece. I was fully conscious that he could have played the same violin number on each of the violins, one after the other, and I would have been unable to perceive the difference.

Appreciation of any composer, any performer, any musical instrument increases radically with one's study and experience. Enjoying a Schubert piano sonata as background music on the radio is pleasant, but offers a far less rich experience than listening to it with a score in hand, and then hearing it performed by different pianists. And such appreciation as an informed listener is a far less rich experience than having mastered the sonata on one's own piano, which in turn is less rewarding than having subjected one's own playing to the critique of an experienced teacher. I suppose that a defining characteristic of a piece of "classical" music is that you could study it indefinitely and always find new aspects to appreciate.

With classical music, the more you put into it, the more you get out of it. The same is true with the appreciation of wine -- a dinner beverage that I tend to swill down without reflection, intent on my conversation with other more discerning guests who are themselves savoring the nuances of the particular vintage. Fine dining offers the same opportunity, as do the visual arts. And as does, to some degree, any other pursuit whose appreciation increases with one's knowledge and experience. I suppose that I do appreciate reading a well reasoned and well written legal brief more than would many attorneys. Comparing legal work with classical music may startle, but such greater appreciation, if it exists, would result from the time I have invested in writing such briefs myself.

Our age encourages a superficial enjoyment of many pursuits, and many pursuits offer much enjoyment even on a superficial level. But, as a viewing of Homage suggests, it would be a shame to go through life without finding at least one pursuit worthy of deeper study, resulting in the ability to enjoy the work of others from many angles, and on multiple layers -- that is, to appreciate fully the purpose and intent of the artist or artisan who himself has created the work.

USC flips off UCLA and the NCAA

USC coach Pete Carroll said his team will violate a NCAA rule and wear their red home jerseys Saturday against crosstown rival UCLA, thus forfeiting two timeouts since as the visiting team they are required to wear white, ESPN reported.

USC would lose one timeout per half.

"I don't care about it right now," Carroll said, in reference to losing the timeouts. "I think it's the fun thing to do, and I think the fans will appreciate it over time."

--MSNBC (12-2-08)

Hey, why not? The Trojans aren't your dad's junior college team, after all. They're a semi-pro team that just plays for laughs in the Pac-10. They used to call our conference "Southern Cal and the Seven Dwarfs," but then Arizona and Arizona State were admitted, spoiling the joke. But not changing the dynamics.

Like Pete says, "It's the fun thing to do." When you live in Los Angeles, who needs further excuse? Especially when you're USC, playing against your hapless cross-town rivals.

"We think it would be the fun thing to do if we also wore jerseys that said "BRUINS SUCK," Carroll said. "And so we will. That'll cost us two more time outs, but who the f**k cares!"

"Also, Tommy Trojan is going to join every huddle, sitting atop Traveler. We've agreed in advance with the Bruins to "kneecap" two of our running backs in exchange. I don't care about it right now. What the hell, the fans will appreciate it."

Negotiations are still underway with the Bruins to permit USC players to wear giant leis of Pasadena roses throughout the game in exchange for ceding three first round draft picks to UCLA next season.

The Trojans are favored to win Saturday's game by 33 points. They can't lose. (When they're not playing Oregon State.)

And a happy new year

Last night -- deep in the midst of my winter's sleep, while the clock struck 12, heard by no one but my cats -- we tripped quietly across the threshhold into the month of December. The time of year when a person of a certain traditional bent has thoughts that lightly turn to -- Christmas Cards!

Those who pay attention to the mores of our age assure us that the sending of Christmas cards is a dying custom, an anachronism in our age of high speed, digitalized communication. And my own experience does seem to bear out their analysis. Each year I receive fewer cards, each year I wonder if I should myself forbear sending cards and, if I did so, whether anyone would notice.

Be not the first by whom the new are tried,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

So preaches the ever-tedious Alexander Pope. And, as always, Mr. Pope's tedious point is somewhat valid. But scratch a rabid American liberal -- such as me -- and you oft find a secret lover of tradition.

I was a kid who eagerly pounced on the daily mail each December, opening the envelopes and poring over each card before my folks had a chance to wrest them away from me. Half the senders I'd never met, or often had even heard of, but the stories of their lives for the past year, their tales of triumph or tragedy, appealed to my imagination -- as did the varied types of designs and messages that the cards themselves presented. And as a college student, I addressed Christmas cards while others were feverishly preparing for finals -- with predictable results for my GPA.

They say you can guess a man's personality by looking at his dog. Christmas cards offer even more transparent windows into the soul. Four cards, each wishing me the best wishes of the season, but each in a distinct style: a Christmas ornament and a piece of tinsel in a champagne glass; Santa with his feet on his desk, downing a beer with his elves; the Holy Family gathered around a manger, with a host of angels back-lit by a starry sky; an impressionistic view of a snowy forest in winter, with two birds and a deer in the foreground. Four senders of Christmas greetings who view Christmas from four very distinct angles.

Sir Henry Cole is said to have sent the first card in 1843, and we've been sending and receiving them ever since. We can not only judge a sender's personality by the cards he sends, but we can also sense the changing moods of society itself by the differences, from decade to decade, in the style, subject matter, and art work of the Christmas cards it creates.

But, anyway, here's a toast to old Sir Henry. If I ever decide to follow Pope's prudent advice -- to go with the trend of the times and give up sending out cards -- well, it certainly won't be this year. I've long ago purchased my cards, thank you. Next, I'll pore over last year's address list, check out who sent me cards, decide whether the year's been one of those good years when I add rather than subtract names, and draw up a final list of the worthies whose lives will be gladdened when they receive my Christmas greetings for 2008. Close friends and relatives will get a short handwritten greeting; folks to whom I haven't written all year will get whatever length of letter I can squeeze into the space available.

Let's face it. Maybe in 2008, with email and Facebook so readily available, no one really does care if I send them a card or not. But I send them for myself, at least in part. Christmas just doesn't feel like Christmas until I carry my stack of envelopes down to the corner and drop them in the mailbox.

You celebrate the season your way. I'm getting ready to tackle my Christmas cards.