Another year

Only through herculean effort do I summon the strength to write this valedictory blog for 2017.  Ever since returning last Tuesday, from a very enjoyable Christmas with family in Oxnard, I've been laid low by a cold virus, one that seems to have been making the rounds and that has had me virtually knocked out and lying in bed.  The fact that lots of other people have been equally miserable should make me happier, I suppose, but it somehow doesn't.

What can I say?  2017 has been an annus horribilis -- a horrible year -- for our nation and the world.  It has seen changes to our government and the kind of people who control it that I would never have dreamed possible as a kid -- it's the sort of nightmare that I thought happened only in Africa or South America.  What frightens me most isn't what this administration has done, but what it may be planning to do, with the willing complicity of the party in power.

But I'll say no more.  While history churns about you, it's easy to ignore the evils that are occurring, but it's also easy to become overly hysterical.  Time will tell, as it always does.

Personally, the year has been happier.  I hiked in Westmorland, and I visited with family in Thailand, Cambodia, and Bali.  I escaped being nuked in Seoul  or incinerated by Bali's Agung volcano, although my sister's house did not escape incineration by the Sonoma county wildfires.  I'm in good health, as are all the members of my family, and my two young great nieces continue their winning ways.

And so might have said a Roman writer in the fifth century -- "The government is a disaster of backstabbing and corruption, its incompetent policies are threatening our national security, the barbarians are at the gate.  But little Lucius and Julius are excelling at their studies; we hope to send them to the Academy in Athens once they reach their teens.  The crops are doing well and, all in all, life is good.  It's silly to worry about things one can do nothing about."

Best wishes to all for the year 2018.  May our world be a happier place a year from now than it is today.  May the barbarians be kept yet another year outside the gate.   And may I soon recover from this damn cold!