https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bYrkUDR9jQ

A different post today. One of my cousins sent me the link above. It contains a bitter condemnation of all that is Christmas. I wrote to my cousin, the following: 

There is not one line or one point made by this "sooutthere" person that hasn't been made by thousands and for centuries. I think you know that. And they can all be answered. For example, the number of starving in the world is up because the population of humans on the earth is up. The percent of the whole human population that are starving is actually declining and has been doing so for decades. About the time you were born (1961), we were being told on a regular basis that two thirds of the world's two billion people were going to bed hungry every night.

I'd have to go through too many steps to answer this sooutthere clown, but if you like you could post the lyric to "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day". It's corny by today's standards, but it hit me very hard as a teenager when I was feeling very cynical one Christmas. The lyric was written by Longfellow shortly after his oldest son was killed in the US Civil War.

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

I thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along the unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And in despair I bowed my head:
"There is no peace on earth," I said,
"For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men."

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth he sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With peace on earth, good will to men."

Till, ringing singing, on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime,
Of peace on earth, good will to men!

We hang in there in whatever way works for us, Dave, because we have to. And there is much reason for hope. The agreement that was just signed in Paris may be too little too late for the earth, but it may not, and it is better than doing nothing; if it is respected by all the signatories, it may yet save us. Even so many nations with opposing interests signing it is little short of amazing. Five years ago, many experts were saying such an agreement would never be reached.

Finally, I have to say to sooutthere, in the hard terms that adults sometimes have to use, "No, you're the one who's full of bullshit. If you really thought there was that little reason to hope, you would have killed yourself long ago. The fact that you are online and we are having this argument - that you're still here, in other words - belies your whole case. It's juvenile whining. Get with the program. Go hard or go home." But getting on to Youtube comments so that I can reply, when the answer is so obvious, is more hassle than it's worth.

In the meantime, you have a happy Christmas. The guy that the holiday is about ...no, I don't think he was divine. He was a guy. A talented one, but a mortal one, nevertheless, whose shit stank the same as mine does. But he was born into the greatest military empire that had ever existed up to that time. And he did see clearly down the corridors of the centuries that if the weapons kept improving and the belligerent nature of some people stayed just as belligerent as it was in Roman times, the story could have only one ending. Human annihilation.

However, the story does not have to end that way. He put into our species' total mix of ideas, philosophies, or memes, whichever word you like, the idea that people could learn to love one another; we could all be one big family that basically got along. Not perfectly, but functionally, which is all that really matters. For that alone, I celebrate this day. He turned history. One day there will be a science that proves that.

                                                              love,

                                                                      Dwight