Hello, all, I hope everyone is having a good holiday. I receive so much holiday email that to reciprocate is quite a task, but this year I thought I would make the special effort to do just that, and to include a few folks I haven't heard from in a while (and who haven't heard from me).
As Bilbo is so fond of saying, I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you as well as you deserve. Well, something like that. :) As we conclude the first year of 2001, I can't help but remind myself that: 1) Powerful men such as Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, and Julius Caesar never knew the luxury of getting onto an airplane and flying across the face of the Earth. I, at least, have done better than them by that much. 2) Great inventors like Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Alva Edison had to build their conveniences from scratch. I can drive over to Wal-Mart and buy telephones and light bulbs, when I'm not watching DvDs on my computer. 3) People in the middle ages had to sit in hot, stuffy churches on Sunday and listen to sermons delivered in a language they couldn't understand. I can sit on my couch, turn on the television, and watch preachers and news commentators deliver incomprehensible lectures in modern English. 4) Nobody remembers the name of the "Beowulf" poet, although his poem resonates through the centuries. My name is indelibly etched in the storage systems of thousands of computers around the world. 5) The ancient Romans sat on hard stone seats in open amphitheaters to watch gladiatorial combat, and most of them never really got a good view. I get to see instant replay on Battle Bots. 6) Before there were cities, our ancestors used to walk across the landscape without a care in the world, munching on nuts, fruits, and whatever animals they could catch. We get to drive across our countries while consuming junk food and soft drinks in air conditioned vehicles they would have thought belonged to the gods. All in all, despite the terrible things which have befallen our civilization in the past few months, it was not the worst year in which to live. Here's hoping the next one is even better. -- \\ // Worlds of Imagination on the Web \\// Science Fiction and Fantasy //\\ since March 1997 http://www.xenite.org/ // \\ENITE.org.....................................................
