Four Beginnings

Every end has a beginning, every coda an initial measure.

2005 augers the unknown, as does the dawn of each year. We have the past year's terror, conflict, opportunity and wealth.

Clear already is that terror has a firm grip on us. This is no different, I think, than the fear a farmer has for his crop or her fishing take, the fear of violence that, once, we all shared before the growth of a (relatively) fair constibulary. Now we have tsnamis, which we've always had but continue to forget. We have terror, which, like a mesenteric cancer has begun infiltrating our tissues of naive peacefulness. And the political powers that have always heeded business have become so bent to their monetary masters that they are now little more than footstools for economic terror to be deployed against the American people.

The Palestinians, who have not missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity, are again presented with the possibility of self-rule, in however a limited fashion that might come about in the short term. If they can control the terrorists within them, the terrorists that sometimes lead them, they stand a chance at being accepted equals among the nations of the world. But that would mean coming down from the tree they've climbed of not making a true effort at stopping the terror that they have invented and refined for over fifty years against the Jewish people and Israel. Israelis, on their part, need to risk civil war, need to risk treating Jews as bluntly as they treat Israeli and Palestinian Arabs, in retreating from the Gaza Strip. This will be no leaving of Yamit (a settlement in the Sinai Desert abandoned by Israel in the 70's). This could be a pitched battle, room by room and house by house. Or it could be a display of rational thought over zealous fanaticism, and the creation of new settlements at a new border. Both sides are transfixed by Jewish blood. Jewish extremists, who want their blood to run in places where even Kings David and Solomon never ruled. And Palestinian terrorists, in a blood lust only quickened by the sight of Jews still not punctured by mortar fragments, ball bearing, screws, nails, or bullets. In the land of 'an eye for an eye.' we are quickly running out of people with hindsight, foresight, or any sight not through a sniper's scope.

At this writing the spouse of a dear friend of mine is dying of a cancer they have fought bravely, for years after most similar sufferers have lost the battle. We lost a brilliant Congressman today of the same disease: Robert Matsui. Their disease, and Alzheimers, and cirrosis of the liver, and innumerable other ailments are at the cusp of being solved, with precise protein targeting, stem cell therapies and even vaccines. Each death is a precious reminder to the legions of scientists of the importance of their work. My father's death fourteen years ago would simply not happen today. And as I look middle age squarely in the face I am starting to look at these medical advances as my personal saviors that will hopefully cross the finish line before I need them.

It's always good to end on an upbeat note. In all the horror, terror, death, disease, evil, squalor and economic perversity, good things are happening. People knocked down are getting to their feet. Our children are growing, thinking, learning, as are legions of the next generation. One can find beauty in cedar pollen swirling off the trees, awe in unsupported bridge tresses rising from manmade mountains of freshly dumped rock and earth near my house.

My lesson to myself for 2005 is to look for the good in the bad, pleasure in the unpleasant. The tasty in the unpalatable reality that can swirl in like fog off the river and take your sight away.