Peace on Earth
So it's the Christmas season again, that wonderfully joyous season for retailers everywhere. The time of year when you find out how much money your friends really make, by whether you receive a gift of neon-green earmuffs or a giant flat-screen television. Oh, by the way, I wanted to say thanks to my brother for the lovely towels. I hear Holiday Inn is a really good brand.
But I do not wish to discuss the true meaning of Christmas, especially since people don't even seem to realize there is one anymore. And may I say a hearty "Season's Greetings" to them, whatever that means.
Instead, I want to dwell on one of the phrases used a lot around Christmas time, and I don't mean "Happy Holidays." When people philosophize about Christmas, they are wont to refer to it as a time of "peace on earth, good will toward men." (This is probably a quote from someplace. I think maybe one of Santa's reindeer said it.) I would like to see just how well the world is living up to this standard.
First of all, it is extremely obvious that men are not receiving much good will these days, at least not in this country. Not only are men considered loathsome second-class citizens, but there has been a concerted effort to
eliminate the morpheme "man" from words like mankind. Unfortunately, the substitute "humankind" has that same hated man in it. Someone should tell the revisionists that grammatical gender has nothing to do with physical gender, but I can't do it. After all, I'm a man.
It has just occurred to me that the phrase "good will toward men" will probably be edited soon, if no one has done it already. In the interest of maximum inclusiveness, I suggest the modification "good will toward ontological beings." However, most revisionists would probably get all worked up about this, since they don't know what ontological beings are. So the best adjustment would probably be "good will toward all conscious life forms," although this would exclude the revisionists.
In the peace on earth department, we are doing a little better. A Few years ago people were saying, "If only we could convince the Arabs and the Israelis to stop killing each other, we would have peace in the Middle East." Now that there is an semi-autonomous Palestinian state and Israel has semi-withdrawn from the West Bank, great strides have been made. Now if only we could convince the Arabs and Israelis to stop killing each other, we would have peace in the Middle East. Except in Iraq. But they hanged Saddam so that should fix everything.
Outside of the Middle East, I guess things have been pretty peaceful. If you don't count Burma/Myanmar, Indonesia, Africa in general, the Mexico-U.S. border, Afghanistan, and New York City. Always New York City. Peace in New York is any twenty-four-hour period with less than ten homicides.
Things have been exceptionally quiet on one entire continent, though. In fact, there have been no wars, no terrorist attacks, no muggings, and not so much as a traffic violation there for years. Of course, I am talking about Antarctica. It's too bad no one really lives there. Actually, I guess that explains it. Penguins are not generally violent, and now that things have settled down in Northern Ireland, the IRA has dropped its Penguin Militant Faction.
So in the wondrous season of "Peace on Antarctica, good will toward penguins," gather your loved ones close around you. There's safety in numbers.
Merry Christmas, or if you prefer, "Compliments of the Season."
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