Time to be grateful -- Happy New Year!

Hello again

As the old year draws to a close, I have much reason to be grateful: for some wonderful old and new friends, both here in Oban and all over the world; for pretty good health; for clients who have stayed with me, some of them for almost decades now; for a warm, comfortable home; for lots and lots more -- so many reasons to feel truly privileged in a world full of misery, conflict, doom and gloom.

My heart goes out to everyone suffering in Palestine, Gaza, Colombia, Indonesia, Mexico, Guatemala, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Tibet, Chechnya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, in Congo, Zimbabwe -- almost wherever we look, there is conflict, strife, all-out war, most of it absolutely illegal, unjustified and fanned by vested interests, mostly based in the West, mostly, I'd say, due to greed and power-mongering. And our pamered lifestyles -- let's not forget that!

Our pampered lifestyles also drive a largely silent, even more frightening catastrophe: our planet will survive, nature will survive, but the human race is fast racing towards its own destruction. Still, there are people -- politicians especially -- who prefer to bury their heads in the sand, denying what is visible to anyone willing to look: CO2 levels and average temperatures are soaring; the polar ice caps are melting; deserts are ever expanding; water is becoming scarcer and scarcer.

Happy New Year to you all, anyway!
Or, in the words of the inimitable Mafalda, a lovely cartoon character of Argentinan origin:

"Les deseamos a todas las buenas personas que conocemos que el próximo año tengan toda la fuerza y den lo mejor de sí mismos sin importarles que les recompensen sus esfuerzos para trabajar por un mundo mejor, en el que la paz sea posible, con justicia y equidad y en el que sobrevivan las utopías aunque parezcan (y sean) imposibles."
In my own translation:
"We wish all the good people we know that in the New Year you may have all the strength to give your best, regardless of whether your efforts may be rewarded, to work towards a better world in which Peace may be possible, with justice and fairness; a world in which utopias may survive although they may seem (and be) impossible."

(from a PowerPoint presentation received in Dec. 2008 with the following credits: Imágenes ©Kino. Desconozco autor del texto. Realización Power Point: ©LnYamuni)