Understanding January 1989

January, 1989

A NEW YEAR

 

As one grows older, the years seem to go by in a constant unending procession. It seems but yesterday that your editor was busily writing the newsletter for 1988, and now he finds that he must apologize for being late in completing the one for 1989.

 

Although the world still seems to be filled with troubles and tragedy, and although many persons, after reading the headlines in the daily newspaper may be heard to mutter, “The world is surely going to the dogs!” not realizing that this particular expression of pessimism has been in common use, through the world, in various languages, at least since the earlier days of Greek history, some hundreds of years before the birth of Christ. Your editor can only remark that the “dogs” must be very patient to have waited so long!

 

Reagan and Gorbachev have made considerable progress with their announced program of nuclear disarmament, and peaceful co-existence seems to be working as well as could be expected. For the time being at least, the grim spectreof nuclear war has receded somewhat into the background, and if 1989 produces as much progress as 1988 did, we may hope for a fairly peaceful world by the turn of the century.

 

Of course we will have to learn to deal with terrorism quickly and dependably. As long as a few people feel that they can break any law they please and still be free to plan other crimes, including the murder of innocent people just to call attention to their wishes or desires, the law will never mean much to the ordinary citizen, and a healthy respect for the law is a prime essential for peace and security. That is why the word law is so often coupled with order. Each is indispensable to the other.

 

If some of our National budgeters should note the saving in our “No Nuke Program”, and manage to pinch off a few trillion from our military budget for the year, they might even be able to balance the pesky thing. A feat that none of our political and fiscal acrobats have been able to do within the last few decades, and has been laughingly been called impossible for many years, although each president has, during his Campaign, promised to do it, but forgot about it as soon as the election was over. Any president that does manage to balance the National budget even if for only one year, and no matter what form of leger-de-main was used to accomplish the feat will go down in history as the doer of the impossible.

 

The only serious cloud on this country’s horizon for this year seems to be the still unanswered question as to just are we going to loan the debtor nations enough money to pay the interest on their loans when we are the largest of them. However there is not much to fear, our bankers have had decades of experience in giving our money away and we may be sure they will find one this time. Our only fear is Bankruptcy! However, we have a habit of bouncing back even from that! (Not every nation can. If you think you are in a bad way, think what Soviet Armenia is going through today, and what the survivors will go through for the next decade. Then get on your knees and thank God you live inAmerica, and pray that it never happens here.

 

Daniel W. Fry

 

Best Wishes for the coming year,

(hand written) and Love, Cleona Q.