A Christmas wish for my readers

I want to wish my friends Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. As my gift to all of you I want to feature one of my favorite Christmas messages, as relevant today as when first written over one hundred years ago, penned by one of my favorite thinkers, the highly esteemed Robert Green Ingersoll:

What I Want For Christmas

If I had the power to produce exactly what I want for next Christmas, I would have all the kings and emperors resign and allow the people to govern themselves.
I would have all the nobility crop their titles and give their lands back to the people. I would have the Pope throw away his tiara, take off his sacred vestments, and admit that he is not acting for God -- is not infallible -- but is just an ordinary Italian [Pope Leo XIII, born , Count Vincenzo Gioacchino Raffaele Luigi Pecci, who was Pope in 1897]. I would have all the cardinals, archbishops, bishops, priests and clergymen admit that they know nothing about theology, nothing about hell or heaven, nothing about the destiny of the human race, nothing about devils or ghosts, gods or angels. I would have them tell all their "flocks" to think for themselves, to be manly men and womanly women, and to do all in their power to increase the sum of human happiness.

I would have all the professors in colleges, all the teachers in schools of every kind, including those in Sunday schools, agree that they would teach only what they know, that they would not palm off guesses as demonstrated truths.

I would like to see all the politicians changed to statesmen, -- to men who long to make their country great and free, -- to men who care more for public good than private gain -- men who long to be of use.

I would like to see all the editors of papers and magazines agree to print the truth and nothing but the truth, to avoid all slander and misrepresentation, and to let the private affairs of the people alone.

I would like to see drunkenness and prohibition both abolished.

I would like to see corporal punishment done away with in every home, in every school, in every asylum, reformatory, and prison. Cruelty hardens and degrades, kindness reforms and ennobles.

I would like to see the millionaires unite and form a trust for the public good.

I would like to see a fair division of profits between capital and labor, so that the toiler could save enough to mingle a little June with the December of his life.

I would like to see an international court established in which to settle disputes between nations, so that armies could be disbanded and the great navies allowed to rust and rot in perfect peace.

I would like to see the whole world free -- free from injustice -- free from superstition.

This will do for next Christmas. The following Christmas, I may want more.

Violated!

It's a cliche, I suppose, but watching people being interviewed on the news after a burglary, the words "I feel violated" usually come up. That's a good way to put it.

I've lived in this same neighborhood for .. let's see ... thirteen years, I believe. Never had a problem here. Once I inadvertently slept all night with my backdoor ajar. Several times I've come home and unlocked the front door and forgot to remove my door key, sleeping like that all night. Never a problem.

Friday night (or early Saturday morning) someone - or perhaps some ones - burgled my pickup truck, and eighteen other vehicles here in my neighborhood. Then, according to policeman we spoke to, the hoodlum(s) went through the woods behind our community and burgled a nearby subdivision.

Usually I leave my truck unlocked during the cold weather months. I've been frozen out of my vehicle too many times to feel comfortable otherwise. But I was totally unaware of any problem until Saturday when I picked up my girlfriend to take her to the store. While waiting for her to come out of the house, I went to switch on my radio and found it wasn't there. Then I vaguely recalled picking up my gloves from on the ground outside my truck door. I keep them in the pocket of my door panel. And I recalled that my glove box was open (strangely, I never store my gloves there). I wasn't suspicious at first, as we had been out Friday night and I thought my gloves had merely fallen out when I got out ... and the glove box ... well, maybe she was looking in it for something and forgot to close it. But no, the radio was definitely gone. A reexamination of my glove box turned up the fact that my can of beef jerky - which I keep as a treat for my girlfriend's dog - was missing. The dog and I were both violated. (As a side - and I swear I'm not making this up - I went out and bought another can of jerky; when I opened it, having first broke the seal, the can contained five pieces of jerky, rather than the sixteen it was supposed to have. Insult to injury!)

When I was growing up, my parents told me about some mythical time when it was safe to leave your doors unlocked at night. A time when crime practically didn't exist. In their childhood, people as a whole had only the purest of motives. Of course there also once was a continent known as Atlantis....

Well, I miss my radio! I suppose the beef jerky nourished them enough to continue their crime spree. I don't plan on replacing it soon, the radio, I mean. I guess I will watch the weather religiously and chance locking my truck doors as often as I can. Just for principle's sake, as there is not much left for them to take.

There is a certain false sense of security that comes with familiar places. That feeling has been taken away as a reminder that it is a cruel world "out there."

Am I worried about my home being broken into? Not really. It would outrage me, to be sure. But the one thing I value most - my library of books - is the one thing that would most likely be left unmolested. Thieves would not likely be interested in feeding their minds.

Besides, I don't keep beef jerky in my home.