KALEIDOSCOPE 2002 Copyright 12/29/02 Kenneth W. Phifer Kaleidoscope, my annual review of the year just past, began nearly 30 years ago when I was reflecting on some famous words of William James. Writing in 1867, after a journey to South America, he pondered the meaning of life by noting that "the real world as it is given objectively at this moment is the sum total of all its being and events now. But can we think of such a sum? Can we realize for an instant what a cross-section of all existence at a definite point in time would be? While I talk and the flies buzz, a sea gull catches a fish at the mouth of the Amazon, a tree falls in the Adirondack wilderness, a man sneezes in Germany, a horse dies in Tartary, and twins are born in France. What does this mean? Does the contemporaneity of these events with one another, and with a million others as disjointed, form a rational bond between them and unite them into anything that means for us a world? Yet just such a collateral contemporaneity, and nothing else, is the real order of the world. It is an order with which we have nothing to do but to get away from it as fast as possible. As I said, we break it: we break it into histories, and we break it into arts, and we break it into sciences; and then we begin to feel at home." Here is the truth of life, a truth we can never absorb because there is simply too much happening, happening right this moment and in each past and successive moments, for our brains to register or absorb, much less to sort out into some meaningful pattern. So we mostly spend our time ignoring most of what is real, breaking "the real order of the world" into histories and arts and sciences, families and jobs and games. In these thin slices of reality, we can make our way about with a measure of confidence, see some sense to the way things occur, feel a measure of control over our lives. It seemed to me nearly three decades ago, and still does, that it is important for us not to forget the point that James was making. It seemed and seems to me important that once a year we get some feeling for the random enormity of existence. The kaleidoscope is a symbol of the fragmented pieces of life that come hurtling our way through the year. My collection of clippings and things heard on radio and tv and things plucked off e-mail and web sites, like life itself, is a kaleidoscope of the sweet and terrible, bizarre and ordinary, funny and woeful, heroic and stupid ways of humanity and the world in which we find ourselves. This is Kaleidoscope 2002. The headlines on January 1 urged Christian Longo, who had murdered his family, to turn himself in; told us that investors were glad to see 2001 market woes go; and announced that the Marines were on a mission to find Omar of Afghanistan. Longo was caught, investors at the close of 2002 will still be glad to see market woes go, and the Marines quit looking for Omar. Harry Potter and Eminem and Spiderman all had hit movies. The British banned fox hunting, Botox was all the rage, and Houston's Teamsters Union building was constructed by non-union labor because union contractors cost too much. At Quecreek all nine miners were rescued. The INS sent student visa approval to several of the 9/11 hijackers, and wildfires swept through the western United States as floods ravaged Central Europe and the Himalayan foothills. Europe switched to the Euro. 2002 brought new images to Martha Stewart, Arthur Andersen, Enron, Adelphia, Tyco, and Worldcom. The ten largest firms on Wall Street agreed to pay $1 billion in fines to stop further investigations into their misconduct. In Shorewood, Wisconsin, a 51 year old man was arrested for shoplifting after leaving a store with one radish in his pocket. Italy's royal family returned home after 54 years. The Braewood Shopping Center in Glasgow, Scotland, offered the female shopper The Shopping Boyfriend so she would have someone to browse with if her husband did not want to do so;- the advertising said the Boyfriend will be attentive and enthusiastic, even saying that "her bum looks small." The Swedish government announced that chocolate is loaded with acrylamide, a possible carcinogen and Hagerty Classic Insurance of Traverse City said that chocolate is dangerous to eat while driving because of its "smearability," which causes drivers to be distracted from the road. A Florida Hooters waitress sued the restaurant for promising her a new Toyota for selling the most beer but actually giving her a "toy Yoda." Colgate-Palmolive patented a soap that will stick to youir skin all day and resist bacteria. Rudy Giulani paid his ex-wife $6.8 million in a divorce settlement, Mary Sue Coleman became the first woman president of the University of Michigan, and the Sex Pistols played at the Queen's Jubillee in London. Voters in Georgetown, Colorado recalled their mayor, Koleen Brooks, for flashing tavern patrons and threatening to abolish the police department. Chico, California enacted a ban on nuclear weapons, setting a $500 fine for anyone detonating one within city limits. Robert L. Johnson became the first African American to be the principal owner of a major professional sports team, in this case the new Charlotte entry in the NBA. In Livermore, California, city officials apologized to American Indian Adam "Fortunate Eagle" Nordwell for deriding the curse he placed on the city sewer system in 1969 because a totem pole he had donated to the city had been chopped up; residents felt the curse accounted for their many sewer problems. Paul Wellstone died, Rossie Ray-Taylor resigned following two school board resignations, Chelsea Clinton was anointed by Vanity Fair as a sex symbol, and Minneapolis unveiled a statue of Mary, Mary Tyler Moore, that is. George Bush confided in Tony Blair that "the problem with the French is that they don't have any word for entrepreneur." He also assured the American people that "I believe that 2002 is going to be a fabulous year for America." Rabih Haddad remained in prison the whole year, was charged with no crime, but nonetheless was ordered deported. Halle Berry became the first black woman to win an academy award for best actress and Denzel Washington the first black man since Sidney Poitier to win best actor honors. Jimmy Carter went to Cuba and spoke openly with Fidel Castro about liberty; later he went to Oslo, Norway to accept his Nobel Peace Prize, the 19th American to be so honored. Another Nobel Peace Prize winner, Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi, was freed from house arrest after 19 months. Brittany Spears went to Japan to accept the 2002 Barbie Award as the woman most longed for by Japanese women. Daniel Pearl was murdered, there was continued fighting in Kashmir, and the leaders of Uganda and the Congo signed a peace accord. Israel and the Palestinians continued to slaughter each other. The president authorized the CIA to hunt down and kill terrorists, announced that a Star Wars missile shield defense system would be put in place, and ordered that nuclear warhead triggers be put into production. The president demanded and won the right for Americans to be exempt from the International Criminal Court, said the U.S. was unilaterally giving up the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and announced that we would no longer abide by the Kyoto Treaty. Researchers discovered that the U.S. fired the first shot on December 7, 1941, sinking a Japanese sub an hour before the attack on Pearl Harbor, while other researchers learned that the Neanderthals used machetes with which to fight. Patents were given to the following inventions: a reusable artificial fingernail; a method for charging a fee for a nonauthorized caller; a computer system that releases aroma therapy for relaxation; a process for enhancing the transparency of transparent soap; a double hot dog; an inflatable ball with unpredictable movement; and a brake assembly for a bed. Congress met in New York City for the first time in 212 years, got a pay raise which Lynn Rivers and Nick Smith refused to accept, and received the final report of the Whitewater Independent Counsel confirming that the Clintons had done nothing illegal. On the same day John Ashcroft promised to "personally rededicate" himself to the pursuit of racial justice, Jesse Helms said he was ashamed for having done so little to fight against AIDS and would take up that battle immediately. Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City, was featured in an ad supporting legalization of marijuana saying, "You bet I did. And I enjoyed it." The British House of Commons appointed a House of Commons Cat. Mexican president Vincente Fox got the Simpsons' creators to feature him in a comic book. Politician Dennis Cleary's family took out ads supporting his opponent, saying, "We're tired of Dennis. Are you?" The House of Representatives got tired of James Trafficant and expelled him after his conviction for racketeering, bribery, and taking salary kickbacks. Al Gore got tired of politics and announced he would not run in 2004. Others who grew weary and resigned their Congressional offices included Jesse Helms, Dick Armey, Phil Gramm, Fred Thompson (who now stars on a tv program), David Bonior, and the 100 year old Strom Thurmond. It was at his birthday party that Trent Lott talked himself out of the Senate Majority leader's position by bragging about Mississippi's vote in 1948 for the Dixiecrat candidate, saying that "if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years." The Augusta National Golf Club had a problem when it became national news that the club, site of the eminent Masters Golf Tournament, does not admit women. Football does, as Kathy Hnida became the first woman to play in an NCAA Division I game: she tried an extra point for New Mexico against UCLA on Christmas Day. Tiger Woods won two more Grand Slam events, a baseball strike was averted, and Lance Armstrong won his fourth straight Tour de France cycling race. Ernie Harwell announced his last game, Barry Bonds won an unprecedented fifth Most Valuable Player Award, and the improbable California Angels beat Mr. Bonds' San Francisco Giants in the World Series. Larry Christiansen beat Jennifer Shahade in the first co-ed U.S. chess championship. The eight member police department in Penryn, PA refused to direct traffic at a YMCA triathlon because the Y promotes witchcraft by reading Harry Potter books to children. NATO welcomed seven new members and agreed to meet with Russia in a Group of 20. Elections were held in South Korea, Pakistan, Holland, France, Afghanistan, Sweden, Germany, Turkey, Zambia, and East Timor. Saddam Hussein won 100% of the votes in Iraq, while the Security Council voted 100% to send inspectors into that country to look for WMD, the acronym of the year, meaning weapons of mass destruction. Firefighters went on strike in England, the president of Venezuela was arrested by the military but returned to office two days later, and Slobodan Milosevic went on trial for war crimes. There were terrorist attacks in Bali, Moscow, and Kashmir, and North Korea made clear its desire to become the eighth nuclear nation. Marutel Tsurunen, a naturalized Japanese citizen of Finnish heritage, became the first Caucasian elected to the Japanese parliament. The emir of Bahrain crowned himself. Yugoslavia was renamed Serbia and Montenegro. Britons were revealed as the brainiest people in Europe in a televised quiz test, with men scoring higher than women and gray-haired men from Leicester attaining the highest scores. There was a drought in Australia, global warming threatened the tiny island nation of Tuvalu, and lava flowed from a newly active volcano in the Congo. Switzerland joined the U.N., the U.S. re-joined UNESCO, and ten nations were admitted to the European Union. A U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that the UM Law School could use race as a factor in admissions procedures, Chris Webber was indicted for lying to a grand jury, and Hill Auditorium was closed for renovations. The mayor of Flint was recalled, the Ann Arbor City Council passed a resolution against going to war in Iraq, and the mastodon became Michigan's official state fossil. John Engler is serving out the last days of his 12 year tenure as governor. Michigan was declared one of the most overweight states in America. The law forbidding cursing in the presence of women and children was struck down. Winter brought us record warmth and July brought us record dryness. Vodka was 500 years old in 2002, Macy's and the Teddy Bear 100. Ogden Nash was born 100 years ago; in his lifetime his deft mind penned such immortal verse as these lines: "The turtle lives twixt plated decks Which practically conceal its sex I think it's clever of the turtle In such a fix to be so fertile." Hillbilly music and television were 75 in the past year, Mad magazine and Queen Elizabeth's reign 50, and Title IX 30. It was 30 years ago that we first heard of Deep Throat and 25 years ago that Elvis died. Edward Sorel had a cartoon about looking back, showing two classmates at their 30th reunion saying to each other: Liberal-"Hard to believe it's been 30 years since we were here." Conservative-"Hard to believe how much we hated each other then." L-Well, you were a member of Young Americans for Freedom." C-"And you had been a member of SDS and had hair down to here." L-You kept yapping about Mao being just another Commie megalomaniac." C-"And you'd turn purple shouting that Nixon was a paranoid psycho." L-"You hated Castro, insisted he didn't give a damn about democracy." C-"And you hated Kissinger, insisted he would install a neo-Nazi regime in Chile." L-"You were so damn sure that Communism could never provide a decent standard of living." C-"And you were so positive that capitalism would lead to corporations taking over the world." L-"I know it sounds crazy but--" C-"Yes, we were both right about everything." Death this year has taken those whose kind we shall not see again: Stephen Jay Gould, Ann Landers, Rosemary Clooney, Ted Williams, General Benjamin Davis, Alan Lomax, Phillip Berrigan, Cyrus Vance, Britain's Queen Mum at 101, Thor Heyerdahl, and Maud Farris-Luse the world's oldest living person (115). The Clinton's dog, Buddy, died, as did Samantha the python, the oldest snake in captivity, a huge python. Peggy Lee and Lionel Hampton and Dolph Green and Billy Wilder are all gone. Mildred Wirt Benson, who wrote the Nancy Drew stories, died, as did Arthur Melin, whose toy company introduced us to the Frisbee and the Hula Hoop. Dave Thomas, who founded Wendy's, Walter Annenburg, who gave us TV Guide, and Linda Lovelace, who starred in Deep Throat, are all dead. In Noble, Georgia, more than 300 bodies thought to have been cremated were found scattered around the property of the Tri-State Crematory. Memorabilia from the World Trade Center were on sale on eBay, as was the town of Bridgeville, California, which sold for $1.8 million. Yves Saint Laurent announced his retirement from the world of haute couture and the Miss World contest had to relocate to London from Nigeria after protests led to the deaths of more than 200 people. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder won the right not to have newspapers speculate about whether he dyes his hair, a new doll was marketed showing John F. Kennedy, Jr. as a three year old, and RMS Titanic, Inc is planning a perfume based on a fragrance found on the doomed ship by divers. The mayor of San Jose De Maipo in Chile declared his village an official UFO tourism zone. Among the better bumper stickers and t-shirt logos seen this year were these: Nature always bats last. I've found Jesus. He was behind the sofa the whole time. Why do people with closed minds always open their mouths? Wrinkled was not one of the things I wanted to be when I grew up. I used to have a handle on life, but it broke. Speaking of broke, the economy was bearish all year. The Fed's main interest rate was at a 41 year low of 1.25%, unemployment topped 6%, Jacobson's closed, United Airlines filed for bankruptcy, and K-Mart, the largest retailer ever to do so, also went into Chapter 11 protection. William Clay Ford apologized for cutting 22,000 jobs, Harvey Pitt resigned as head of the SEC, and Penthouse magazine announced it would go out of business. Indonesia's minister of religious affairs followed a soothsayer's advice to a stone inscribed in Sanskrit, looking for a treasure that would cover that country's debt. North Carolina gave $41 million of the tobacco settlement from the tobacco companies to tobacco growers. Top CEO's continued to average an income about 1,000 times that of an ordinary worker. The Mount Vernon Ladies Association announced an $85 million campaign to make over George Washington's face into that of "an action figure of his times." Job Center Plus was sued for forcing a man to wear a tie to work in order to look professionally competent. A Beverly Hills firm began selling a brassiere with a built-in holster for a .38 caliber pistol, while protesters began stripping to communicate their message: against the unethical treatment of animals in Spain, against nuclear weapons in Berlin,, against the fox-hunting ban in Britain, against the G-8 in Calgary, against Israel's occupation of the West Bank, and against Big Oil in Nigeria. In France, FRANCE!, government officials were urging less nudity, more modesty, and less explicit sexuality on television. On Valentine's Day,2,226 young Russians set a world record for kissing simultaneously; in Cologne, Germany drive-in brothels were introduced; and two youth pastors in California bought a booth at the Adult Video News trade show, boasting that they had the "No. 1 Christian porn website," (actually a website for prayers for people who work in pornography and who buy it). A Planned Parenthood clinic in Virginia offered patriotic condoms in red, white., and blue, while a female shark at the Belle Isle Aquarium who has not been near a male shark for six years gave birth to three babies. A 370 year old book was found near Manchester, England, with the title WOMAN'S WORTH: A TREATISE PROVEINGE BY SUNDRIE REASONS THAT WOEMEN DO EXCELL MEN." Lloyd's List, a shipping industry paper, said it will no longer refer to ships as "she", using "it" instead. Mel White ghostwriter of Jerry Falwell's autobiography moved in across the street from his former boss with his partner of 20 years, Gary Nixon; the gay couple plan to attend Falwell's church. Same sex unions were legalized in Buenos Aries and in the Zurich canton in Switzerland.The New York City Council voted to recognize gay marriages from other jurisdictions. The New York Times began printing notices of gay commitment ceremonies. And the American Academy of Pediatrics has endorsed homosexual adoption, saying that gay couples as much as heterosexual couples can provide a loving, stable, and emotionally healthy family life. Fred Gray, Sr., who represented Rosa Parks, became the first black president of the Alabama State Bar Association. A three judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment. A federal judge in Tennessee ordered Bible classes taught in Rhea County, where the Scopes trial was held 77 years ago, stopped. Euthanasia was legalized in Holland, Satan was barred from entering Inglis, Florida, and kites were banned in Shanghai. Two Salvadoran generals, now retired in Florida, were ordered to pay three of their victims from the 1980's repressions a total of $54.6 million. Houghton Mifflin sued Jews for Jesus for using their copyrighted character, Curious George, in their evangelizing pamphlets. The Vatican was sued by five states for fraud and racketeering for sponsoring the fraudulent St. Francis of Assisi Foundation. Food addicts are suing McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy's and KFC for creating addictions and failing to give nutritional information. McDonalds is suing Carmen Calderon in Chile for claiming their food gave her son food poisoning. A female passenger is suing Delta Airlines for emotional distress because security agents asked her to hold up a vibrator packet in her mysteriously vibrating suitcase. Families of more than 600 victims of 9/11 are suing Saudi Arabia princes and banks and the government of Sudan for $3 trillion for funding the terrorist network that launched the attacks. Small wonder, given the ease of and proclivity for suing, that manufacturers feel compelled to put warnings like these on their products: On a portable stroller: "Caution: Remove infant before folding for storage;" On a package of fireplace logs: "Caution risk of fire;" On a hair dryer: "Do not use while sleeping." Sleep less and live longer, says a new research study. Eat less junk food, says the World Health Organization, or die early. Lose weight, says the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and add years to your life span.. New rules for medical residents will limit their work week to 80 hours. Lithuania will no longer require gynecological tests for female drivers. Latest body part to be operated on to improve the way we look was the navel, the latest transplanted body part the uterus. Fashion Aid brought out Boo Boos, band-aids that hide bruises and highlight curves. At Texas A&M, a kitty was cloned and named cc for copy cat or carbon copy, while the original cloned animal, Dolly, developed arthritis. A religious sect that contends that space travelers created the human race by cloning themselves announced last week that the first cloned baby was born on December 26. The HMO industry hired a Hollywood agency to spruce up their image, while Marcia Angell, a Harvard lecturer, was revealing that fifty cents on every dollar in health care goes to insurance companies and others that administer the bureaucracies. Mick Jagger was knighted. Bono went to Africa with the Treasury Secretary. Napster folded. So did The Fantasticks, the longest running musical ever. Radio station WSM , after trying to drop the Grand Ole Opry, agreed to continue broadcasting it. (Hooray! I grew up with that station and the Opry broadcasts in the 1940's in Nashville, Tennessee.) Country song titles of the year included: If the Phone Doesn't Ring, It's Me; How Can I Miss You If You Won't Go Away?; I Keep Forgettin' I Forgot About You; Thank God and Greyhound (She's Gone); Girls' schools in Tehran have lifted the veils for students and teachers. Princeton admissions officers invaded the Yale admissions website. Historian Doris Goodwin was caught plagiarizing. Cornell West left Harvard for Princeton. The University of North Carolina required incoming freshmen to read the Qur'an, but the chancellor assured concerned non-Islamic parents that "there were no known conversions. Carolina's religion remains basketball." The Supreme Court ruled an Ohio school voucher program constitutional. An Indian mathematician came up with a new algorithm to prove whether a number is prime no matter how enormous it is. A Japanese professor calculated pi to a record-shattering 1.24 trillion places. A new species of whale was discovered, the color of the universe was determined to be pale turquoise, and it was learned that the neutrino does after all have mass. Stephen Wolfram published A NEW KIND OF SCIENCE showing that simple rules, like short computer programs, generate all of nature's complexities. An 82 legged centipede was found in Central Park, ruins in the Indian Ocean have pushed the date of civilization back 5,000 years, bits of crafted ochre discovered in a cave in South Africa point to modern human behaviour beginning 75,000 years ago not 40,000 years ago, and bones found in the desert in Chad take the human line back 7 million years. The Hubble telescope saw evidence of the origins of the universe and astronomers suggested it "emerged from its initial darkness in a dawn of light that came up like thunder across the cosmos." New black holes of medium size were discovered, an amateur Japanese astronomer discovered his 6th comet, and physicists in Switzerland created anti-atoms out of anti- matter. Two new theories of the universe were proposed. One says that time has no beginning but rolls along through an endless series of cosmic creations and crunches. The other argues that if anybody ever discovers what the universe is for, it will instantly disappear to be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. A variation on this second theory states that this has already happened. Further evidence of global warming was noted in the rapid meltdown of the main glacier in the Bolivian Andes, whose life is now estimated to be ten years. The new Archbishop of Canterbury became an honorary white druid, a new church opened inside the walls of Lubyanka prison in Moscow, and a new gender-neutral Bible was published. Jerry Falwell said that Mohammed was a terrorist, Pope Paul traveled to Poland and Mexico and Guatemala and Canada, and a million Muslims attended a three day congregation in Bangladesh. The Boy Scouts tried to expel an atheist Eagle Scout, the former first lady of Ohio was excommunicated for accepting ordination as a Catholic priest, and Kimberly Cloutier was fired by Costco for wearing an eyebrow ring which she said was part of her religion, the Church of Body Modification. The Veterans Administration approved chaplains from the largely gay Metropolitan Community Church. More than 800 Roman Catholic priests were exposed as pedophiles and predators, numerous bishops were exposed as collaborators who shifted priests from parish to parish without warning of their proclivities, and the American bishops adopted a hard line policy of zero tolerance. An uprising in his diocese forced Cardinal Bernard Law to resign. 2002 was the year Ron English put up a billboard for a festival in Baltimore that showed a picture of a Jesus-like figure and had the words: "The King of the Jews for the King of Beers." Dr. Don Colbert wrote WHAT WOULD JESUS EAT, based on New Testament prooftexts. The slogan of the year, though, was "What Would Jesus Drive," a tv ad campaign sponsored by evangelical Christians concerned about the impact of SUV's and like vehicles on the environment. One Dick Mendell of Wayne, MI, proposed that Jesus drove an old Plymouth because the Bible says that "God drove Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden in a Fury." Mendell goes on to point to Psalm 83 as indicating Jesus must have had a Pontiac and a GEO as it urges the Lord to "pursue your enemies with your Tempest and terrify them with your Storm." Mendell also said it is possible that Jesus drove a Honda but wanted to keep it quiet. In John, he tells the crowd, "For I did not speak of my Accord." Bobby Frank Cherry was convicted of first degree murder in the bombing of the 16th St. Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1963 that took the lives of four black girls. Chandra Levy's murder was not solved. FBI agents in Boston were convicted of racketeering and letting innocent people go to jail to protect mob hit men informants. Alfred Taubman was sent to prison for a year and fined $7.5 million for fixing art auction prices. H. Rap Brown was convicted of murder, Winona Ryder of shoplifting, and Princess Anne of owning a dog that bit two children. Rwanda's minister for women's affairs in 1994 Pauline Nyiramasuhuko was convicted of genocide while John Mohammed and Lee Malvo were arrested in the Washington, D.C. sniper case. An animal rights activist murdered right-wing Dutch politician Pim Fortyn because he thought his ideas were dangerous to society. Jim Barbe, an accountant, faces two years in jail and a $5,000 fine for talking too long he spoke for 11 minutes in a five minute time slot-- at a township meeting in Salem, Pennsylvania. Five men serving time for a brutal rape 13 years ago in Central Park had their convictions overturned because of DNA evidence and a confession by another man. In Monroe, Washington, a man and a woman robbed a busy Starbucks, were disappointed at the take so stayed 30 minutes serving customers to boost it, then fled. A 22 year old man in Wichita, Kansas was arrested for trying to pass two counterfeit $16 bills. Two service station attendants refused to give the money from the register to a very inebriated robber. The robber threatened to call the police and when they refused, he did. He too was arrested. In Cadillac, Michigan the letter S was stolen from a storefront and is being held for ransom. Barbie dolls were removed from stores in Iran, while in Los Angeles the creator of the Barbie doll, Ruth Handler, died. Mel Gibson announced plans to make a movie about Jesus entirely in Latin and Aramaic. Raggedy Ann was taken into the National Toy Hall of Fame, the Simpsons became peronae non gratae in Rio de Janeiro, and laid off workers at Enron posed naked in either Playboy (the ladies) or Playgirl (the gentlemen). MIT scientists have now created the first realistic videos of people uttering what they never said. Britain televised an autopsy. Anna Nicole Smith was awarded $88 million from her deceased husband's estate and also given a reality tv show. A survivalist boutique Safer America opened in lower Manhattan, selling biohazard suits and potassium iodide pills. LifeGem Memorials offered to convert your loved one's ashes into a diamond, $4,000 for a quarter-carat. Because of contamination by Listeria, 27.4 million pounds of meat were recalled, the largest recall in our history. Bill Knapp's closed, Hershey's went up for sale, then was taken off the market, and the Wall Street Journal reported on the latest anti-smoking product, nicotine-laced lollipops. Subway passed McDonalds as America's largest restaurant chain. Words matter. Ruth Lilly left $100 million to Poetry magazine. North Dakota was considering changing its name to a warmer one and proposed the name Dakota. The California Prune Festival, worried about its image, changed its name to the Dried Plum Festival. The Japanese word "karoshi"-- meaning death brought on by overwork or job-related exhaustion was added to the Oxford English Dictionary. AOL Time Warner backed off its policy of requiring employees to use e- mail after they complained about its frequent crashing, inability to handle large attachments, and labeling them as spammers if they tried to send messages to large groups. One magazine writer exulted, "If all goes well, we'll never have to use e-mail, and we'll have to start talking to each other again." In Brooklyn, Aaron Naparstek got fed up with all the honking on the streets outside his apartment and began writing verses in Japanese haiku style three line verses in 5-7-5 syllable form. He posted them on lampposts, which the drivers could not see but pedestrians could. Soon others were joining with their own "honku." The police appointed Napastek as an official "traffic calmer." Soon many neighbors had joined in to chastise ill-mannered drivers and the neighborhood grew quieter. An example of his verse: You from New Jersey Honking in front of my house In your SUV. Smoking cigarettes Blasting Hot97 Futilely honking. Maybe the world could use a little honku philosophy a little greedu and a little waru and a little environmentalu, some gentle reminders in a mere 17 syllables of the mad, stupid, arrogant pace of life that needs slowing down, that needs courtesy, that needs sharing. Maybe we could all become life calmers. Tongue very distinctly in cheek, Ian Frazier wrote of a 1200 page study at Duke University that concluded that "life is too hard." The study supposedly provided "incontrovertible proof that life is actually worse that most living things can stand." Of course, life is hard and three cheers for us because we do stand it, and we stand it cheerfully, and we stand it in spite of the fact that much of the time we have not a clue as to what it all means or what is really happening. Maybe that is all we can ever really learn from looking at a few pieces of the kaleidoscope of a given year, that life is hard, and funny and confusing. But maybe there is one thing more, and that is to see in this random swirl of events a cheerfulness in times of despair, a faith in noble values even under great pressure, a hope that rises even in the most desperate situations, a love that binds people together in this and that and the other community. Yes, life is hard, but it is also beautiful. Yes, humanity can be savage and stupid, but we can also be kind and smart. And yes, sometimes things simply do not make any sense, but we find a way to incorporate even mystery into our lives. People do this the world over, and that is cause for rejoicing. The members and friends of this congregation do it right here all the time, and that is cause for all of us to celebrate our community. Let us continue in the new year to care for each other and to let our light shine in the world. Then, whatever kaleidoscopic events fill the year 2003, we shall face them with courage and with grace. 1