George Rebane

Dear Readers, I wish you each a happy and fruitful new year.  And I thank you for frequenting this record of thoughts, harangues, laments, celebrations, and conversations about the epochal changes in which we are both witness and participant.  I hope our exchanges continue in the coming year, and that we find from each other something that leaves us to better understand and take strength from the coming whirlwind.  In the interval, from the 17th century Father Baltasar advises –

Have the art of conversation, for it is the hallmark of the man.  No human enterprise demands greater heed, for so large a part of everday life, whence its dangers, or its advantages; if care is necessary to write a letter, which is conversation studied, and committed to paper; how much more is necessary in everyday speech, when the intelligence must at every moment pass examination? …  (Gracian 148)