The real reason for the season returns on Thursday, Dec. 21, at 7:22 p.m. The Winter Solstice, which marks the shortest day in the northern hemisphere and the first day of winter, will pass for most with little fanfare. Over the next few weeks, there will be some welcome hints of lengthening days. Thus the same primordial hopefulness which rose in the breasts of pagan Earth-worshippers may begin to warm the hearts of their modern-day counterparts. It's the rebirth of the sun, not the birth of a son, that we should celebrate.

Unlike the followers of xtian mythology, those awaiting signs of these physical realities can witness and experience them without the repeated disappointments of unrewarded faith.

Our pResident seems to be struggling to soften his hollow "victory" chant in the light of pronouncements from far more respected voices, both military and civilian, proclaiming his Iraq debacle an abject failure. While here at home, despite the decider's pronouncement that we are "a nation at war," our people will be fighting little more than traffic to get to the malls in search of X-Box 360s to sate the need for the latest tools of digital escapism.

All around the globe, though, the fight is far more heart-wrenching and inescapably real. While our children have visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads, Iraqi children experience daily visions of mindless carnage which will be remembered for decades as America's present to them. The children of Sudan have visions of their loved ones having their heads hacked off as presents of religious and ethnic cleansing which the entire world deplores but seems paralyzed to prevent.

Soldiers on patrol in Baghdad will be gritting their teeth in hopes of no IED attacks; people in Gaza will be cowering in hopes of no Israeli air strikes; people in England hope against hope the British nationals reported to have just graduated from al Quaeda training in Pakistan decide not to come home. The people of Venezuela, having just democratically re-elected Hugo Chavez and ratified his socialist government hope Bush II's CIA isn't moving to do to their country what Nixon, Bush I, Reagan, and Pinochet did to Chile thirty years ago.

The Bush administration will apparently continue its relentless attack on science, putting ideologues and industry hacks in charge of the nation's social programs, forests, parks, rangelands and rivers. Curiously, it's as if they were bent on doing as much damage to our country as possible before being yanked out of office by the scruffs of their necks - emboldened by the milque-toast democrats who have shown more interest in possessing power than putting it to justified use. Cynthia McKinney's introduction of articles of impeachment against Bush will remain one of the most substantive acts in the Congress this past year. And yet, the spineless political droids we seem so willing to tolerate will likely just sweep it under the rug and blather on about "bipartisanship."

On other fronts, Polar Bears will seek resting places on dwindling ice floes; the beauty of coral reefs will slowly continue to dim in their bath of warming and acidifying oceans; fish stock will continue to dwindle in the face of human "all-you-can-eat" seafood gluttony; tropical forests will continue to disappear for computer paper; species not even known to science will disappear under the development steamroller in countries seeking to have a small percentage of the resource wealth that we waste each year.

We will sleep off holiday dinners in front of gleaming HDTVs that put mind-numbing images of bloody streets and flaming cars before us - proof that the only fruits of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld's carnival of horrors in Iraq will be years of sectarian murder and civil war - with or without our troops in the mix. An image of Mr. Hussein at the end of a rope might be considered a macabre "Christmas present" by Bush and his discredited neocon henchmen, but like many Iraqis have said in recent days, life was better when Saddam was in charge. I think one can honestly say the life in America was, too.

One can only hope that life on Earth is more peaceful when the next Solstice approaches. Light a candle for that. Gather 'round a bonfire for that. Tie a sprig of greenery on your mantle for that. Do something to make that a national priority.

Bruce Wilkey
Signal Mountain
bwilkey@bellsouth.net