Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Mona Charen
This is a season for counting one’s blessings. Here is my partial list:
Because he is gone, 60,000 Iraqi children under the age of 5 will not die this year, as they have done for the more than 10 years since sanctions were imposed following the Gulf War (UNICEF figures), and Saddam will not be in a position to share weapons of mass destruction with his friends in Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Those ties, stretching back 10 years, are documented in The Weekly Standard magazine:
http://www.weeklystandard.com.
Well, we are in that position now. Saddam has been beaten and driven from power. Just as we would never have known for sure what Mohammad Atta had planned if we’d captured him before Sept. 11, we’ll never fully know what havoc Saddam was capable of, though we have strong reason to believe it was severe. And therefore, despite the naysayers, we have reason to be grateful.
n Technology is giving us more life. Is that extreme? I don’t think so. Technology frees us from drudgery and waiting. Instead of standing in line at the bank between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., we bank electronically. Instead of spending three quarters of an hour on the telephone comparing prices for airfare, we can look up all the carriers and prices online in seconds. Instead of rushing home to wait for an important phone call, we talk on a cell phone anywhere we like. Instead of driving to the library to examine the card catalogue, we log on to the library’s database and check to see if the book we want is available. Instead of racking our brains and scouring our records for the perfect pumpkin pie recipe, we go to:
and discover more recipes than we’ll ever have time to cook.
So by freeing up our time for more important or pleasurable activities, technology gives the gift of life.
Happy holidays.
Mona Charen writes for Creators Syndicate.
