Although I am just getting around to posting for 2019, I can at least assure you that I have been more active when it comes to breaking resolutions. I will now get back into the blogging business by presenting you with a quotation which expresses my feelings about the future much better than I can.
"Given the present outlook, only the faithful who believe in miracles from heaven, the optimistic who anticipate superwonders from science, the parochial fortunate who think they can continue to exist on islands of affluence in a sea of world poverty, and the naive who anticipate nothing, can look to the future with equanimity."
I suppose as a welcome to the new year, you were expecting sanguine sentiments so I will leaven that quotation by letting you know that the prediction above was made fifty years ago and we are still here. Perhaps he was too negative and I should be more optimistic. I will try to be so as we move into the new year which is, I hope, a good one for all of us.
Source:
In 1968 the Foreign Policy Association (U.S.) published a book of predictions with the title: Towards the Year 2018. In one of the essays contained in the book Philip M. Hauser, who was feeling rather Malthusian about the growing global population problem, offered the observation quoted above. I found it in a column discussing the book. See: "Comment: Unforeseen" in 'The Talk of the Town'," by Jill Lepore, The New Yorker, Jan. 7, 2019, p.14.
Post Script:
I am obviously not the smiling gentleman in the photo. He is Guy Lombardo who was born here in London, Ontario.
If you live in the area and are interested in the book of predictions from 1968, you will find three copies up in the Western Libraries.
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