Disturbances in the Earth, The biggest story of 2004 is also the oldest story in the world.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE ^ | December 30, 2004 | PEGGY NOONAN

[tbird5]

The biggest story of the year happened just as big-thinking journalists went on vacation after filing their "Ten Biggest Stories of 2004" pieces. Life has a way of surprising us.

I thought the other day of Harrison Salisbury, and his response when asked what he'd learned after a lifetime as a reporter. "Expect the unexpected," he said. And of course we do, in the abstract, but when a story like this comes along in the particular, with maybe 80,000 dead, maybe more, we are aghast. And should be. Call it the force of nature or the hand of God or both; call it geological inevitability or the oldest story in the world (life is tragic) reasserting itself on a broader-than-usual level--however you see the earthquake and the tsunami, it reminds you that man is not in charge.

Of all the things I've heard said of the great horror, nothing seemed to me to sum it up as well as a woman chatting with a man as he cut her hair in New York. The TV was on, CNN. They stopped and watched the latest video of surging waves crashing through a hotel. The man sighed and shook his head. "Life is terrible," he said. The woman said, "Oh it's beautiful, beautiful, but full of pain."

[writer33]

"According to enviro-nuts, global climate changes are the direct result of mean, thoughtless Americans driving around in our nasty SUVs."

Don't you know that SUVs are really sleeper Islamic fascists, activating to kill one or two people at a time? :) Denote sarcasm.

[beyond the sea]

Peggy rises from her slumber and makes sense once more.

Excellent.

[writer33]

That's it. One crash at a time. :)

[beyond the sea]

Remember it can all be swept away in a moment, so hold it close and love it while you've got it.

Yes, Peggy.

********

There was always a game going on in my neighborhood...... we didn't have a real field: we cobbled one together from a couple of backyards, a vacant lot, a garden, and a dog pen. My backyard was the infield in spring: I remember a man my father worked with coming by and being greatly distressed at how we neighborhood boys had worn base paths into the grass. "These boys are killing your yard," the man said. And I remember my father's answer: "those boys will be gone someday. That grass will grow back."

[beyond the sea]

ping for loving them while they're with you

[Kitty Mittens]

Remember it can all be swept away in a moment, so hold it close and love it while you've got it.

This same sentence by Peggy jumped out at me as it did at you, my FRiend. As Old Age is claiming my Loved Ones one by one, I Realize how True Peggy's Words are.

We Need to Cherish those we Love while we can, before our Lord Calls their Name, and they Fly Away. Thank God we have the Hope of Seeing them again, through the Merciful Grace of our Dear King of kings.

[NCjim]

Not everyone distinguished himself. What to say of those who've latched on to the tragedy to promote their political agendas, from the U.N. official who raced to call the U.S. "stingy," to the global-warming crowd, to administration critics who jumped at the chance to call the president insensitive because he was vacationing in Texas and didn't voice his sympathy quickly enough? Such people are slyly asserting their own, higher sensitivity and getting credit for it, which is odd because what they're actually doing is using dead people to make cheap points.

Peggy gets it, as usual.