First Post

I awoke this 2006 just a few feet from the edge of the New World, with the Pacific looking grey and foreboding across the horizon. (Granted, I wake up most mornings only about 12 miles from the edge, but small differences are still differences ...)

I don't want "grey and foreboding" to be my theme for 2006, though there's plenty of it to go around, because I am fundamentally an optimist, and I know that the scary places I go when blogging are not the entire world, and that there is an overpowering Goodness and Truth that drives the universe and that will ultimately defeat Evil.

So I'll take "the edge of the New World" as my theme instead. It is a good theme, a strong theme:

• Discovery: We Europeans (and most likely the Siberians before) didn't stop pushing on until we met edges, then we started thinking about getting across those edges, be they deserts, mountains or oceans. That curiousity and drive made us a great nation, and I want to keep it burning in me in 2006.
• Freedom: We Americans weren't content to manifest our destiny from the Atlantic to the Pacific. We thought we had a pretty darn good system here, and we've worked to spread it. Often the results weren't good (France's attempt bottomed out into the French Revolution and Napoleon), but our belief in freedom has made the world a freer, better, healthier place. I'm going to continue pushing hard for freedom -- because what's the alternative?
• Newness: The oldest building around here (the mission in San Juan Capistrano) was built in 1776, which is still pretty darn new, and there's not much else that dates before 1960. That means that not that long ago, all of this (from Plymouth Rock to Dana Point) was as it was -- bushes, bunnies and birdies -- not as it is. It also means there are a lot of new babies and new families that want to discover, grow and enjoy freedom here. I'm going to continue speaking for them, because I basically like humans more than bushes, bunnies and birdies, who already have plenty of advocates.

I like that agenda. So, from the edge of the New World, a happy new year to you all.