Farewell to 2016, Welcome 2017

Here it is, the last, the final day of 2016. And I’m not unhappy to see this year go. This past year has been so unusual for so many reasons, the loss of so many of the people in film, television, and the nation who passed away, the latest being Debbie Reynolds, the young bubbly dancer with whom I fell in love over sixty years ago. I guess her passing and that of too many others simply reminds me of my own potential passing. Another factor is probably the disappointing season for the Cardinals, a season which comes to an end tomorrow. Good. Let’s get ready for the 2017 season. The number of people killed in terrorist attacks around the world perplexes me, disturbs me, perplexity because I simply can’t understand the Jihadist desire to randomly kill innocent people. And, of course, the surprising election of Donald Trump. I still can’t get over that. I’m still depressed by his election and the public display he keeps exhibiting with his Tweets and his arrogance in news conferences. My final acceptance of giving up golf, the game that’s dominated my entire life, is another reason for my negative feelings about the end of this year. Or maybe it’s just the gloom of overcast skies that remind me too much of early winter days in upstate New York. Right now, it looks like it might begin raining again, as it did for most of last night. I’d like New Year’s Eve to be festive, with fireworks and tooting horns, but I don’t think we’ll be doing any tooting tonight. A nice steak dinner, a quiet glass of champagne, and then to bed at our usual time, 10:00 p.m., which comes out to midnight in New York.

I’ve decided that this will be my last blog post for a while, maybe forever. I have a novel I started at least five years ago that’s calling to me. I’ve been blogging for eight years now and it just feels like a good place to stop (either temporarily or forever). I look at the stats for this blog and am surprised by the number of people from other nations who have visited me: Russia 6941, France 2479, Germany 1668, the UK 1410, Ukraine 693, Poland 498, Canada 440, Latvia 428, and Sweden 381. I’m astonished by the number of words I’ve written: 554,701. I didn’t think I had that many words in me to write on such a wide variety of subjects. I went on-line to find out more about Jihadism (and I learned that that word may not be very accurate). I looked up Sharia Law and found this disturbing list:

According to Sharia law: (as listed by Billion Bibles.org)
• Theft is punishable by amputation of the right hand.
• Criticizing or denying any part of the Quran is punishable by death.
• Criticizing Muhammad or denying that he is a prophet is punishable by death.
• Criticizing or denying Allah, the god of Islam is punishable by death.
• A Muslim who becomes a non-Muslim is punishable by death.
• A non-Muslim who leads a Muslim away from Islam is punishable by death.
• A non-Muslim man who marries a Muslim woman is punishable by death.
• A man can marry an infant girl and consummate the marriage when she is 9 years old.
• Girls' clitoris should be cut (Muhammad's words, Book 41, Kitab Al-Adab, Hadith 5251).
• A woman can have 1 husband, who can have up to 4 wives; Muhammad can have more.
• A man can beat his wife for insubordination.
• A man can unilaterally divorce his wife; a woman needs her husband's consent to divorce.
• A divorced wife loses custody of all children over 6 years of age or when they exceed it.
• Testimonies of four male witnesses are required to prove rape against a woman.
• A woman who has been raped cannot testify in court against her rapist(s).
• A woman's testimony in court, allowed in property cases, carries ½ the weight of a man's.
• A female heir inherits half of what a male heir inherits.
• A woman cannot drive a car, as it leads to fitnah (upheaval).
• A woman cannot speak alone to a man who is not her husband or relative.
• Meat to eat must come from animals that have been sacrificed to Allah - i.e., be "Halal."
• Muslims should engage in Taqiyya and lie to non-Muslims to advance Islam.

It strikes me that these laws, which so belittle women, aren’t valid in the 21st century, and those who believe in them are clinging to laws that are outdated by at least two or three hundred years. How can the world ever find peace with these terrorist groups so intent on killing all non-Muslims? I’ll have to think about this some more, maybe come back to it when and if I begin blogging again.

And with that, I say to whoever is reading this, “Have a happy and prosperous new year!”
farewell