Happy New Year

Dear Reader:

Happy New Year! Some folks might think I'm a little late but, as in all things, it depends on your perspective.

Chinese New year will begin on 12-February this year (the year of the horse) (should be good for Mustang fans), which also happens to be Lincoln's Birthday and Mardi Gras, so there'll be plenty of celebrating going on world wide although we don't normally party hard in the "Land of Lincoln" even if it is his birthday. On the other hand there will be some big time celebrations in New Orleans, Rio, Beijing and, I'm sure, quite a few other places.

Islamic New Year will fall on 15-March this year (the Ides of March - bad time for Caesar, who also invented our present day calendar with a slight modification by Pope Gregory XIII, although it was the British in 1752 who said the new year would begin on 1-Jan., but I digress). That will be 1-Muharram in the year 1423. No big celebrations, football games or day off from work are planned to my knowledge. This pretty well matches our celebration of the Christian New Year which (and I expect many don't know this) always begins on a Sunday, the first Sunday of Advent which was 2-December in 2001 and will be 1-December in 2002.

We've probably become a little more enlightened since the Millennium celebration that the USA is like the last on the list when it comes to ringing in the New Year since the International Date Line is out in the Pacific Ocean and west of Hawaii and Alaska. Most everywhere the New Year is rung in with fireworks like you might see in Sydney, Australia or Tokyo, Japan or Paris, France but which we (in the Midwest) tend to associate more with the 4th of July. Lots of river and harbor towns do the pyrotechnic party. I was working in Brazil one year when a boat load of revelers were out in the bay in Rio de Janeiro and when the fireworks started everyone rushed to the side of the boat where they could best be seen and capsized the boat and killed hundreds - this is not a good way to start a new year.

I think I'm going to wait for Chinese New Year before I make any new resolutions.
 
Wishing you all a happy and prosperous new year,
Marc J. Adami

(by Marc Adami, Guest Columnist)