Looking at the time of the season - the conflicts

It has been two days since the celebration of Christmas - a pagan festival assimilated into Christianity that was supposed to remind us all of peace and good will to men.

As we approach 2009 it is hard to see the good will.

In Southeast Asia the fears of a nuclear confrontation are growing. The morning news tells us that Pakistan is flexing its military muscle. While the Kashmir elections wind down, the rhetoric about the Mumbay attacks escalates.

In the middle east Israel has bombed the Gaza strip and well over a hundred Gaza inhabitants are dead - over 300 wounded.

Meanwhile, the president of Iran proposes "happiness, prosperity, peace and brotherhood for all humanity," especially the "people of the book", conveniently ignoring the fact that the book (and its people) are the heritage of the state he wishes to wipe off the map.

In Africa despair continues without pause.

In Zimbabwe the suffering continues unabated, while the African Union debates its options. The governance, if one can call it that, of Robert Mugabe - with the resulting disease, hunger, and social collapes have pushed Darfur from the front page - but Darfur continues with no pause in man's inhumanity.

The DRC is with its civil war apparently attempting to re-enact the horrors of Tutsi and Hutu enmity in Rwanda.

And off the coast of Somalia the warships of a dozen nations - now including those of China - are dealing with pirates reminiscent of the activities that once sent American troops to Tripoli.

In Europe tensions are escalating between Russia and the west - with perhaps the short conflict in would-be breakaway Ukrainian provinces being a harbinger of things to come.

The western hemisphere is not immune. In an eerie reminder of 1962, the Russian navy is visiting Cuba. Hugo Chavez continues to be a firebrand in Venezuela, and Colombia continues to skirmish with both the FARC and its neighbors.

None of us knows what all of these events bode for the future - conflicts have been part of the human experience throughout our history.

But the state of the world is perhaps more precarious than it has been since Michael Gorbachev ushered in Glasnost.

In the immortal words of Tiny Tim in a fictional Christmas - "God Bless Us, Everyone."