Birthday of the World

This evening is the eve of the New Year. We will sing, and we are sounding pretty good, or at least were last night at practice. I hope this is an auspicious beginning to a new year, but I have my doubts, when I see the worsening financial conditions, the massive unemployment, touching almost all sectors of the population, from old to young, the proposed burnings of the Koran, the heightened tension. It scares me and makes me feel resigned to what will follow. I don't know where to start in fighting all of this.