Tuesday, January 26, 2010
what I'm talkin about
The evening of December 24, 1914, Flanders. The first world war in history was entering into its fifth month. Millions of soldiers were bedded down in makeshift trenches latticed along the European countryside. In many places the opposing armies were dug in within thirty to fifty yards of each other and within shouting distance. The conditions were hellish. The bitter-cold winter air chilled to the bone. The trenches were waterlogged. Soldiers shared their quarters with rats and vermin. Lacking adequate latrines, the stench of human excrement was everywhere. The men slept upright to avoid the muck and sludge of their makeshift arrangements. Dead soldiers littered the bodies left to rot and decompose within yard of their still living comrades who were unable to collect them for burial.
As dusk fell over the battlefields, something extraordinary happened. The Germans began lighting candles on the thousands of small Christmas trees that had been sent to the front to lend some comfort to the men. The German soldiers then began to sing Christmas carols--first "Silent Night," then a stream of other songs followed. The English soldiers were stunned. One soldier, gazing in disbelief at the enemy lines, said the blazed trenches looked "like the footlights of a theater." The English soldiers responded with applause, at first tentatively, then with exuberance. They began to sing Christmas carols back to their German foes to equally robust applause. A few men from both sides crawled out of their trenches and began to walk across the no-man's-land toward each other. Soon hundredss followed. As word spread across the front, thousands of men poured out of their trenches. They shook hands, exchanged cigarettes and cakes and talked about where they hailed from, reminisced about Christmas past, and joked about the absurdity of war.
And it goes on from there.
multiple full-body goosebump moments
I'll have a lot to say about it, for sure. But I wanted to just put the word out.
Here is the NPR lede:
Jeremy Rifkin
European adviser and author Jeremy Rifkin challenges the notion that people are innately selfish and materialistic. In his new book, "The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis," he alleges that our future rests on our ability to function as an empathic society. We talk with Rifkin about his call for a "third Industrial Revolution."
If that's the revolution, then I guess that makes me the new Lenin!
I'm serious, it's great stuff. I already bought the book (for my Kindle, of course :)).
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