Part-time Columnist

Dallas Morning News Column December 24. 2004

It's time to hope for a few of our favorite things
01:36 AM CST on Friday, December 24, 2004
By MAHESH SHETTY

As the year winds down and life slips into second gear during the holidays, it seemed apropos to make a special Christmas wish list and see if Santa would take note. So here is my list in no particular order:

•More shows on television like CBS Sunday Morning and Bill Moyers: easily the most heartwarming and thought-provoking shows on television (apologies to Sopranos fans). They focus on Americana and the American spirit and leave the viewers with a warm feeling that not everything is wrong with the world around us.

Bill Moyers' conversations with Joseph Campbell on the "Power of Myth" should be required viewing for all high school children. His programs always made you think. His retirement merits more attention than Dan Rather's (thank God) departure from evening news.

•I think the FCC should require every news show to end with some good news – it's about time we had more coverage on the 99 percent of the population that is normal. Now that would be news!

•More movie ratings like "Embarrassed," "More Embarrassed," "Not Embarrassed." That would help parents decide if they can truly watch "PG" movies on Disney with their children.

•Intelligent debate: I wish we had informed debate without ideology – are we not all worn out by talking heads shouting at each other in lieu of actually discussing an issue? Whatever happened to the art of listening?

•Recognition for teachers: I wish we could pay our school teachers more – they would then truly have a rewarding profession in lieu of empty platitudes from parents who expect the teachers to do their jobs.

•More brain and less brawn: I wish we celebrated the University of Texas at Dallas chess championship as much, if not more, than UT's appearance in a BCS bowl – intellectual athleticism is no less valuable than the physical kind.

•More of God and less of religion: I wish mankind would recognize that religion is not about establishing the superiority of each God; that killing in the name of any God is sacrilege. I wish we would stop asking God to arbitrate between religions.

•Art of forgiveness: As someone once said, at a certain stage in life, everyone tends to see the value of forgiveness over revenge, love over hate and tolerance over prejudice.

•New emotional elixir: I wish we could mix, bottle and market these emotions – it might make roller coasters redundant. The exhilaration of hitting the gas on open roads with the sun rising behind you casting a warm, golden glow over Mother Nature. The misery of seeing blue lights increasing in noise and size in your rearview mirror. The incredible relief of watching those blue lights speed past you and pull up behind a car in the next lane.

•Picturesque words in speech and print: words that evoke images and allow us to convey our thoughts without a videophone or gestures. Words like in this familiar song from The Sound of Music: "Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens/Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings/Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eye-lashes/Silver white winters that melt into springs/These are a few of my favorite things"

Are you listening, Santa?

Mahesh Shetty is a Richardson finance executive and a Voices of Collin County volunteer columnist. His e-mail address is msshetty@aol.com. Different Voices columnists appear every Friday.

posted by Mahesh Shetty @ 8:30 AM