Queen's YouTube address bridges gap

The following editorial appeared in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on Saturday.

Here's a post-Christmas story for those who believe in the myth that growth stalls with age.

The United Kingdom's oldest institution of government — the monarchy, constitutional and otherwise — has triumphed on yet another front of human transition: YouTube, the Web's cultural outpost that's teeming with video clips ranging from the pornographic to the sublime.

In that mix on Christmas Day was a video of Queen Elizabeth II, gazing, at age 81, into a digital camera in the opulent 1844 Room at Buckingham Palace as she delivered, with regal dispassion, her 50th annual Christmas speech via the Royal Channel (www.youtube.com/ theroyalchannel).

This was no patronizing appearance in the plebian realms of cyberspace. Elizabeth was on a global humanitarian mission in the best spirit of the House of Windsor, which has a longstanding reputation for employing cutting-edge communications technology to reach the masses with inspirational messages.

During World Wars I and II, royals used morale-boosting radio messages to help keep everyone's upper lip stiff.

The queen's grandfather George V delivered the first Christmas speech in 1932 via radio. Elizabeth's 1953 coronation was the first to be broadcast on TV (done at her insistence). The monarchy's official Web site launched 10 years ago at www.royal.gov.uk.

Elizabeth wanted to reach young people with this year's speech. Her debut on YouTube gave her that path, and she opened thusly:

"One of the features of growing old is a heightened awareness of change. To remember what happened 50 years ago means that it is possible to appreciate what has changed in the meantime. It also makes you aware of what has remained constant."

Still as vital as ever, she said, is the importance of family and caring for outcasts on the "edge of society," as illustrated by Jesus' birth in a lowly stable to Mary and Joseph — "a family in very distressed circumstances."

She closed with the preface to the annual Christmas carol service, which includes a call to "remember, in (Jesus') name, the poor and the helpless, the cold, the hungry, and the oppressed; the sick and those who mourn, the lonely and the unloved."

Odds are she succeeded in connecting with more young people via the Web, and she stood as a living example in sharing with them a rather majestic secondary thought: Growth is a lifelong challenge that requires change, even for royalty.

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