Commentary At Christmas carol time I generally get asked for “Silent Night.” And not the song. But while my singing leaves something to be desired (melody, harmony and rhythm, chiefly), I have something to say about carols: that I’ve always loved them and they exist for a reason. The former might seem unimportant. But it’s related to the latter because of the exceptional beauty of the music and words of so many, as if their creators were inspired to aim very high indeed… and succeeded in ways that matter to a lot of people. This Christmas, as it happens, people got their wish for a mute button on my vocal chords because we did the traditional caroling via video conferencing. And evidently there’s a “latency” issue with these services, a.k.a. an unpredictable lag, tolerable and often imperceptible where people take turns speaking in a meeting but immediately disastrous when they …