In The Rump End Of The Year
In the back end of the calendar year–you know, that little tail between Christmas eggnog and New Year’s champagne (they used to call it champers, like an ugly mule) it’s often time to look back and reflect upon the year.
Which incidentally means blog posts, doesn’t it.
Some things about 2006:
* The death of Anna Politkovskaya. Speaking truth to power does not grant one much safety. And Putin, the thug, waited three days before promising an investigation. Yeah. In today’s Russia, we can guess just how far an investigation’s going to go.
* The art of Lisa Yuskavage. Her nudes are not work-safe, so if you’re easily offended by nudes or in a workplace don’t click. But I love her celebration of the female form; I’ve loved her art since I came across it in W Magazine’s recent art issue.
* Spike Jones’s When the Levees Broke, a documentary about Hurricane Katrina and the ongoing betrayal of New Orleans. It’s still hellish down there away from downtown–I was just reading in the New York Times how there’s still garbage piled on streets away from the news cameras, how the smell of rot is still overpowering. We’re the richest country in the world and we can’t clean up one city in THIS amount of time? Something is very wrong here.
* The spanking handed to the neotheocrats in the 2006 midterm elections. I haven’t been so excited over exit polls in YEARS. And the news about Rumsfeld’s departure (aw hell, let’s call it what it is, the dude was canned) was sweet balm to a political consciousness grown sour.
* Bush finally getting the hint about what the American people want–their sons, daughters, husbands, wives, fathers, mothers back home. Will he take the hint, or will reality prolong its vacation from his worldview?
* Subscriptions to the New York Times and the Economist are a good thing. It keeps one’s brain fed, at least.
There is more, of course, 2006 was a busy year. But that’s a subject for tomorrow. We have a whole week until the alcohol-soaked festival of pain that is New Year’s, which I will be spending ensconced at home with a few movies and some brownies. I hate driving, this time of year.
I hope your Christmas was wonderful and peaceful, and I hope your Boxing Day is a delight. Most of all, I wish all my Readers–and indeed, everyone on earth–a little peace, a lot of love, and tons of goodwill.
