Zoom! There Goes 2009.

Edition #126 — December 31, 2009.

Welcome one and all to the end of my tenth year of writing the "Get Real" Newsletter. I thought I'd make this a retrospective of 2009, done my way...with a few zingers added for flavor.

If there was a slogan to the last year it was "hang on, it can only get worse!" whereas the theme was "the undressing of charlatans" who then continued to run around butt naked despite us. Let's assess this mess.

In 2009, Sarah Palin became the equivalent of a chronic political fungus condition whose continued presence in our lives seemed more significant to her publisher than anyone else. With her book, The Audacity Of Moose, sitting firmly on the shelves, there's no ointment yet to rid us of her delightfully "Neo Deliverance" like charm. I will miss her when she finally falls through her own thin ice. Not in Juneau, I hope. I like it there.

2009 was the year that I learned that Republican Senators and their corporate task masters will fight to the death to ensure that no American is without bullets. And they spared no expense to make it so. As for alloting some of that money for bandaids, it's just not in the budget. You'll have to buy them black market.

In 2009 I learned that Michael Jackson was living in an episode of The Twilight Zone. Drug addicted, wigged and lipsticked, frail and painfully shy in revealing the truth, what we learned about him in a few days makes it possible to imagine the worst of the rumors that haunted his last years. Yup, he sure could dance and make a lot of money. But did the means justify the end? I think not. But at least father Joe's making money again.

I wish I could say great things about Barack Obama, but it's hard to understand what's happening now that US politics has gone back to being more like a Democracy with only one side surrendering to insanity. In comparision, I think that George Bush Jr. spend most of his first year playing golf and cutting brush in Texas, although that won't be included in the history books that Dick Cheney is busy rewriting.

This year has been kind of like an exorcism that didn't quite take yet. Many illusions have been exposed, from the faulty empires of Bernie Madoff and Conrad Black to the house of cards that is Wall Street and the economic infrastructure of the world. Whatever is now happening, we are likely only at the beginning of a long process of transformation that will continue until everyone has a bandaid and we have stopped paying for bullets. It is a blessing in disguise. After all, how will we learn to do better unless we continue to fail?

I don't mean for it to sound so dark. After all, we're still here. And while we are, let's do our best to not give in to the same apathy that has tainted most of the first decade of our new millenium.

Happy New Year to one and all who believe in calendars. And may the best be ahead with you right behind it.

All the best from Roland Kriewaldt and Lucky, the proofreading cat.
New Years Eve, 2009


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