I'm edging into the last half of a week-long respite here at my secure undisclosed location. I'm not paying much attention to the news (read: I'm not paying any attention to, well, anything). I'm spending my time reading Alexander Hemon's "Lazarus Project," Eric Rauchway's "A Brief History of the Great Depression" and George Saunders' "In Persuasion Nation." Oh, and watching as many episodes of Mad Men as possible.
I just checked my email, only to find the usual raft of hate mail about my last column (shocker - I got an email from a millionaire who didn't like that I discussed the need to raise taxes on millionaires...in the business of politics/writing that has become suffocatingly cliche, it's kinda depressing when even the hate mail I get is becoming cliche...)
Anyway, since this is New Years Eve, I wanted to offer up a few wishes for 2009 in no particular order:
- I hope the economy doesn't plunge off a cliff in 2009, even though I have a feeling it will.
- Out of all the possible candidates being mentioned, I hope my governor, Bill Ritter (D-CO), picks Ed Perlmutter, Andrew Romanoff or Joan Fitz-Gerald for the U.S. Senate.
- I hope in 2009, I never get caught writing anything - a column, a blog post, a magazine article, a book passage, ANYTHING - that includes this kind of hilarious mixed metaphors I just caught from the Washington Post's Marie Cocco:
One way to staunch the trend is to tip the scale -- now tilted so heavily in favor of Wall Street and wealth -- back the other way. Otherwise, when the economy recovers, the fruits will again trickle up to the executive suite.
The pro-union message of Cocco's piece is solid. But c'mon - "staunching" trends while tipping scales? Trickling fruits in executive suites? Seriously - does she have an editor? And more seriously than that - if you catch me writing anything approaching that level of basic mechanical malfeasance, please hunt me down and take away my right to be a writer.
- I hope in 2009 everyone realizes what Barack Obama once told us: That change comes to Washington, not from Washington. It's a truism that lots of political activists seem to have forgotten in recent months and years - and if we don't remember it soon, we'll be left cheering on Beltway celebrities while the nation keeps declining.
OK. I'm off to get some coffee, make breakfast and relax the day away. Have a happy New Year's celebration!
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