Well, here we are again, another year has passed, a new beginning is on the horizon and all is not well in the world. We seem to start each year with the bestest of intentions, we resolve to do better by our families and friends, we promise to take time out for ourselves and embark on that self revelatory journey we have hope will lead us to that spiritual awakening we know is just around the next bend, just beyond that next hill, just on the other side of that cloud.

I'm going out on a limb and make my do or die projections for the year. I have a very scientific, data driven process that can only be describes as such, I bend over and with my nose touching my knees reach back and pull them out you know where...this being a family show and all, I won't go any further into detail; suffice to say my process is as accurate as all other psychics, clergy, soothsayers and the like. Although I must admit I missed that whole 'let's elect a black guy to the highest office in the land'...and for disclosures sake, I voted for the guy.

So here it is:

• The Republican Party will continue to self-destruct. They will insist that the only remedy that will work is one where only the right people get hand outs and the rest be damned. Sort of a return to the middle nineteenth century or as Scrooge would put it and I paraphrase; are there no poor houses, are there no debtor's prisons.
  

  
   

• The right wing of the right wing party will of course claim that all this Sturm und Drang is affecting us because we have not given the gods their due.
  

  
   

• Gay folks will be able to get married. Yep! It's going to happen, although I can't for the life of me figure why they would want to enter into a failed institution. Let's face it; marriage offers little benefit other than a tax break and making your parents proud, or not... What I believe should happen is to change the laws in order to allow homosexual and heterosexual couples to benefit from their commitments to each other. Allow the partners to make decisions concerning their children, their health care and all other decisions made daily by people who define their partnerships by whether someone in clerical vestments or dark suits bless their union. So let's be clear, Gay people will gain the right to marry, unfortunately they will also have the right to divorce, but that's another story for another time.
  

  
   

• Although we voted for the black guy from Chicago (and before anyone gets a little too wound up...he and I are very similar in complexion) no one should even begin to think that racism is dead in America, or the world for that matter. The ugly truth is that people will, and still are, judging folks by 'the color of their skin and not the content of their character'. We can count the number of Black and Latino elected officials at the local level and come up short.
  

  
   

• The issues in the Middle East are so far from any equitable solution that I expect it to get worse rather than get better. Israel believes that it has the divine right to this territory and the Palestinians believe that they too have the same right. The Palestinians are living, if you can call it that, hand to mouth, amidst rubble and privation, parents burying their children and children burying their parents. The cradle of the three great religions is becoming, or rather, has become a cauldron of bitter recriminations that must surely sadden Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed. The two state solution proposed by the Western Powers will not see fruition in 2009. It is my opinion that the only solution is a one state democratic Israel with a negotiated repatriation of displaced Palestinians, after all, they too have a historic claim to the land.
  

• In 2009, France will be cool once again. Seriously, they have the best food in Europe and some of the best chocolates too.
  

• In 2009, Microsoft will attempt to re-invent the wheel. Windows 7 will make Vista look cool. They still haven't learned the lesson that people will pay for upgrades to their Operating Systems, but they don't want to have to buy new PC's every time Balmer hiccups. It makes no sense.
  

• Apple will survive even if Steve Jobs does not. Too many talented people there.
  

• So begins another year, lessons learned and some ignored; fret not though; the ones we did ignore have a nasty habit of coming round again
  

  
   

On a personal note...I will try very hard to...aww the heck with all that...I will continue to love my wife...my sons and daughter...my beautiful grandchildren...and follow the doctor's orders.