In many ways, I will not be sorry to see the back of 2016. The year got off to a rocky start with the death in January of David Bowie and continued on through the double whammy deaths of Carrie Fisher and her mother, Debbie Reynolds.
In between, a number of famous and important people left the scene, and a minority of Americans succeeded in handing the keys to the candy store (and the nuclear arsenal) to an rude and overbearing reality TV host. It's as if The Truman Show (the Jim Carrey movie in which his entire life is fodder for reality TV and he's the only one not in on it) has been flipped on its ear, the script pages mixed with those of Panic In The Year Zero (the 1962 Ray Milland film about a family which must learn to survive in the aftermath of nuclear war) to give birth to some sort of Nightmare on Elm Street revision in which the nightmare is all too real.
I have little in the way of expectations for positive change from the incoming administration, and based on some of the names on the transition team and those being bandied about for Cabinet posts, I doubt I'll be pleasantly disappointed.
I am lucky in that I do not expect my life to be negatively impacted much by the Trump presidency. My fear is that millions of others will not be able to say the same.
Based on the rhetoric coming out of Washington since the election, attempts will again be made to balance the budget on the backs of the poor and the elderly. This, even though those two groups make up a smaller portion of federal spending than military spending, federal subsidies, and tax breaks for large corporations.
I expect to see racism become, if not more prevalent, more visible and overt over the next four years. The change is already taking place as evident in the turning of a family's outdoor Menorah display into a swastika. The incoming President may not be a racist, but I believe he is an enabler of such behavior.
This last year, quite frankly, sucked in a lot of ways, and I could continue to lament what happened and outline my fears regarding what lies ahead. Instead, I will hope to be wrong and will hope that in 2017 fewer people than I expect will suffer a rolling back of rights; that fewer people than I expect will be excluded from the safety net that Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security were created to provide; and that more people than I expect will find love in their hearts for people who are different from themselves.
Happy New Year, everyone.
Showing posts with label 2016. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2016. Show all posts
Saturday, December 31, 2016
Friday, January 1, 2016
#200 - Turn The Page
First, let me be the 912th person to wish you a Happy New Year. Okay, that's out of the way.
2016 is here and, as is the case with every year, it promises to be filled with ups and downs. New faces will become part of the landscape while familiar names will fade from the scene.
2016 brings with it another Presidential election, and some who are prone to exaggeration and hyperbole are sure the fate of our nation is at stake. For some, the election shapes up as a choice between caring for all of our citizens or caring for the select few. For others, the election is a chance to take back our country from the government and put it back in the hands of its citizenry. The truth, I suspect, is somewhere in-between.
As always, the start of a new year also means a chance for new beginnings. New Year's resolutions will be made - and broken and perhaps re-made and broken again. For years, I religiously made ten resolutions for the coming year. For years, I religiously broke every single one of them. Although I suppose now that is no longer strictly true.
For a number of years, I resolved to do something with and/or about my music. This past year, I finally did. So I guess you can say I'm batting one for 150 or thereabout.
This year, I've decided to make one, all-encompassing resolution. I resolve to do the best I can, to be the best person I can be, to be as happy as I can be on any single given day. I further resolve to worry about tomorrow tomorrow.
Whatever you may resolve for the coming year, I wish you success. Should you stumble and fall, try not to be too hard on yourself. Like me, you're only human.
If your list has room for one more resolution, let it be this. Resolve to be good to yourself in 2016. For if you are not good to yourself, you cannot be good to or be good for others. Happy New Year!
2016 is here and, as is the case with every year, it promises to be filled with ups and downs. New faces will become part of the landscape while familiar names will fade from the scene.
2016 brings with it another Presidential election, and some who are prone to exaggeration and hyperbole are sure the fate of our nation is at stake. For some, the election shapes up as a choice between caring for all of our citizens or caring for the select few. For others, the election is a chance to take back our country from the government and put it back in the hands of its citizenry. The truth, I suspect, is somewhere in-between.
As always, the start of a new year also means a chance for new beginnings. New Year's resolutions will be made - and broken and perhaps re-made and broken again. For years, I religiously made ten resolutions for the coming year. For years, I religiously broke every single one of them. Although I suppose now that is no longer strictly true.
For a number of years, I resolved to do something with and/or about my music. This past year, I finally did. So I guess you can say I'm batting one for 150 or thereabout.
This year, I've decided to make one, all-encompassing resolution. I resolve to do the best I can, to be the best person I can be, to be as happy as I can be on any single given day. I further resolve to worry about tomorrow tomorrow.
Whatever you may resolve for the coming year, I wish you success. Should you stumble and fall, try not to be too hard on yourself. Like me, you're only human.
If your list has room for one more resolution, let it be this. Resolve to be good to yourself in 2016. For if you are not good to yourself, you cannot be good to or be good for others. Happy New Year!
Thursday, December 31, 2015
#199 - One To Go
The title of this entry has a dual meaning. The first, perhaps more obvious meaning. refers to the fact that I write this on the last day of 2015. Hence the "one to go."
The other meaning refers to the number given this entry and the fact that I need one more post to reach 200 on this blog. Given that I began this blog in 2009, that is not a great deal of entries, especially when I intended several times to post more frequently.
However, those intentions never came to pass, either because I didn't have anything to say or because I didn't feel like it or I was simply too lazy. I've no illusions that will suddenly change in the coming year, but you never know.
2015 turned out to be a more eventful and event-filled years than someone of my advancing years might have any right or reason to expect. The year was a watershed for me musically as I got the opportunity to perform my songs publicly for the first time anywhere ouside of a couple of weddings more than 20 years earlier.
That came about thanks to the help of my talented wife Teresa, without whom my songs would simply be bad poems. With her help, I also recorded my first CD to send out to friends and family. (I say that as if there will be many more instead of it being perhaps my only CD, but who knows?) I still have roughly 50 copies if anyone wants to buy one.
In 2015, we also bought our first motorhome, a 2005 model that quickly became a home on wheels for us and something we hope to use even more in the coming year. Once the weather warms, that is.
Perhaps the biggest event of 2015 was our trip to Washington, DC with our son to celebrate his recognition as one of eight national winners of a playwriting competition sponsored by a division of the Kennedy Center. It was a whirlwind weekend that yielded material for a couple of songs, a couple of proud parents, and a lifetime of memories.
One of my Facebooks friends (and a former colleague/boss from my television days) shared a post that 2016 is going to be an amazing year. I hope it is, but it will have to go some to come close to, let alone top the amazing year that was 2015.
The other meaning refers to the number given this entry and the fact that I need one more post to reach 200 on this blog. Given that I began this blog in 2009, that is not a great deal of entries, especially when I intended several times to post more frequently.
However, those intentions never came to pass, either because I didn't have anything to say or because I didn't feel like it or I was simply too lazy. I've no illusions that will suddenly change in the coming year, but you never know.
2015 turned out to be a more eventful and event-filled years than someone of my advancing years might have any right or reason to expect. The year was a watershed for me musically as I got the opportunity to perform my songs publicly for the first time anywhere ouside of a couple of weddings more than 20 years earlier.
That came about thanks to the help of my talented wife Teresa, without whom my songs would simply be bad poems. With her help, I also recorded my first CD to send out to friends and family. (I say that as if there will be many more instead of it being perhaps my only CD, but who knows?) I still have roughly 50 copies if anyone wants to buy one.
In 2015, we also bought our first motorhome, a 2005 model that quickly became a home on wheels for us and something we hope to use even more in the coming year. Once the weather warms, that is.
Perhaps the biggest event of 2015 was our trip to Washington, DC with our son to celebrate his recognition as one of eight national winners of a playwriting competition sponsored by a division of the Kennedy Center. It was a whirlwind weekend that yielded material for a couple of songs, a couple of proud parents, and a lifetime of memories.
One of my Facebooks friends (and a former colleague/boss from my television days) shared a post that 2016 is going to be an amazing year. I hope it is, but it will have to go some to come close to, let alone top the amazing year that was 2015.
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