A FINAL STUMBLING WORD

What can I say about the (thankfully) expiring year of 2007? I mean, above and beyond the voluminous vomitus of words already out there, the sheer useless mass of which does little but crush our existential windpipes and choke off the ever-dwindling supply of psychic oxygen to our rapidly-shriveling intellects and identities as individuals ... ? Uh, the answer would have to be: absolutely nothing. Not a thing.

No, seriously.

Actually, not having anything to say has never been an effective impediment to opening my mouth and forcibly ejecting one collection of malformed opinions or another; small consolation lies in the fact that I'm hardly original in this regard. Whatever. In any case, here's a small dose of purposeless superfluity, or maybe gratuitous garrulousness if you will, the last such tidbit of twaddle you people will have to suffer through this calendar year ...

(Please excuse me -- the brewpub waitress just smells great ... my mind wandered for a brief moment. Sorry.)

As comprehensively awful as 2007 undoubtedly was, the unmistakable impression I have is that 2008 is going to be the make-or-break year for the senior republic on the North American continent. The conceptual idea of representative democracy will either burst out in a renaissance of revitalization, in an unlooked-for explosion of near revolutionary fervor; or it will finally see the ultimate realization of the long-range Bush-Cheney-Reid-Pelosi program of despicably self-imposed immolation, an enthusiastic and monumentally spineless self-interment akin to the French Third Republic. Those are the choices, stark as they are. The coming year will likely be the watershed moment of American democracy, possibly the final moment of individual liberty, the last feeble gasp of free thought before a monstrous deluge of darkness. Or not -- the choice, I suppose, is in our hands, the anonymous millions. Hope springs eternal, as they say, and as much as I desperately desire to swath myself with the intoxicating fog of optimism ...

Best leave that thought unfinished. In the meantime, I would remind everyone to keep your eyes and ears open -- New Year’s Eve being the ridiculous Amateur Night that it is. Watch yourselves, don't drink too much, and let's hit '08 consumed with a righteous determination to do something about the disease-riddled neo-con rodentia that would eat us alive.

Take care; I'll see you all next year.