Ah, how well ABBA says it!

Sometimes I see
How the brave new world arrives
And I see how it thrives
In the ashes of our lives
Oh yes, man is a fool
And he thinks he'll be okay
Dragging on, feet of clay
Never knowing he's astray
Keeps on going anyway...

Happy New Year
Happy New Year
May we all have a vision now and then
Of a world where every neighbor is a friend
Happy New Year
Happy New Year
May we all have our hopes, our will to try
If we don't we might as well lay down and die
You and I

Just change the date reference in the song and it is contemporary to today.

I narrowly escaped being subjected to a night of KC And The Sunshine Band, but also missed an opportunity for a new year party with Rick Braun, Jonathan Butler and Euge Groove. Instead I brought in the new year in the Cat family tradition--while sawing ZZ's tucked comfortably in bed.

Neither have retrospectives on the past year and resolutions for the coming year been part of my tradition. I'm more of the Dilbert school of thought** on the holiday. But just a little bit of it this year for a change:

In the wider world, the socio-economic breakdown has continued to deepen and become undeniably obvious to many more people than were willing to recognize it before. At the same time, the grip of the bifactional ruling party on the minds of the typical inattentive American is weakening--little cracks in the facade of their Hegelian dance have appeared here and there. Ron Paul is surging amongst those wakening from their blue pill slumber, and the Powers-That-Be are shrieking in response. If they cannot paper over the cracks and lull the sheep back to sleep with some blue nostrum, then we can expect much chaos going forward. They will not go without pulling everything down behind them.

In my personal and family life this year has been a year of reconciliations in a number of ways. May this trend continue into the new year.

My friends, my sense is that we have a rather rough patch ahead, the likes of which we have not seen yet. My wish for this new year is that we pray together and hang together, lest we hang separately.

**

Labels: heart, watching the skies