I used to have a New Year's tradition. I would say "May the new year be for you what the previous was for...." and then I'd list all the people who had exceptional years. Award-winners, breakout stars, championship teams, etc.
But these last three years have been so horrendous, so soul-crushing that I can't look back with any fondness.
My hope for the new year is that we rid ourselves of everyone who is trying to destroy Democracy and that these these evil unconscionable scumbags rot in hell for all eternity while history portrays them forever as the villains and traitors they are. Short of that I don't know what to be "happy" about.
UPDATE: Remember I moderate the comments. For Trump supporters, save your time and effort. I delete all of your hate comments. I'm under no obligation to be fair and balanced. It probably takes you three or four minutes to compose and submit and it takes me literally two seconds to skim and delete. There are better uses of your time. If you disagree with my position, that's fine. Just don't read and follow my blog. It's not like I'm dependent on ratings. Happy New Year to everyone.
Amen!
ReplyDeleteI agree man, I've had enough of the New England Patriots also.
ReplyDeleteMy sentiments, exactly.
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Jeff
Off with their heads!
ReplyDeleteMaybe I'm naive but I believe there's a middle ground for all Americans to come together, much like we have in the past during times of great strife. But first, there's a need to curb or eliminate the toxic rhetoric on social media platforms and cable news, which are the great dividers. Look forward to more entertaining posts in 2020. As always, much appreciate you taking the time to do this blog and the podcasts.
ReplyDeleteI'm happy you said exactly what I'm thinking.
ReplyDeleteMikeKPa... so. If we talk and write about Trump & McConnell more moderately, they'll stop trying to dismantle the government and send the leftover parts to Russia? The flaring bigotry and attacks on anybody non-white christian will cease? The concentration camps in America will suddenly vanish and it will All Have Been a Dream?
ReplyDeleteNooooooooooooope. I don't think that's how it works.
There is no middle ground to be found with monsters like these.
Yup. Happy New Year, and a "good luck" to evvverrryone.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a Trump supporter. I didn't vote for the guy and I don't care for him. I'm just not a fan of melodrama, political or otherwise.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I'll still read your blog whatever your politics are because...they're not important.
Sean
There is no middle ground to be found with monsters like these.
ReplyDeleteNeville Chamberlain learned that the hard way.
I agree completely, with one exception. I suppose that those you consider scumbags are the same scumbags I do, but I don’t want them to rot in hell. I’d prefer it if they all rotted in jail, which begs the question, if a president goes to prison, does he still get Secret Service protection? How would that work?
ReplyDeleteI remember you praising John Mulaney in the past and I am wondering what you thought about John Mulaney & The Sack Lunch Bunch. I enjoyed it, I am still thinking about it after the show ended and it was like nothing else I've seen all year. It also rode high on just being weird as hell and throwbacks to stuff that is way before even my childhood and I am 43 years old. I am not sure what to think about it, but I do still think about it.
ReplyDeleteI'd be curious to hear your opinion, if you have seen it (either out of your appreciation for Mulaney or your interest in TV, nostalgia and new twists to yesteryears formats).
Ken, have you ever thought about changing your comments section so people can post responses to the comments? Anything hateful could be treated the way it deserves.
ReplyDeleteWanted to post something moderately even-handed about Trump - something like he got elected by the same system that elected Lincoln and JFK - then I saw your footnote and decided not to.
Well if you look up Lincoln you could say he's a little overrated as well. He didn't free the slaves because he wanted to free the slaves. He literally said if he could keep them slaves and hold the Union together he would but he couldn't...No need to "both sides" Trump. We can turn to Fox News or read his tweets if we want to.
DeletePolitics aside, let's count our blessings and be thankful for all we have. We should also remember that there are many who are less fortunate.
ReplyDeleteIt seems our world has entered a dark chapter but the human heart still is beating..and I just want you to take heart Ken. There is joy to be had..maybe not in our nation's capitol but in the joy that so many find in all those episodes you wrote all those years ago.
ReplyDeleteI'm realy sick of seeing 45's name or mere existence being brought up in everything. Take a breath, look around and see that there are some things evil has not touched yet.
And a Blessed New Year to you Ken.
ReplyDelete"My hope for the new year is that we rid ourselves of everyone who is trying to destroy Democracy"
ReplyDeleteMine too - thank you and all the best.
Your blog, your rules. Can't fault that.
ReplyDeleteOf course, Trump supporters truly *are* loathsome, perverted, cretinous subhumans whose vile utterances and screeds should be permanently and ruthlessly wiped from existence at every opportunity. But that's entirely unrelated to the first point.
I feel exactly as you do Ken. I guess I'll just have to keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best.
ReplyDeleteAll the best to you and everyone in your family, even your country. Over here in Europe things look, well, maybe not THAT grim, but not too great either. May 2020 be better than the last years.
ReplyDeleteI find it helpful to remember that, in spite of what the media claims, this isn't the MOST divisive time in our history. That was the Civil War. There have been many divisive times in our history. We started out as rebels v loyalists. We disagreed, sometimes violently, over many, many issues in our history. Civil Rights, the Vietnam War, the McCarthy Era, we even battled homegrown nazi sympathizers before. Those are just the highlights. We know what history has to say about those times, and now we are in the digital age when EVERYTHING is part of the record. So we already know what history will write about the red hats. The good news is that they did wear those stupid hats and it is the digital age so we have an indisputable record of who is on the wrong side of history. This will be helpful when we institute our own version of the Nuremberg trials.
ReplyDeleteI love you and President Trump! Room in my heart for both of you, and I will always enjoy your blog!
ReplyDeleteKen...
ReplyDeleteThoughts about Don Imus?
We need a Medicine for Melancholy. Like Ray Bradbury'y 1959 collection of short stories, not the 2008 Wyatt Cenac movie.
ReplyDeleteHere's to hoping that a year from now we will be giving the human toilet seat known as Trump his final flush.....
ReplyDeleteI’m Canadian and right after Donald Trumpt was elected down there, I said to my kids, “aren’t you glad you live in Canada and not in the US?” Probably not something Americans would have expected anyone outside of the US to say,
ReplyDeleteI think you are "fair and balanced", well, as it is used with the faux news network.
ReplyDeleteYour blog, your rules.
I still have a hope, that common sense will start popping up again. People will realize the emperor has no clothes, lies have consequences, and I'm not a robot.
Speaking of toilets, I think this is honestly the most evil invention of 2019, or possibly many other years:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50835604
It does belong in a sitcom, though.
wg
I still think we were worse off under Nixon. There was Vietnam, Watergate, the Arab Oil Embargo and other political/economic craziness that helped kill off the post-war American middle class (we just didn't know it yet). Plus -- freaking Nixon.
ReplyDeleteWell, 2020 IS an election year. There still may be a happy November and December, electorally speaking
ReplyDeleteIf Lincoln had been pro-slavery, the South wouldn't have seceded. As a congressman, he supported limits and outright bans on slavery as far back as the 1840s, while his pre-presidential speeches in the debates with Douglas and Cooper Union address go into great detail concerning his abhorrence of the practice and rejection of the claims supporting it. That was the issue his first election hinged on.
ReplyDeleteIt's true that he said he wouldn't go as far as tearing the Union apart to free the slaves, but that was in response to charges he was a wild radical, and events proved he wasn't the one radical enough to do the tearing. After the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, Sojourner Truth thanked Lincoln for being the first president to help her people. He responded, "And the only one who ever had such opportunity. Had our friends in the South behaved themselves, I could have done nothing whatever."
When it looked like he was about to lose re-election, an adviser named Singleton suggested the President could end the war overnight by telling the Confederate states they could re-join the Union and keep their slaves. Lincoln refused to give the notion a moment's thought.
Agreeing with E. Yarber. Change was in the air whether the south wanted to acknowledge it or not. Fear of change is what usually ignites people into rash actions. Mind you, change comes anyway, and that energy would be better put towards adapting, but that's another discussion.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, most of the population of the country was moving towards ending slavery, population density being higher in the northern more industrial oriented states, and Lincoln believed it was morally wrong. However, he also believed his first priority was keeping the union together. The emancipation was an amazing thing and an incredibly brave move - I don't want to minimize it's importance; but Lincoln's true greatness was in putting the union first. Think about the last time a politician put their country ahead of their own political career and you'll understand what I mean.
Interestingly, much of the south was, itself, bothered by slavery up until Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. That's the invention that suddenly made cotton production on a large scale possible, and profitable. But the large scale required slave labor to keep expenses down and profits up. As has been proven throughout history and, yes, including the present day, the human mind has an amazing bent towards the sin of hypocrisy, that ability to convince oneself that what was morally repugnant and a sin in the eyes of God yesterday is somehow acceptable today because suddenly ITS DIFFERENT.
Relax, Ken. The last three years have been bad, but keep in mind that the FBI is taking care of Trump. They had an insurance policy in case he won the election- the Mueller investigation.
ReplyDeleteRight now, he has been impeached, and it doesn't matter if the Senate refuses to throw him out, because that's not the end of the insurance policy. Today, the House Judiciary Committee is in court requesting access to Mueller grand jury materials.
The whole point is all that secret stuff in the grand jury can be made public, and this will kill his re-election chances.
are we in a Wag the Dog period? Impeachment plus probable war with Iran. omg
ReplyDelete