Reverb 11, December Fifteenth

What are some things/ideas/people/phrases/ words you hope will stay in 2011? What are some things/ideas/people/phrases/words you hope to hear more of in 2012?

I am so sick of "Winning."  I always kind of hate it when a fad takes an innocuous word and renders it obnoxious. ("Obnoccuous?"  "Innoxious?" Nah.)  But this one found my nerves and grated on them from Sheen Day One.

(A "Sheen Day" is an immeasurable unit of time.  It is immeasurable because it's never quite as long as it feels like it's been, and always longer than it should have been.  It is therefore difficult to get a grip on how much time has actually passed, since that self-important bag of damaged goods in dire need of help first realized he could capitalize on his total unlikeability.)


I would like OWS to continue and grow.  Don't stop harassing the moneybags.  It's not enough yet - the impact is not meaningful enough.  It's odd; OWS has sort of taken a page from the Tea Party Handbook (not their playbook, but the book the Tea Party wants you to think is their playbook, if you understand).  They're leaderless, and they have no specific agenda.  They are "against" stuff, but not "for" much.  If that's your play, you need to agitate loudly and consistently for more than a few months to drum up any change.  The sleeping dragon of the diminishing middle class does need to hear the simple message, and they have.  But they need to hear it until it becomes a voice in their head that won't shut up.  That's when they'll start to think "Well, this is a problem, but what can be done about it?" and come up with the next steps both on their own and en masse.  An idea that is simultaneously awakened in thousands of individual minds is nearly impossible to extinguish...as we've seen, since there are several such ideas that need extinguishing.


I am not excited for Election 2012.  I want My President (who, despite my objections to many of his decisions, is still So My President) to step up and knock a few progressive long balls home. (What's with me and sports metaphors tonight? I dunno.)  If he could do that, I would be a happier human being.  In the meantime, I am waiting to see what Dems decide to run against him.  I'm entertaining myself by watching the GOP circus, with an airsick bag nearby in case it gets to be too much.  Speaking of which, here are a few more things best left in 2011 (that won't be): Michelle Bachmann, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich's Second Chance, and Mitt Romney.


Wait, that leaves Rick Perry, whom I need around for comic relief but not as a legitimate political entity.  Okay, '12, you can have Mitt Romney, but you have to promise not to elect him.