2024: Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot

It happens sooner or later, usually about this time of year, when the aforementioned year must end, and another one begins anew. And so we visit once again, the tradition of how others review the year in video form.

Either that or I would have to write more. Oh, the humanity ...

For the United States, 2024 was an election year. It was also the year that enough of the general public got tired of their intelligence being insulted by those in power. (AUTHOR'S NOTE: I retired from the federal workforce when the Biden people were already there for at least a year. I heard plenty about "diversity, equity, and inclusion" by talking heads on Zoom calls, and very little about the mission. I couldn't put my papers in fast enough, but ... that's another story.)

But most of all, as the saying goes, "If they're shooting at you, you must be over the target." So they almost made a martyr of the man who eventually won the election. Was this brush with death a moment of conversion for a man who struck so many as a less-than-appealing figure? Perhaps time (and the first hundred days in office) will tell.

Everyone knew (if they were honest with themselves) that Joseph Biden was a few bricks shy of a load from his first day in office, and that Kamala Harris was dumber than a bag of hammers, and suffering from a terminal case of foot-in-mouth disease. They just couldn't bear the thought of inadverdently saying this out of turn, and being excluded from the cool kids table. Thankfully, enough of them managed to forget how much they didn't like Donald Trump, to realize that they were voting for the leader of the free world, and not for homecoming queen. Even with the debate between Trump and Harris, substance managed to rule over style (for once), and both a hidden listening device, and a sorority sister as one of the moderators, can only carry a person so far.

Public indignation has not stpped there. The panic over the pandemic taught so many of us, that individuals may be able to think critically, but the larger the group, the more likely they will go along to get along. We were prepared to believe that a drug that was technically on experimental status could save damn near everyone, dangerous side effects notwithstanding. And so, the mainstream media lost enough of its credibility, that technology offered more alternatives. New sources of information came to the fore, that provided substantive information by people who actually knew the subject matter, and respected those prepared to listen.

Two individuals will be in the news more often in the coming year; a businessman from South Africa named Elon Musk, and a young entrepreneur and politician from the West Side ofCincinnati named Vivek Ramaswamy. If they ever return my calls, I can tell them what they can do (or avoid doing) with their so-called "Department of Government Efficiency." They will thank me later.

But as one president takes office, another passes from this world into the next. James Earl Carter, the American president from 1977 to 1981, entrered into eternity this past Sunday at the age of one hundred. While his term of office was not well received, and he left the White House with a less-than-exemplary record, he will be most fondly remembered for his time after public office, as an advocate and active laborer for Habitat for Humanity. It is a lesson for all of us, that one can redeem onself in life even after failure. Surely this lesson for all of us will be his true legacy.

But what of yours truly?

I have to admit to not having had much to say in recent years. Indeed, after 2014, the amount of content here dropped significantly. That could change with the new year. I retired in July of 2022, and I hope by now that I have enough to say, and enough time on my hands to say it.

Stay tuned, and stay in touch.