Mikey Likes It!: And it's the new year

Friday, January 01, 2010

And it's the new year

New Year's Day. Hope you had a great one. I said I'd blog and am. I was waiting for all the stuff to go up at The Common Ills.

It has and I'm going to go through and note it.

First up, here's all the year-in-review entries:

"Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "The 2010 Plan""
"2009: The Year of Living Sickly"
"Kat's Korner: 2009 in music"
"Ruth's Report"
"Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Brownie Approved"
"Kat's Korner: The decade in music"
"2009 in books (Martha & Shirley)"
"Reflecting on 2009 (Beth)"

Beth went up Sunday, everyone else went up today or yesterday. C.I. did the year-in-review above and, in addition, wrote the following today and yesterday:

"The Blackwater decision"
"We CNN, we f**k ass stupid"
"I Hate The War"
"Iraq snapshot"
"Bedding down with terrorists"
"The ongoing betrayal of veterans"

Those are not phone-it in posts. Those are pretty in depth entries. C.I. busted her ass. I don't have that kind of energy and I'm not doing a damn thing. Seriously. I'm between college semesters (I have my bachelors, I'm going for an advanced degree) and just easing through life. I should be able to do the sort of thing C.I. does. I'm just not focused or something. But she busted her ass and, in her year in review piece, she links to Ralph Nader's great commentary at Information Clearing House which I'd missed until I saw C.I.'s link so this is from Nader's "Breaking With Obama?:"

If you read the biweekly compilation of progressive and liberal columnists and pundits in The Progressive Populist, one of my favorite publications, the velvet verbal gloves are coming off.

Jim Hightower writes that “Obama is sinking us into ‘Absurdistan.’” He bewails: “I had hoped Obama might be a more forceful leader who would reject the same old interventionist mindset of those who profit from permanent war. But his newly announced Afghan policy shows he is not that leader.”

Wonder where good ol’ Jim got that impression—certainly not from anything Obama said or did not say in 2008. But hope dims the memory of the awful truth which is that Obama signed on to the Wall Street and military-industrial complex from the getgo. He got their message and is going after their campaign contributions and advisors big time!

Norman Solomon, expressed his sharp deviation from his long-time admiration of the politician from Chicago. He writes: “President Obama accepted the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize while delivering—to the world as it is—a pro-war speech. The context instantly turned the speech’s insights into flackery for more war.” Strong words indeed!

Arianna Huffington has broken in installments. But her disillusionment is expanding. She writes: “Obama isn’t distancing himself from ‘the Left’ with his decision to escalate this deepening disaster [in Afghanistan]. He’s distancing himself from the national interests of the country.”

C.I.'s right, Ralph's written a great column. I'm really glad I voted for Nader in 2008. I'm really proud of that decision. There are things I look back on with regret, but I look back on voting for Nader and only feel proud of myself because it was so easy to follow the push for Barack and it took guts to stand up for what mattered. Those of us who voted for what mattered and not the hula hoop of 2008 deserve a pat on the back.

I don't note enough e-mails according to three readers last week. So a resolution in the new year was that I would note more e-mails. I'll start with one that came in today. Lou e-mailed me asking who my favorite actor in movies was? I don't know. I'll think about it and hopefully remember to blog at a later date. I know I like Jim Carrey and Me, Myself & Irene is probably my favorite movie with him in it. We saw Terminator Salvation and the guy playing the robot was really a strong actor. I like Russell Crowe's movies mmost of the time. And that guy who's name I always forget. He's in lots of movies and really talented. Mark. Ruffalo? Did I spell that right? We were just watching him, Elaine and I, this week because we were watching In The Cut which is a really great film and probably one of the best of the decade. Meg Ryan, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Mark are pretty much amazing in that film. Really worth praising and celebrating.

So above is one of the reasons I don't note e-mails. I don't know the answer. And normally, I'd read this e-mail and then wait to think about it and figure out my pick.

Those are some picks and I'm not sure of my answer but, before I forgot about the e-mail, I did try to give an answer.

Here's a listing of the community sites posting in the last two days.