[Signposts]

The Year in Review

Some of you don't read BlueOregon, so you will not be aware that I stole this post from there. It's okay, I wrote it. (You may ignore references to Oregon, but why would you want to? We're the center of the galaxy!)

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Cutting to the chase:

Katrina, Rita, forgotten Wilma, followed by “heckuva job” Brownie and hurricane FEMA. Fires in Texas, but they still don’t believe in global warming in oil country. That wouldn't be very intelligent design.

Measure 37, blackmailing local governments, then death by judiciary. Measure 36, unsullied by an equal-rights, civil unions law, stopped at the shores of Island Minnis. The city, Texas Pacific Group, and PGE, which remained as it began, an Enron concern. Death With Dignity was sent to the big leagues, while the minors produced a budget everyone hated--status quo at sine die.

Social Security hype, tax cut fizzle, a law for Terri Schaivo. A new Medicare drug benefit with a doughnut hole and cuts for students, yet the rich get their tax breaks. The Patriot Act gets a one-month reprieve, but Tookie Williams gets the needle. But it was gas prices that made Bush's numbers fall.

Elections in Iraq, simmering civil war, Cindy Sheehan, vanishing support. Two-thousand dead, John Murtha, but where are our promised "last throes?" Instead: torture, phone taps, secret spying, "black sites," and rendition. War is Peace, said Bush's Ministry of Truth (see Armstrong Williams et. al.).

Mahonia Hall looking good to Kevin and Ron and Jason and Pete and Vicki and Jim, but Ted still has home court advantage. And what about the other Governor K? Other names, stained in 2005: Dan Doyle, Kelley Wirth, Derry Jackson, Matt Hennessee.

Speaking of stained: Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff, Scooter Libby, Duke Cunningham, David Safavian, Bill Frist, and Bob Ney. The GOP loves the smell of K Street money in the morning. Also on the crime blotter, Martha Stewart, Bernie Ebbers, Richard Causey, John Rigas, Dennis Kozlowski. But big prize Kenny Boy sweats yet in Texas.

Ducks football (Holiday Bowl), Beavers baseball (College World Series), and Portland Pilots soccer (national champs). Blazermania can now be found in Section 107 of PGE Park. Just ask for Timber Jim.

Sandra Day O’Connor, John Roberts, William Rehnquist, Harriet Miers. All a prelude to the Sam “Scalito” Alito fight of aught six.

Sifting, sifting: Vioxx, bird flu, Michael Jackson and the runaway bride, Nate McMullen, podcasts, Mark Felt (Deep Throat), Bono, Darfur, Patrick Fitzgerald, Pakistani earthquake, Cardinal Ratzinger and Pope Benedict XVI, Jeff Gannon, Judy Miller, and bombings in London. You make sense of it; I can't.

And so concludes the Year of the Rooster. May the Year of the Dog bring you joy and happiness!

In Memoriam.
Rosa Parks, Johnny Carson, Richard Pryor, Peter Jennings, Pope John Paul II, Susan Sontag, Anne Bancroft, Shirley Chisholm, William Rehnquist, Eugene McCarthy, William Westmoreland, Abe Hirschfeld, Jack Anderson, Hunter S. Thompson.