New Year's Eve

There are days in Vancouver when the low overcast and misty rain make me want to get on a plane. Not necessarily because I want to leave town. It's a great town. But just to climb above the gloom and see the sun that I know is above me. On those days, it is fortunate that I can walk to the beach, look to the west and receive a blinding flash of unfiltered sunlight just before it is swallowed by the sea. The glowing end of one day gives me hope for the next.

2008 was a year like that. The Bush Gang spread such a pall of lies, criminality and fear that honest people were deceived and depressed. War over oil and oil over environment. The parting gift from these sanctimonious fat cats was a recession that that will hurt them the least of all. They have surely taken care of themselves and will temporarily retire into their fortified playgrounds. Still - the election of Barack Obama is like a blinding flash of light. He is clearly one of us, a good man. His new team seem to be people of rational thought, ethics and science. His inaugural promises the beginning of something larger even than the American Presidency. The turning of the year gives me hope for tomorrow.