Happy New Year To All

 

Let me wish you all a happy and healthy New Year, although as 2020 rapidly fades I think that - at least for now - we should turn that around. So, a healthy and happy New Year to all.

Normally, people make a list of New Year’s predictions, or a list of New Year wishes. So, here’s my list. Consider it a gift - you can make as many wishes as you want for yourselves, free of charge.

Now, before I start, something personal. Because of construction work, my son, his wife and their kids will be moving in with me and my wife for - well, who knows.  They should be coming soon, and will likely stay for a month or two.

So, my first prediction - a reasonably accurate one. I will be playing a lot of Candyland. I will also be crawling on the floor, cleaning up Leggo pieces, and eating a lot of Mac and Cheese. Did I mention two of the kids are three and six?

I am not getting into the dietary tastes of teenagers. I know my limits.

My second prediction - also reasonably accurate. The world will not end on Jan. 20. What will end is the influence of the Republican Party, a slow and steady draining of its power.

It won’t be the dramatic leaving of Donald Trump - I have faith he will try and make it as dramatic as possible. But, the GOP became smaller as Trump become more powerful. He has almost complete support because Republicans who don’t didn’t support him have simply left.

He still got all those votes, of course. But, it takes a lot of organization to keep votes coming in year after year. Political parties run from the ground up, not the top down. That’s why the Democrats had so much trouble for so many years in so many states - very poor local organization.

Now things have turned around. It will take a while to see, but sooner or later the Proud Boys will have to figure out how to go door to door to turn out a vote, or how to draft a bill that will raise taxes to pay to fix roads someplace else. Good luck with that.

My third prediction - The long-suffering New York Jets will not make a miraculous turn-around and get into the expanded NFL playoffs. I think the Jets and the Giants (I do live in New York, after all) are taking  a page from the playbook of the New York Mets. They are starting to look good just as the season is ending.

False hope will build all through the winter. Their draft will be talked about during the cold months of January and February. We will march into March with false hope, and our dreams for a winning season will again be crushed.

I wonder if that’s how Damn Yankees got written. A wonderful musical, for those who may not be familiar with it.

Now a hope. I hope that our country will develop a really good education system for all our children. By the time they get out of high school, they should know something about the basics of capitalism - how people earn money, what interest rates are and how our tax structure favors some people over others.

They should also know basic math - things like how to add and subtract and figure out what interest rates do when you borrow money to make 144 easy payments for a car.

They should also know the basics of being a citizen. That’s why I want every high student to take the same test that people applying for citizenship in the United States takes.

There are 128 questions that may be asked, and an examiner asks 20 at random. The applicant has to answer 12 correctly. You can look it up. You can also see the acceptable answers.

One question I like is “why is the electoral college important? The only two answers that are acceptable to the government are “Decide who is elected President” and “Provide a compromise between the popular election of the president and congressional selection.”

Yeah, I didn’t know that either. One wrong on my test.

I got another one wrong, too. The question was why did Americans declare independence from Britain. I thought it was because our rights as British citizens were not being respected and we were being exploited by the King and his government.

I should have said the Townsend Act, or the Sugar act or because we did not have self-government. I don’t know what you would call the colonial Governors, but that’s a question for an advanced course at some summer college program.

 As I write this, I was listening to something on the news. A police officer was telling people they would not be allowed to congregate around Times Square this year to watch the ball fall at midnight. “Watch it on television said.”

That’s my last hope. May next year be as cold and crowded and uncomfortable as all of those who ever when to Times Square to celebrate the new year remember it.

And may the lights be on on Broadway, and in Atlanta and Chicago and St. Louis, and all the other places where people gather. And, in your own homes, too. Long before New Years Day comes around at the end of 2021.

Heath and joy and comfort to all.