Goodbye 2009, Hello 2010

I know, I know, writing something on 2009 is a little late but I read something journalist and notoriously handsome man George Will recently wrote. His article, "A Clunker of a Year" in Newsweek was both humorous and interesting. He makes a lot of good points, here are a some that caught my attention:

• President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He admitted he did not deserve it and I think it was a little early but when any of our leaders our recognized for peace it's a good thing, right?
• "Cash for Clunkers" helped sell $3 billion in cars in August but sales plummets the next month.
• Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged, a hymn to unfettered capitalism sells more than 400,000 copies, "double the total in any of the 52 years it was published." I read it...um...it was alright but not as good as Cooper makes it sound.
• Swiss pen-maker Montblanc commemorated the humble life of "Mahattma Gandhi with a $23,000 pen engraved with the ascetic's image."
• World renown art museum the Louvre opens a McDonald's in the basement mall.
• Brown University renamed Columbus Day to "Fall Weekend," in an effort to "punish the explorer for spoiling the Western Hemisphere paradise where human sacrifices were still happening when he arrived."
• To commemorate the 60th anniversary of communist China, "which is responsible for more deaths than Hitler and Stalin combined," the Empire State Building glowed red and yellow. I guess they felt we owed our socialist overlords some respect (we owe them $799 billion).
• In December there were more troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan than there were in January (but for the first time since March 2003 not a single military death in Iraq).
• London School of Medicine claims that obesity is contributing to global warming due to extra respiration "and because the carbon costs of raising and transporting the extra food he or she devours."
• More minority children than white ones in 1/6 of all US counties.
• "The West Coast has been surpassed by New England-where Puritans landed for their errand into the wilderness-as the least religious religious region."
• The Olympic Committee rejects Chicago's application for the Summer Olympics (while conservatives cheered at this failure proving they want to see President Obama fail more than they want to see America succeed).
• 57% black Atlanta came within 714 votes of electing a white mayor.
• 45 years after three civil rights workers were murdered in Philadelphia, Miss. (think of the disturbing film Mississippi Burning) the town elected a black mayor.
• The phrase, "hiking the Appalachian Trail," takes on new meaning.
• "The golf achievements of Tiger Woods...suddenly seemed even more impressive, considering the other claims of his energies."
• Pope Benedict XVI claims tests "seem to conclude" that they have found the remains of the apostle Paul.
• Were still burying the dead from the US Civil War after the remains of an unknown Confederate or Union soldier is found in Franklin, Tenn.
• Harry Patch, Britain's last survivor of World War I dies at 111.
• Millvina Dean, the last survivor of the Titanic's 705 survivors dies at 97 (she was 9 weeks old when the ship went down).

What do you think? Was 2009 a bad year or a good one? For me the beginning of 2009 was one of the most optimistic as Henry was less than a week old on January 1. However, by the end of 2009 I had never been more discouraged, frustrated, and cynical in my life. I guess the nice thing about a New Year is it is a chance to start over, a fresh beginning, if we can just put what happened the previous year behind us (that's the hard part).