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Wednesday, December 31, 2008
2008: Highlights And Lowlights
These year-end round-ups are always popular. I've done them before, irregularly, but never with quite as mixed a sense of the year behind us as this one will carry.
I don't expect to remember 2008 particularly fondly. If your memories will be more pleasant than mine, well, consider yourself fortunate. Anyway, here we go.
1. Politics and Public Affairs.
Eternity Road is known as a primarily political blog, replete with commentators who overflow with opinions, so you'd expect this topic to come first.
You'd be wrong. I haven't had enough coffee yet. We'll come back to it.
2. Sports.
The biggest upset in the history of pro football took place on February 3, 2008, in Phoenix, Arizona, at Super Bowl XLII, when the 10-6 New York Giants defeated the 16-0 New England Patriots, 17-14. The Giants had been cutting a swath through teams with more impressive records, but no one expected relatively young and untraveled Eli Manning to outgun New England's Tom Brady. Yet that, with a little help from chance and a cadre of receivers who outperformed themselves dramatically, is exactly what happened. As usual, the Big Apple went slightly insane.
However, New Yorkers' joy was much dampened by subsequent sports letdowns, most notably the New York Yankees' failure to make the playoffs for the first time since 1995. (Granted, that wasn't quite as bad as the season the Detroit Lions just suffered through, but still...!) The Steinbrenners appear not to have gotten the memo about hiring high-priced mound talent to pitch in Yankee Stadium. Only one pitcher in recent memory has played nearly as well in the Bronx as he has in other venues -- Roger Clemens -- and there's some argument about the roots of that gentleman's performance. Inversely, several pitchers the Yanks have traded away have gone on to excel in their new locales. Still, we shall see.
3. Arts And Entertainment.
Not much going on here, really. There were some very high-profile demises:
- Paul Newman
- Charlton Heston
- Heath Ledger
- George Carlin
- Bo Diddley
- Eartha Kitt
- Betty Page (what, you don't think cheesecake is an art?)
- Bobby Fischer (hey, if cheesecake qualifies...)
...and one reincarnation of sorts: Britney Spears, via two impressive albums, Blackout and Circus. It's nice to see a young woman who's gone badly wrong shake off the chains and right herself; it suggests that great pain can teach lessons that gentler correctives cannot. But the same temptations of excessive self-indulgence and media attention that caused her to crash and burn are still out there, so let's hope it lasts.
The cinematic triumph of the year is Clint Eastwood's massively un-PC movie Gran Torino. This movie must have cost about $3.50 to make: all no-name actors apart from Eastwood himself, no special effects of any kind, and a suburban Michigan setting that probably required no cosmetics at all to look exactly as it was shot. The script and direction are letter-perfect. Eastwood turns in a beyond-Oscar-caliber performance, as does virtually his entire supporting cast. This movie could sweep the Oscars, and deservedly so.
Television's great new offering was Sons Of Anarchy, F/X's brilliant, noirish series about an inland Northern California town basically ruled by a motorcycle gang. Once again, the scripting is near to perfect, while a no-name cast (except for Katey Sagal) turns in consistently bravura performances. If you missed this blockbuster series, you missed something very special; be sure to rent the DVDs when they become available.
Artistic 2008 was also a year of personal discovery: in particular, my happening upon a slew of fantasy and science fiction writers of great talent, including Lilith Saintcrow, Rachel Caine, Patricia Briggs, Alastair Reynolds, Robert Charles Wilson, and most recently David Louis Edelman. I recommend them all heartily.
4. Economic News.
Oh please, not just yet. Let me finish digesting my bagel in peace!
5. Analysis.
A single book stands out here: Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism, the first really well-observed study of the nature of fascism, its outcroppings in European history, and its perennial appeal to American voters. Goldberg is a gifted writer, who brings this unpleasant subject a readability that few others could match.
Just behind Goldberg's book in power, though equal to it in importance, is Robert Spencer's recent release Stealth Jihad. Americans have watched as Europe slides into subjection to Islamic supremacism, mostly while muttering that "it can't happen here." But it is happening here -- and Spencer has assembled a complete, damning array of evidence to that effect. Read it, for your freedom's sake.
Web writers of perception and talent seem to be everywhere. I divide these into the Punditocracy (paid) and the Commentariat (unpaid). Among the Punditocracy's generalists, the brightest light remains the incomparable Mark Steyn. Among its specialists, no one stands higher than the courageous Robert Spencer. You'll find the very best of the Commentariat in the Eternity Road blogroll.
6. Science and Technology.
Not much happening here. It's hard to get excited about cheap MP3 players, nor has much happened in the computer industry. The hoped-for "electric breakout" into vehicles powered by electricity rather than combustion simply hasn't occurred. Battery technology hasn't yet advanced far enough, nor has the price of the fossil fuels risen high enough to persuade car owners that the inconveniences of electric vehicles are worth enduring. Passively-heated homes, on the other hand, have begun to attract attention, and might become an important development in 2009.
However, as several writers have observed, 2008 has brought about the complete collapse of the "anthropogenic global warming" thesis (sometimes referred to as "climate change"). Evidence from multiple sources has cross-cut every one of the warmistas' doomsayings, while ever more credible, well-credentialed scientists have found their patience exhausted and have spoken out against this anti-human, Gaiaistic religion. Unfortunately, the political classes see global warming as a useful vehicle toward increased power, and continue to cling to it.
7. World Affairs.
Here we have several major developments.
The success of General David Petraeus's "surge" in Iraq now goes unchallenged. Thanks to the wholesale elimination of terrorists, Iranian agitators and subverters, and factional insurgents, Iraq has become substantially capable of sustaining its new republic. What makes this even more significant than otherwise is that quite a number of left-liberal politicians are now claiming to have supported the "surge," even though the record is incontrovertible that when it was proposed, they were vociferously against it.
However, in Afghanistan, things aren't quite so rosy. The nation we liberated from the Taliban appears to be sliding back into Islamic despotism, as ever more elements of Islamic shari'a law are incorporated into its legal code. To add insult to injury, the Taliban has successfully colonized a large swath of Pakistan, and has put parts of that nation, already in turmoil due to the collapse of the Musharraf regime and the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, in a de facto state of secession.
Vladimir Putin's Russia continues to be a mystery wrapped in a riddle wrapped in an enigma. The collapse of world oil prices should have put a massive hurtin' on Putin's oil revenues, which Western analysts had near-unanimously assumed were the source of his popularity and power. Yet little has changed so far -- and Russia appears to have resurrected its imperial ambitions, best illustrated by its diplomatic and economic support of Iran and its military machinations in nominally independent Georgia.
If you aren't aware of the shocking, massively lethal terrorist incidents in Mumbai, India a few weeks ago, congratulations on a long nap. Islamist elements within Pakistan's government have been shown to be complicit with those attacks, precipitating the possibility of the first war between two nuclear-armed powers.
Iran continues its steady march toward membership in the Nuclear Club. Diplomacy has achieved nothing, nor will it; the Iranian regime is convinced that the West will not take substantive action to halt it. Israel has raised the alert level of all its military forces, and has let it be publicly known that it will strike Iran, with nukes if necessary, to prevent the completion of an Iranian nuclear weapon.
And of course we have HAMAS's announcement that its "cease-fire" with Israel had come to an end...as if there were any perceptible difference between the rocket barrages before the "cease-fire" and during it. Israel has finally decided to strike back, this time with the declared aim of eliminating HAMAS's ability to perpetrate any further terror attacks on Israel from its redoubts in the Gaza Strip. Militarily, Israel is achieving its ends; diplomatically, it must withstand the condemnation of virtually the whole world. Pray along with me that Olmert, Livni, Barak and the Knesset remain staunch despite the hailstorm of hatred they must suffer.
8. Politics and Economics.
All right, all right...
In what has proved to be the most counter-intuitive political year in recent history, John McCain, a war hero who walked away with the Republican presidential nod, was soundly defeated at the polls by Barack Obama, underachieving pal of Tony Rezko, Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, Alex Giannoulias, et alii, who barely eked out the Democrats' nomination over Hillary Clinton. Obama ignited what might be America's first true cult of personality. Nothing else comes near to explaining the adulation -- almost cult-like adoration -- he receives from his supporters -- and no other president-elect has succeeded in establishing an "Office of the President-Elect," for which there's absolutely no basis in American constitutional law.
However, 2008 also saw the surprise ascendancy of a new conservative star: Sarah Heath Palin, Governor of Alaska and the Republican vice-presidential nominee. Governor Palin's stirring rise through Alaskan politics, her attractive family, her strong moral character, her Reaganite political principles, and her extraordinary popularity make her the front-runner for the GOP's nod in 2012. That's why virtually the entire political establishment is trying to destroy her preemptively, so that the Great American Pork Banquet -- the Washington status quo of insider dealing and mutual back-scratching -- might continue for another decade or two.
On the economic scene, the accelerating wave of mortgage defaults, the collapse of several major credit and banking institutions, and the general slowdown in consumers' purchase of durable goods, categorically gave the lie to the phrase "too big to fail." (Remember John Kenneth Galbraith's claim that Detroit's Big Three "control their markets?") That gave our Washington mandarins the opening they needed to establish genuine Mussolinian / Hitlerian economic fascism -- government ownership, de jure or de facto, of key industries -- in the guise of a "bailout." As Rahm Emanuel, veteran Chicago pol and Barack Obama's chosen chief of staff, famously observed, you can't let a good crisis go to waste. Expect more of the same when the Obama Administration and the fattened Democrat majorities on Capitol Hill take the reins of power.
9. Personal.
Allow me to refrain from details. I've been unwell much of the year. I'm still employed, doing what I do best, though no one can feel perfectly safe under the conditions that currently prevail. I've battled both wild abandon and the pit of despair. I've been bitterly disappointed by some people...and returned to life by some others.
No, you don't need to hear about my New Year's resolutions.
10. In Summary.
This is Day 7 of "the twelve days of Christmas." Tomorrow is the Feast of the Circumcision, when the infant Jesus was formally entered into the customs of His people. Next Tuesday will be the Epiphany, when we commemorate the coming of the Magi and their presentation of the Three Gifts:
- Gold, for the King of Kings;
- Frankincense, for the Priest of Priests;
- Myrrh, in token of His ultimate sacrifice for the redemption of the world.
It's not easy to remain filled with Christmas spirit. (It's harder if you never had any in the first place.) Still, the effort is worthwhile. 2008 was hard; from the portents, 2009 might be harder yet. The joy of the Incarnation and the cheer of our celebrations could be all that stands between many of us and a final fall from grace.
Happy New Year, to all my Gentle Readers. May it bring you all that life has to offer.
Comments
One of my gifts this year was Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun tetralogy, which I asked for on a lark after I read a recommendation in a WaPo article. I’m almost through the second book, The Claw of the Conciliator. From what I understand, Wolfe is a pretty famous author, although I’d never heard of him before. Have you read the series, and what do you think?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 12/31/2008 at 01:35 PMI got about 70 pages into The Shadow Of The Torturer and abandoned it in horror and disgust. Wolfe is well known, and hailed by many as a genius, but apart from a handful of his shorter pieces, I’ve never much cared for his stuff.
Posted by Francis W. Porretto on 12/31/2008 at 01:48 PMMay you have a peaceful and satisfying ‘09, Francis.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 12/31/2008 at 01:59 PMMay 09 find you in (much) better health. You are one of the “good guys”, by not keeping your “light” under a bushel, we are all the better for it. Thank you for sharing.
Posted by Guy S on 12/31/2008 at 02:44 PMThe reviewer did say Wolfe tended to provoke either undying allegiance or utter revulsion, with few remaining ambivalent. I have to say at the moment I’m one of the few occupying the ambivalent camp. His prose is astonishing, and it poses a welcome challenge to my sensibilities after years of reading stuffy political science journals, which are usually full of bad writing. On the other hand, it’s taken me a long time to catch on to the style of narration, particularly the fact that the narrator doesn’t always tell the truth, and his distortions and lies are only revealed subtly. I’m used to approaching novels with the assumption that what is written is literal truth. The foreshadowing and symbolism are also pretty opaque, and though I’m told the book is full of Biblical allusions owing to Wolfe’s staunch Catholicism, I’m having a hard time spotting them. I’ll have to reserve judgment until I finish the series, and perhaps until after a possible re-read.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 12/31/2008 at 02:59 PMCount me amongst those that think Gene Wolfe isn’t at all what he’s cracked up to be. I just don’t understand his appeal.
And thank you for all the good reading material this past year.
Posted by Jim Sullivan on 12/31/2008 at 05:09 PMA better, healthier, more secure new year to you, Boss.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 12/31/2008 at 10:36 PMHmm, I’ve generally liked Wolfe’s work, particularly the exploits of Severius. Wolfe is *so* good at names (for example: Exultants, Terminus Est, Baldanders, etc.), a talent that I first learned to appreciate in Dickens and later, to my surprise, in the works of Rowling. The “Book of the Long Sun” was also interesting in its imaginative scope, but not as compelling to me as the “New Sun”. I also have a collection of short stories by Wolfe which stick out in my memory as wonderfully crafted little gems, much like the piano works of Erik Satie.
I’m surprised that anyone’s reaction could be so strongly negative as to prompt “horror and disgust”. If our Esteemed Host is ever hard up for a topic, perhaps he would care to expand further on this.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 01/02/2009 at 01:59 AM“Office of the President-Elect” I still giggle every time that pops up on TV. Then I sharpen my knifes and clean my guns somberly when I remember that pompous empty suit is going to be President.
If the Republic survives after this, I think we will have the best entry in the History books under “What the hell where they thinking?”
Then I start giggling again. I think during his State of the Union addresses I’ll turn down the volume and make my own script, replete with funny voices and recurring characters. Maybe with sock puppets, too.
God bless you, Fran, keep up the good work.
Posted by Russell on 01/02/2009 at 02:50 AMThank you, Francis W. Porretto, for bringing me to my knees..literally. HAPPY NEW YEAR.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 01/02/2009 at 11:11 PM
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