2011 in review

It's a bit early to be looking back on 2011, but this year is a special case, being the last full year. Indeed, today starts the countdown to the end of the world. And this time I really mean it. January got off to a good start beating out February by over four weeks. Then February failed to reach 29 days for the third year in a row. May's end of the world did not live up to its promise except in a spiritual sense, and October's was a total wash out leaving us with over 7 billion refugees. It was a year of continued recession and gridlock in Congress as the two parties had differing visions of which method that hasn't worked in the past should be tried again in the future hoping for a different outcome. On a personal level it was a good year, better than 2010 and worse than 2012 to recoin a phrase. All of us can say, like the optimist who just fell down a flight of stairs, I'm glad that's over.

Oh, that's right, the world didn't end...again.

Add Vaclav Havel to the list.

There were several important deaths in Poland as well, but you probably never heard these names, so I will spare you the obituary column.

Oh, that's right, the world didn't end...again.

I can't wait for the 2012 daily armageddon updates. Mexico has even set up fake Mayan tourist attractions with fake Mayan priests performing fake Mayan rituals.

No mention of all the "Occupy" protests going on?

Are they still even going on? I really don't know, it gets no news coverage, but everything on the internet I read makes it out to be some big deal.

No mention of all the "Occupy" protests going on?

Are they still even going on? I really don't know, it gets no news coverage, but everything on the internet I read makes it out to be some big deal.

CNN) -- Over the past few weeks, cities have continued to remove Occupy Wall Street protesters from their encampments. Occupy has responded to these ejections by changing its focus from public spaces toward private property: foreclosed homes.

This shift may end up leaving Occupy even stronger than it was before the ejections began. It answers critics who have accused Occupy of lacking a political program and will help the movement build stronger ties with working-class Americans. To understand why, it helps to view Occupy in the context of earlier social movements that employed similar tactics.

A straight line runs from the 1930s sit-down strikes in Flint, Michigan, to the 1960 lunch-counter sit-ins to the occupation of Alcatraz by Native American activists in 1969 to Occupy Wall Street. Occupations employ physical possession to communicate intense dissent, exhibited by a willingness to break the law and to suffer the -- occasionally violent -- consequences...

I think we may finally be seeing the American Awakening.


http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/16/opinio...upy/index.html

Legalities aside, it is crazy to have empty homes driving down the value of previously nice neighborhoods, while families are driven out of their homes with no place to go.

The incredibly lopsided distribution of wealth in this country can no longer be ignored. This is where all right-wing ideology and media hype has met its match.

In short, this is just a birth pang of more to come.

P.S. thread seems to be turning into another occupy discussion I didn't bother to keep track of the occupy movements.