In 2010, We Learned That . . .

Image by Felix_Nine via FlickrIt sucks to be unemployed, even if the economy is supposedly improving.

It is finally possible for gays and lesbians to serve in the military without having to treat their statuses as state secrets.

No secret is safe.  Not yours, mine or the government's.

Jon Stewart makes more sense making jokes about insanity in politics, not for calling an end to it.

When Republicans whine longer and louder and get very little done, they get rewarded with more seats in Congress.

When Democrats with a majority in both houses cave and cower to the GOP, they deserve to get their butts kicked.

Thanks to the Tea Party, anybody with half a brain can run for political office.  Anybody.

The honeymoon for President Barack Obama may have ended a long time ago.  But he did get more done in the first two years than some presidents did in four.

It is now possible for corporations to back political candidates, at the risk of alienating their customers.

A governor who put his presidential ambitions ahead of the needs of the state he's supposed to be governing was wise not to seek re-election.

We need a better way to decide elections in Minnesota.  We also need better candidates.

For a country like Haiti, which has been through so much in its history, it gets worse.

One environmental disaster can wreck an entire region for decades, while the company that caused it spends millions to tell us how "responsible" they are.

A pastor from Florida garners lots of free publicity just for threatening to burn the Koran.

Airport security becomes legalized pornography.

Apple introduces the iPad, and the previously faceless founder of Facebook becomes Time magazine's Person of the Year.

Most of these paragraphs can fit within 140 characters.

People with names like Kourtney, Khloe, Snooki and The Situation can become reality TV stars.

Great TV shows like "Mad Men" and "Friday Night Lights" have small audiences while "S--- My Dad Says" is allowed to exist.

Broadcasting icons like Larry King of CNN, Don Shelby of WCCO-TV and Charlie Boone of WCCO-AM aren't allowed to retire without great fanfare.

Being famous isn't an excuse for evading the slammer when you break the law.  Just ask Lindsay Lohan, Wesley Snipes or Charlie Sheen.

Songs celebrating bad romances, getting drunk and women from California topped the pop charts.

Lady Gaga blazed new trails in music and fashion.  Meat dresses, anyone?

3D technology is more than a marketing gimmick.  Or is it?

Conan O'Brien can survive network bungling and Jay Leno to resurface on TV.  Even if it is basic cable.

"American Idol" became just another version of "Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour" without Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul.

Leslie Nielsen, Elizabeth Edwards, Barbara Billingsley, Edwin Newman, Eddie Fisher, Lena Horne, Gary Coleman, Richard Holbrooke, J.D. Salinger, Bob Guccione, Tony Curtis, Dennis Hopper, Blake Edwards, Robert Byrd, Fess Parker, John Forsythe, Ted Sorensen, Corey Haim, Rue McClanahan, Patricia Neal, Lynn Redgrave, Teddy Pendergrass, Jill Clayburgh, Tom Bosley, Harvey Pekar, Merlin Olsen, Peter Graves, Robert culp, Dixie Carter, Art Linkletter, Jimmy Dean, Mitch Miller and Alexander Haig are no longer among the living.

2011 has got to be better than this.  Happy holidays, everyone.

There's No Crying In Congress

In the lame duck session of Congress, our elected officials are scrambling to get most of the key legislative work done before they have to turn the keys over to a new crop that was voted in last November.  The main event is the fight over whether or not to keep the Bush tax cuts, intended to cover everyone from the poorest to the richest, from expiring at the end of the year.

Just when you thought compromise was a four-letter word in Washington, President Barack Obama made a deal with Republican leaders to keep the tax cuts for two more years in addition to funding thirteen months worth of unemployment benefits.  Perhaps the President realized that, thanks to the election results, he now has to work with the GOP instead of ignoring them.

Liberal Democrats are up in arms over this deal because they believe the President has sold out.  They want to renew the tax cuts too, but only for the middle class.  It's nice to see the Democrats grow a spine for a change, after giving up whatever advantage they had to the GOP.  But this is the wrong issue to take a stand on, considering the economy.  If the bill doesn't pass, everybody's taxes will go up and the unemployed (up around ten percent, last we checked) won't get a thing.  Got a better idea, guys?

Otherwise, it's business as usual.  Democrats propose.  Republicans reject.  Rinse.  Lather.  Repeat.  That means the chances of immigration reform and the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" this session (and probably the next) aren't good.

When the new Congress convenes next month, Republicans will have control of the House and increase their presence in the Senate.  The new Speaker of the House will be John Boehner of Ohio.  Since the election, we've gotten to know a lot more about him.  More than we really wanted to know, actually.

Boehner's an emotional guy, whether he's shouting "Hell no, you can't!" in the House chambers, or blubbering at the drop of the hat in a CBS "60 Minutes" interview.  Now he's in a position to help pass laws that might make others cry.  Boehner is such an embarrassment to the country that somewhere, Osama bin Laden must be laughing his head off.

This is the Republican Party you sent to Congress, America.  A who's who of crackpots, criers and curmudgeons riding a wave of anti-incumbent fever.  And they're about to destroy the country in order to save it.

One Month Later, We Have a Winner

Image via WikipediaDemocrat Mark Dayton is now the Governor-elect of Minnesota.  Republican Tom Emmer conceded the race to the former U.S. Senator on Wednesday.  With Dayton's lead of around 8700 votes not changing much following the election and state-mandated recount, and with every legal challenge to disputed votes denied, Emmer realized that all the king's horses and all the king's men (and women) could not contain the inevitable.

This puts to an end the second recount for a major Minnesota political race in as many years, though this one wasn't nearly as close as the 2008 U.S. Senate battle between Republican Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken.  All the posturing, the challenges to the votes, and threats of lawsuits made the GOP look greedy.  Like a child having visions of sugarplum fairies, the GOP had dreams of being in control of both the Governor's office and the Legislature, at least for awhile.  Then Emmer came to his senses and pulled the plug.

Dayton will succeed Tim Pawlenty as scheduled on January 3, the first Democrat to take the oath as Governor in 20 years.  He will face difficulties immediately.  Pawlenty left him and the state with a $6.2 billion deficit.  He has a Republican legislature to deal with, which means the new Governor will find it difficult to implement his plan to raise taxes for the rich.  And, of course, the Minnesota Vikings want a new football stadium.

Until then, Dayton is scrambling to assemble a staff, find new living quarters, and to brush up on every detail of his new job.  Those won't be nearly as hard as what the next few months and years will bring to him and to Minnesotans.  Let's see how he handles it.

John Lennon: Another Day of Infamy

Cover of John LennonAs one generation remembers where they were when Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbor on a day in early December, another generation did the same thing the night John Lennon was gunned down in front of his New York City apartment.

The details of what happened prior to the shooting have been well-documented.  What happened after that was nothing short of unbelievable:  Howard Cosell breaking news of the shooting during a "Monday Night Football" game.  Radio stations temporarily scrapping their formats to play nothing but Lennon's music.  The vigils in Central Park and in front of the Dakota apartments, where wife Yoko Ono asked for a few minutes of silent prayer.  The number of former Beatles reduced to three.

What we learned about Mark David Chapman, the man who shot Lennon, was depressingly familiar when it came to the American way of assassination:  Lone wolf trying to make a name for himself by killing (or at least wounding) a famous person, for reasons few could fathom.

Thirty years have passed.  We are down to two Beatles since the death of George Harrison in 2001--Paul McCartney (Lennon's onetime songwriting partner) and Ringo Starr.  Lennon's sons, Sean and Julian, had briefly successful music careers.  And Yoko Ono is still keeper of the flame when she's not forging her own career as a singer and artist.

The Beatles?  Forty years after their breakup (some still blame Ono), they keep making headlines.  Just recently, the surviving members and the estates of Lennon and Harrison ended a long holdout by granting Apple permission to sell their music through iTunes.  People wondered if there was a market for the songs, because everyone who has ever owned a Beatles CD or album have probably downloaded them into their mp3 players by now.  The answer came when the Beatles' music topped the digital charts, just like in the old days.

All of which proves that you can kill the messenger, but you can't kill the message--or the music.

Leaking The Truth

Image via WikipediaA website called Wikileaks is creating headaches for the U.S. government again.  This time, the site has posted millions of formerly secret documents from the State Department online.

Fearing untold damage to diplomatic efforts, the government announced measures to tighten access to who sees what on those cables.  But when a low-level military official (an Army private, actually) can store classified information inside a Lady Gaga CD and send it to an organization dedicated to exposing secrets, keeping a lid on things have become difficult in the Internet age.

The information itself is more embarrassing than dangerous.  It's on the level of how many sexual affairs your loved ones confessed to in their diaries, which they thought were never meant to see the light of day.  Such as:  Saudi Arabia wanting the U.S. to wipe out Iran's nuclear program, China having no problem with North and South Korea reuniting in a Seoul-based government, and various unflattering comments about certain world leaders.

(Maybe Mark Twain had the right idea in leaving out certain details of his soon-to-be-available autobiography until a century after his death.)

Not that Wikileaks' founder, Julian Assange, should be considered a role model of any sort.  He's wanted by Interpol for alleged sex crimes in Sweden.  But according to CBS News, Assange's supporters plan on fighting fire with fire should he end up serving prison time.  They say they'll just put out more leaks.

This is only the beginning of the leaks, we're told, and there's not a thing anyone can do to stop them.  One wonders, though, if all this sunshine has any real benefit to people beyond historians, journalists and those who work in government.