Happy New Year!

Are you up early, like me, or are you sleeping off last night's festivities? Personally, I don't get too revved up about the shift from one year-number to the next one. I think we live in days, and when life is good, normal days are the best, and the truth is, we live in days:



But if our lives are to have meaning, don't we need to knit those days together?



If we should take account on an annual basis — to put the Ann in annual — why should it be on this outwardly imposed occasion, this flip of the calendar from December to January?



"Yeah, I can get with that!"

A conversation for the end of the year.

How to read a book a day for a year.

Choose short/easy/audio books.

Actually, I read a book a day and have for years — but it's an audiobook, and most of this reading is done while asleep.

Do you have an reading-related New Year's resolutions? Let's think up some reading projects for the new year. We don't necessarily have to do them. Let's just contemplate them. I've already thought of 2, one of which I plan to do. First:

Maybe a good project would be those "History of..." pages, not just for their most common words — WAR! — but to have had it run through your head, at least once, what happened in all of those places. Do you know how many pages we are talking about? The number of members in the United Nations is not the right answer, but do you know that number? It's 193. Wikipedia lists 206 sovereign states (including those with disputed sovereignty).

Let's make a New Year's resolution: Each day, read one Wikipedia "History of..." page. Will you join me? We'll go in alphabetical order, and I'll prompt you with blog posts.

That will start on New Year's day. Don't worry, I'll make it amusing. Second:

What I like [about "The Great Gatsby"] is that each sentence is good, on its own. Seriously. Test it out. "As my train emerged from the tunnel into sunlight, only the hot whistles of the National Biscuit Company broke the simmering hush at noon." Every sentence is a writer's inspiration....

I feel like starting a blog devoted to individual sentences in "The Great Gatsby," chosen randomly, and continuing until all the sentences have been used up.

With commentary, of course. For example, here's my commentary on the hot-whistle-simmering-hush sentence (responding to a commenter who complained that "trains do not 'emerge' from tunnels. They blast, speed, rip, explode, hurtle. E.B. White and Orwell would have hated the verb 'emerge'):

Now, one reason the train can't "blast" or "explode" from the tunnel — and by the way, oh, you men, with your cocks — is that the "only" sound was the "hot whistle." Otherwise, there was a "hush." That's all very surreal, no? Why didn't the train make any noise? It emerged, because it wasn't a screaming cock blasting through a vagina tunnel, as happens in your (presumably) E.B. White-approved works of fiction. Why was the train silent, why were the whistles hot, why was the hush simmering, why was it noon, why were the whistles biscuit whistles, and why wasn't it the biscuit, rather than the whistle, that was hot?

Blogging, paying attention to each day as it happens, makes it hard to assess a whole year.

So I'll feel better once we've crossed over into the new year. All this year end business is a drag to me. I used to do these year-end posts where I'd highlight one blog post from each month of the past year or list my favorite quotes. I had my archive to mine for this sort of material. But I've written close to 5,000 posts this year. I'm not going to run through all of that, even quickly. I can only wonder what the hell was it? I know the feeling of assurance that there is always something to write about, that each day brings a new set of topics, but I'm puzzled, at year end, at the what could have mattered. 5,000 things?!

If I had to list what really mattered, not for its day, but enduringly, what would it be? Of all the things we talked about, each in its own day, what do we carry with us into 2013?

I know: President Obama got reelected. We did a hell of a lot of yammering for that one take away. Is everything else ephemera?

"Time honors Sandra Fluke as 'Person of the Year' finalist."

That's the Breitbart headline for an item that begins "Just when you think Time magazine can’t make any more of a mockery of itself...." But there are 40 individuals on Time's "Who Should Be TIME's Person of the Year 2012?" which gives readers a chance to vote. Included on this list are many minor newsworthy figures and many whose contributions were not clearly positive. Bashar Assad and Kim Jong Un are on the list — "honored." Nice by not really world-changing figures like gymnast Gabrielle Douglas are included.  The click-through gallery is in alphabetical order, and the first picture that hits you is a conservative old white guy, Sheldon Adelson. Now, he's not presented in a positive light:

In the post-Citizens United era, Sheldon Adelson became the public face of what critics cast as a plutocrat class trying to buy U.S. elections. But it's not clear how much the conservative casino magnate got for his money — other than a heap of bad press.

Time's perspective is obviously liberal, but within that perspective, it's quite a concession to say that Citizens United hasn't been a horror show.

Anyway, Time made an effort to amass an interesting list of people who made the news for different reasons or who represent different cultural and demographic sectors. There's E.L. James and Jay-Z and Psy. Did they "influence the news" (Time's stated standard)? The real problem here is that it seems that Barack Obama is the necessary choice for 2012, and that's simply too boring.

And in fact, he is not winning in the readers poll. The readers have decisively chosen Malala Yousafzai. She has the least negative votes ("no way") and is coming in 3d on positive votes ("definitely"). Ahead of her on the positive list are Mohamed Morsy and — I guess the vote-for-the-worst crowd is out in force — Kim Jong Un. Malala Yousafzai is the face in the gallery that makes your heart zing. I clicked through the whole thing without feeling like hitting a definitely/no way button until I got to her. I still didn't vote, of course. (My female heart is well-defended against the outreached arms of commercial media.)

Sandra Fluke's no votes far exceed yes votes —  24,809/9,356  — but I would guess that outrage from the Breitbart crowd will now skew the vote. I don't know which way, but for Time, traffic is traffic and it will experience a nice boost from the inclusion of Fluke. The "Person of the Year" event — and this post gets my "annual nonsense" tag — is a nice commercial gambit for Time. So:

Who made a mockery of itself?
	Time
	Breitbart.com
	Both
	Neither
pollcode.com free polls

High hopes for the new year...

... translated into things you can buy at Amazon.

That assumes buying stuff falls within your approach to living better in the new year. Perhaps you've chosen "Don't Buy Anything" as your motto — I did that once — or otherwise to take the path of anti-materialism. But I'm sure there are products even for that.

Happy New Year...

... 's Eve.

Any last loose ends to the year you need to tie up today?

What are the chances you'll stay up until midnight?

If 2012 is only exactly as good as 2011, will you be disappointed?

Are you going to be a better person in 2012, or did you set a pretty high mark this year, so that staying close to that mark is the most you're going to expect from yourself?

"Don’t come down here and tell me there is no God."

"This nation is a Christian nation regardless of what those fruit loops and fruitcakes in Washington D.C. say. Hell will freeze over before I vote to have it removed."

So says Joe Hall, the Henderson County Commissioner, defending the Athens, Texas nativity scene from an attack by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which — for the record — is from Madison, Wisconsin.

The foundation asked for the baby Jesus to be removed, or for a sign to be put up next to his crib that would read: “At this season of the winter solstice may reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.”

But while some believe Santa is “but myth and superstition,” no one has asked for a sign to be placed next to him, clarifying his non-existence. The town has several other seasonal decorations up, such as reindeer, garden gnomes and snowmen, but the nativity scene is the only decoration has been criticized as a religious symbol. As for Santa, he’s more of a tradition than a religious icon, so the foundation has not taken issue with him.

"This is a clash of two historically hemp producing states... Both Nebraska and Wisconsin had thriving hemp industries."

When Football Saturday meets the Great Midwest Marijuana Harvest Festival.

"The 50 Most Loathsome Americans of 2010."

Allegedly.

1) You

Charges: Your brain’s been cobbled together over millions of years of blind evolution and it shows. You’re clumsy, stupid, weak and motivated by the basest of urges. Your MO is both grotesquely selfish and unquestionably deferential to questionable authority. You’re not in control of your life. You wear your ignorance like a badge of honor and gleefully submit to oppression, malfeasance and kleptocracy. You will buy anything. You will believe anything. You believe that evolution is a matter of belief. You likely scrolled down to #1, without reading the rest, because you’re an impatient, semi-literate Philistine who’s either unable or unwilling to digest more than 140 characters at a time. You think Epic Beard Man is a national hero and that Bradley Manning might be Eli and Payton’s brother. You believe in American exceptionalism despite the contrary, compelling and overwhelming evidence. You tacitly partake in all manner of atrocity without batting a lash. You’re actively participating in our species’ extinction and you’re either in denial or you just don’t give a shit. You escape into every sort of mind-numbing distraction and ridiculous, convoluted fantasy, so you don’t have to face the bitter, terrifying fact that your life is utterly meaningless.

Aggravating factors: The careers of Rush Limbaugh, Oprah Winfrey, John Stossel and Justin Bieber; the success of The Secret, “Medium” and Atlas Shrugged; the election of Rand Paul; the existence of Kentucky, Texas and “Sarah Palin’s Alaska.”

Sentence: Bad teeth, an affinity for afternoon tea and the guilt-plagued, nostalgic psyche of a fallen empire.

Click through to see who "you" beat. Barack Obama is on the list, but it's not exactly bipartisan. Great illustration. Good detail. Many pop culture and sports characters are included.

I almost forgot! It's my bloggiversary!

I'm surprised that slipped my mind. Maybe because I turned 60 on the 12th. And I don't mean I'm getting old and therefore forgetful. I just got distracted by the big 0 birthday. Anyway, I'm getting in under the wire here in the Central Time Zone.

The blog is 7 years old today.

AND: I should note, once again, that I have posted every single day — including weekends, holidays, etc. — in each of the 7 years.

Are you going on a diet for the new year...

... like everyone else with the #1 most common and boring New Year's resolution?

Are you going on a diet?
	Yes.
	No.
	I'm doing something but there's something about the term "diet" that brings out the quibbler in me.
pollcode.com free polls

Are you finishing up that bag of chips right now so you can get the house ready for the virtuous tomorrow? And what will you eat on that diet? Tell us in detail, but first, weigh in here:

What are you thinking of eating in the new year?
	The same old stuff.
	A variety of truly health-enhancing foods.
	Smaller portions of basically the same stuff, leaning a bit more toward the healthful.
	I'll cut out carbohydrates.
	Cut the junk food, but otherwise the same basic stuff.
	I'll set a calorie limit and count calories.
	I'll pick a few foods that I'm allowed to eat -- maybe only one food.
	Tiny plates. I can eat what I want, but it must fit on that plate.
	A liquid diet.
	Fasting, maybe one day a week.
pollcode.com free polls

How much do you want to lose?
	0
	5-10 pounds
	Over 10 pounds but less than 25 pounds
	More than 25 pounds but less than 50 pounds
	More than 50 pounds
pollcode.com free polls

Will you meet your goal?
	No, of course not. It never works.
	Yes, because I'm strong and determined.
	Yes, because I'm saying "yes" here and that's gives me new incentive.
	Probably not. I may lose some, but these things tend not to work out in the long run.
pollcode.com free polls

Politico picks the "best quotes" of 2010.

And the definition of "best" seems to be: the speaker was a politico whose own statement defined him/her in a negative way — e.g., "I'm not a witch."

Too bad no one ever comes out with brilliantly wise and witty epigrams anymore.

I need to do some year-end type features for this blog, like Althouse's Biggest Flip-Flop.

I'm surprise to even see that I wrote this. Man, nobody called me on that, back when I was a big 1-issue voter in the Wisconsin gubernatorial race. Looking at the comments over on that first post, I'm thinking maybe you guys flipped me!

An Althouse blog comments community project.

Yes, it's my birthday, but more important: Wednesday is the 5th anniversary of this blog. One thing that meant the most to me has been the ongoing conversation in the comments and the way it has developed over the years.

There have been great commenters who've built a lasting reputation, who've peaked and flamed out, who were wonderful until the day they stomped off, who go silent and then reappear, who go off and write on their own blogs but still stop back here from time to time. There have been trolls and quasi-trolls — trolls that annoy us and trolls that amuse us. It's been tremendously rewarding, and I'm glad to have you in my coffeehouse.

So here's the idea for the anniversary. Starting now, in the comments here, link to your favorite old thread or specific comment. You can highlight something your wrote or something from another commenter. Generate material of this sort, and, depending upon what you give me, I'll work it into a post for January 14th. (Remember, to link to a specific comment, click on the time under the comment, and then add the letter c to the URL after the #. Don't ask me why that c business is needed. It just is.)

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, everybody!

If my new year's resolution was to get the first post of the day up early, I have already broken it.

Have you broken your resolutions yet? Do you have the classic cliché resolution to lose weight? At this point, you can probably remember everything you've eaten this year. Have you eaten the wrong thing yet? Me, I've eaten nothing this year but a glass of skim milk.

Vows of abstemiousness are all well and good, but the more interesting resolutions are about doing something, not avoiding doing things. And going to the gym doesn't count. That's still in the abstemiousness category. I'm interested in your resolve to live a larger, more expressive, more fully dimensional life.

My idiosyncratic list of quotes from the second half of the year.

I've already done the months of January-June, and I simply must finish this project. So, quickly, here goes.

"This is someone thinking 'I'll just remove this indefinite article because Coren is an illiterate cunt and i know best.' Well, you fucking don't. This was shit, shit sub-editing for three reasons...." Giles Coren rants about copy editing.

"'Crackhead' is an embarrassing line item to have on a résumé." New York Times writer David Carr tells his sordid story.

"We have sort of become a nation of whiners. You just hear this constant whining." The quote that wrecked Phil Gramm.

"I wasn’t exactly sure what to say to you, except to start with, God, I love our country and I love what we stand for." Bush at the Olympics.

"The more I'm in public, I don't even want to pick my nose." Obama.

[MORE QUOTES TO COME!]

The New Year's Tick has arrrived, replacing Father Time, The New Year Baby, and The Ball.

I asked for your drawings and photoshoppings of the new New Year's mascot, the New Year's Tick. That lovable master of the animated gif, Chip Ahoy, has come forward, so let's do the countdown.

I'm still looking for drawing of the tick that make him lovable and memorable. I've thought of a name: Tock the Tick. See? He represents time.

***

I've done all my out-of-the-house New Year's celebrating yesterday and today, and now I'll be home blogging tonight, so please hang out here. I've got a couple things I want to post, and then I'll start a New Year's Eve live-blog post. We'll talk about the old and the new and what's on TV, we may reproduce some of what passes for conversation chez Althouse, and if we are lucky, as the clock ticks, there will be more New Year's ticks.

I'm quite serious about replacing the depressing Father Time/Baby New Year with the New Year's Tick.

I like to frontpage comments, you know, and now and then, I need to frontpage my own comments. This is one of those times.

There was that "tick" post on New Year's Eve Eve (i.e., last night):

"New Year to arrive a tick later."

Oh! A tick!

Ricpic waxes poetic:

The New Year came in wobbly.
A tick or two behind.
It threw off lonely sticklers.
The rest? They didn't mind.

And Stephanie says:

?retal kcot a evirra ti t'nseoD

(Wait a sec, I have to do this.)

Then blogging cockroach says...

tou ieduv siht kcehc einahpets yeh

... and links to this:



That drives reader_iam to poesy:

i do love the backwards elements of the cockroach nature
as don't we all
or at least should
if not ought

Blogging cockroach responds in kind:

that should be tuo
which proves i ve had too much
spilled cheap merlot tonight
to be hopping around backwards
lookout when the champaign flows
tomorrow night wheee
which i hope doesn t turn into
eeehw
anyway here is tick tock gone bad
and too long
but you can stop it when it
ceases being funny about 40 seconds in
hey they can t all be gems
and i promise never to trip
trippingly to reader s ear
a cockroach doing that would
freak some people out
but just don t sleep on the kitchen floor
and we ll all be fine

Chip Ahoy says:

.diputs era stac yhW

dnuora gnifoog tsuj s'ti swohs swollof taht oediv etunim 4 ehT .yllaer toN

The cockroach continues to inspire reader_iam:

ah but cockroach
your trips are tweets to the ear
like birds in dawn of spring s own dawn
here here see here they sing
back again as always are we
so wake up
if only, and to ...

The cockroach skitters on across the keyboard again:

not having the vers libre poet in me
i fear my prosaic nature sometimes
misses the subtleties of
dear reader s lovely lines
which is not to say
reader should not write
a lot more of them
because you always want more
when someone doesn t quite
write enough rather than when
they write too much
which is also true about food
but i m not as appreciative when
the cook has cleaned up
too well afterwards

Then, when everyone is nestled all snug in their beds, I am awake. It's 2:23 a.m.:

And where is everyone? Last night, you guys were talking all night, and now here I am with insomnia and no one is around.

Were you afraid of the tick?

Thanks for all the poetry, but it was all before midnight. If you can't stay up until midnight tonight, how do you expect to celebrate New Year's Eve tomorrow night?

I think I'll try to draw a picture of the New Year's Tick. Or see if I can get people to send pictures of the New Year's Tick. And I'm going to push for the adoption of the New Year's Tick as the new New Year's mascot, replacing that stupid — and frankly depressing — Old Man and Baby mascot. Or the Ball. What the hell kind of symbol is a Ball?

I hope that doesn't offend blogging cockroach. You must understand that we can't have a cockroach as a holiday symbol. Not for New Year's anyway.

This insomnia is giving me grandiose thoughts, but I really think this New Year's Tick thing can catch on. Perhaps if we draw it the right way. I think Santa Claus wasn't such a big deal until those Coca Cola ads got the character drawn just the right way. People loved him once his attributes became appealing and standardized.

Help me do that with the Tick.

Also, that "Night Before Christmas" poem helped with the popularization of Santa Claus, so maybe some of you poets can write something similarly beguiling about the annual arachnid.

Inside the kitty cat wall clock he hid/Our eagerly awaited arachnid.

See? I can't do it!

An arthropod/From God/Trod...

No... I need help with the poem. And with the drawing. And with the sleeping.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds/Not knowing the Tick crept so close to their heads....

(Links added.)

In the cold light of morning — and it's 0° — I can see these are not mere insomniac ravings. I really do want drawings — or photoshoppings — of the New Year's Tick. I will reward you with frontpagings and tags. More poems too. I love the poems and the depictions of ticks — detickshuns, if you will.

We went out in the icy snow and celebrated last night. Tonight we stay in. I'll be live-blogging New Year's Eve, so please join me. I will reward you profusely with frontpagings and tags... and ticks.

The List of Words to Be Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness.

The proclamation has come down. You can no longer use "maverick," "from Wall Street to Main Street," "desperate search," "monkey" (the suffix), "game-changing," "carbon footprint," "winner of five nominations," "green," "going green," "first dude," "staycation." Probably a lot more. I'm culling these words from a tediously written article, when I just want to see the list, because I can't get to the official website.