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2008 was a very memorable year, featuring one of the most unforgettable presidential campaigns in history. But with the New Year quickly approaching, and the Bush Years coming to an end, I'd like to take a moment to focus on the things that happened over the last twelve months that I'd love to forget. Here's my list: That Eliot Spitzer likes things "you might not think are safe." That Dick Cheney still doesn't believe waterboarding is torture. The tingle going up Chris Matthew's leg. Sarah Palin's belief that there is a "real America" and "pro-America areas" of America. That Alan Greenspan was "shocked" to realize the free market was fallible. Michael Phelps' caloric intake. Joe the Plumber. Read the rest of my list -- and add your suggestions -- here.
So here we are, in a dangerous escalatory cycle that is already sweeping the region, with scores of Palestinian dead, horrific images, a highly-charged blame-game and no obvious exit-strategy. What needs to happen next?
Michael Vick, a scummy pro football quarterback, has improbably inspired an uplifting New Year's odyssey, according to this week's Sports Illustrated.
The foreign press, and even Haaretz in Israel, carries more balanced accounts than the American media.
Taking a children's song and twisting it in such vulgar, mean-spirited way, is a slur to our entire country and our common agreement to move beyond racism.
The Israeli government wants peace, but only one imposed on its own terms, based on the acceptance of defeat by the Palestinians.
One of the two men Obama has invited to offer prayers at inauguration will know what it means for a member of the clergy to have his speech silenced by oppressive government action. That man will not be Rick Warren.
So what are Hamas's strategic imperatives? Hamas still behaves like a traditional guerrilla or terrorist group -- such groups are interested in relative, not absolute, victory.
He was usually quiet and always looked to me like an icon but when I got a chance to talk to him about painting, he spoke with the passion of someone who had just started.
The government needs to spend a lot of money, so that the collapsing private economy does not end up as Great Depression II. When recovery comes, we can get the budget closer to balance.
Like a restricted country club that would rather die than change, the Republican Party is marginalizing itself for the sake of the white men who run it.
Nationalist MPs shared together in a clear act of national consensus as they torched the Israeli flag at the outset of the parliament's session Sunday.
With the coming war and intifada on my mind, I realize that thousands of rockets have been fired into Israel in recent years, yet because we in Jerusalem don't get hit by them, it has always seemed removed.
TVA is telling the public not to worry, the water is safe, the coal ash is inert, but officials with TVA and EPA have already lost some credibility with the local residents.
Collectively punishing the mothers and children of Gaza does not just violate international law, it does not just kill the people of Gaza, it kills any chance of a future peace.
As the anniversary of Benazir Bhutto's assassination comes and goes, some people in Pakistan have quietly concluded that getting assassinated was the best thing she ever did.
While the threat of rockets launched from Gaza can seem menacing, or even "terrorizing," it is incomparable to the terror that millions of Palestinians endure on a daily basis.
It's go time on a super new war in the Middle East. Wow! Has "democracy" taken root up in that piece or what?
When I hear industry professionals say that people don't like to read these days, I have to wonder just how detached they are from what's going on in the world.
