More to Come

I do not exit this year with the same blogging enthusiasm with which I entered it. However, the completion of another solar rotation requires some sort of recapitulation, I suppose. 2005 was not as good a year as I was hoping, nor as bad as it has been for many others. Mostly it will be noted for being water-logged. From the retreating tidal waters of last December's epic Asian tsunami, through the soggy wet Los Angeles winter that took out Southland homes in a variety of mudslides, and then culminating in the barrage of horrendous hurricanes unlike anything this country has ever seen, our major life-giving element has been especially surly. And today it's reported that Tropical Storm Zeta has formed in the Atlantic Ocean, a month after the "official" hurricane season is supposed to have ended. The Age of Aquarius indeed.

Of course this has nothing to do with global warming, which our oh-so-wise Administration discounts as scientific whimsy, like the theory of evolution. But the tide, to keep the metaphor going, seems to be turning a bit. This year Americans started to see some cracks in the levee of Republican statesmanship. Bush was overwhelmed by forces of nature and of cupidity, as his congressional cohorts and staff members were inundated with scandals. "Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job!" has been declared by media pundits as the quote of the year. Hardly the "Mission Accomplished" smugness of 2003. By year's end Bush's fortunes seem to have bottomed out, with another Iraqi election to convey the veneer of democratic reform. Yeah, but they vote in China too. Well, we got through the year without a 9/11 attack or an avian flu pandemic, so that's something.

It was also a bad year for Tom Cruise, Raphael Palmeiro, Arnold Schwarzeneggar, Terrell Owens, Judith Miller, that fraudulent Korean biologist, Tookie Williams, Terri Schiavo (and everyone else who died). It was a good year for Ozzie Guillen, Ang Lee, George Clooney, Tom Brady, Lance Armstrong and the new co-anchors at ABC. Also, my one-time correspondent Mark Treitel, whose runner-up pilot for "Operation: Sitcom" actually was picked up by ABC, albeit with a new title and cast. It will now star Jane Leeves, a good instinctive comic actress, and a promising deadpan foil for whomever is cast as the rowdy "sperm donor." At least I trust this is the same project, since the description I read in TV Guide's "winter preview" edition reads exactly the same. Mark, if you're out there, I hope you're involved--or at least well-compensated.

For my part, this year is most distinctive in its introduction of Sudoku, the Japanese logic puzzle sensation that is sweeping the world in a benign pandemic. I have hardly mastered the form, but this is good, since the challenge is what makes it so involving. The Sudoku has now replaced the crossword puzzle as the great time-consuming gimmick for waiting rooms and airports. They are so engrossing that time passes by in huge parcels, and I don't even hear the jabbering on the cell phones around me. It's interesting that I had never heard the word "Sudoku" before 2005. It's my catchword of 2005, as "blog" was of 2004. To my Nipponese friends, first sushi and then Sudoku. You light up my life!

No predictions here for 2006, as I am in some trepidation about what it offers. One friend, of like pessimism, fears a terrorist attack in Los Angeles, especially after reported chatter has mentioned our city as a specific target. I am also wary of a potential earthquake, as the San Andreas is way overdue. As 2005 taught us effectively, we are all subject to the nasty whims of nature, as well as to the idiocy of our species.