2014 Year End Review

2014 was the year of the polar vortex, ISIS, Ebola, planes in Asia vanishing, do-it-yourself immigration reform, plunging oil prices,  a roaring stock market and an economy that finally seemed to get its legs back after a six year swoon.  As I do every year, I will write a year end review of a year that started in the deep freeze (both weather wise and economically speaking) and ended up quite nicely.

Photograph of the Year.
This year, I decided to add a new category, limiting it to photos I actually take myself with my own camera or cell phone.  I loved this one that I took one morning on the way to work because it captured the headaches caused by the severe winter.   It was an interesting photo because it was taken in the morning and so it is not likely that alcohol was involved in this little mishap.  No one was hurt and I couldn't help but smirk a little as I imagined the conversation that would inevitably take place with her husband later in the day as she explained exactly how this happened.

Book of the Year (Fiction)
I am going to run against the crowd on this one.  Many "Best of" lists picked All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, the story of the intersecting lives of a young German soldier and a blind French girl during the closing days of WWII.  It certainly was worthy of its accolades, but my pick for the most enjoyable read of 2014 was The Unwitting by Ellen Feldman.   Set during the Cold War, it explores the separate lives we lead and secrets we keep even from our spouses.  The most overhyped and disappointing book of the year was The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell which I thought to be hard to follow, dull, and just plain weird.

Book of the Year (Nonfiction)
I may be criticized for picking a "chick book" but I liked This is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett.  The title is a bit misleading because it is only partially about her marriage (and her failed one), but in large part a her memoir of her writing career and her struggles and the indignities she suffered with dignity:

And I kept on doing the impossible.  I moved home and became a waitress at a T.G.I. Friday's, where I received a special pin for being the first person at that particular branch of the restaurant to receive a perfect score on her waitress exam.  I was told I would be a shift leader in no time.  I was required to wear a funny hat.  I served fajitas to people I had gone to high school with, and I smiled. 
I did not die.

Ms.  Patchett throughout was mostly able to look at her own predilections and idiosyncrasies and accept them at a level most of us struggle with.

The other nonfiction work I liked was The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison.  This is a collection of essays written by a medical actor that assists students in their diagnosis in medical school.  It explores how we are able to (or should) feel another person's pain and asks interesting questions around that and the limits to it.

Film of the Year
You can wholly discount my choice in this category since my filmgoing this year was grossly inadequate, but I liked Wild.  But as a devotee of Thoreau, I have an affinity for films or books in which people turn to nature and a basic survivalist lifestyle to gather themselves after the civilized world has overwhelmed them.  Conversely, I thought Interstellar was highly overrated, implausible, overintellectualized.....and way too long.   It badly needed the editing crew to go after it with shears.

Band of the Year
This category was the hardest to pick.  While I thought the film industry gave us slim pickings, the music business gave us a number of fresh new sounds and I don't remember a year with more good music to choose from.   The Black Keys, the Arctic Monkeys, Florence + the Machine, Arcade Fire, and Hozier all came out with some great innovative sounds.

But the group that I liked the most this year was Fitz and the Tantrums.  Their album More Than Just a Dream is one of the best albums I've heard in several years.  Out of My League and The Walker are great songs and the style borrows some from the 60's, 70's and 80's.  And the best song on the album is Moneygrabber (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3WRXYYBwRA&list=RDO3WRXYYBwRA#t=0).  It is hard to listen to that song and not hear the echo of the snappy beat of the old Jackson 5, especially if you listen to the background singers.

Concert of the Year
I didn't go to a lot of concerts this year, and missed quite a few that I would have liked, but I got at least two checked off my bucket list---Moody Blues and Earth, Wind & Fire.   But the one that I enjoyed the most was Jackson Browne.   Like the Bob Seger concert I attended last year, I found that Jackson Browne hasn't slipped at all since I first saw him in 1977,   He performed for nearly three hours and while he played some of his newer stuff, his versions of Running on Empty, The Pretender, and Doctor My Eyes resonated as much or more we me as those tunes did then.

Biggest Myth Buster of the Year
Fracking.   Predictions about peak oil, like Paul Ehrlich's predictions of the 70's that the planet would experience mass starvation because of overpopulation, the Chicken Little prognosticators have whiffed again with their predictions, vastly underestimating the power of markets and innovation to improve human existence.   While certainly the slowdown in demand for China accounted for some of the price slide, the advent of fracking and vertical drilling has had real impact on both making the US less energy dependent and the huge drop in energy prices.  Of course, these are developments that occurred without a Big Government department organized around them.  

All in all, 2014 was a good year for literature, a weak year for films, and a great year for music.  And it is a year I learned to be a little grateful for the positives---a strengthening economy and a fall in oil prices.  Moreover, I learned to be grateful for the things that DIDN'T happen.  Again, there was no terrorist attack on US soil.  There was no Ebola outbreak.   And despite the polar vortex, hell did not freeze over, although there were days it felt like it might.

Here's to a healthy, happy, prosperous 2015.

A Coherent Foreign Policy

Now that the Obama administration has, without precondition, opened diplomatic relationships with the brutal Castro dictatorship in Cuba, wouldn't the next logical step be to do the same with the DPRK?

Within days of the warm hug extended to Raul and Fidel, UN Ambassador Samantha Power called North Korea a "living nightmare," that it holds 120,000 people prisoners.  The Assistant Secretary General for Human Rights at the UN stated that North Korea is "a totalitarian system that is  brutally enforced denial of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, as well as the rights to freedom of opinion, expression, information and association." 

totalitarian system that is characterized by brutally enforced denial of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, as well as the rights to freedom of opinion, expression, information and association."

Hmmmmmm.  Maybe I'm missing something.   Can't much the same be said for Cuba?  It still holds 57,000 political prisoners, and denies all of the same rights, yet the United States is ready to roll out the red carpet, welcome the Castro boys to the family of nations and extend trade credits.

Maybe I just don't understand the nuances of modern diplomacy.  Is it just a matter of degree?  Is it a Western hemisphere thing?  An immigration policy thing?  An Asian thing?  A nuclear weapons thing?

It sure isn't a liberty thing.  I see no discernible difference between these two regimes on that score.  
If we follow the Obama logic for its unilateral movement on Cuba, then we should be opening up an embassy in Pyongyang  and loosening up trade restrictions because surely our policy toward North Korea "wasn't working."  This is the 3rd generation of North Korean dictators retaining their brutal grip on the north end of the Korean peninsula and nothing has changed, except North Korea now has nuclear weapons and it is still threatening, still proliferating, still brutalizing its own people.

I wish somebody would explain this all to me.

The Beat Goes On

I confess that I have never quite seen a foreign policy grand strategy like this one.   In keeping with our posture of turn our backs on our friends and offer unilateral concessions to our foes, the Obama administration once again, without consulting Congress, grants the Cuban tyranny legitimacy by re-establishing diplomatic relations.

This follows the "reset" button with Russia in which we threw our allies Poland and the Czech Republic under the bus by suddenly scrapping missile defense in Europe and then promising Medvdev "flexibility" after the elections.    After those warming gestures, we were treated to Russian tanks in the Crimea.  

Then we loosened up sanctions against Iran, hoping that gesture would show that we are acting in good faith and that showing them warmth would coax them into giving up their nuclear program.  Of course, the Iranians pocketed the concession, and now the NEW deadline is July 1, 2015.  Don't hold your breath, fellas.

Yet, we continue to harangue Israel on the settlements and have even considered sanctions against them.  No such remonstrations against Cuba for its human rights violations.  Hmmmm.

Now, without any concessions on elections, a free press, or human rights or any of the things we at least used to care about, the Obama administration is restoring diplomatic relations, reasoning that "what we have been doing for 50 years wasn't working."  It actually did work.  Cuba was isolated and largely contained.  With the mortality tables telling us that the Cuban government is about to transition the octogenarian Castro brothers out of office, the Obama administration shrewdly deemed it a wise policy to open up the economic floodgates to ensure that the pesky island stays in Communist hands for another 50 years.  Indeed, less than 24 hours after Obama's announcement, Raul was affirming his country's commitment to Communism.

But, I've been accused of taking an unduly harsh view of Team Obama's acumen with respect to foreign policy matters.   So let's look at the bright side and the possible benefits of this new relationship with Cuba.  In particular, I thought of a few reasons why Obama and some others might welcome this development.

• Having gotten the hang of ruling by fiat, Obama might want some ideas on how to keep a regime going for 50 years.
• Cuba does have universal health care, so he might be eager to learn how they got their website to work.
• Jerry Reinsdorf will no longer have to pay money under the table to get quality ballplayers on his roster.
• Another nice, warm place to golf.
• Ideas for best practices for state owned enterprises.
• Maybe another Mariel boatlift to dovetail with the administrations's immigration policies.
• And, of course, the cigars.

It is a sad reflection that on the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, this administration's policies have gone a long way toward rescuing expansionist Russia and Communism  out of the dustbin of history.

Ferguson

"What we see in Ferguson is not restricted to Ferguson."
Eric Holder

What did we see in Ferguson, exactly?   A multi-racial grand jury decided that we saw a police officer following his training and appropriately defending himself against a 6'4", 300 lb violent criminal that happened to be black.

Who is responsible for the death of Michael Brown?  Michael Brown and no one else.

And what we see in Ferguson is more people acting violently because they don't like facing that reality.  Personal responsibility is a bitch.

Unlike the Trayvon Martin case where Zimmerman was not a professional and had an opportunity to avoid a confrontation, this case is unambiguous.   Brown was going for Officer Darren Wilson's service revolver, leaving him very few options other than the use of deadly force.  The liberal press continues to use the word "unarmed" to described Mr. Brown, but the stark fact is that Mr. Brown was ONLY unarmed because officer Wilson got to his revolver before Mr. Brown did.

The liberals and the looters WANT a different narrative.   They want the story to read that an overzealous redneck, racist, trigger happy cop gunned down a poor, innocent unarmed African American.  Unfortunately, no matter how they attempted to distort the facts, they don't fit that narrative.   And because they are desperately trying to tell a different story, they do a great disservice to the black community and the rule of law in Ferguson and elsewhere.  

No matter what race you are, the easiest way to avoid getting shot by a cop is to cooperate and, for God's sake, don't assault an officer.  It's that simple.  Secondly, burning cars and looting are bad responses to outcomes we don't like.  Michael Brown apparently committed several crimes.  It was a sad and unfortunate consequence that he paid for those crimes with his life.  But none of the prosecutor, the grand jury or Officer Wilson are responsible for his death, nor is the vestiges of racism.  Mr. Brown ultimately made bad choices and the responsibility rests with him.

I agree with Mr. Holder that what we see in Ferguson is not limited to Ferguson.   It is an attempt to deflect responsibility for bad outcomes away from the person that is ultimately responsible for those outcomes.

Protection Please

Several weeks ago, I questioned why the government permitted Ebola victims to be flown back to the U.S. for treatment.  The safest way to deal with a virus is to keep it out.  Period.  Organisms are hard to control and mutate and scientists have been warning of a for some time.  Pandemics are to biological systems what crashes are to economic systems. They happen.

But the Obama administration blithely ignored those risks and not only brought victims here, refused to impose a travel ban on flights from Africa that are known "hot zones."  Of course, the predictable happened (even though Obama asserted that it would be unlikely).  Ebola got here.  People made mistakes.  And now we have had our first transmissions of Ebola in the U.S.

Tom Frieden, head of the CDC gave us cold comfort when he cavalierly asserted that, "we can control Ebola."  I feel so much better now.

Job 1 for the government is to protect its citizens from harm.   The problem now is that government has gotten so big and so preoccupied with all the other things that it has undertaken, that it cannot perform its primary function.   And, under Obama, we have seen repeated failures to protect and those failures are disturbingly frequent.  In the past couple of years, we have seen Benghazi, the rise of ISIS, the failure of the Secret Service to protect the White House, and now, a micro-organism.

The rank incompetence of government now is breathtaking.  And those in charge simply blame shift.  ISIS has been blamed on Bush.  Susan Rice blamed Benghazi on some two bit filmmaker.   Lois Lerner blamed the IRS targeting of conservatives on a "rogue office" (and now asserts that holding her accountable is due to anti-Semitism).   Eric Holder blamed Fast and Furious on low level functionaries (and similarly asserted that criticism of his administration was due to racism).  The Obama administration follows a predictable pattern.  In today's New York Times, Obama is reportedly angry over the response to Ebola.  First, they blame shift.  Then they get angry.

Contagions, like nuclear weapons, often do not allow for a large margin of error.  This government has now shown that it cannot adequately protect its leader or its embassies.  How can we expect it to protect the rest of us?  Obama admitted that he underestimated ISIS.  Is he now similarly underestimating Ebola?

Obama now is contemplating appointing and "Ebola czar."  If he appoints Kathleen Sebelius, I think I may head to the North Woods with a survival pack for awhile.

Are You Serious?

Just weeks after it was revealed that the Centers for Disease Control may have lost control of vials of smallpox, anthrax and bird flu and shut down a laboratory because of it, the CDC and the State Department are facilitating the transport of two Ebola infected citizens back to the US for treatment.

What could possibly go wrong?

The World Is A Mess

"The world is a mess," declared former Secretary of State Madeleine Albreight on Face the Nation this week.

 Liberals act as though Putin's aggression, the rise of ISIS, the attack of Hamas on Israel, the gains made by the Taliban in Afghanistan, our forced abandonment of our embassy in Libya and ounce and our own border crisis are independent occurrences.  I assure you, they are not.  They are a direct consequence of the foreign policy (or lack thereof). It began with the "apology tour" early in the administration when Obama trotted around the globe beating his breast about America's sins, stating that America "has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive" toward Europe, and that be believed in American exceptionalism the same way, "the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks in Greek exceptionalism."  In a unipolar world, Obama saw the U.S. as "getting too big for its britches" and a source of instability in the world.  The reality is just the opposite.  Without the moral, economic, and, yes, military force of America pushing back against totalitarianism, those forces envelope the world.  When America leaves a void, others fill it.  When America stops asserting its influence, others being to assert theirs.

Adversaries listen to what you say and watch what you do and respond accordingly.  When you draw red lines and then don't follow through, when you "pivot away" from a region, when you "let the Europeans come to their own conclusion [on Putin]," when you "lead from behind," when you announce precisely when you are going to withdraw your troops, when you slash your ability to fight 2 wars simultaneously to 1 and then to 1 but only if it is short, when you cut your navy to the lowest level in a couple generations, your enemies notice.  And so do your ever dwindling supply of friends.

No, it's no accident that in a single administration, the Islamic fascists have basically gotten a head start on establishing a caliphate in the Middle East and simultaneously Russia has begun the process of reassembling the Soviet bloc.  All the while, Hillary Clinton is asserting straightfaced that, "the reset with Russia worked,"  It did.....for Vladimir Putin.

If you are an adversary of the West, now is your time.  In 5 1/2 years, Obama has largely undone  the gains of the surge in Iraq and is on his way to reversing the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

How's that Reset Button Going For Ya?

Five years ago, the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton pledged to hit the "reset button" to improve relations with Russia after they had turned icy following Russia's invasion of Georgia.

You see, Republican foreign policy is stuck in the the past.  Hanging on to old notions of the Soviet Union is so 70's and 80's.  It's time we recognized that Russia has progressed since the days when they would invade other sovereign countries and shoot down passenger airliners...and then lie about it.

Right?

Every day I am more nostalgic for Jimmy Carter.

With Hillary as the presumptive front runner for the Democratic nomination in 2016, if the Republicans can't derail her on the Benghazi and "reset button" with Russia alone, they don't deserve the White House.

Own It!

A Quinnipiac Poll released this week showed that a plurality of Americans now believe that President Obama is the worst president since 1945.  If I were included in the survey, I think it would go back a bit farther, but the worst in 70 years is a far drop for a president that came into office on a crest of hope and change and Roman columns in the background.

How did this happen?  The New York Times is writing this swoon off to the sour mood of America or the general staleness of the 6th year of his administration.

Despite my general opposition to the bulk of his policies, I do not believe that his drop in the polls is due solely to staleness or to our sourness.  It is mostly, I believe, due to his administration's failure to take ownership of any of the difficult issues that it faces.  Not a single one.  Even more astonishing is that no one was held responsible for any of these pratfalls.

Here is my list of items that have gone south for this administration and to whom it ascribed blame:

ISIS in Iraq - Bush's fault
Worst post war economic recovery- House Republicans [for not spending more]
Government shutdown- See above
Healthcare.gov- House Republicans again [for not approving additional funding]
Benghazi- Filmmaker's fault
Failure of Mideast peace process- Netanyahu's fault
Monster debt and deficit- Rich people's fault
NSA spying- Snowden's fault
Mexican children piling up on our border- House Republican's fault [for not doing immigration reform]
Trayvon Martin- inherent racism in America's fault
IRS scandal- Local "rogue" administrator's fault
Crimea- Putin's fault
Keystone pipeline-Climate change deniers' fault
VA scandal- Bush's fault
Resurgence of Taliban in Afghanistan- Bush's fault again
Iranian nuclear program- You guessed it--Bush's fault
North Korean nuclear program - Truman's fault
Fast and Furious- Still trying to find out whose fault it was.  In any event, it was not Holder's fault He didn't know about it.
Unwanted pregnancy of Hobby Lobby employee- Bush's fault for nominating Sam Alito
High gas prices- Oil company's fault
Destruction of Lois Lerner's emails- hard drive manufacturer's fault

I think I have it about right.  Contrast this list with Ronald Reagan's ownership of the Iran-Contra scandal.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Pa4_NBlYK8

In it, Reagan takes ownership for the scandal unfolding on his watch and blames himself for not asking the right questions.   Is it any surprise, then, that Reagan was viewed as the best president since 1945.

Policies aside, it comes from owning it.

Ghastly

I have been tempted to write about my fears that Western Civilization may have reached an inflection point.  No one wants to read Chicken Little analysis and there have always been signs of decadence to point to and they have always been overblown. Even when the West seemed to be on its heels as it was during the early days of WWII, it always was able to gather itself and mount a comeback.

I was fortunate to have William H. McNeill as a professor in college, one of the world's most preeminent historians, and author of The Rise of the West.  I was too young and too immature to fully grasp what a gift he was, but I absorbed enough to understand the miracle of Western Civilization and the victory of the Enlightenment, liberty and of the individual over the State and tyranny.  And with that victory, the superiority of the value of the individual human life over statist aims in all circumstances was established.  The obvious polar opposite was Nazi Germany where state aims grossly and horrifyingly took the lives of millions.

But a few news items recently caught my attention (but did not get much play in the mainstream media) to give me pause about the state of Western Civilization.

The first was the revelation that UK hospitals were using the remains of aborted fetuses to heat hospitals.  The issue of abortion is a difficult one....more difficult than the true believers on each side of the debate would have you believe.  I have flip flopped on that issue several times during my lifetime.  But treating these remains as fuel is ghastly and sick - even if you think a fetus is "pre-human."  It is something out of Soylent Green, demeaning to humans and too reminiscent of Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen to be tolerated in the West.

The second news item was the revelation that the US EPA has been conducting experiments humans and that subjects were not fully informed of the risks of certain pollutants.  The testing allowed researchers to pump "gaseous pollutants at precise concentrations" into enclosed chambers.  The State conducting experiments that risked the health of the subjects.  Move over, Dr. Mengele.  Again, this was barely mentioned in the mainstream media.

The third item was the murder conviction of Kermit Gosnell, who apparently hideously murdered live babies at his abortion clinic.  Of course, while he was convicted, there was no outcry for more regulation and more supervision at abortion clinics.  We have a State that regulates light bulbs, microwave ovens, toilet tanks, plastic bags, mortgages applications, gasoline content, ad infinitum.  If this "house of horrors" (prosecution's words) had occurred in any other context, there would be a hew and cry for an army of regulators and there would be an avalanche of new regulations and probably a new regulatory body.  But it is about abortion and we hear nary a peep.

Taken together, these three items are very troubling to me--troubling because of the paucity of press coverage they received; troubling because of the callousness with which life is being treated by the State and the press; troubling because they are acts that echo the acts of the most inhuman regime in modern history. And they are barely mentioned.

Are my fears that these things do not portend well for the West overblown?  Perhaps.  But these items give me a very queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Some Things to Think About

While Barack Obama has been busy apologizing for American hegemony, cutting back on our military, precipitously withdrawing from Afghanistan and Iraq, forfeiting hard earned success, Vladimir Putin has been busy trying to patch the old Soviet Union back together again.  Here are just a few things to think about.

• Russia invaded Crimea merely days after the Obama administration announced massive cuts to our military, taking our troop strength to its lowest levels since 1940.
• President Obama was firmer and more decisive in his condemnation of George Zimmerman and Cambridge police than Russia.  He clearly spoke in more personally empathic terms with respect to Trayvon Martin than the Ukrainian people.
• Obama has been harsher toward Netanyahu with respect to its settlements.  Remember, Obama called for Israel to pull back to its 1967 borders.
• We are in a place that is completely analogous to the position we were in with Jimmy Carter in 1979.  Then, the Russian bear was annexing Afghanistan and the mullahs in Tehran were defying the US.  Today, the Russian bear is attempting to annex the Ukraine and the mullahs are still defying the US, pushing forward with their nuclear program.
• One of my progressive friends accused me of not learning from history.  Really?  Does Germany and the Sudentenland ring any bells for anyone?
• Barack Obama is steeped in anti-colonialist history.  Rather than American exceptionalism, that is the lens through which he views the world.   Well, Mr. Obama, if you don't like colonialism, shield your eyes from your friend Vladimir.  You ain't seen nothin' yet.

The Russian threat to the Ukraine should not have been a surprise.  Putin has been lusting after it for years.  And just as with Iran, Obama kept silent for days while the crisis escalated.  Instead of being a champion for freedom, the integrity of nations, and international order, Obama delivered a statement that was written in pure bureaucratese, vowing only to "consult with our allies" and "communicate developments."   Just the consequences a thug fears.   Worse, his crack foreign policy team of John Kerry, Susan Rice and Samantha Power were caught more flat footed than Carter was when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan.  At least this time, they had the good manners to invade AFTER the Olympics.   

The mainstream media will never tie the loose ends.  As with Jimmy Carter, the Russian invasion is the result of persistent naivete in a Democratic administration.  This crisis, along with the Benghazi tragedy, is a direct result of the statecraft of Hillary Clinton.  Her Republican opponents should not forget to remind the voters.

Spouting Off

Not sufficiently occupied with Middle East peace, the economy, Obamacare, the Iranian nuclear program, Barack Obama had to weigh in on another matter of utmost importance to him-- pro football.

"I would not let my son play pro football," inveighed Obama, addressing the risk of head injury, and following the orchestrated propaganda of the New York Times.  First, let's put a couple of factual points to rest.  First, Obama does not have a son.  Second, only adults play pro football and Obama would be powerless to stop his theoretical son from playing.

This is not the first time President Obama has used his theoretical son to make a point.  Just like his "composite girlfriend" that showed up in his autobiography,  Obama has used a fictitious son once before--in the Trayvon Martin case, claiming that if he had a son, he'd look like Trayvon.  And, as in the Martin case, is opining in a place where he doesn't engage in weighing any of the facts.  He just spouts, and he is now spouting the liberal line against football.

I find it interesting whom Obama uses this fictitious son to identify with.  While it is tragic that Martin lost his life in the altercation with Zimmerman, Trayvon was no choirboy.   He was suspended from school multiple times and had other issues.  I wonder if President Obama would have permitted one of his daughters to date Trayvon.  But in his public statements, he positively identifies with Trayvon.

But now, he uses his theoretical son to push against football, and the implication is that it would be OK for his son to be hanging around pointlessly rather than play ball.  Forget that pro football players have had to demonstrate great discipline and training to achieve what they have to achieve.  Forget that a football field is someplace where race is absolutely no factor whatsoever in getting ahead, and, in fact, is a profession where people of color have gone from dirt poor to unimaginably rich in a few years.  Forget that the Chicago Public School coaches were in a panic last year during the teachers' strike because they were afraid that without the structure of football, they would lose hundreds of boys to gangs.  None of this matters to Obama.  He is compelled to comment on a matter over which he has no control, using a son that does not exist to advance the progressive vendetta against the sport, a topic which I will flesh out more fully in a later post.

When you take his comments together, it is clear that Obama would be not troubled by a son that is an aimless, in-and-out of trouble youth, but would be troubled if his aspirations were to work hard, train hard, and sacrifice to make it up the ladder to the NFL.

So,  you would not let your son play in the NFL?  Fair enough.  I would not let my son become a pot smoking community organizer, either.

So Long 2013

What a remarkable year it has been.  For me, personally, it has been a year of profound changes.  My oldest graduated from college and landed a great first job, stopping that cash outflow.  New passions and friendships were ignited and reconnected.  My new and revitalized passions included an increased zeal for the game of golf, culminating in a trip to Pinehurst, North Carolina, one of golf's great Meccas for a wonderful 3 day trip in November. And, alas, the year was not without great pain as I lost my longtime friend, hiking partner and mentor Jim Hopper in June.  Jim introduced me to the economics department at the University of Chicago, helped me greatly throughout my career, and encouraged my writing and my intellectual growth throughout my life.  I was honored to deliver one of his eulogies and I shall miss him greatly.

I have taken a short sabbatical from blogging and one of my New Year resolutions is to resume on a more frequent basis and there is not a better way than to resume by my annual year end summary of the best and worst of 2013.  Interestingly, the main character of both my favorite film and book of the year this year is a strong, independent woman.

Best Film
Gravity.  While it was considered by many to be overrated, and contained some factual flaws, Gravity was my favorite film of 2013.  Both Sandra Bullock and George Clooney put forward outstanding performances and the special effects were outstanding.  I am a sucker for survival movies and I thought that Bullock's character was well developed.  Other strong contenders were the comedy The Way, Way Back, Blue Jasmine and Inside Llewyn Davis.  I confess, however, that I missed The Butler and 12 Years a Slave.

Best in Fiction

Mary Coin by Marisa Silver.  Again, this novel was basically a survival story involving an independent woman.  But this was a fictionalized account of real survival of a single mom during the Great Depression.  The story revolved around the life of the woman depicted in the famous photograph, "Migrant Mother."  The uneasy intersection of the lives of the photographer and her subject was well developed and the strain of the life of this woman as she fought to survive and care for her children made for riveting reading.  Mary Coin was a close call as a choice as I also loved Canada by Richard Ford and Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walker.

Best in Nonfiction
Antifragile by Nassim Taleb. Many people disregard Taleb as not academically rigorous enough and arrogant and there is some truth to both charges, but I found Antifragile to be interesting and full of little anecdotes that caused you to pause and think a little differently.   The real message of Taleb's book is that sometimes unforeseen events occur which, on the surface, appear to be disastrous, but often turn out to be positive in the long run.  This is not necessarily a new concept, but Taleb says it in an interesting way.

Best Album
I thought this year was a little thin.  Last year, we had The Lumineers, Of Monsters and Men and Mumford & Sons.  In a weak field, I liked Night Visions by Imagine Dragons followed by a dark horse selection of Barton Hollow by The Civil Wars.

Best Live Concert
Bob Seger.  Hands down, Seger was the best.  It was with great dismay that I looked around at the crowd, and thought, "This is supposed to be a ROCK concert, not an Englebert Humperdink concert.  What are all these old people doing here?"  But Seger delivered.  Unlike some of the other old rockers that have lost a step or two or several octaves, Seger put forward an outstanding performance.  Being grey and dumpy didn't slow him down a bit as he belted out versions of "Hollywood Nights," "Against the Wind," "Like a Rock," and "Turn the Page" that were indistinguishable from albums that are over 30 years old.  And his warmup act was Joe Walsh, who, by himself, was phenomenally entertaining.

Most Interesting Figure
Pope Francis.  Within a couple of months Pope Francis both gave me hope for a renewed Catholic Church by his humility and his de-emphasizing sexuality as a centerpiece of morality of the church.  I also saw his willingness to begin to start to loosen centralized authority as a positive development.  But then he undermined his standing by his frontal attack on the "tyranny of markets" and capitalism with no corresponding criticism of the tyranny of the state.   He appeared to fully understand Christian humility but then failed utterly to understand how capitalism has lifted millions of people out of miserable and hopeless poverty worldwide.

So I am back, hopefully with some interesting things to say from time to time and I will endeavor to blog more frequently, even if they are just short and random thoughts.