TGIH: 2009

If there’s one thing I learned when a cold kept me in this New Year’s Eve, it’s that people really love to reflect on the same events each year. Well, that and having all three seasons of Arrested Development on DVD is much better than any New Year’s Party. Besides that, though, I can tell you how pretty much every single end-of-the-year montage went this last December 31st:

1) Obama becomes President

2) The economy sucks

3) OMG MJ DIED

4) The economy still sucks

5) A smattering of mildly entertaining pop culture references which none of us will remember one year from now

5.1) YO LIST I’M REALLY HAPPY FOR YOU, AND IMMA LET YOU FINISH, BUT 2008 HAD ONE OF THE BEST END OF THE YEAR MONTAGES OF ALL TIME. OF ALL TIME.

6) A different part of the economy sucks

7) The last of the Kennedy brothers dies

8) Something about health care

9) The goddamn economy sucks

Obviously, it isn’t the most inspiring of lists. Ignoring the fact that, of all the things that happened, Michael Jackson somehow continued to get the most coverage again, (as well as the despicable lack of tribute to that brilliant jewel of cinema called Zombieland), it certainly doesn’t seem like there was much worth celebrating in this country since late January of last year. The best news we got all year was the balloon boy was safe the whole time, and frankly that kind of made a lot of us want to cause him physical harm, or at least hurt Wolf Blitzer for wasting so much of our time on it. “At least be happy this year is over,” said all the broadcasters. “Now starts the decade when Twitter and internet ADD will solve our problems at the price of our souls.”

But I look back on this year that just passed (three days after all the cool people did it) and I say to hell with it. As I’ve pointed out over the course of this year, very important people have been very wrong and very unwilling to admit it. The space programs of the world saw small victories that were well below what we could achieve if anybody had thoughts to spare for what lies beyond our atmosphere. The Republicans still don’t seem to have any great leaders. Almost a year in, President Obama still hasn’t made a few key staff appointments in the intelligence and legal communities. In spite of all that, my verdict on this year is that The Glass Is Half Full.

For every seemingly catastrophic problem we faced as a nation and as a species in the last year, we seemed to move quickly on to the next. While some people see this as a limitless supply of problems, I see it as an almost endless defiance of pessimism. The luxury to focus on new problems means that we either survived the old ones, solved them, or that they were never really as bad as we thought. Where others have seen endless trials I see endless triumphs, like how many have forgotten that the Dow Jones Industrial Average made it’s way back over 10,000 and rose higher still, a sign that market health is in fact on course to return. Or that even at our most battered hour in living memory, 9 in 10 Americans still had a job. Or that in spite of all well-founded doubts, American casualties in Iraq fell more than 50% to levels less than 1/6 what they were just two years ago. And in spite of all problems in Afghanistan, the American military remains the strongest and most influential in the world.

So yes, a lot of things sucked in 2009. But if anything, all it has done is shown us that we are indeed very successful and blessed to consider such things to be so important.

And if you don’t agree. Well, hey. At least it’s over.