Welcoming 2007

Maybe very few are asking this question as they start to celebrate the New Year tomorrow. I never thought I would comment on politics on our blog, but I think I’ll break that rule today.

Everyone is taking stock of the year that is almost over. Personally, I do not like the week “from Christmas to New Year.” I do not have a solid reason for this feeling. I just do not find a reason within myself to celebrate this time.

Starting from Y2K, something or other has happened to dampen my partying spirit. I would like to list them here:

• 1999/Y2K was special as I was on alert, being an IT guy.
• 2001/2002 I realized the hard reality of layoffs as my close co-workers were asked to go. Do these layoffs always happen in the last week of December?
• 2002/2003 More co-workers joined the old group, and my work location was getting closed. December 31st was their last day at work. Holy crap, what next for New Year?
• 2003/2004 Nothing special—hung out for 30 minutes or so on Champs-Élysées in Paris. Lots of confused, drunken, yelling people around. Later in the night, it got worse. December 26th earthquake in Iran—lots and lots of people died.
• 2004/2005 – Pamela was in India; hung out with Murali, who was not in a happy mood either, on a cold winter night in Paris. What a nightmare—the tsunami in South-East Asia struck on December 26th.
• 2005/2006 – Best of the last few years, spent in the center of Vedanta Ramakrishna, Paris, with other people. Nothing much happened around the globe. It was spiritual and enlightening.
• 2006/2007 – Well, alone again. And the news of Saddam dampened my mood to write this post. I am not a fan of his, but I do not support the death penalty.

As I write this post, I would like to remind you of those 10 trillion dollars of budget surplus America (USA) was supposed to have. It’s a long-forgotten debate on NPR (National Public Radio). I did have my $300 tax refund for the year 2002, but I think the world was a happier place before. Sometimes I think it is my craziness to care about all this. But with so much death and destruction, what did Mr. Bush achieve?

I wish I could question those who, in their ignorance, arrogance, and religious fervor (including gun and gas), voted for him twice to make this world a better place. A common American must understand his or her voting power as a world superpower and true democracy of the world. Probably, this part of the advice they dislike most, and they proved it.

Well, enough said. The blame goes to other politicians and nations as well, as they did not oppose at all what was going on in Iraq. Maybe the responsibility lies with us as well, as individually I did nothing to make the world a better place. I hope there is an end to the bloodshed in the Middle East—it might spread all across the region in 2007.

Well, Happy New Year. Sorry for being cynical.