Oh 2004, 2004, bird thou never wert. Was it really that horrible a year, or does it only seem that way?
Abu Ghraib, the endless trials of Kobe Bryant and Scott Peterson, war in Iraq looking worse every day, Howard Dean eliminated over a whoop and a presidential race so devoid of joy that the high point was when the president claimed God speaks through him -- leaving us to contemplate the news that God doesn't know how to pronounce nuclear and has yet to master subject-verb agreement. "Performance enhancing drugs" in baseball. Ray Charles died. Karl Rove is Man of the Year. We're all overweight. Swift Boat Liars win the presidential race for Bush. Then just to round things off nicely, a terrible natural disaster. What a bummer.
But, look at it this way... the Boston Red Sox won the championship. Eliot Spitzer is scaring the spit out of the insurance industry (check out those year-end bonuses on Wall Street, El). The Greek Olympics went well. Maybe we could end the payola by just having them in Greece every time. Lance Armstrong won a record sixth Tour de France, a symbolic victory for cancer patients everywhere.
Jon Stewart survived a storm of approval and came out just as sardonic as ever. Richard Clarke showed us all that public servant, class act and bureaucrat can be the same thing.
more...
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=18307