So ends the year

2016 has been, well, interesting to say the least. Lots of celebrities have died, some of whom will be missed by far more than their respective friends and families. For instance, the year opened with the deaths of people like Glen Frey and ended with the deaths of Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, with many others in-between. Others, not so much. Of the second group, Fidel Castro comes to mind. I don’t know why it sometimes hits some people, including me, so hard when a well-known person dies. Intimations of mortality, perhaps?

The 2016 U.S. presidential election, and its fallout, has resulted in an amazing amount of verbiage from the left and the right. The left has engaged in a kind of paranoia mongering that I had previously associated with the far right. The difference is the far right, at least in my view, never enjoyed the kind of widespread coverage the left is now enjoying. I don’t see how this is going to result in much good. I think we need to prepare for some rough seas.

On a related note, I’m a Cold War veteran. I have never viewed Russia as an ally. That said, they are no more behind everything bad that has happened recently than they were during the height of the Cold War. Every unpleasant or inconvenient event from my youth was not a “commie plot” despite the efforts of some to paint things that way. It’s unlikely everything associated with the recent election, up to and including HRC’s loss, was the result of a Russian plot. I suspect the current administration knows this. Look, if a foreign power, another nation-state, so effectively hacks your elections that they install the person they want in power, that is an act of war. You don’t respond to acts of war by expelling a few spies – especially people you have always known were spies. On the other hand, at the risk of sounding like I suffer from my own form of paranoia, if I wanted to push another nation-state into retaliating and escalating a conflict because I knew I had no real proof of what I had alleged, I might do something very similar.

My dad died in February. I still can’t believe he’s gone. I miss him every day. He was, without doubt, the best man I’ve ever known.

Goodbye, 2016.

I look forward to 2017. I have a lot planned!