CRISIS AND PROSPECT

  Isn't it great that years of Republican misrule have left us in economic, diplomatic, and military crisis? Nothing could bode better for the future--given the imminent resurrection of government behind the efforts of Obama and company--than the creative management of these troubles and failures, not to mention the likely dominance now for a generation of active policy in the public interest. Politics is exclusively about interests. Advocates for the public interest have been in short supply for a generation. Despite some good intentions, Bill Clinton was a disappointment in this respect. Now we can look forward to a rebuilding on the scale of the last disaster of this magnitude back in the 1930s. And I'm doing great, too. Now within weeks of meeting Jane's test for a successful year--no ER visits--my rehab is 80% complete following arthroplasty on my right knee two months ago. I'll be testing my newly-aligned joint tomorrow in the Frostbite 5Mile. Predicted snow overnight will help moderate already low expectations.

  The children and grandchildren are as well as can be. Jane and I begin teaching our Healthy Relationships course again next month, in the interim before the spring term begins. We've been presenting it twice a year now for some time and the two sections are always oversubscribed.

  I'm sympathetic in the face of the suffering this economic distress will inflict all over the U.S. and the world. It will affect many more people than the--admittedly large--number of self-serving reactionaries who perpetrated the conditions for this collapse, both by their policies and by their votes. You know who you are. But now the rest of us can pull together for the first time in several generations. Our recovery and our future will be all the better for it.

  I recall the eagerness with which I pitched in for the many kinds of "war efforts" the population was called upon to contribute when I was a schoolchild in the 1940s. Once again now we will be called upon and I expect we'll achieve something much greater in consequence than the mere expansion of consumption that followed World War II. I look forward to it here at the end of the year, and I hope you do, too. Best wishes...