Good morning Kossacks and welcome to Morning Open Thread.
Can you believe it? It's been a whole year of morning open threads at 6:30 Eastern! We've all done our duty, whether it's writing a diary, or showing up to comment. There were even a few times we forgot to publish, or slept late and didn't make it to the party. But, it carried on, no matter what! Time for some celebrating and looking back at the year, at least what I remember of it.
One sad day a little over a year ago, the powers that be at DK decided that there weren't enough morning people around to justify a morning open thread. Damned budget cuts! I will admit, I missed many days, and I'm sure that many of us can relate to the poor bear below when we tried to get out of bed in the morning.
But we persevered in spite of the early, sometimes coffeeless mornings. Many of you are far better diarists than me, and I am humbled that I was given the honor of the birthday diary. When I was contemplating what to write, I was listening some old 60's songs on my iPod. I started to think about the events of the past year, and how they paralleled the events of the turbulent 60's. We had OWS, complete with police brutality, and the events in Wisconsin - AGAIN. In the 60's, the campus bombings at UW-Madison caused a rift in my family that was never healed. It's funny how history repeats itself because we just don't learn to overcome our human natures. At least we are still standing up for what is right. The video below showcases one of the more notorious events of the 60's. I don't get the reference to JFK, but otherwise it's very moving.
Compare that to the pepper spray cop and pundits on Fox claiming that "it's a food product, essentially." Haven't we learned anything in the last 44 years? On top of that, SCOTUS is misbehaving badly. I see more demonstrations in our future because of their idiotic, stupid, asinine, boneheaded, egregiously moronic rulings.
Seriousness aside, it's time to celebrate. We've moved across continents, battled illnesses, job loss, you name it, and we are still here every morning, so CELEBRATE! Celebrate with dancing cats and happy kids. This is what life should be about.
Have you ever seen a happier kid? I'll bet we all had moments like this during the past year. I know I did when I found out the results of my PET scan recently.
And what is a celebratory diary without a dancing cat? Seriously.
So, jibber jabber. What are the high and low points of the year for y'all?