Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Just a token post to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and to let it be known that I still have not officially declared this blog dead and that I plan to continue letting it slowly wither on the vine until I literally do not have a single reader left. (and I'm oh so tantalizingly close now . . .) Basically, I'm in search of the day where I can write an eloquent post intimating that I have discovered the truth about myself - that I am actually a small colony of meerkats in a man costume - and not get one post or comment indicating anything out of the norm.

Not a whole lot going on right now. The Holidays were of course eventful and hectic as they always are. And as expected no one enjoyed Christmas more than Anabelle, but I'll let Christy take care of those details on her blog. On Christmas Eve I had victory within my grasp but fell a few rolls short in the annual Risk game. Damn those Alaskans and their pesky defenses!

In semi-intellectual pursuits I am currently reading Republic Lost, a new book about corruption in politics and the need for campaign finance reform. Here's one quote that I've found particularly interesting so far:

"The Republican party is now facing a great crisis. It is to decide whether it will be, as in the days of Lincoln, the party of the plain people, the party of progress, the party of social and industrial justice; or whether it will be the party of privilege and of special interests, the heir to those who were Lincoln's most bitter opponents, and the party that represents the great interests within and without Wall Street which desire through their control over the servants of the public to be kept immune from punishment when they do wrong and to be given privileges to which they are not entitled."

I think that sounds like a pretty apt description and criticism of the Republican party today, except that this quote was said by Teddy Roosevelt almost 100 years ago (April 1912). The more things change . . .