Happy 07

Happy New Year. Here’s hoping 07 is a good one for you and yours.

Some of the things I’m looking forward to in 2007:

• A new birthday to celebrate.
• Discovering a new metal band that really rocks, something on the order of System of a Down.
• A sudden, severe and permanently incapacitating illness that afflicts George Bush, Tony Blair, and the rest of the warmongers that plague this planet.
• Not worrying about getting put on a watch list for speaking my mind (see previous point).
• Being able to forgive those who least deserve forgiveness (see previous two points). That one might have to wait for a different New Year – like 2050.
• The population of all the world’s most prosperous countries suddenly waking up en masse and deciding to do something about poverty, injustice and climate change.
• Failing that, a Canada-wide awakening.
• Failing that, I might settle for my neighbourhood getting riled up. Even my family would be a good start.
• Snow. Please!

There’s more of course – watching the flowers I planted in the fall come up in spring and summer, cold beers on the front porch in hot August, ice cream cones on Locke Street – but I could go on forever.

Except there’s one more thing worth mentioning. In 2007 I’m looking forward to continuing to hear what you have to say: how you feel about what’s happening here in Canada and in the rest of the world, how you feel about your own lives and those of the people around you.

My New Year’s resolution is to keep listening, and to do something about it when I can.

Thanks for reading. It’s going to be a great year!