It's 2009! We Made It!

I was listening to South Dakota Public Radio's jazz special when the calendar flipped last night. The audience cheered, the band blasted out an upbeat, danceable version of "Auld Lang Syne"... and for just a moment, I thought, "What are they so happy about?"

Then I remembered: recession and bailouts and war be damned, we made it. We didn't fry or freeze or blow up the planet (or just the onion-skin thin biosphere where we cling tenaciously to life). We didn't get whacked by an asteroid. Through labor, love, and luck, we kept civilization going for another year.

Let's not get complacent. There's still plenty to complain about (stick around for the today's upcoming posts!) and fix. But there's 6.8 billion of us, drawing breath, moving on the Earth, able to perpetuate the human experience. That makes me feel like cheering.

p.s.: We really should work on asteroid defense.