Silver Linings For The New Year

The best thing about being an American in 2009 is this: no matter what other horrible things happen to you in particular and the country in general, at least you’ll never have to spend another New Year’s Eve dealing with people who wear those enormous glitter-encrusted novelty eyeglass frames with lenses shaped from the two zeroes in the middle of every year we’ve had since the millennium turned.

Of course, you can say the same thing in any country that uses the Gregorian calendar. And the whole world benefits from knowing that the Yellowstone supervolcano probably won’t erupt and end most life on earth this year, despite the recent earthquakes.

So there’s one way the new year’s guaranteed to be an improvement over the old, plus one way things at least won’t get any worse. Happy new year, everybody.