Back Again

Wow, where does the time go?

If I were to guess the last time I posted to this blog, I would have said two months ago . But it's been three.

That's going to change. I'll make this one short and sweet -- with the promise that there will be plenty to come. Soon.

2012 was a difficult but interesting year, not only for the nation and the world but for me. 2013 no doubt offers more of the same, though I'm not inclined to play the predictions game.

As I stated here a year ago, I also don't make New Year's resolutions, because they strike me as an exercise in setting oneself up to fail. Too often, we resolve to fix or stop doing something, and one simple misstep becomes an automatic black mark . . . and an inducement to give up.

I prefer to be more general and vague; I set some goals for the year. Not so much specific, tangible goals, because again, too many things are out of our control and it's easy for bad luck to look like personal failure. Rather, I resolve at the back of my head to do more of this or that . . . to push my life and activities in a direction that brings me closer to the kind of person I want to be.

That includes writing. With regard to this blog, I can predict a substantial increase in activity. I've certainly not lacked ideas for topics to write about.

As you might guess, in recent weeks I've had a number of debates with various folks on Facebook about gun control, a subject on which I've had occasion to write before. Recent news headlines and online firefights have provided fodder for multiple future commentaries. There are new developments in news events I wrote about a year or two ago, such as the supposed 2010 Pioneer Square "terrorist bomber," Mohamed Mohamud.

There's also recent news about how the government suppressed the Occupy movement last year, terming it a "terrorist threat" while at the same time admitting that Occupy was a peaceful movement. I participated in a small way in Occupy Portland, and wrote a lot on this blog about what I observed. The latest news outpaces what my paranoid imagination can devise about how "they're out to get us."

2012 was also a good year for pleasure reading. I read a total of 160 books and more than 50,000 pages, so I imagine there might be a thing or two to say about that, the way I wrote about reading Proust more than a year ago. And there's always plenty to say about the latest electronic gadgets, Americans' lemming-like race to own and be owned by them, and their effects of our voracious demand on the lives (and deaths) of people on the other side of the globe.

Stay tuned.