Monday, December 31, 2007
Year-end reflections
Steve Huff
Recent columns
- Leave the oil in the ground
- Tired, old elephant dressed in lipstick and heels
- Time to reshuffle the deck
- Knowing where to draw the line
From the RoundTable blog
Oh-Seven has been quite a ride;
We laughed and we cursed 'till we cried;
Let's start at the first,
Mix the best with the worst,
As opinion and whimsy collide.
Pelosi was going to clean House,
(First Speaker wearing a blouse.)
For the first hundred days,
A few eyebrows were raised,
But she couldn't live up to her vows.
The Senate had quite a surprise,
As the Dems found themselves on the rise
But the red team hung tough;
If that wasn't enough,
Bush squashed the new bills like flies.
Virginia has been disloyal,
Since colonists claimed our soil.
We'd started to judge
That the Queen held a grudge
Until Jamestown's party went royal.
The design, it's hard to believe it.
What kind of mind could conceive it?
There are museum haters,
And buzz generators,
And a few who could take it or leave it.
When President Bush got the urge,
On money and troops did he splurge.
As Democrats frown
And attacks ratchet down
It's harder to bad-mouth the surge.
Colts beat Bears in their sleep;
No wardrobe malfunctions to bleep.
But that was last season,
And now we have reason,
To think that New England might sweep.
Mold, rats and cockroaches breed;
The deserving don't get what they need;
Katrina aid lags,
And poverty sags;
But the travesty's at Walter Reed.
It's not just the PTSD,
Or the strife of an amputee.
Deployments extended,
And marriages ended,
The war hurt the family.
It's not enough just to talk,
Or surf the net while you walk.
So much for computers,
And iPod commuters;
The iPhone delivered a shock.
Exuberance ran irrational,
For traders, local and national.
The Dow went ballistic
Fourteen (to be specific)
Until sub-primes became unfash- ionable.
South California fires,
Mine crushes Utah miners
Bridge takes a dive;
Kansas twister, grade 5,
Bad luck or Fallwellian ire?
Gonzales and Rove call it quits;
Resignations are giving Bush fits.
Lame duck defections?
Ship sinking in sections?
The captain deserves what he gits.
The Nobel Prize went to Gore;
Global warming has come to the fore.
There still are some folks
Who insist it's a hoax.
(They've been drilling for oil offshore.)
The writers' strike drives us nuts.
The networks have taken cuts.
Re-runs are boring,
But seem less deploring,
If they get us off of our butts.
Writing these columns is great;
You readers have made it first-rate;
Condemnation or praise,
I expect it Mondays,
Bring on 2008!
Huff, a family physician from Patrick County, is a Roanoke Times columnist.
