Looking Back

by D. J. Herda

At the beginning of each New Year, I like to sit down and take stock of myself.  Gauge where I've been over the past 12 months and where I'm going next.  Get a better slant on how I'm getting along in this 21st-Century world of ours.

It sounds kind of narcissistic, I know.  But if we don't judge where we are and where we're headed, how can we sit in condemnation of those around us?  You see where I'm going with this?

So here's me, and then I'll tell you a bit about some of the other people I've been watching for the past year.

Me.  I'm still pretty good looking.  I have most of my teeth.  I'm relatively healthy.  I work most every day.  Do Tai Chi.  I'm self-employed, so I have a great boss. 

I brought out one new book last year (They Call Me Doc, Lyon's Press) that was very well received.  I ghostwrote or edited another four first-book authors' works, two of which have already been picked up by major publishers and one that will go under contract shortly.  I sold at least one new book of my own (well, my agent did) and, depending upon various factors, possibly more. 

I suffered the loss of one cat and a couple of goldfish and managed to endure.  I did quite a bit of remodeling and redecorating around our home, boosting its overall value despite the flat housing market.  (I have a general contractor's license, so I was able to do the work myself.)  I managed to eliminate my credit-card debt and even bank a few bucks in the process. 

All in all, it was a pretty productive year.

Unlike the year a few other people I know could mention.  Here's what the Unholy Trinity has been up to.

Harry Reid.  He continues to be the single most divisive partisan liar in the U. S. Senate.  This is the Nevada democrat who denounced attempts to yank federal funding of the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada.  His claim that "tens of thousands of people" visit the annual event "every year" were vastly overstated, according to FactCheck.org.  Similarly, his claim that eight million jobs were lost during the Bush Administration was something of a lie, since nearly 1 million jobs were actually created during that same eight-year period.  And his insistence that Social Security doesn't cost the Feds "one cent" is also slightly exaggerated, since the Feds coughed up $37 billion to fund the agency last year and will need to kick in even more in 2012.  I suppose, though, that's peanuts to someone like Reid.  Who votes for that guy, anyway?

Nancy Pelosi.  Old Nancy-Can't-Keep-Her-Tongue-In-Her-Pantsy did it again in 2011 when the House Minority leader claimed the Democrats' agreement to cut $10.5 billion from the nation's $15 trillion deficit met the Republicans' demands "halfway."  Not quite, since the Republicans offered a plan to eliminate $61 billion.  Is this simply a case of fuzzy math...or fuzzy thinking?  Siimilarly, Pelosi's claim that more private jobs were created last year than under George W. Bush is also dishonest.  There were more than two million fewer private-sector jobs created from the time Obama took office through May 2011.  At last year's pace of job creation, it would take until February 2017 just to regain the jobs lost since the high point reached under the Bush administration.  Who votes for that gal, anyway?

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