1. Ode to 2012
By Eve Geroulis
I’m too old for New Year’s resolutions. After almost five decades bench pressing
the weight of new years, I have learnt that burdening a fresh new year with the
weathered failures of the old year is too onerous a weight to impose. Besides,
2012 launches with an already epic heaviness upon its young shoulders. The
labyrinth ahead is darkly littered with good intentions. So why add to that
landscape like an emotional cutter?
January 1st is a fascinating bellwether, a vaguely warm moment to quietly reflect
on the road ahead, a day to embrace new beginnings with conviction but also
with a dose of realism. Let us dare to hope that we will rise to meet the challenge
of new frontiers, even as ominous shadows of discontent and malcontent form
on our horizon. Somehow from the rubble, a New Rome will form if we all look
to building a world far better than the one we have inherited today.
So in that spirit, here are my Top Nine Hopes for 2012.
9. Politicians – all politicians, wherever they may serve – will visit a proctologist
and have their heads removed from their arse. Promptly. Interpol agents will
take said heads and have them reprogrammed with one word: Fairness.
8. Sarah Palin along with Newt Gingrich will evaporate. Poof. Just evaporate
like hot water over Lake Michigan in January.
7. The words Europe and Crisis will never again appear in the same sentence.
Ever. A crisis is a moment of intense difficulty. Europe is not in crisis. Europe is
a clusterfuck. And it is about to implode.

2. 6. The USA wakes up in advance of the G8 & NATO Summit in Chicago in May
2012 and realizes that the league of G8 nations is a sandbox with more Asian
earth moving companies than US. And they own us. American Exceptionalism
is over.
5. Consumers will realize they yield far more power than they believe. They
will stop shopping and start thinking. We will finally indict the Reagan
Revolution, Uncle Milty and Edward Bernays with the charge Masters of
Destruction. We didn’t need to blur the lines between needs and wants. The
markets didn’t need deregulation. No one needs much of anything anymore.
We’ve done more. Let’s do less. Less is More will become more than just a
slogan. It will become a way of life.
4. The NINJA Generation will begin to understand the distinction between
technology and learning. Tweeting narcissistic Childs play is not the foil of
adulthood. Nor is it contributing anything of meaning or consequence to the “I
want a life of meaning and substance” generational mantra. Technology is a tool.
Not a social elixir. Should they need a list of real elixir compounds, I’m happy to
oblige. Elixirs are brown spirits. Dark, burning, visceral and authentic.
Unadulterated by this pseudo-neo-techno-cum-Armageddon-dub-step-synthetic-
aura. And oh yeah, real playas never, under penalty of death, mix elixirswith
pomegranate juice. Or take drugs developed in some Alaskan high school meth
lab under cover of darkness. Real playas have figured out how to sell that to you.
3. Hypocrisy, in all its forms, will finally see its end. Realism will replace
idealism and we’ll all stop kidding ourselves with this saccharine “everything
will be alright” sensibility. Things are far from all right. And will be. Until the
current ruling structure is dismantled. And that will not come without regime
change. To the hypocrites out there, and you know who you are, here’s hoping
that 2012 brings you everything you deserve.
2. Grace makes a comeback. Real grace. The kind of grace that is quieting yet
incandescent. That doesn’t shout to be heard. The grace of morality and
integrity, balance and realism. And honesty.
1. My kids understand where I’m coming from. That they find their calling,
their role in this crazy mixed-up world and that they have the opportunity to
glimpse something majestic. That they accept the things they cannot change but
change the things they cannot accept. And that I live through 2012 aproning
them all. Nothing means anything without them.

3. Welcome to the Spinning World of 2012.