With most holiday gifts winging and winding their way through the mail, and the holidays of Channukah, Christmas, and Kwanzaa almost here, we hope that you're just about finished with any holiday preparations you might be making.
We know - many of you might be snorting, laughing, or guffawing at the idea of being finished with holiday plans just days before the real event, instead of hours or minutes before. The fact is, we think this year has already given many people we know some pretty good gifts.
For starters, for every American, President Obama delivered on his initial campaign promise: to end the war in Iraq. We understand not EVERY American will be leaving Iraq, as there will still be nearly 17,000 private contractors and civilian diplomatic employees there. Those are private jobs, however, and unlike our service members, those individuals can leave any time they want.
On a Nebraska note, we're glad to see Coach Carl Pelini get his own head coaching position, right in the backyard of our South Florida offices - where we think our webmaster may become an FAU fan. Just yesterday, it was announced that Marvin Sanders, another former NU coach, will be joining Pelini in South Florida, a smart hire in our minds.
We're also glad to see former Husker coach and playing legend Turner Gill get hired by Liberty University as their head football coach. We hope Liberty will give Gill the time, effort and resources to succeed that the University of Kansas never did.
There have been some other recent gifts falling into the lap of a few others we know outside of Nebraska, including Ben Smith of Politico, someone we read regularly. After five years of being the go-to man for seemingly everything at Politico, Ben is handing primary control of his blog at Politico to Dylan Byers, and is moving from politics to social media as the new editor-in-chief of Buzzfeed, where he'll get to build a new team of writers and journalists from the ground up.
Looking ahead to 2012, there are a lot of things on the wish lists of our staff. Good health for all of us and our family members tops the list, along with decent weather and steady income. Of course, we're not worried about having subjects to draw or write about. We think the GOP nomination race will easily last until May or later, and the rest of the year will more than likely be filled with plenty of political news, on every level. Frankly, as the field of 2012 GOP presidential candidates proved once again last night, we think President Obama is getting an amazing gift heading into his re-election battle next year. We doubt next year will deliver the same kind of gift to those fighting for seats in Congress.
If there was one single thing we could hope for in 2012, it would be that people listen to one another. We'd hope that those making fun of the Occupiers open their ears and minds and understand how truly dire things have become for many of our fellow citizens right here in the U.S. We'd hope that our political representatives learn to listen to one another, and more importantly, to their constituents who want the rich to pay more taxes, and for budgets to be used with more wisdom.
Sure - we could have said we wished for world peace. We were trying to be a bit more grandiose, though, with our big wish.
As far as physical gifts that we might get this year?
As a local television commercial we saw recently put it: it doesn't really matter what most of us get this year - because most of us already have everything we could truly want.
Or as the Rolling Stones put it, you can't always get what you want - but sometimes, you get what you need.
Our staff is pretty well set. We hope that you and your family and friends get what you need this holiday season, too.
