And who are we to argue? 🙂 Mark Moford in the San Francisco Chronicle:
1) Make new travel plans. Yes, the dollar has been gutted. Yes, a small espresso and a day-old sourdough baguette on the rue du Cherche-Midi will cost you 97 dollars. But if you can afford it, now is the time to plan a new European jaunt.
Why? Easy: No more foreigners scowling at you. No more shameful hiding of your nationality. No more telling that hot barista you’re from Canada and instead confessing, with even a tiny hint of Obama-infused national pride, “I’m American,” and then not apologizing and feeling that sickly sense of mortification. Incredible.
2) Whip out your 2009 Precious Moments wall calendar, start blocking out weekends for all the spring weddings now being planned by your most lovestruck gay friends. Pitiable evangelical panic aside, Proposition 8 shows hopeful signs of being slammed to the ground like the hateful piece of homophobic intolerance it so very much is (then again, as of this writing, this one’s still too close to call). At least Connecticut just joined the gay marriage party. What will you wear? Who tosses the bouquet?
3) Remember books? Actual literature? Stock up. Read more 3 Quarks Daily and N+1 and Arts & Letters Daily, subscribe to the New York Review of Books, TLS, The Atlantic, The Sun. Prepare, in other words, for a new climate of intellectual stimulation and curiosity. Prime your mind. It’s been a while since someone in the White House had an IQ higher than a pickup’s tailpipe. The quality of the national dialogue is about to improve tremendously.
More here.