HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Happy 2009... in which at least President Obama will take over from President Bush, and in which it will be 300 years since Alexander Selkirk was found on Juan Fernandez, off the coast of Chile; 200 years since the USA outlawed participation in the slave trade (ha ha); 150 years since the publication of The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin; 100 years since Louis Blériot became the first person to fly across the English Channel (Calais-Dover, 37 mins); 50 years since Buddy Holly died in a plane crash in a snow-covered Midwestern field; and 50 years since Blind Willie McTell died in Milledgeville State Hospital, Georgia.