2006 was a strange year...

During the Oscars Jon Stewart noted, "Martin Scorsese zero and Three 6 Mafia one." Sometimes the world seems strange. They won the Best Song category for their song, "It's hard out here for a pimp" from the movie Hustle and Flow.

Teachers, police, fireman and our military all get paid a pittance for the work they do. Entertainers and sports stars are millionaires.

We give billions to help combat starvation and illness around the globe while children and families here in America go to bed hungry at night and when they are sick there is no affordable health care available.

Eating healthy became deadly when E.Coli outbreaks sickened hundreds who ate lettuce, tomatoes and spinach contaminated by the bacteria.

We were blessed that after a record number of hurricanes in 2005, no Atlantic hurricanes hit the US this year. Still thousands of Katrina victims remain displaced more than a year after that disaster.

First phone booths now Mailboxes. 10% were removed in 2006 for lack of use. Yet thanks to technology, more "mail" has been sent this year than at anytime before.

After years of questioning the integrity, bias and objectivity of our newspapers, many people now turn to the Internet for their news. Citizens have become today's journalists, using their cell phones to capture news as it happens. It was chilling to listen to the cell phone messages sent on 9/11; imagine what horrors we might have witnessed if today's technology was available then. Just as there was concern about the integrity, bias and objectivity in our newspapers we need to recognize that we need to be cautious when accepting everything we read and view on the web as authentic and factual.

Reality shows and self promotion seem to have become the source of entertainment today. People by the tens of thousand send in their own homemade videos to get selected for a Reality Show or place them on the ever growing popular YouTube.com Even the old days of writing your personal thoughts and feelings in a diary kept locked and hidden safely away, have been replaced by blogging and MySpace.com.

The 21st Century is in its infancy and 2007 is just about to begin. The only thing I know for sure is that the future will be made up of situations and circumstances that will seem upside down, inside out and strange.


Maybe life as depicted in the Jetsons may yet come true. Happy New Year!