2022, as we reckon it, has started and here’s hoping that this year will see improvements over the one now departed to the ashbin of history.

Have no doubt that the times ahead will still be turbulent, troublesome, and tiring. Politically things will get harder, meaner, and more dangerous before they get better. The great test of American democracy and democracy in general will not be met by this year’s election or even the next presidential cycle but rather over the next decade. Still there is hope. Despair is those who know that there is no hope and only those with perfect foresight can know that.

On other fronts 2022 will still be an interesting year.

It is the year that the 1948 Paramount Decree which forbade Motion Picture Studios from owning theatrical exhibition assets is formally terminated and it would not surprise me in the least if Disney turned around bought AMC launching a frenzy as other studios raced to get back into the showing movies business.

Here’s hoping that 2022 is also when we start getting good results from the newest batch of mRNA vaccines, the ones being tested right now against HIV/AIDS and some cancers.

There are dark times ahead but there is also strong reasons to believe that better times are also coming to meet us. Stay strong, get vaccinated, fight for democracy, and be kind.