Happy New Year from TMV and all its writers, Guest Voice columnists and Guest Voice writers. All us here who contribute to TMV value each of our regular and not-so-regular readers.
2010 was not a happy year for many in the country (I’m sure each reader either has his/her own story or knows some) but the good thing about starting a new year is that you can start anew. This will not be a year with memories of a happy anniversary for our country: on September 11 we mark the 10th anniversary of 911.
But in a country that has been battered by a bad economy there is still — yes, let’s use the word — hope that we may be slowly on the mend. So we all can start off the year with hope and like a piece of clay that must be molded it’s up to us to create the final sculpture, even though the final piece will be also shaped by forces beyond our control.
So we should be pleased to get 2010 — a year of transition — behind us as we move into what could be an exciting year when there is the potential that our country and the lives of many of its citizens will look back on 2011 as one of the good years.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.