I was quietly feted by my big sister and her dude: roast beast & strawberry shortcake to herald my 56th. And I shared the natal day honors with the brilliant Mr. Beckwith. (Dave, keep on jooglin’).

Now be sure to head over tomorrow to give similar honors to our blog’s longtime fixer, the tech-wise Mr. Dunovant. Earl’s kept us going through the years and brought plenty of think to the issues as well.

Happy birthday!

When last seen, this intrepid reporter was wending his way east, heading to Pilgrim Country as a soon-to-be-elected Lincoln-wannabe was scouring the country in pursuit of a mandate. I was intending to video the salt of the earth in time to boost that Honest Abe effort, but that, too, didn’t quite pan out. Fortunately, the election went as I predicted last winter and the bad economy I’d predicted for 2008 (at Silicon Investor) since 2004 proved a tad badder than even a hopeless idealist like me had bargained for.

So it’s 2009. What now, dear reader?

1) Let’s stop bailing out the rich fucks who bollixed everything up, with toys stolen from our babies. Let’s quit enabling those nimrods claiming the UAW or any union created this financial titanic. It was greedy bankers, almost exclusively, who jiggered the crisis into being and oughta be bailed out with the same lifeline that swung the future of Mussolini.

Detroit? They didn’t cause the crisis. They should swing for a different reason, mostly for decades of lobbying for energy waste and lax safety standards. But that can wait for another day while we try to keep folks in the Rust Belt working.

2) What? Israel’s still trying to maintain its 20-to-1 kill rate to teach its enemies to quit killing Jews? How’s that been working out … for the past 40 years? Not exactly a convincing rate of effectiveness. Can any elementary school teacher come up with a new lesson plan? Killing a lot of innocents ‘inadvertently’ can no longer be said without a nudge-nudge-wink-wink, so maybe it’s time to rethink Israel’s Behavior Mod, which is only cruel and useless.

3) Barack channels Abe while liberal optimists hope Michelle can channel Eleanor. But the best shows on Broadway have always been fresh originals. Can the Man from Oahu bring us more paradise than poi? I’m firmly unconvinced.

Of course, compared to the last stage show, simply showing up will demonstrate competence. But competence can’t suffice in a time that begs for miracles.

4) Yes, American Street will go on. It’s just been hellacious trying to participate in a succession of living environments not conducive to online access.

That will be resolved this month, as I’m going to have to head to the warmer climes of Florida. I’ll likely head to the north Midwest come Spring. That’s the trouble with this Second Not-So-Great Depression: it makes the rules, not us.

But that means I should be blogging regular again after the Bush regime is officially over. It means I’ll still be using the video shot from pre-election travel, only it’ll get tied to fresh narratives of working folks (and retirees remembering the first Depression) before they emerge online. (I got online so rarely in December, I didn’t even get out proper holiday greetings to so many friends. Belated holiday wishes to you all. But don’t feel alone; it’s the first year ever I didn’t send a single Christmas card to anyone. It was THAT sucky a year.)

Though our blog was spawned by and inextricably linked to the Iraq War, the blogosphere is full of many that cover the political scene very well. So I hope, in the tradition of chroniclers like Howard Zinn and Studs Terkel and Dorothea Lange, to put our principal effort into recording the actual American streets. After all, it’s the people who make up the most of history and the mainstream press gives them too little space.

Sure, we’ll still cover politics and media critique and share plenty snark. But I expect you’ll see the overriding theme arise throughout 2009, because it’s going to get worse, probably into 2010. Folks will need to tell their stories, share tips about thrift and inexpensive recipes and more, to get through the worst of it. That’s the developing street and we plan to cover it. Because that’s what we do. We remain a multitude of voices of the American Street. Even when it leads to Hooverville.

So happy New Year to everyone! I hope your fortunes remain better than the 12% to 15% who’ll be visible on America’s streets this year.

And in 2009, it’ll be doubly important to utilize great sources of comic relief to keep hope thriving. JC Duffy will be a reliable source of that.

On behalf of all those who’ve made this Street so liveable, I extend our congratulations to Madeleine Kane for the wonderful award she just won.

Al Giordano took The Field back to his former home.