Who’d of thunk it? A simple shoe — well, actually two — thrown with the right twist could so clearly express an opinion. An opinion so succinct, that the world can do nothing but applaud (and perhaps wish the thrower had had slightly better aim). It was a shoe heard ’round the world.
Shoes have power. You can vote with them (or I guess more accurate, you can vote with your feet). You can heat up a cold war as Nikita Khrushchev, shoe in hand, pounding on the lectern at the UN, shouting, “We shall bury you.” (Although there are those that say the more accurate translation is “We shall attend your funeral”).
Sadly, it seems, shoes can be evil too. It is because of shoes — explosive ones at that — that we now all queue up and strip down to pound stocking-footed through airports, marching a sweaty-soled tattoo through the metal detectors. It’s all, no doubt, a dastardly plan by the Fungus Liberation Front to enslave the world and increase sales of tough-acting Tinactin.
Well, 2008 — the year that was — I throw my shoes in your general direction.
I look to 2009, with hopeful eye. With hope, I celebrate the end of dumb and the beginning of smart. I celebrate that “fun to have a beer with” is no longer a presidential attribute. I celebrate that “Nobel Prize” wins over cronyism when considering important cabinet appointments. I celebrate the end of “the end is nigh, prepare for the rapture” worldview that has been used to justify inaction. (Personally, if the end is nigh, I think someone’s going to be pretty pissed to see the earth in such a sad state of repair.)
I celebrate the end of out and out denial of facts and science and truth and intelligence. I celebrate an end to the supremacy of myth and superstition and intolerance. I celebrate a return to complete sentences, pragmatism, a belief in science and technology, and – dare I say it – rationality. I throw my shoes at 2008.
And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere! And gie’s a hand o’ thine! And we’ll tak a right gude-willy waught, For auld lang syne. (Robert Burns)
