The SWNID Superlatives for 2005

Herein begins a year-end tradition for SWNID, shamelessly aping what every MSM organ does at year end: we note what we consider to be the "-est" of 2005, largely but not entirely drawn from our own earlier posts, with help at the end from gentle readers.

Cincinnatians Likeliest to Make a Positive Difference in Our Fair City's Fortunes in no particular order:

• Mayor Mark Mallory. Already City Council is functional. Already terrorist supporter David Crowley has been marginalized. Mark is making haste slowly, enacting a budget that maintains more than revolutionizes. But expect his "let's talk" management style to begin to yield thoughtful consensus among politicos and, more importantly, significant support from the business community and neighborhoods.
• UC President Nancy Zimpher. Has anyone noticed that the men's hoops team is playing pretty well? So Zimpher's plan moves forward. As UC becomes a more sane, orderly and seriously academic place, its community will continue to transform itself into the hippest place in Cincinnati. The economic boon will be felt throughout the community, and Clifton will become the engine that will drive renewal in the central city.
• Bengals Head Coach Marvin Lewis. Regardless of how far the Bengals go in the playoffs this year or next, Lewis's utter competence and humility will set a high tone for every public figure in the city. It will be tough to be a jerk in Lewis's town.
• CSO Music Director Paavo Jarvi. Paavo is a brilliant conductor who projects a hip image for the orchestra. Not only does he sell CDs and put behinds in the many seats at Music Hall, he sends an image of cultural sophistication for the city, something sorely needed as the economics of America's largest cities sends urbanites looking for an affordable place that is still stimulating.

What do these four have in common? They're changing the culture of self-indulgence and hooliganism that has characterized city institutions since...well...Mayor Jerry Springer.

Organizations Whose Fates Will Have the Biggest Impact on Cincinnati's Fortunes in no particular order:

• Delta Airlines. If, as appears likely, Delta can't survive even after pilots have taken a significant cut in pay, Cincinnati will instantly be knocked down a notch in the municipal economic hierarchy. Lacking an airport hub, the city will become significantly less attractive to businesses. Who wants to have to fly to Atlanta or Chicago or Dallas to fly anywhere else? Tourists may benefit, as Southwest and Jet Blue will probably take some gate space and lower fares, but Cincinnati will sink below Charlotte in accessibility. Business leaders should be hustling now to get the most they can to fill the gap when it comes.
• Cincinnati Public Schools. Test scores are up, state ranking is up, buildings are going up. Can Rosa Blackwell sustain the improvements that the district has managed in the last seven years? Her managements style is quietly despised by staffers at Mayerson Center, but her husband will be the next governor of Ohio. Much will depend on the district's ability to do what it hasn't done for years: trumpet the stunning excellence of its academic gems--Fairview German Language School, Walnut Hills High School, et al.--to keep folks in the city and even draw a few back.
• The Cincinnati Reds. Will Robert Castellini buy or steal the team into contention? Cincinnati is learning what Cleveland already knows: a new stadium only generates revenue if a contender plays in it. Eighty-one baseball games bring a lot more people to the city center than eight football games, and the city center needs the traffic.

Best Development for Cincinnati Arts, Culture and Public Awareness: the sale of WVXU to WGUC, allowing both stations to improve their formats, and most particularly, bringing the Most Reverend Doctor of Jazzology Oscar Treadwell back to the airwaves with his sweet love.

Biggest Political Non-Story of 2005: Jeanine Pirro challenges Hillary Clinton for Senate. Pirro, running an inept campaign from the start, realized that she couldn't possibly beat St. Hillary and so dropped out to run for NY attorney general. Had she run a perfect campaign, we might have had an interesting race to watch next November. As it is, Republicans can still say that their female candidates are much more attractive than the Ds'.

Most Underreported Stories of 2005 in no particular order:

• Corporations are leading the rebuilding and relief after Katrina.
• Harriet Miers is still working hard and well for Dubya as World's Most Politically Powerful Campbellite.
• The Iraqi economy is booming.
• Facing high unemployment and an uncertain cultural future, Western Europeans are starting to immigrate again.
• The UN's Oil-for-Food scandal continues to go unresolved, while evidence points to endemic corruption in Turtle Bay.
• The IRA is disarming after a generation of "insurgency" against British "occupation" of Northern Ireland.
• Malaria kills many more Africans than AIDS and could be largely prevented with the use of DDT. But the crypto-colonialists of the West make it economically impossible for African nations to battle malaria with DDT while spending loads of foreign aid ostensibly to fight the fashionable AIDS epidemic with condoms but actually to prop up kleptocracies.

Most Overmade Historical Analogy: Iraq compared to Vietnam.

Most Undermade Historical Analogy: Iraq compared to Northern Ireland.

Story That Best Illustrates Why Every Educated Person Needs a Good Course in Epistemology: the debate about Intelligent Design. Despite the Dover decision, this issue is not going away. It's been around since Aristotle, for goodness sake. SWNID continues to insist that the issue must be framed not as science versus religion in public school education but as disciplinary exclusivism versus interdisciplinary learning in public school education.

Most Hoped for Story of 2006: Popular movements in Syria and Iran bring pressure for real democratic reform in those bastions of totalitarianism.

Most Inconsequential Group of Retired Politicians: the 9/11 Commission. All these guys did was issue a report that said nothing that we didn't already know. All they do now is get together every six months to issue a statement deploring the fact that the government hasn't done what they said. All the administration does in response is note that their suggestions were incoherent and out of date.

Biggest Threat to Liberty in the United States, And No, It's Not the Patriot Act or Domestic Spying: the fecklessness of the Democratic Party. Human nature being what it is, human politicians become corrupt and irresponsible without a serious opposition. The Ds are not a serious opposition, overtaken as they are by partisanship and pacifism. Britain faced the same problem under Baroness Thatcher, when Neil Kinnock's band of socialists couldn't get the Labour Party elected to anything except Glasgow Council. America, not just the Democrats, needs a colonial version of Tony Blair to revive the health of our two-party democracy.

Best Christian Humor of 2005 That Was Intentional and Not Performed Live: The Vintage 21 Jesus Videos. SWNID will be re-viewing these for years to come.

Best Christian Humor of 2005 That Was Unintentional: Every public pronouncement made by Pat Robertson. What seriously isn't funny is that his idiocy got an actual missionary group kicked out of an actual country.

"Christian" Whom We Most Wish Was Unintentionally Funnier but Is Mostly Just Creepy: Judge Roy Moore, whose "Pimping the 10 Commandments Tour" continues.

Most Famous Friends of SWNID: the following folks who appeared by name in the MSM this year:

• Rick Ruble, of Come Alive and First South, cited as an exponent of the "cool church."
• Phil Kenneson, of the Traders Point Primary Department, cited as a critic of the "cool church."
• Mike Grooms, of the Very First New Testament Seminar Class Taught by SWNID, cited as as an opponent of gay marriage."
• Justin and Tasha Golden, more recently students of SWNID, cited as rising local musicians.
• J. Todd Smith, person SWNID would most like to get graduated this year, cited as WLW Talk Radio Idol.
• Paul Friskney--SWNID college roommate, best man and colleague--widely quoted and interviewed as a C. S. Lewis expert and author of the only family guide to reading Lewis.
• Cindy Willison, member of the SWNID bridal party and all-around fixer and detail person for the Come Alive program in the polyester era, who in her current role on the staff of Southland Christian Church was quoted by the scandalmongers at CNN on the shocking non-scheduling of services on Christmas Day.

Best Nonfiction Book of 2005: David McCullough's 1776, which narrates courage, loyalty, and fallibility in stirring fashion. We say again: President Bush should create a new honor (Son of SWNID suggests Historian Laureate) and bestow it on McCullough. We also say again: anyone who thinks that these are difficult times hasn't read decent history.

Best Fiction Book of 2005: Kazuro Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. There may be other worthy novels for the year, but none represents a more provocative or significant exercise of human imagination than this one.

Controversial Prediction That is Thankfully Most Proving Right: That New Orleans is becoming the Galveston of the 21st century. Displaced Big Easians, living now in cities above sea level with dignified occupations in industries that don't induce people to break commandments, are not returning to the Crescent City. Tourists never will. Expect New Orleans to become a medium-sized port city with no convention business, except maybe the Democratic National Convention in 2008.

Most Over-Promoted Republican Presidential Candidate Since Tom Dewey: John McCain, who listens to problems and proposes solutions that make the problems worse. It doesn't matter that McCain's solution to nasty campaigns has made campaigns nastier or that his solution to controversies about interrogation techniques will make interrogations more controversial and less effective. Unless Rudi runs or Romney catches fire or Condi walks the Damascus Road, McCain looks set to be the next R nominee. And so, McCain, who slaughters Hillary in every poll, will likely be the next President, too, at which point we'll have to revise this post to read "Least Effective Republican President Since Grant."

Worst Liberal Columnist for 2005: We disqualify Paul Krugman and Maureen Dowd, as their drivel now requires a subscription, proving that the NY Times is run by a 100 chimpanzees locked in a room full of typewriters trying to recreate the complete works of Shakespeare. And so the winner is Richard Cohen of the Washington Post, whose hysterical whining about Bush's mistakes-that-are-lies ceased to be serious journalism the twelfth time that he repeated them.

Best Conservative Columnist of 2005: Global Content Provider Mark Steyn. Here's a pull quote of special deliciousness:

George Clooney, the matinee idol, made an interesting point the other day. He said that "liberal" had become a dirty word and he'd like to change that. Fair enough. So I hope he won't mind if I make a suggestion. The best way to reclaim "liberal" for the angels is to get on the right side of history -- the side the Iraqi people are on. The word "liberal" has no meaning if those who wear the label refuse to celebrate the birth of a new democracy after 40 years of tyranny. Yet, if you wandered the Internet on Thursday, you came across far too many "liberals" who watched the election, shrugged and went straight back to Valerie Plame, WMD, Bush lied.

Bush lied, people dyed. Their fingers. That's what this is about: Millions of Kurds, Shia and Sunnis beaming as they emerge from polling stations and hold up their purple fingers after the freest, fairest election ever held in the Arab world. "Liberal" in the American sense is a dirty word because it's come to stand for a shriveled parochial obsolescent irrelevance, of which ''Good Night, and Good Luck,'' Clooney's dreary little retread of the McCarthy years, is merely the latest example. (Clooney says he wants more journalists to "speak truth to power," which is why I'm insulting his movie.)

We also note him as Best Guest on a Conservative Talk Radio Show of 2005 for his frequent forays into eloquence on Hugh Hewitt's program.

Best Single Political Column of 2005: William Stuntz in the New Republic, comparing Dubya to Lincoln.

Worst Ex-President of All Time: Jimmy Carter, who is also a miserable Sunday school teacher and is no longer physically able to swing a hammer for Habitat for Humanity. Were it not for the specter of Aaron Burr, we would note Carter as worst retired politician of all time. Were it not for Joe Wilson, we'd name him biggest narcissist in politics.

Best Catchphrase of 2005: Stuck on stupid. SWNID confesses to thinking this often at work but to lacking the courage to utter the phrase out loud.

Second Best New Blog of 2005: "From the Mouths of Babes." Full Disclosure Alert: We freely confess paternal prejudice in this listing, but we still find the blog very stimulating.

And Some Suggestions from our Gentle Readers:

Worst Television Phenomenon: Laguna Beach (we confess to not having viewed a millisecond, and from what we hear, we thank God).

Sportsmen of the Year: The Chicago White Sox (we affirm this choice and celebrate this fine team's stylish triumph for the Second City's underappreciated South Side).

Worst Song: "Since U Been Gone" by Kelly Clarkson (we confess to not having heard a note, with thanksgiving as above).

Most Arrogant Idiot: Kayne West (we confess inability to sort out all the idiots but are content to affirm this one).

Funniest New Comic Strip: "Pearls Before Swine" (we like what we've seen so far and look forward to more, wishing that the Enquirer had the Post's comics).

Best Returning Comic Strip: "Boondocks" (to which we give a hearty "Amen" because, intentionally or not, nothing lays out the foibles of the radical left more amusingly). We confess that we cannot say anything about the nomination of "Zippy the Pinhead" in this category, as there cannot be two "bests" and as we cannot decipher this monstrosity.

Movie Reviewer Least Likely to Attend a Pentecostal Service this Sunday: Scott Holleran for his execration of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (we agree, with the possible addition of Tony Lane).

Best TV Series DVD Set: Monty Python's Flying Circus (of course!).

Best Place to Sell Your Unreturnable Chemistry Book (and probably biology too): Amazon.com (we concur, though we kept our geology text for many years before finally offering it to Goodwill).

Best Site Other Than This One for a Year-End List: National Review Online's "2006 Crystal Ball." It's probably longer than this, and just about as uneven in quality, but there are some gems. Read it, gentle readers!

And thanks for reading the first fractional year of blogging by SWNID. See you in January, if not before!