Sara Robinson

A village cannot revise village life to suit the village idiot. -- Frank Schaeffer

As long as we're taking the measure of the country this week, let's look in on the far (and not so far) fringes of the right wing. What's up with them? And how worried should we be?

My little series on the turn of the decade (which started last week) was originally conceived as a two-parter: a look back to the past, and a look ahead to the future.

That changed a bit this week, when the present rose up and made itself known in a very big way.

It's the New Year, and I'm celebrating by coming back to work after a three-month sabbatical from CAF. After four years of pretty consistent blogging, I needed some distance, some time to pursue a few errant passions, and the chance to recover my focus. As of this week, I'm back on the job with a fistful of new insights and research, and a head full of fresh things to blog about. It's genuinely good to be back, which is a clear sign that the break was a) needed and b) long enough.

For the last couple of weeks, the blogs and papers have been full of pieces about the turn of the decade, with due regard to signs and portents for what the last decade's disasters all meant, and what glories and horrors await us in the one now ahead. Since this kind of navel-gazing about change and meaning and the future are what I do, I suppose it's incumbent on me to devote my first couple of homecoming posts to this topic. Given that it's now January 13 and the prognostication rush is mostly over, I might even claim to be the final word on the subject.

So, here it is, in two parts. This week: A look back. Next week: A look ahead.

* * *

The specific events that made the Uh-Ohs a pluperfect catastrophe have already been well-covered by able commentators (some at this very blog), so I'm going to sidestep any attempt to catalogue them further. (No doubt you can sing them all, anyway, verse and chorus, in four-part harmony.) What interests me now is what this decade of social, economic, and political abuse -- really, there's no other word for it -- did to us psychologically.

I've lived in Canada for very nearly six years now. I've loved it here. I love the people, the health care system, the bigness of the place, and the fact that the Canadian Charter of Rights includes an Equal Rights Amendment. I own a home, pay taxes, and am learning to think in metric. I'm in the process now of applying for citizenship.