The Republic of Dissent

The era of narcissism

I agree with Chris Dillow on this even though I would make the following distinction, we like in an era where the focus in more egocentrism than on narcissism because I'm not sure that people actually love themselves, they just think that they are the center of the universe, that politics is solely about them and that bad people are evil because they are not like them:

When someone says “I am a Christian” or “I am an atheist”, the emphasis is entirely upon the “I”.
In this sense, we are living in an era of narcissism - albeit in perhaps a different sense from Christopher Lasch’s - in which the self is all-important.
Which raises a paradox. We think of the modern, post-Enlightenment era as being defined by liberalism and the scientific method. But these have in common the belief that propositions are separate from the individual - that the individual is a disembodied subject distinct from his beliefs. However, our public life effaces this distinction, whereas - as Sennett pointed out - people in the 17th and 18th century had a strong sense of a distinction between the public and private person.

The gift of torture

Sugary excerpt of the week from Amitava Kumar, whom I'm liking more everyday:

Each one of us has received an education in the art of torture in recent years. That’s America’s gift to us, through this war on terror, that we’ve learned words like “waterboarding”. We have also learned that torture isn’t only about force: men lose their minds, not when beaten to within an inch of their lives, but when they are placed in solitary confinement with black-out goggles and noise-blocking headphones wrapped around their heads. We have learned that if terror by non-state actors relies on brutal killing of innocents, then state terror proceeds by making torture justifiable and routine.

Books not to read

I'm going to make it a point this year of not reading Game Change, the book by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin on the 2008 campaign and The Politician the one by Andrew Young on the Edwards and their frailties. My honor, my soul, and the health of my brain are at stake. Just thinking about them makes me feel dirty. What's the point of reading sleaze in book when you glance at it in most US magazines. Why do Americans need their politicians to be unlike them, that is to be good people, who never had bad thoughts, never gossip, never hurt anybody, never lie and more importantly have perfect marriages? At some point, this century, I hope America gets cure from its puritanism.

Seeing something new in Shakespeare

Great stuff as always from Mark Thwaite at ReadySteadyblog:

(...) Heritage stops us seeing Shakespeare for the troubling and unsettling writer that he manifestly is: "The weight of this sad time we must obey; Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say." The times are ever-troubling; and it is always the time to speak in a heartfelt way against the present's deadening cant. These are not sane times; Lear is as untimely as it has ever been.
Shakespeare was writing when what constituted the written English language, what constituted the very tools which he went on to fashion into the best ever expression of those tools, was still particularly unsettled. And how he wields words seems to reflect a view of the self that suggests that what constitutes the self -- fashioned on the stage merely by the playwright's words, of course -- is itself ever-unsettled. Shakespeare’s language is an erratic, antic, fizzing brew which captures, and expresses existentially, a particular take on the non-fixity of the human state. He is a poet not of an age, but for all time because time is written into the ambiguity -- the play -- of his writing, and into the ambiguous, uncertain, unanchored, disarranged characters he sets before us. His language moves -- his characters move -- as we move as time moves...

As a Francophone, it was easier to like Shakespeare and to penetrate his writings in spite of their presumed and assumed difficulty and inaccessibility (the difficulty of a language or rather of the writing of an author is seldom an obstacle for a Francophone because French is an extremely difficult language to master) because I thought that he was a greater and more improved version of Corneille. I have always hated Corneille because I thought he made reading French an unnecessary unsavory experience despite having the best ingredients just because he must have thought that his works was too good be for the masses. In any case, I agree that Shakespeare's language moves. I would like to think that the reason for this is that like Balzac he could never really fall in love with his writing and therefore continuously thought of it as something that must not be allowed to kill his plays. The reason why there isn't a Shakespeare in French theater (Molière doesn't even come close) is that it is harder to make French move as characters do simply actions always overwhelms the language or language overwhelms the characters. Thus, it is not a coincidence that French theater needed Beckett and that it has been difficult for it to replace him.

Resfreshing silliness

Unlike some people, I love the fact that Martin Amis attempts to pick a fight with Coetzee by asserting that he has no talent. Coetzee is a big boy. He can defend himself. Writers don’t have to have a disingenuous deference to their peers. Hearing one saying that another sucks even when it comes out of bad faith, is refreshing and good for the writing soul. That said, I’m going to wait before I read Amis’s latest while enjoying Coetzee’s Summertime.

Sucker punching Arendt

Irving Louis Horowitz defends Hannah Arendt against Bernard Wasserstein's brutal and in my unfair and idiotic assault in an article in The Times Literary Supplement, which many others such Ron Rosenbaum continued in an article in Slate with neither much thought nor originality:

Arendt in no shape or form “blames the victim” for the terrible punishment inflicted by the Nazis. What she does do—in my opinion, correctly—is identify the extraordinary depth to which the Nazis went to exterminate a people. Sadly, a large bloc of German Jews felt that, if the Nazis could not be turned back at the gates of genocide, they could at least be prevented from carrying out their worst ambitions. An equally large bloc felt that that was not possible once the machinery of terror and the political order were enshrined in jurisprudence. The end result was a disaster for the survivors. Arendt’s bitterness was indeed focused on Jews who urged and even advocated compromise. In light of historical events, one might argue against her views on the Eichmann trial but most certainly not that the theme of banality reflected anything other than despair over the German Jewish community’s failure to recognize the pervasiveness of the system and the corrosion of the legal groundwork of its Nazi-infected mass movements.
Issues with Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem keep turning up. The theme of the banality of evil did not win favor with Arendt’s critics; psychological explanations of human behavior rarely settle matters. But Wasserstein has raised criticism of a possible loophole for disquieting personal behavior—a criticism introduced by Walter Laqueur many years ago—to a much higher level. Wasserstein condemns Arendt’s views as little more than using the Holocaust to “blame the victim.” The idea that such a grotesque reading can pass without evidence is difficult to entertain. Arendt, echoed by many in the German Jewish communities of the Nazi era, did not blame anyone but the Nazi state (at one level) and the German people as a whole for the Holocaust. What Arendt may have failed to appreciate was the enormity and the gravity of the situation, that she as well as others see as a failure of nerve and verve alike and to take appropriate measures and safeguards.

I'm reminded me of the vicious assaults against Irène Némerosvky justified by the pretext that she was a self-hating Jew. Critics are never as ferocious and unfair against people they believe should be a member of group and yet, are not representing it well or rather are irritatingly escaping categorization. I'm not a fervent admirer of Arendt, I just think that some have never forgiven for refusing to say that Eichmanm and the Nazis were uniquely evil as if the Shoah would stop being the greatest horror and in my view the defining moment of the last century if we didn't refuse to acknowledge that Hitler didn't have to be unique to kill over six million people and that that fact should weigh heavily on the collective conscience of humanity.

Becoming Bill after killing him

David Goldman argues persuasively, but ideologically that Obama is trying to morph into the Bill Clinton of 1995:

In his attempt to emulate Clinton’s success, President Obama resembles nothing so much a the New Guinea aboriginals who built model airfields complete with straw control towers and airplanes after the Second World War and the departure of the American army. The Americans had summoned cargo from the sky through such magical devices, so thought the aboriginals, and by building what looked like airfields, so might they. But Obama can no more conjure up an economic recovery by doing things that look like what Clinton did, than the natives of New Guinea could draw cargo from the sky with straw totems. Marx’s crack about history repeating itself—the first time as tragedy and the second as farce—comes to mind.
It was one thing for Clinton to steal the Republican growth agenda when there was a Republican agenda, and there also was growth. As Dick Morris told Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly just before Obama began speaking, “Bill Clinton could reposition himself because he could control his image. Obama will be an outcome based president. All will depend on what the economy and employment does. As long as the employment rate is where it is and the underemployment rate is where it is, people are not going to have a positive view of Obama, even if he stands on his head. He’ll move to the center and people will say ‘center, schmenter, show me the employment.’”

Oh my God,  the sky is falling ! Can we go back to the 2008 primaries when all the "good" and "real" Democrats were arguing that Clintonism was the worst thing that ever happened to the Democratic party and that the Clintons are shameful people. Oh wait they are still making that point right, except that since Obama has special powers, he will do Clintonism better than the Clintons. What a wonderful world. I'm starting to realize that the Democrats are the real puritans and elitists.

Decorum

I agree with Glenn Greenwald on this:

(...) the behavior of Justice Alito at last night's State of the Union address -- visibly shaking his head and mouthing the words "not true" when Obama warned of the dangers of the Court's Citizens United ruling -- was a serious and substantive breach of protocol that reflects very poorly on Alito and only further undermines the credibility of the Court.  It has nothing to do with etiquette and everything to do with the Court's ability to adhere to its intended function.

Culture as a justifcation for the indefensible

I cannot stand Jacob Zuma for so many reasons and reading that he's using his culture to defend or rather sacralize polygamy doesn't surprise me. It is just a reminder that we live in the age of excuses not of reasons where cultures, traditions, religions, all the crap that kill intellectualism are prevalent precisely because people don't know how to reason and to justify the fact that they are blindly following their most base urges or living ascetically. If "Culture" is a good excuse for despicable differences then there shouldn't be any problem welcoming the Taliban and other extremists on the international stage and to accept stoning, female circumcision, honor killings and whatever else.

Obama, America, and the amateur marriage

Obama showed some fighting spirit last night. All I could think about when I heard him say "I don't quit" is that America is in a potentially dangerous zone because he was acknowledging that there is a strong perception in DC and else where that he is soft. Neither Bush nor either Clinton would have had to say something or to do something to demonstrate their toughness. That worries me because people who have to convince others that they are tough and that they are not quitters tend to do stupid things.

That said the speech was good, but good speeches at this point can be game changers. They can make analysts feel something up their leg and Americans feel proud that they have an eloquent and extraordinarily talented(since eloquence in American politics is seen as a proof of genius) president, but the cold realities of their daily lives are going to keep them from going back to their state of mind at the end of 2008 when they had been swept off their feet by the "Black" guy. 

My contention is that this speech will be forgotten. It is what happens next that is going to tell Americans who their president is and whether he is a quitter or not. The good news for Obama is that he is an open relationship with America. He will always be able to convince it that he is the other pretenders are worst and that he, at least, can make it feel good about itself even though he may not be able to change its reality. In other words, America is married to Obama. The success of this marriage depends on how traditional it is for the more traditional it is, the less willing Americans will be willing to consider divorce no matter how bad things get.

Modernity has different faces

Good conclusion, wrong and disingenuous arguments from Raphaël Liogier on the French's discussion on the ban of the burka:

Women ­donning the full veil are not against modernity but represent rather its sophisticated product, just like ­westernised Buddhists. The veil, ­surprising as this may seem, is good news for modern values. Some smart young women keep a niqab in their bag but only wear it in Paris's Rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud, in order to draw attention to the fact that they belong to the best Muslim set, that they really have got that Muslim chic, something like the equivalent ­behaviour in a gay district. This deep western social movement is no threat to modern values, but rather vindicates the ­latter under unexpected aesthetic guise: it is so ­individualistic and depoliticised that it is more of a real threat for Islamism and terrorist ­networks themselves.It is a massive blunder to fight this new, ultra-modern Islam. And it is not only France that is heading towards a colossal error of understanding – ­politically capable of spinning into ­historic ­proportions – but also Europe, the United States, and all the other ­post-industrial countries, blinkered by Islamophobia, who turn out to be ­incapable of catching up on their own deep cultural changes and recognising their own best interests. It is a kind of collective, ­generational jet lag.

The issue isn't as complicated as Liognier makes it seem for all it comes down to is this: Can a woman with a burka, a veil, a niqab or whatever be the face of modernity and of individual liberties as the one of Demi Moore pregnant and Naked? My answer is yes, but too many people disagree.

Self'satisfying delusions

I agree with this:

There was a lot of delusion among progressives who convinced themselves, in the face of clear evidence to the contrary, that Obama was a strong champion of their values. He wasn’t and isn’t.

The ideological warfare over women's bodies

Unconvincing and creepily artificial arguments against the Burqa (burka) from Alice Thompson in the London Times:

Face time, face-to-face, losing face, all these phrases show how we rely on scrutinising each other’s reactions, as do concerns about Botox and facelifts. The burka is not an invisibility cloak, it’s a passive- aggressive statement, a rejection of the community. The person wearing it is signalling that either she or her family wants her to remain apart from society. It implies that wearers believes that British men may become dangerously lecherous if they see their faces and that British women are too provocatively clad. Like smoking, wearing a burka doesn’t affect just the wearers, but those around them, who may feel shunned. With full-body tattoos, face piercing and a hoody, you can still smile to show that you are a friend.
(...)That doesn’t mean that Britain should ban the burka in public places. We don’t want the police stripping off women’s outer garments in the street. The French have gone too far by prohibiting the wearing of a full veil on public transport.
But we should make it clear that people should not be allowed to cover their faces when it impinges on others, That includes women working in schools, hospitals, courtrooms, shops and the service industries.

Yeah right...! In today's modern societies, don't we have the right to be loners and to say "fu*k you" to the majority as long that we don't harm anybody? How come these types of belittling and paternalistic arguments are only used when women are choosing a path that a society believes is wrong not only for her, but for their ideas of what she ought to be? It reminds  me of what too many parents do when their daughters want to assert their individuality in ways, which shock their value system or which they believe which have her labeled and thus scarred for life (she will never be able to get married). In any case, Thompson undermines her own arguments by rejecting a ban on the burqa, which shows that like me, the sight of a woman in burqa makes her feel uncomfortable, but that unlike me, she cannot tolerate/accept that discomfort because she believes that women can't be individuals, but should always be selfless and think about others. I'm tired of the idea that a woman's body is never solely her own, but instead always a vessel or symbol. When I see a woman with a veil, I have to remind myself that she has the right to do as she pleases with her body as long as she isn't engaging in obscene behavior. It seems to me that all of the discussions about the burqa and about whether to ban it in France and elsewhere just show that women are still the main instruments in an ideological, political and religious battlefield where the main combatants don't really care about their self-hood, but solely the preservation of their own misogynistic,but comfortable traditions.

The media and Haiti

I agree with Colin Murphy on this:

There were other anomalies and inadequacies in the reporting from Haiti. The US military was prominent in news reports: footage of heavily armed soldiers distributing bottles of water, of airdrops of food, and of US helicopters landing in front of the ruined presidential palace, was widely used to accompany reports on the humanitarian response. These efforts may have been laudable, but they paled in comparison to those of the United Nations and charities on the ground in Haiti. The UN’s World Food Programme said it had distributed three million meals to 200,000 people by late this week, and estimated that a further 100,000 people had been fed by charities. There were plans to scale this up to reach two million people, with four key distribution sites identified. By contrast, the US Southern Command reportedly made two air drops during the week of some 17,000 meals each.
Of course, some of the most prominent stories in the days since the quake have been good news stories: those remarkable images of people being pulled alive from the rubble by international search and rescue teams. Dozens of teams from all around the world helped rescue over 120 people. Yet even this creates a misleading impression. As anyone who has worked in a crisis zone knows (I spent two years in Angola, working on emergency relief programmes), the most important “rapid response” always comes from the people themselves. Early footage after the quake showed ordinary Haitians desperately sifting through rubble, searching for, and no doubt rescuing, family and neighbours – their successes, though, remained uncounted and largely unreported.The media is a vital part of the response to any crisis such as this, and there has been much outstanding reporting coming out of Haiti; Twitter, meanwhile, has proved valuable for getting some sense of the voice of ordinary Haitians. But too often, reporters and their editors have led with glib headlines and poorly sourced information. The courage of those on the ground deserves more.

Feeling African

Interesting point from John McWhorter:

(...) native-born blacks are African in a “different” way than actual African immigrants--but this would be a feint rather than an argument: clearly, the proper formulation, if we are to put it on the table, is that native-born blacks are African to a much lesser extent than African immigrants. In truth, a black man from Jacksonville has more in common with a white one from Tucson than he does with a man three years out of Senegal.
And I would argue that native-born blacks are so vastly less “African” than actual Africans that calling ourselves “African American” is not only illogical but almost disrespectful to African immigrants. Here are people who were born in Africa, speak African languages, eat African food, dance in African ways, remember African stories, and will spiritually always be a part of Africa--and we stand up and insist that we, too, are “African” because Jesse Jackson said so?
After all, most of us don’t feel meaningfully “African” in the least. Sure, we’ve gotten used to saying “African American,” but it has become a kind of frozen expression, like, indeed ice cream (we don’t think about it being “cream of ice” when saying “eyescream”) or even knee-l (the word kneel has knee in it--did you ever think about it)?

I need more time to digest McWhorter's arguments before deciding whether I agree with his points. I already know that I share his main sentiment, but he misses the essential point: there isn't such a thing as an "African identity." I always objected to the preconceived notion that being black means being African or having something to do with African. It doesn't. The assumption that Africa is the Black continent, is moronic. If it was the case where would we bury J.M. Coetzee? Australia? I don't think so. What would we do with the Maghreb, Egypt and Libya? In other words, feeling African is an imaginary or reactionary sentiment, which even the natives of Africa don't feel  naturally unless they are pushed into a narrow place and have to choose to define themselves against what they consider to be the injustices of an unsympathetic world not to say a "white world," which is of course too is part of their imagination.

Les rois sont petits

Charles Bremner on Yesterday the latest Sarko's show on French TV:

When Pierre accused him of ignorance over the lives of ordinary people, Sarkozy replied: "I am not going to put ashes on my head, excusing myself for not being a worker at Renault." 
And, not to be forgotten, Sarkozy took his usual swipe at the President of the United States. Defending his multitude of simultaneous reforms, he said: "Take my friend Barack Obama... He went with just one reform and look what has happened to it."
Also worth noting: In neither the talk show nor the interview that preceded it, did anyone mention Muslim  veils, which shows that this is not one of the matters that are really worrying people.   
Sarkozy's performance, imposed on TV in a way that only Silvio Berlusconi could rival, has naturally been mocked by the Socialists and other opponents. But it scored surprisingly good reviews in the press today. The most unusual one came from Laurent Joffrin, Editor of Libération,who is Sarkozy's bête noire. "The President defended his policies with indisputable mastery," he wrote.

I have to admit that Sarkozy's Obama obsession betrays his "Americacentrism." Anytime, Sarkozy hits Obama with just words (can he do anything else?), I want to say to him, "It is so unnecessary. Don't worry, you are his equal. You have so much in common that it is scary." That said, I believed that if these two could switch roles, their countries would be better off for it. Sarkozy would make a better American president for he likes action and has his political vision is more in tune with the American compact. Obama would, undoubtedly, make a better French president, for he is so good with the symbolic and representative side of power, which the French want their republican monarch to be great at to reassure themselves that although the king may relate to and understand them, he is better than them in the sense that he has great skills and that therefore his majesty  is unquestionable and his great powers well used.

There is nothing left to the Left of the Left

Sugary excerpt from an editorial from the Guardian on Oskar Lafontaine, the German Left, and its lessons from the European left:

But there is no disguising the continuing weakness and gradual decline of the German centre-left as a potential party of federal government. Failure to adapt to globalisation has produced weakness. Weakness has caused splits and the splits are reflected in further weakness.These current travails of the German centre-left are part of a wider European pattern of division and defeat. Something of this sort has happened in many EU nations. But they are also a cautionary tale for the Labour party. Those who believe that the only problem with the Labour governments is that they have not been left-wing enough, or that everything will be solved by a proportional representation system that would allow the left to "be itself again", need a reality check.

Hum, I have the strong suspicion that the argument made here is more circular than anything else. The problem for the Left in most industrialized countries is that it has lost It in the sense that it does not believe in Leftism for it really believes in Fukuyamamism and in the theory that we are living the end of history for there are no alternative to the market, capitalism, free trade and other goodies. I remember during the Ohio primary how stupid both Clinton and Obama were sounding when they were trying to convince the people that they were never really for NAFTA. What I wanted to ask them was "what's your plan B?" This isn't a cynical, but a realistic question for it seems to me that the Left solely believes in the heart, that it is better than the right because it is more compassionate (that's why Bush created compassionate conservatism. At the time I wondered what was the point of being compassionate if you are not helping fixing the ill that creates your self-serving compassion). The problem when the heart is at the heart of politics is that any policy becomes justifiable when the argument that the heart of the policymakers is in the right place becomes plausible for the media and the masses. Is there really nothing left Left to the Left? I don't think that's the real question for liberalism in the American sense of the word has stopped to be a political ideology, to be just a societal one where the compassionate are separated from the mean zealots like Sarah Palin and the greedy. Leftism has no backbone. It is too busy admiring its grandeur and nobility in the mirror.

Obama year 1

At the time when almost anybody who cares about American politics is busy assessing Obama first year and when the Obamamaniacs have, for the most part fallen back to earth, I’m forcing myself to watch this movie. I try to contain the irritating sense of déjà vu, which makes it an unpleasing experience, but a necessary one because to the contrary of too many people, I don’t believe that Obama is too good for America.

I’m not disappointed by Obama’s first year for I think that what has happened was predictable. After all, as someone once said, experience matters. Symbolism and identity politics almost never bring results when they are used as tools to stop people from asking essential questions about political candidates. Obama is doing as well as he should be expected to do (given who he is as politician) and that’s the problem. He is a better president than George W. Bush ever was in the sense that he gives a less bellicose image of America. But is that the standard by which we must be judging all future American presidents? Is being better than Bush the sole criteria for being a good American president? If that is the case, I think that John McCain would have been a great president.

The alarming thing is that given what happened in the Democratic primary and the presidential elections of 2008 and of the popularity of Obama in the world, I don’t think that he is going to be judged on the policies of his administration and on their results. We are in an era in politics (not solely American politics) where people vote for politicians who make them feel good about who they are and who they believe is one of them.

The only critical political problem of Obama right is that many Americans have stopped feeling that he is one of them. This feeling is mainly to the fact that they saw in him what they wanted to see for people, Americans especially. Like to identity with “superpeople,” individuals such as Michael Jordan with an outstanding gift or a fantastic story who seem to be able to do what they want with the ball and who to look good while doing it. The good news for Obama is that he is transparent and flexible and that he will find a way to convince Americans that although he may not be the one, he is their guy or at least to convince them that his adversary in 2012 is not one of them. It is sad to say, but we are still living the George W. Bush era of politics for the most important things in politics are image, identity and not much else.

Thus to summarize my point in one sentence: the Obama presidency is never going to be one whose length and popularity is going to depend on results because it was branded at the beginning a transformative presidency for the United States of America, which means that Americans are only going to distance themselves for it if they stop believe the omnipotence of symbols and of swagger. I do not think that it is going to happen unless Obama stops being transparent and the One who is fighting for the people with everything he got like a great athlete trying to win the game in spite of his team. The results of the game don’t matter. It is the majesty (apparent, imagined, or real) of the athlete that is supreme.

The Republic of Dissent

I change the name of my blog from "Globalclashes" to "the Republic of Dissent" because I think that change is good when it has a purpose and the purpose here is to take a new start without forgetting the old blog, but especially without dissociating myself from "Kiki."

In other words, in 2010, I'm going to try a lot of different things and to take on a lot more and see where that leads me.

Christelle Nadia Fotso

So here we are. It is January 25, 2010 and although Kiki is my nickname, my name is Christelle Nadia Fotso.

I have to admit that it was a simple, but also very difficult decision to stop hiding behind Kiki. I'm not adventurous by nature especially when it is impossible for me to think about all the possible outcomes of my adventure and to say to myself that I will be at peace with all the potential catastrophes and to come up painfully short  as Brett Favre.

In any case, I decided to stop writing under the name "Kiki" which is actually the name that everybody that knows me uses and to disclose my name because after four years of blogging, it became obvious to me anonymity may be comfortable, but it is limiting because you can't outgrow it and because it stops bringing new challenges after a while if you realize that you are what you write. 

Thus, after four years, I'm starting over not as a blank slate for I have learned a lot and I take responsibility for what I wrote when I was Kiki, but as a bolder and more resolute writer willing to say that no when it matters and yes when it hurts.

Let's the fun begin.

The last lecture

Randy Pausch  has changed my life. .for good...

Change I believe in

2010 is the year when I have finally realized that change is necessary and can be great as long as you are the one making it by taking control of your destiny and by deciding to stop, as Steve Jobs (the Apple guy), to live someone else's life. I've been blogging for 4 years now. Along the way, in spite of my self and against received ideas, I have realized that it isn't just a phase for me or something that I'm doing hoping to find something else or while waiting to stumble upon bling-bling or happiness. Because of this unshakable reality, because blogging is neither a temporary thing nor a hook and has become my most enjoyable activity, I have decided to put it at the center of my existence by changing the way I blog and by becoming, finally, fearless.

I have decided to make a few changes. The first important change will come on January 25 when I come out the shadows  and into the light. 2010 is going to be a fun and unbelievable year because I'm going to be more daring and more willing to shake things up. Happy New year and let's the fun and the countdown begin.