Happy New Sphere From The BAG

I found myself moved by this image (and these- 1, 2, 3) from the newswire this afternoon. The caption reads:

Workers arrange “wishing spheres” from a boat as part of an art installation on the Singapore River December 18, 2009. People pen their New Year wishes on these wishing spheres throughout December to be placed on the river as part of the coming New Year Day celebrations.

Given the extreme pain of the recession, the endless state of war(s), the unabated political polarization and all too much flat-headed thinking in the country, as well as the honest divisions within the Democrat family, I know all of us were worn out by this year, if not the last decade, and are yearning — so hard — for better.

New Years, of course, exists almost singly as a marker of endings and new beginnings. The symbol of the sphere is tremendously powerful, too, these balls representing to me both the larger sphere of our planet, with its fragile natural and social ecology, as well as — reminiscent of bobbing heads — the more personal and immediate spheres of our families and the singular culture inside our own bodies and minds.

If I am wishful next year for all of these spheres, the one I am most optimistic about is our own right here at BAGnewsNotes.

I don’t think I can really express how marvelous and a privilege it is to join you, each day, in decoding and analyzing and learning from the pictures in a news-, information- and spin-saturated culture that grows more profoundly visual by the minute. Sometime in the first third of the year, we hope to unveil a new site which will not only improve, strengthen and enrich the platform for your thoughts, mine, and a new set of contributors, but is certain to raise our collective influence and authority in this special niche we occupy on a visual playing field otherwise dominated by the corporate media, the special interests and the powers that be. …Until we get there though, we commit, as always, to delivering you the best images, and visual and political analysis we can.

Above all, and with the picture always in mind, I wish each and every one of you a year of peace, vision, good health, compassion and insight.

…Consider it as good as on the river.

–Michael