25 years from now I will look out from my oxygen tent in my newly beachfront home and think about 2004 with a mixture of nostaligia and regret. I will think of a year of great personal transformation and satisfaction. I will also remember the deflating sensation when I realised that the character of my home country was forever changed. Where America once was respected and responsible both at home and abroad (or at least tried to be), 2004 will cement America's full embrace of the comfort, folly and disaster of being an empire all by herself.

But, I will also remember that one day, September 30th, I fooled myself into believing once again. My Beloved Astros had just completed a 35-10 run by sweeping the best team in Major League Baseball this year, the Detested St. Louis Cardinals(TM) and the Even More Reviled Chicago Cubs had gone all Mama Cass on their fortunes by choking against the 4th place Reds this week.


A Chicago Cub fan celebrates in the usual way after another inspired effort on Thursday

With three games to go the Astros had a great chance to go to the playoffs and end their history of nice-guys-finishing-a-solid-second existence. The Astros were so dead six weeks ago that medical students were hovering around the ballpark in Houston hoping to get some cadaver time. If for a day, all is right in the baseball world.


Another hot and steaming cup o' hope, sir

September 30th also marked the odd sight of hope in 2004 U.S. Presidential campaign. The first debate between the candidates showed John Kerry to have dominated an outclassed and a befuddled George Bush. The debtate, which concentrated on foreign policy, was expected to be to Bush's advantage. Instead, Kerry was decisive, forceful and clear on the issues while Bush often struggled to speak coherently about anything past platitudes and the talking points of his campaign Reichsmarshal Rove (Jim Henson's Muppet Goebells). One man looked looked a president while the other looked like the neighbor on a bad sitcom.


Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Diplomacy Club Band, or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb(s) in North Korea

So, I will look back on this date as the date when John Kerry got my hopes up one last time before the doomsday machine kicked back into gear and Bush was re-elected in a landslide.


Gushy sentimentalist, or How I learned to prefer the Cold War

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