By Brian Bloom
Regional Manager
As we look in our rear view window at 2012, we keep one eye looking ahead to the promises and pitfalls of the new year. And while my prognostications are about as accurate as the compass on my Cracker Jacks whistle ring I unabashedly venture forth because, well, I don’t have anything else to put in this space.
I predict New England and Forty-niners in Super Bowl XLVII with Tom Brady’s wife Giselle exclaiming after the game “what’s he (Brady) supposed to do, tackle them too.”
I predict Alabama tipping the Fighting Irish despite Nick Saban’s all-too-cautious approach in big game showcases.
I predict Congress, in the wake of the Newtown tragedy, will once again talk of gun controls – primarily dealing with automatic weapons and will, as they have for years – do nothing.
I predict that the introduction of ObamaCare will artificially increase insurance premiums and Americans, willing to be educated by 30-second sound bites and whoever’s screaming the loudest, will blame the comprehensive medical plan instead of the pocket-gouging CEO’s.
I predict the unified school board will be so large and so cumbersome that virtually nothing will be solved in relation to poor teacher and student performance.
I predict that so many of these same people believe that some of the worst test scores in the nation are simply beyond repair and the board will continue to close low-performing schools only to transfer those students to other low-performing schools. All of this while destroying the neighborhoods that were once thriving.
I predict tax increases on the rich will lead to a short term unemployment bounce and that more than seven percent of America’s workforce remains without a job.
I predict that underemployment will continue to destroy the fabric of the suburban middle class as manufacturing jobs are lost and historically low-paying service jobs replace them.
I predict the University of Memphis football team will be bowl eligible as they win the one-team Big East Conference. Memphis will defeat itself in a scrimmage to earn the title.
I predict the Big Ten Conference will never change its name no matter how many teams they bring in. I also predict that Memphis will not join the Big Ten Conference as they don’t want to lose their automatic bowl berth to the Liberty Bowl.
I predict Charter schools to be approved by the Tennessee Republican legislature.
I predict the Shelby County Board of Supervisors to file suit.
I predict the metro-dominant board to convince it’s electorate that it’s okay to spend taxpayer money to sue taxpayers. Supervisors understand many of the electorate is educated in Memphis City Schools and we all know about their test scores.
I predict the commission will continue its practice of spending tax dollars without reporting that those tax dollars were spent on making us wonder just how have our dollars been managed.
I predict the City’s of Bartlett, Germantown and Collierville will continue to run without too much upheaval. I predict Millington will once again question the City Administrative form of government that was hastily enacted and I predict that Southaven residents will question anything its embattled mayor ever says.
I predict the demise of newspapers will be greatly exaggerated by competing media and that there will be silence about the thousands of web sites that come and go in the course of a year.
I predict that these newspapers, spurred by an influx of new capital by the current owners, will once again begin to grow in importance to the communities they serve.
I predict there will be hundreds of inventions, thousands of discoveries that will affect our lives without us being aware.
I predict new medications will bring hope to Alzheimer suffers, cancer patients and those suffering from a myriad of communicable diseases and we will have become to immune to these marvelous medical breakthroughs we accept the news with a shrug.
I predict that will be wrong more often than right on these predictions and people will ask themselves who does he think he is to write such drivel.
I blame it on my Cracker Jacks whistle ring.
