Keller @ Large: Let's Avoid Gridlock In 2013
BOSTON (CBS) - Happy New Year to all.
New Year's Eve I can take or leave, but New Year's Day does feel like the start of a new chapter. The days are getting longer, the Pats got the bye week, and there's always hope that we'll see less bad attitude in 2013.
Listen to Jon's commentary:
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You know what I mean if you were caught in the traffic mess surrounding that truck fire in the O'Neill tunnel Monday.
Sitting motionless at Leverett Circle through a couple of light cycles, it was obvious that you couldn't pull ahead without throwing the intersection into gridlock, and most of us didn't. The ones that did can't plead ignorance; they cut it out when the State Police showed up.
They have bad attitude, a narrow perspective limited mostly to self-interest.
Bad attitude is epidemic in Washington, never more present than yesterday when a bi-partisan parade of the same leaders who've presided over gridlock took turns bemoaning the gridlock that sent us over the cliff.
When they say: the American people are outraged at what's happening, in English, they mean: What hand in what cookie jar?
Pop culture rarely models good attitude, but 2012 had stark moments of bad attitude; the Australian talk-show hosts who pranked a nurse to death at Kate Middleton's hospital come to mind. Disappointingly, Madonna was named the fifth-worst celebrity tipper by some website.
And just under the wire over this weekend, I heard that Kim Kardashian is expecting, and Kanye West is the father?
And as for bad attitude in sports, there is nowhere to go but up after the 2012 Red Sox, who proved that ballroom dancing skill is not a pre-requisite for managing success.
But fortunately, bad attitude, while annoyingly widespread, is also the exception. The national embrace of Newtown was just the year's final display of good attitude at its best.
So in 2013, let's celebrate the fact that most of us will be looking to avoid gridlock, not create it, and hope it makes for a happier new year.
You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.
