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# It’s shaping up as the year of predicting dangerously
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/its-shaping-up-as-the-year-of-predicting-dangerously/
- Published: 2007-01-04T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T22:57:37.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*By BLAST BY SETH BARNES*

THE END OF THE CALENDAR YEAR BRINGS out the pundits and prognosticators. In the final weeks of December, you can’t go near the Internet, the newspaper or television without running into some smarty pants dissecting and detailing the major events of the previous year.

Raise your hand if you saw a photo montage of notable persons who died in 2006 set to a melodramatic score at some point in the last week. OK, hands down.You’ll need them to change the channel in case you come across another weepy sequence involving Robert Altman and Slobodan Milosevic.

Equally annoying to the year-end recap is the year-ahead prediction list. Oh, are these annoying! Nothing screams “quality journalism” like some disaffected junior staff writer throwing back a couple egg nogs and taking random guesses on topics ranging from the Sunni insurgency to the prospects of Madonna adopting a second child from Africa.

Luckily, we’ve made it into 2007 and the lists and rankings are behind us. But we still have hopes and dreams for the coming year that hack columnists want to chronicle. Maybe there’s even a “wish list” of events I’d like to see occur in 2007\. Maybe I’ll share this list with you. And maybe you’ll read on.

Comprehensive Immigration Reform — Unless we become a police state, I don’t think we’re going to be able to totally seal off our borders. So maybe we should just get used to the status quo. Besides, I don’t think the average Joe is ready to pick his own organic lettuce.

Smoking Bans — First Calabasas, then Santa Monica. Could LA County as a whole be far behind? Let’s hope smokers can exhale somewhere into the millions of square feet of open air. Otherwise, we’re sure to see “smoke houses” pop up next to “crack houses” throughout the land.

The Rise of Cell Phone Cameras — I think I see a solution to this thorny little capital punishment problem that California has. Just equip execution observers with handy cell phone cams (a la the Saddam Hussein hanging) and we have instant oversight. Plus, think of all the traffic we can drive to YouTube!

The End of Chocolate Treats — Personally, I think all boxes of chocolate should evaporate as the ball drops on New Year’s Eve. After stuffing our faces for over a month, we really don’t need tempting treats laying around home, the office and places of retail. You get to indiscriminately pop bon bons into your face from Thanksgiving to New Year’s. And then it’s over. Enough.

California Ballot Initiatives — Does anybody else think that letting 36 million people legislate is silly? Who are we kidding? Most of us know next to nothing about politics, government appropriations or the fiscal tensions of the largest state in the union. We should let our slightly less clueless elected representatives make the important choices for us. Then we’ll have time to pick our own organic lettuce if the urge ever strikes.

Schwarzenegger/Villaraigosa Arm Wrestling Match — I don’t know why, but I’d love to see this. I think these guys would love it. Think of the publicity and TV cameras. They could put it on Pay Per View and donate the proceeds to charity. Or, as an alternative to arm wrestling, they could ski race!

Gift Cards/Certificates — If we’re living in a world where boxes of chocolate evaporate before New Year’s Day, I think gift cards should automatically turn into cash at the same time, so you at least have something of value to show for them.

It doesn’t cost anything to wish, but if you think any of this will come true, you’re dreaming!

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 4, 2007.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/010407.pdf?ref=smdp.com)