Jerry’s Predictions
2011 will bring changes beyond imagination
by Jerry Diethelm

In the year 2011 you will once again be astounded by the changes that only a few short years ago would have seemed impossible — beyond imagining. Yet here they are:

1. Contrary to recent trends, people who are actually qualified will run for public office.

2. A political climate change will occur in Art Robinson after he injests massive amounts of vitamin C.

3. A home-grown Wikileaks will out EWEB, shockingly revealing that the Seneca Biomass energy contract had been negotiated by environmentally neutered Enron elves.

4. Phil Knight will seed the clouds over Glendale, Arizona, Jan. 10 in order to swoosh the odds in Oregon’s favor, causing Auburn to slip and slide ingloriously into a silver second place finish behind our well-oiled and winged golden Ducks.

5. Jobs will miraculously return to Oregon on a green La Nina tide.

6. Barack Obama will receive a grizzly prayer rug from Sarah Palin.

7. The very rich and very poor will lie down together with the lions and the lambs under the supervision of the FDA.

8. Eugene politics will have become so dull as to require reinventing Bonny Bettman.

9. Many congressional Tea Party electees will wake up and smell the coffee after being served lapsang souchong.

10. EW will buy out the dying R-G, becoming the highly Re-Guarded Eugene Weekly.

11. EWEB will continue to increase its water infill systems development charges as an incentive to greater infilling on the fringe.

12. Rusty Rexius will move to the left of Kevin Matthews and become completely oxidized.

13. Jerry Rust won’t.

14. The Chadwick 70 will become so enamored with one another that they will intermarry, travel together and forget all about needing to re-establish Eugene’s modern UGB. Their email billet doux will appear in the local media as Chad-Wikileaks.

15. Don’t tell, but a Potemkin village not asked will tumble, revealing bigotry as prudence.

16. Certain public officials will continue to struggle to remove 200 feet from their mouths.

17. The Pentagon will shift from swords to multi-million dollar ploughshares and discover that peak oil doesn’t mean to just take a quick look at it.

18. Making the world safe for political, economic and religious imperialism will lose some of its appeal.

19. Endless War and The End of Days will at last fall on their ends.

20. Eugene will save its post office, acquire an art museum and at last restore its Millrace.

21. Betty Taylor will win Dancing With the Stars.

22. Skidoo!

Jerry Diethelm of Eugene is an architect, landscape architect and a planning and urban design consultant.