It's been rough in the most literal sense of the word, let alone in more figurative ways

I guess you wouldn't come to a blog called Late in the Day looking for hefty doses of sunshine. Frankly, besides hardcore statists, who have the momentum of the tide of events on their side, do you know anyone who is, here in late December 2011, sashaying through his daily life on a gust of everything-is-going-to-be-dandy-ism? If so, do him or her the kindness of passing along the phone number of a competent therapist.

There are several levels on which we can mark the steady, continued deterioration of Western civilization throughout 2011, and most of them are regularly monitored by specialists in those areas. For the cultural rot that continues unabated, there is Brent Bozell at the Media Research Center. For the hair-raising level of indebtedness and profligate government spending which assures a future worse than that of Greece, there is Mark Steyn and Mike Shedlock. For the advanced stage of the encroachment of sharia and jihad, there's Andrew McCarthy and Pam Geller. For the continued astronomically costly obsession among far too many in our society with the non-existent trouble that "the planet" is in, there is Climate Depot.

What is left that LITD might focus on and in the course of so doing offer some kind of fresh insight?

For all the above aspects of our current juncture, I'd say that a clear sociocultural theme that emerges when one surveys 2011 is a plain breakdown in basic public order.

There was the rash of fast-food-restaurant beat-downs early in the year. There was the near-riot at an Alabama amusement park in June over a reduced-admission promotion. There were the flash-mob robberies of convenience stores. There was the Independence Day riot at a Peoria housing project when some residents decided to put on a large-scale fireworks display and when police moved in to to tell them to knock it off, got the fireworks turned on them. There was the clearly-racially-motivated riot at the Wisconsin State Fair, There was the unrest outside a George Clinton concert in Cleveland. More recently, there was the melee at Minnesota's Mall of America when rumors of Lil Wayne's presence spread throughout a crowd of hooligans.

And that's just the outbreaks of a general kind (although, as I say, some of these situations did indeed have racial overtones).

There were also labor-union conflagrations. The most noteworthy of these was the sit-in at the Wisconsin state capitol in Madison by teacher-union activists that went on for weeks. What a fine example these erudite educators were setting for their young charges by screaming for government largesse that, as Governor Walker tried to explain pretty much every day, simply wasn't there, due to the state's deficit, camping out in the capitol rotunda, and getting forged doctor slips. There was also the shutdown of the Longview, Washington shipping port in September by longshoremen's union thugs.
If one wants to expand the examination of this phenomenon to the West in general, the riots in Athens and London provide ample material.

Then, of course, there is the Occupy Wall Street movement, which brings together a number of elements present in much of the year's mayhem: spoiled white college kids (ironically, there was very little participation by blacks or other ethnic minorities), the dreadlock-tie-dye-bong-and-drum-circle crowd looking for a party, determined socialist operatives who were orchestrating matters behind the scenes, Jew-hating jihadists, and garden-variety drifters who were mainly looking for free meals and girls to molest.

Look back over all the above-enumerated developments (including the ones for which I've included specialists' links) and then ask yourself if the slip in our level of civilization is a mere hiccup - an unfortunate but momentary lowering of our expectations of ourselves as citizens of an advanced society. Is that what it really looks like to you? Or is the re-attainment of the heights we achieved in the middle of the last century less than likely?

I'm not without at least a faint glimmer of optimism. That residual reserve is not based on any evidence that would justify it. It's just that a human being without any hope that some solution to a dilemma he's facing would shut down and collapse in a heap of inertia. Not me. Apparently I'm not there yet, because I can readily say there is a lot of stuff I want to accomplish in 2012.

That said, I'm not operating under any illusions. I - and everyone else with intentions, ambitions, goals and dreams - will be conducting my affairs in an atmosphere best described as accelerated entropy in the year ahead.