Earth, January 2009, or Coletta Factor: new BSG, or why didn't anyone throw shoes 5 years ago when it mattered?

On Earth, in this month of January 2009, Dualla found the end of her journey; she found a last perfect night with Apollo, then Felix Gaeta found her brains on the wall. Kara Thrace found her long-dead doppelganger, the burning of which upon a funeral pyre did precious little to mitigate the existential maelstrom into which she was thrown. The Chief found a shadow, the Pyramid star found a fragment of his guitar, Saul found a memory of Ellen, and Gaius Baltar found seeming proof that we, here and now, are Cylons, destined to die and be found in the distant future by the 12 lost tribes of Humanity. The Old Man and the Schoolteacher, each on their own, looked backwards at their journeys and found nothing but emptiness.

On Earth, on this 20th day of January 2009, the washed-up cowboy rode off into the sunset. Everyone was happy to see him go, no tears were shed except those of happiness for the closing of the darkest chapter of history in most of our lifetimes, and the beginning of a new era of wisdom, forethought, integrity, and true compassion. You could not see the crowd on the mall in the shot of Bush's helicopter leaving Washington, but I like to think that if we could have seen it, we would have seen 2 million people throwing shoes at the deposed decider. Thanks for Katrina, Iraq, 9/11, Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, warrantless wiretapping, the Patriot Act, Dick frakkin' Cheney, "freedom fries," the global gag rule, the new Depression, the legions of fanatical enemies of America that you created by meeting the ravings of a megalomaniacal murderer with more of the same.