think the overall standard of broadcasting from the continuing tragedy that is Haiti has been remarkable. Working under poor and frustrating conditions, those who have been able to get to and broadcast their reports from Port au Prince have painted a picture with words and video that has been exceptional. Personally I have found myself wed to the CNN on the scene reporting. I can't draw a comparison with the cable team at Fox as I've not watched them for a couple of years. Have I missed anything enlightening?

Since her advance to becoming the CBS evening anchor I think Dianne Sawyer has done a superb job of combining style, experience, disarming charm and beauty, that will be hard for the other broadcast networks to challenge. I think she is truly outstanding.

Just checking the tally of those who have visited this website, I was delighted and somewhat surprised that yesterday we topped the one million mark. Not bad for an irregular series of journal reports, on a site unpublicized.

It is early, perhaps, to show interest in this thought, but I wonder what we'll end up calling this decade. We just might never come up with an appropriate name. We still haven't thought of what to call the years 2000-2009. No name has stuck; the naughts, oughts, pre-teens, whatever. Maybe the worst decade in memory would do for most who read this, wherever they may live. It was Honest Abe, President Lincoln himself, who said" The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time." That's fast enough!

Politics abroad. A question to which I assume the answer will be "yes". I'd place bet on it and await my winnings. Prime Minister Putin will declare, once again, for the presidency of Russia. That's in 2012.

How our world has changed. We used to fear the likes of the USSR and East Germany, of the whole communist bloc of nations, and Communist China, Now we are fearful of Yemen? How the mighty have fallen.

A thought for the TSA folk at the airport. Maybe if you continue to make flying less and less pleasant, they'll soon enough get the terrorists to give up on flying!

A question from me to you, and I'd really enjoy reading your responses. Simply stated, are we, the United States, to remain the world's prime super power? How do you see us and the world at this decade's end?

MORE TOMORROW