I’m terrible with predictions—especially about the future. But this is really only a matter of particulars. I’ve always gotten the Big Picture right. Indeed, one benefit of living in the Kali Yuga is predictability. As Andy and Alex have quipped, in the first days of the year, one can safely prophesy that . . . no drumroll, please . . .

• The coming annum will include more race and/or homosexual scandals in which a major celebrity is forced to “apologize.”

• More debt will be added to the pile.

• The racial education, achievement, and IQ gaps will persist, despite the latest efforts.

• The Culture Industry of the United States will produce a new zonked-out mulatto or good-girl-gone-bad chanteuse, whose auto-tuned artifacts will be so tasteless, so bereft of all redeeming value, that one will sincerely wish that the universe would soon be put out of its misery.

And that’s just January!

But since I conceived these predictions in the festive atmosphere New Year’s eve—and since no one has really held me to account for my wrong predictions of New Year’s past—let me throw out three particulars.