The election brought a spade of bad news but surely there must be some good things that came out of it. It’s a stretch to come up with any but since we need to stay in a positive frame of mind, here are some highlights.

• Barack Obama was elected to the Senate. This guy is a rising star. He electrified everyone with his keynote speech at the Democratic Convention and has a bright future ahead of him. The first African American President? We shall see.
  
• California voters passed a resolution allocating state funds for stem cell research. Credit goes to Arnold Schwarzenegger for being a solid advocate of stem cells, despite his Republican affiliation.
  
• Ralph Nader was not a factor in the presidential outcome. With less than 1% of the vote, his days as a spoiler are over.

And yeah, that’s about it. Not much good news after all. But in some non-election good news, Yasser Arafat is dying. I hate to take pleasure at someone’s suffering but Arafat is a terrorist who posed for years as a statesman. It will be good riddance when he is gone.

Now the election is over and life can go back to normal, as exemplified by comfort TV viewings of "Lost", "The O.C." and "The Simpsons." "Shrek 2" is out on DVD today and Netflix is currently mailing it to me. Thoughts of the baseball offseason have begun with Willie Randolph’s appointment as Mets manager. And the city has plenty of social stuff coming up for me too. But if anyone wants to form a secession movement of blue states, please let me know.