ow that we’ve done our cheery “Happy New Year” greetings, it’s time to get more serious. I’m a boomer. In my lifetime, I can’t remember a new year beginning with such dire warnings and grim outlook. This morning, the UK’s The Telegraph reports that Americans bought record numbers of guns last month amid an apparent surge in popularity for weapons as Christmas presents. Another UK paper, Daily Mail, is grimmer still. Dominic Sandbrook writes that a “loss of faith in politicians and democracy could make 2012 the most frightening year in living memory.” Sandbrook goes as far as to compare...