Dick Clark will be returning to Times Square this New Year’s Eve. Even though the title of Clark’s annual broadcast, Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, hasn’t been strictly accurate in years — how much rocking can you really do with musical guests like Kool & the Gang? — Clark on New Year’s is an institution, and I, for one, missed seeing him last year. I know he can’t last forever, despite all the jokes about him being an android; the linked article notes that Ryan “I have lousy taste in clothes and no discernable charisma” Seacrest is warming up to take over for Clark permanently. There’ll be a time, probably not too distant now, when Dick Clark will be just one more old-school pop-cultural reference that garners blank stares from the whippersnappers. But in the meantime, I really hope ol’ Dick’s got a few more New Year’s broadcasts left in him. We have so little continuity in our society these days, so few common points of reference, that we need to prolong the careers of our cheesy, beloved, old TV hosts as long as we possibly can…