We survived WikiLeaks, BP’s Gulf of Mexico crude spillcam from April to mid-July, leaked phone rants which showed us a dark side of Mel Gibson and ash escaping from that Icelandic volcano with the catchy name, Eyjafjallajokull. Leak that!
The BP spill leaves us an 80-mile “kill zone” where scientists say oil settled and destroyed virtually all life except CEO Tony Hayward. He got his life back, although not by May 30. One calami-tea party after another, except here in the Jack, where we offset spills with thrills from Herman’s Hermits and Judy Ivey.
What the Beatles have in common with the Tea Party: David Von Drehle wrote in Time, “Identifying with the movement was like catching Beatlemania in the 1960s. People were drawn in for different reasons — the beat, the haircuts, the lyrics — and great gulfs of taste divided the John fans from the Paul fans, the George fans from the Ringo fans. Smashing success broke the Beatles apart. As 2010 closes, there is no bigger question in U.S. politics than whether the Tea Party will go the same way.”
That’s easy: yeah, yeah, yeah!
Los 33, the Chilean miners who survived 70 days, gave us a rare happy ending in August.
Snooki had everyone talking about Guidos and Guidettes for stereotypical Italian Americans on “Jersey Shore.” I mention the 4-foot-9 troll doll whose 15 minutes are way up here because she’s Chilean, too.
Time lavishes 24 pages with six color photos of the Santa Clara server center on Person of the Year Mark Zuckerberg, 26, as though the editors need to convince themselves. Sure, he connected people into a virtual confederation larger than any country but China and India, but I find it most interesting Facebook’s logo is blue because he’s color blind and that he was born in 1984 — same year Apple launched Macintosh computers.
I must say, he seems more affable and normal than his portrayal in “The Social Network.”
He started Facebook in February 2004 from his Harvard dorm room. Now one of every dozen people on Earth has an account.
They speak 75 languages. Its growing by 700,000 folks a day and should reach 1 billion in August 2012. God save the queen, she’s even on Facebook, closing in on 600 million users. Call me anti-social, but I could never come up with the requisite average of 150 friends, then there’s narcissism, voyeurism and the fact Facebook has more information on its citizens than any government. FBI Director Robert Mueller pops up in their offices in Palo Alto!
In the supreme irony of 2010, Timelier choice Julian Assange complains about his police report of sexual assault allegations being leaked.
It’s also ironic that one is the flip side of the other. Zuckerberg lets individuals voluntarily forfeit their privacy in the name of empowerment. The Australian terrorizes big institutions by imposing transparency. I loved that WikiLeaks in December 2006 reached out to Vietnam whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, but received no reply. In those slow-moving days, it took almost a year to photocopy 7,000 pages of Pentagon papers and another year to get excerpts published.
“Leak” doesn’t do justice to document dumps with universal broadcast of voluminous archives — almost half a million documents, including cables with chagrined diplomats blabbing out of school that will eventually total 251,287 and replace sharing begun after 9/11 with secrecy.
While the media condemn Assange and argue public service journalism versus espionage, they gobble up every morsel.
Best idea: “Lobbyists have to digest pending legislation and feed it to our Congresspersons so they’ll know how to vote? Why do we need Congress then? Why not turn the government over to business and industry and cut out the middlemen?”
This year’s girl: Sarah Palin might have threepeated, but I refudiate her bid for taking Kate Gosselin camping. Instead, Fame Monster Lady Gaga, 24. Stefani Germanotta’s “Bad Romance” lodged in my head — especially coupled with its disturbing video.
“Paparazzi” comments on our obsession with celebrities.
“Telephone” is a 9 1/2-minute clip with Beyonce. At 7 million, she’s got a million more Twitter followers than, oh, the President of the United States. Gaga’s famed meat frock lives on as jerky. Bruce Willis wears a ground beef toupee on Letterman.
Honorable mention: Mother Nature. Haiti’s earthquake killed 230,000 in January. Monsoons left 20 percent of Pakistan underwater. It was too warm in Canada to make ice for the Winter Olympics. Even cable pooh-poohers of climate change set up Extreme Weather Centers.
Maybe Obama’s popularity pales compared to Gaga, but he’s still got his bully pulpit. When he jokes of hosting a post-beer “Slurpee Summit” with Republican leaders in Congress, 7 Eleven rushes out Purple for the People (grape), not ice tea.
This year’s boy toy: It seemed like 10 minutes after People anointed Ryan Reynolds Sexiest Man Alive, he and Scarlett Johansson were kaput.
Cathy Guisewite, 60, ended her Cathy comic strip and divorced two months later.
At some point Elisabeth Moss, 28, of Mad Men married Saturday Night Live’s President
Obama, Fred Armisen, 44.
When doesn’t matter because it lasted all of 10 months.
Al and Tipper Gore, 62, split after 40 years.
Next year’s nostalgia: Miley Cyrus. Parents Billy Ray and Tish split in October. Hannah Montana caught smoking the herb salvia with a bong.
Bills wide receiver Steve Johnson blames God for dropping a touchdown against the Steelers.
Wonder who the Big Guy will hold responsible down here for fads such as Vuvuzelas (those annoying three-foot plastic horns from the soccer World Cup in South Africa) and Silly Bandz rubber bracelets.
Gone but not forgotten: Elizabeth Edwards, Ron Santo, Leslie Nielsen, Gary Coleman, Richard Holbrooke, Alex Chilton of The Boxtops and Big Star, Don Meredith, Bob Feller, Elaine Kaufman (Dowagiac visitors Kurt Vonnegut, George Plimpton and Norman Mailer hung out in her Manhattan Italian restaurant), Doug Fieger of the Knack, George Steinbrenner, Dixie Carter, John Forsythe, Dennis Hopper, Jill Clayburgh, Corey Haim, Alexander Haig, Tony Curtis, Rue McClanahan, Herb Phillipson, Lynn Redgrave, Tom Bosley, Mitch Miller, Manute Bol, Barbara Billingsley, Zelda Rubenstein, Jimmy Dean, John Wooden, Lena Horne, Pernell Roberts, Malcolm McLaren, Arthur Penn, Congressmen John Murtha and Charlie Wilson, Sen. Robert Byrd, Bobby Thomson, Peter Graves, Eddie Fisher, J.D. Salinger, Art Linkletter, Robert Culp, Greg Giraldo, murdered Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen (who left an estate valued at more than $6 million!), Stieg Larsson (who despite dying in 2004 flourishes with a trilogy of crime bestsellers), Bob Probert, Merlin Olsen, Ernie Harwell, Sparky Anderson, Ralph Houk, Ron Kramer, Robin Roberts, Juan Antonio Samaranch, Willie Davis, Rob Lytle, Dorothy Kamenshek (inspired Dottie in “A League of Their Own”), George Blanda, Jim Bibby, Jack Tatum, Mike Cuellar, Tom Brookshier and Sports Illustrated 1970s baseball writer Ron Fimrite.
Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq we don’t hear much about kill 547 more American men and women for a death toll exceeding 5,800 since 2001.
Obama extends the mission to 2014.
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