On this date – SPECIAL EDITION – Year in Review…

Just when we thought it would never end, 2010 is finally wrapping up.

I took a short break from my On This Date segments to take a look back over 2010. It was a year of superlatives – dramatic, tragic, ridiculous, hilarious, and mind-boggling. As a society we took giant steps – both forward and backward… and a couple of bizarre leaps sideways as well. We lost some giants, learned some new words (like vuvuzela and refudiate), and we showed that, despite vast ideological differences, we could come together as a nation, united, as one, an entire people unable to get Pants On The Ground out of our collective heads.

It’s been said that we can’t move into the future without an understanding of the past… so let’s begin, as most years do, with…

JANUARY

Some amazing things happened early in the year. Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad. Dances With Smurfs 3D passed Titanic as the highest-grossing movie of all time. The double-rainbow video first appeared on YouTube. The US Supreme Court ruled that corporations, unions, circuses, cults, and alien supervillains could spend unlimited money on US political campaigns, fulfilling Abraham Lincoln’s dream of a “government of the people, for the people, and by the rich guys who did this to us in the first place.”

There were also some tragic occurrences. The Waterford Crystal factory in Kilbarry, Ireland closed its doors. JD Salinger moved on to play catch in some rye in the next life. The Number Resource Organisation warned that we’re running out of IP addresses.

But the biggest tragedy was the 7.0 earthquake that mauled the island nation of Haiti. This quake, its many aftershocks, and the resultant cholera outbreak continue to wreak havoc across that nation. But then the Haitian people also had to hear televangelist and model for one of the two grumpy old muppets, Pat Robertson, blame the quake on a pact with Lindsay Lohan. To add insult to grievous injury, more than a BILLION DOLLARS of promised American aid was held up by a completely different bitter old rich white guy.

Fortunately, Haiti did get a bit of a break in…

FEBRUARY

…when the G7 agreed to write off Haiti’s debts. Unfortunately, more giant earthquakes hit – in Japan, Indonesia, Turkey, and an 8.8 monster in Chile.

We took Beyonce’s advice: we liked it, so we put a Grammy on it. China celebrated the coming of the Year of the Tiger – and a couple of days later, Tiger Woods apologized publicly for getting caught. Costa Rica made history by electing Laura Chinchilla president – the first female world leader to be named after a rodent since the 18th century reign of Czarina Anastasia Marmot.

This was a good month for sports. The Saints beat the Colts in SuperBowl RomanNumeral, and the Winter Olympics were held in Vancouver. One of these events had the entire country muttering drunkenly “Who Dat?”, but I can’t seem to remember which one…

Which takes us to…

MARCH

Burt Reynolds underwent quintuple coronary artery bypass surgery while chewing gum really fast in a black 70s-era Trans Am. Robert Culp, Fess Parker, & Peter Graves followed Corey Haim on his last vampire hunt. President Obama signed the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act into law, which got some folks’ goats. Other folks’ goats are gotten when 24 is canceled.

Speaking of Jack Bauer wannabes, human Cabbage Patch Kid Karl Rove continued to
publicly defend the practice of waterboarding, saying “It’s OK, as long as we’re the ones doing it!”…which sounds like something someone would say on the first day of…

APRIL

…but it wasn’t. In fact, there was a lot in April that I wished were jokes.

Dixie Carter went on to the eternal design studio.

In the national disaster department, there were more earthquakes, hitting Mexico, Maluku Islands, Taiwan, Sumatra, China, Solomon Islands, and Spain. An Iranian cleric named Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi did his best Pat Robertson impression and blamed the glut of earthquakes on promiscuous women. And along with the quakes, Eyjafjallajökull, a volcano in Iceland, threw some major temper tantrums, along with way too many letters.

Showing that Mother Nature ain’t the only destructive force in the world, the Deepwater
Horizon oil platform exploded in the Gulf of Mexico.

Super genius Stephen Hawking warned the world about the dangers of contacting aliens. Jan Brewer, the governor of Arizona completely misunderstood what Hawking was talking about, and signed the “You vill now show us your papers” bill into law.

And my favorite story of April – it’s revealed that dollar bill spokesmodel and popular Founding Father George Washington owes over $300,000 for overdue library books he checked out five months into his presidency. Upon this revelation, certain members of the Tea Party movement condemned Washington for being an elitist because “he read books.”

As it turned out, there was still a whole lot o’ shakin’ goin’ on in…

MAY

…with earthquakes in Algeria, Puerto Rico, and another in Sumatra. No one is surprised when the containment chamber BP put in to stop the gulf spill failed – but a few are surprised when someone in Congress suggested BP try a border fence.

In other epic fails, the Texas Education Agency decided to advocate some significant changes in our students’ textbooks, like dropping the philosophies of Thomas Jefferson, suggesting public education is evil, and changing the name of the slave trade to The Wacky Vacation In The New World Initiative. And somehow Iran was nominated to join the UN Commission on the Status of Women.

In other news, our Gracious Overlord Google put Pac-Man up on its home page, resulting in the loss of almost five million man-hours of productivity in the US alone. Eventually Google outsourced the Pac-Man playing, and we all got back to work.

President Obama nominated Elena Kagan to sing in the Supremes. Lost went off the air, Dennis Hopper, Art Linkletter, and Gary Coleman loosed this mortal coil, and Lena Horne finally found a place where the color of her skin doesn’t matter.

The world just kept on shakin’ its booty in…

JUNE

…with more earthquakes in Indonesia & Mexico. And those weren’t the only shake-ups: Internet creator Al Gore and wife Tipper announced their separation, and original contributor to the Code of Hammurabi, Helen Thomas, retired after some glib remarks about Israel.

Rue McClanahan became truly golden.

In sporting news, the longest tennis match in history finally ended in Wimbledon, after more than 11 hours. And the FIFA World Cup opened in South Africa, an event that introduced the world to one of the most annoying sounds in the history of the world: Christine O’Donnell telling us that she is not a witch.

And in part of one of the largest stories in years, SPC Bradley Manning was named the alleged source of some of the WikiLeaks documents and videos, and was held in Kuwait for more than a month without any charges being filed. When the public finally found out in…

JULY

… Manning was eventually officially charged. Possibly as a response, WikiLeaks released some 92,000 documents detailing previously unreported killings of Afghan civilians, and other war-related incidents. Ten people pled guilty to being a part of a Russian spy ring, and were deported in a prisoner exchange, along with two second-round draft picks. Wyclef Jean announced his plan to run for president of Haiti, Goldman Sachs, and the New York Yankees.

You think that’s all of the people do dumb things news? HA! LeBron James put on an hour-long TV special to tell the world that he had a heat rash. Audio tapes of Mel Gibson’s brain meltdowns were made public. Investigators discovered that alarms on the Deepwater Horizon had been disabled BEFORE the explosion and subsequent oil spill. Spanky Ahmadinejad announced that Iran plans to launch a manned shuttle into space by 2019, about as long as it will take them to find space. Ellen declared that one year of American Idol was enough. And Sarah Palin got even more attention by tweeting the word refudiate. She tried to say it was a simple typo, evidently forgetting that her entire life is a reality TV show and is therefore filmed – including an earlier appearance on Hannity where she used the word without having to read it off her hand. It did, however, put to rest the idea that someone on her staff was writing her tweets for her.

After Moscow records its hottest temperature in history, things continue to heat up in…

AUGUST

…where the BP spill passed five million barrels, becoming the largest man-made disaster since Prohibition.

The international community finally began to notice – and condemn – the way that France has been treating the Roma people. Miss Mexico won the Miss Universe title, and was immediately pulled over in Arizona. Wyclef Jean immediately volunteered to step in and fill her shoes. The media failed at life by giving coverage to a buffoon in Florida who vowed to burn copies of the Qu’ran on September 11. Glenn Beck held a revival on the National Mall. Not to be outdone, Steven Slater threw a revival of his own, and then slid down the JetBlue ramp.

Thirty four miners trapped underground in Chile started to gain international attention – while thousands killed and tens of thousands missing or displaced by earthquakes in China, and tens of thousands killed and millions affected by floods in Pakistan escaped the notice of most of us. And of course there were more earthquakes – in Australia, Ecuador, Guam, and Iran.

But it’s not all bleak. President Obama announced the end of combat missions in Iraq. A US district court ruled Proposition 8 unconstitutional. And the World Health Organization announced that after some 18,000 deaths, the worst of the H1N1 pandemic is over.

The shake & bake continued in…

September

…with another earthquake, this time in New Zealand.

A US district court ruled that the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy violates constitutional rights. The buffoon in Florida vowed to never burn the Qu’ran. The UN finally asked for more than $2 billion in aid for the victims of the flooding in Pakistan – their biggest response yet to a natural disaster.

Speaking of natural disasters, As The World Turns went off the air after 54 years.

And Stephen J Cannell went on to write the best A-Team episodes ever.

The hits didn’t stop in…

OCTOBER

…with more earthquakes – in Iran, France, Indonesia, and Mexico – and Los Angeles hit its all time highest temperature at 113F.

Greg Giraldo, Tony Curtis, and Tom Bosley went to hear Barbara Billingsley speak jive in the Airplane in the sky.

Stephen Colbert testified before a Congressional committee about the plight of migrant farmworkers, and then he joined Jon Stewart for the Rally To Celebrate Comedy Central as the Nation’s Top News Organization.

With that lead-in, our thoughts continued to focus on entertainment in…

NOVEMBER

…with the US midterm elections, where the Republicans took the House, the Democrats kept the Senate, and Wyclef Jean offered to run for Speaker. And if that’s not entertaining enough, there’s more! Conan returned to late night TV. Music from the Beatles was finally made available on iTunes. CERN trapped antihydrogen atoms. And the Texas Rangers made it to the World Series.

In Boys Will Be Boys news, President Obama took an elbow to the face in a basketball game, Prince William got engaged to a hottie, and Willie Nelson got busted for still not having glaucoma. Leslie Nielsen reminded us for the last time not to call him Shirley, and then it was time for…

DECEMBER

Congress remembered the holidays in time to extend benefits to unemployed Americans – in exchange for getting the ever-shrinking middle class to spit polish all the rich white guys’ cars. Those busy legislators tried to kill DREAMs, but they did repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, ratify the new strategic arms reduction treaty with Russia, and finally agree to help take care of the folks who were the first to rush into Ground Zero after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Officials in Oklahoma showed how they feel about their citizens by becoming the first state to execute people with pentobarbital – a drug used to euthanize animals. GM completed their $2.1 billion stock purchase from the US. Elton John became a dad on Christmas day. Kodachrome film was officially retired, making my dad very sad. Lisa Murkowski was finally declared the winner of the Senate race in Alaska. And Cuba commuted the sentence of their last death-row inmate.

In the world of irony, Dick Cheney and Halliburton paid $250 million to Nigeria to buy their way out of a corruption/bribery charge. And WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange complained when details about his alleged sexual crimes were leaked to the press.

Dandy Don Meredith took his last snap, and Blake Edwards finally got to have breakfast at Tiffany’s.

And the big story at the end of the year? The weather. The UN Climate Change Conference in Cancún ended pretty much in failure, and in the last days of 2010, America and Europe were rocked by blizzards. Atlanta had its first white Christmas in 128 years. The west was swamped, the midwest was covered, the southwest was blanketed, and the east was engulfed in the Snowpocalypse.

And so it ends – the year 2010. As I write this, I can see several inches of snow on the ground… but the sun is bright and the sky is a brilliant, vivid blue. I’m a member of the glass-half-full camp, so I believe that 2011 will be a better year overall, but 2010 was definitely memorable.

As one of my favorite theologians and philosophers, Dr. Seuss, said: “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”