Welcome back to the Year in Review. Today’s 4th installment is the top World events of the year…at least as seen through my eyes. I’m sure I missed plenty…and that I’ll put undue weight on some things while forgetting about others…but such is life!
10. The Republican Primary Reality TV Show: If you’ve paid attention at all to the news, you’ll know that the Republicans vying for President have spent all year on TV in a series of debates. You will also see that the poll numbers have jumped all over the place in general. The fickle masses have changed their support every month or so. When an idiot like Herman Cain became the front-runner, you knew this had turned into some freak side-show instead of a true Presidential Primary. One can only hope that the new year brings about a real Primary race, but who knows. The first primary of the year is only 4 days away, so things will start counting soon enough. We’ll see what happens.
9. Steve Jobs Dies: Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, passed away this year. Jobs’ innovations have completely changed the world. From all accounts, Jobs was a huge egomaniac and an impossible man to work for. He was kicked out of his own company in the 90s. Of course, Apple floundered without Jobs at the helm, and he was brought back. It was his reimagining of electronics as not only useful, but also trendy and a part of one’s lifestyle, that really turned Apple around. Everywhere you look (except in my room) you will see people on their iPads, iPods, iPhones, and MacBooks. These have become must-have items, and have changed the way the entire world uses technology in their daily lives. With his passing, a titan of the Silicon Valley has left us. But his legacy will live on for generations.
8. News of the World Saga: This almost seemed like something out of a crime drama. The News of the World was a national red top newspaper published in the United Kingdom from 1843 to 2011. It was at one time the biggest selling English language newspaper in the world, and at closure still had one of the highest English language circulations. From 2006, allegations of phone hacking began to engulf the newspaper. These culminated in the revelation on July 4, 2011 that, nearly a decade earlier, a private investigator hired by the newspaper had intercepted and deleted the voicemail of missing British teenager Milly Dowler, who was later found murdered. Amid a public backlash and the withdrawal of advertising, News International announced the closure of the newspaper on July 7, 2011. The scandal deepened when the paper was alleged to have hacked into the phones of families of British service personnel killed in action. I mean, this only scratches the surface of what went on at this newspaper…but deleting evidence in a murder trial is pretty over the top. Go read more about News of the World if you are interested…but one of the top circulating papers in the World to have to close due to corruption that ran this deep was definitely big news.
7. Tucson, AZ Shooting: U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords and eighteen other people were shot during a public meeting; six of those shot died, including Arizona Chief Judge John Roll and one of Rep. Giffords' staffers. The mass shooting occurred in a Safeway supermarket parking lot in Casas Adobes near Tucson, Arizona, on January 8, 2011. Giffords was holding a constituent meeting called "Congress on Your Corner" in the parking lot when Jared Lee Loughner drew a pistol and shot Giffords in the head, before firing on other people. One additional person was injured in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. The motives are unknown, and the assailant was found to be unfit to stand trial on mental grounds. Amazingly, Giffords has recovered from being shot in the head, which is quite simply a miracle.
6. Death of Kim Jong Il: This is one of the more recent events this year. Reports surfaced earlier this month that the Glorious Leader of North Korea had passed away. In April 2009, North Korea's constitution was amended to refer to him implicitly as the "supreme leader". He was also referred to as the "Dear Leader", "our Father", "the General", "Generalissimo", and "Glorious General Who Descended From Heaven and the Ever-Victorious Iron-Willed Commander", among others. He passed away from a heart attack while on a train ride. Kim Jong-Il was a brutal dictator of North Korea, and ruled the country with an iron fist. Relations between the country and the U.S. have been nonexistent. So, who knows, maybe Glorious Successor Kim Jong-Un will be more willing to work with the world. Maybe not. I do hear Kim Jong-Un is a Lakers fan, though…so maybe he’s reasonable. Either way, this development could have lasting effects on the foreign relations scene.
5. U.S. Economic Woes Continue: The U.S. is in bad shape economically. Our credit rating has been downgraded due to massive debt. The government seems completely unwilling to actually cut spending and get our financial house in order. Our debt will pass our entire GDP soon. Things are bad. People are handling it differently. There’s a group of people calling themselves the Occupy Movement that is holding live in protests. I don’t think they really know what, exactly, they are protesting…but they’re protesting! Some people are mad at the banks, some are mad at the corporations, some have other random agendas. I don’t really understand it. I think it’s just an excuse for unemployed hippies to go live in a park for a while. Corporations are cutting back on hiring and tightening their belts. Banks are giving giants bonuses to their executives. The Fed is printing money as it sees fit, and playing with our interest rates. It’s all just a huge mess. Until things are truly, really fixed…spending cut, revenue increased, stability achieved…things will continue down this path. Europe is currently showing us what will happen to us if we don’t figure out shit out. So far, the government and the Fed seem unwilling to learn.
4. Last U.S. Troops Leave Iraq: The Iraq War is officially over. U.S. presence in the country has come to an end. This is a good thing…we were spending way, way, way too much money there trying to prop them up. It’s time to see if Iraq’s new government can sink or swim. The Iraqi government seemed to think so too, as they were the ones who insisted on Obama sticking to Bush’s timeline for withdrawl, while Obama tried to extend it. And now Obama has the audacity to tout this as a promise kept. It’s only kept because you failed at trying to break it. Whatever. The point is…our troops are coming home, our government can stop wasting money over there, and a decade of U.S. presence in Iraq has come to an end. This is a good thing, and should be noted as such. Now, if we can just follow suit in Afghanistan…and not make the same mistakes in Iran and elsewhere.
3. Arab Spring: The Arab Spring, otherwise known as the Arab Awakening, is a revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests occurring in the Arab world that began late in 2010, but has really been a major event of 2011. To date, there have been revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt; a civil war in Libya resulting in the fall of its government; civil uprisings in Bahrain, Syria, and Yemen, the latter resulting in the resignation of the Yemeni prime minister; major protests in Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, and Oman; and minor protests in Lebanon, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Western Sahara. Quite the uprising in the region. Numerous factors have led to the protests, including issues such as dictatorship or absolute monarchy, human rights violations, government corruption, economic decline, unemployment, extreme poverty, and a number of demographic structural factors, such as a large percentage of educated but dissatisfied youth within the population. The catalysts for the revolts in all Northern African and Persian Gulf countries have been the concentration of wealth in the hands of autocrats in power for decades, insufficient transparency of its redistribution, corruption, and especially the refusal of the youth to accept the status quo. The uprisings have been rather successful too…as brutal dictators in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt have been overthrown. It’s a time of great instability in the Arab world, and one that bears keeping a very close eye on. What we have seen this year could have a very big impact on our world over the next decades.
2. Death of Osama bin Laden: We finally did it. A decade after the World Trade Tower fell, the man responsible for the carnage has been brought to justice. Turns out he had been hiding in a town in Pakistan, in his own fortress, very, very near the main army training base for the country. Obama green-lit an incursion by Navy Seals (Seal Team Six), who swooped in and attacked Osama’s fortress. They demanded he surrender, he ran and shot at them…the coward also threw his wives behind him as human shields. What filth. So, the Seal Team shot him. That means there is actually someone out there who IS THE MAN WHO SHOT OSAMA BIN LADEN! That man is a true hero. The U.S. disposed of the body at sea, and treated his body in accordance with all Islamic customs. They did not want his body to be around as a rallying point, or to be mourned as a martyr. Well played. This was pretty huge, since we’d been apparently looking for this dude for a decade. He was the reason we were in Afghanistan to begin with. And now he’s been brought to justice. Hopefully this signals the end of a decade of foreign wars and we can focus more on getting our own house in order now. Still, the day Osama died was a great day for all of America, and, indeed, the World.
1. Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami: A magnitude 9.0 undersea megathrust earthquake off the coast of Japan that occurred at 2:46pm JST on Friday March 11, 2011 centered approximately 43 miles east of the Oshika Peninsula of Tōhoku and at an underwater depth of approximately 20 miles. It was the most powerful known earthquake ever to have hit Japan, and one of the five most powerful earthquakes in the world overall since modern record-keeping began in 1900. The earthquake triggered powerful tsunami waves, which reached heights of up to 133 feet in Miyako in Tōhoku's Iwate Prefecture, and which in the Sendai area travelled up to 6 miles inland. The Japanese National Police Agency confirmed 15,842 deaths, 5,890 injured, and 3,485 people missing across eighteen prefectures, as well as over 125,000 buildings damaged or destroyed. The earthquake and tsunami caused extensive and severe structural damage in Japan, including heavy damage to roads and railways as well as fires in many areas, and a dam collapse. Early estimates placed insured losses from the earthquake alone at US$14.5 to $34.6 billion. The earthquake moved Honshu 8 feet east and shifted the Earth on its axis by estimates of between 4 inches and 10 inches. So, yeah, pretty ridiculous earthquake. Not sure much more needs to be said about this one. It was an immeasurable catastrophe, one that will change Japan forever.
And that's it. Did I forget anything, feel free to list them below. Just one more day left in the Year in Review...the Personal Review. Tune in tomorrow to see how awesome (or not) my year was! Cheers!
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