Well, Maybe 1 More Look at 2007

With everything going on with the caucuses, I haven't had a chance until now to check out Dave Barry's take on 2007. As usual, Dave Barry takes the events that we somehow survived & puts them into, if not the proper perspective, a perspective that only his mind could reveal to us. & often 1 that is saner than the reality he is discussing.

So, what did 2007 turn out to be? "In short, 2007 was a year of deep gloom, pierced occasionally by rays of even deeper gloom." I'd say that sums it up pretty well.

Having just survived the Iowa Caucuses I'd say he sums up the campaign so far fairly well: "It was year in which roughly 17,000 leading presidential contenders, plus of course Dennis Kucinich, held roughly 63,000 debates, during which they spewed out roughly 153 trillion words; and yet the only truly memorable phrase emitted in any political context was ``Don't tase me, Bro!''"

& while "It was a year filled with bizarre, insane, destructive behavior, an alarming amount of which involved astronauts." he did find some bright spots. Among them:

"Several courageous members of the U.S. Congress -- it could be as many as a dozen -- decided, incredibly, not to run for president."

Also: "Apple released the iPhone, which, as we understand it, enables users to fly, cure cancer, read minds and travel through time."

& above all: "Dick Cheney did not shoot anybody, as far as we know."

"But other than that, 2007 was a disaster." At least he remains optimistic about things.

So what happenned in 2007 that made him so upbeat?

In January: "As the debate over Iraq intensifies, the eyes of a worried nation turn to another trouble spot: New York City, where Donald Trump and Rosie O'Donnell are locked in a bitter high-stakes battle to determine who is the bigger horse's ass. After meeting with both sides, a visibly shaken Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reports that Trump's hair ''is exactly the same color as a Cheez-It.'' "

& as things escalate in February: "In another increasingly tense international arena, the U.N. Security Council sends 1,000 peacekeeping troops to New York City in an effort to quell Rosie O'Donnell, who repels them by shouting."

April does see some good news on this front: "Rosie O'Donnell announces that she will leave the TV show The View to pursue a career making bizarre statements on the Internet. Although O'Donnell claims her departure is amicable, insiders say she tried to oust Barbara Walters as the show's producer, a move that Walters was able to repel by blasting the outspoken comedienne with 150,000 cubic feet of hair spray, which, for Barbara, is nearly a two-day supply."

But everything in 2007 is not "Rosie". There is the debate about immigration. In May "the Senate, after months of secret negotiations, releases its comprehensive immigration reform plan, under which immigrants would earn points toward becoming U.S. citizens by having basic citizenship skills such as being able to do the Electric Slide and place an order at Starbucks. To placate conservatives, the plan also calls for a 300-mile fence to be constructed around Rosie O'Donnell." (Well, maybe just a little bit.)

By June "the U.S. Senate discovers that its comprehensive immigration reform bill, despite having been painstakingly crafted behind closed doors by veteran bill-crafters, is unpopular with a segment of the U.S. population defined as ''the public.'' The Senate responds swiftly, dropping the immigration issue like a bag of rat sputum and returning to its traditional role of funding large unnecessary projects in West Virginia named after Robert Byrd."

Speaking of hot air, in July we find that "On the environmental front, the big story is Al Gore's ''Live Earth,'' a massive rock concert in which more than 150 music acts perform at 11 locations around the world to fight global warming, which is swiftly brought to its knees." Things don't cool down 1 bit in August. " On the weather front, the nation is gripped by a heat wave. This has happened pretty much every August since the dawn of human civilization, but it totally stuns the news media."

Meanwhile, back at the real source of all the hot air: "In politics, the leading Democratic and Republican contenders for president, having failed to draw much of an audience for their previous debates, experiment with new formats. The Republicans hold a ''Charades Debate,'' during which Mike Huckabee injures his shoulder attempting to mime his plan for tax reform; the Democrats fare little better in their ''West Side Story Rumble Debate,'' which ends early when a switchblade-wielding John Edwards ''accidentally'' stabs Hillary Clinton in her pantsuit. Despite the excitement, both debates get lower TV ratings than a rerun of the Ducks-Senators Stanley Cup final."

September does see a little increase in interest in the campaign when "Fred Thompson, ending months of speculation, formally declares that he has a hot wife." By October "the race for the Democratic nomination heats up during a nationally televised debate when John Edwards and Barack Obama, in what political observers view as a thinly veiled attack on Hillary Clinton, repeatedly raise the issue of ankle size."

By the time we reach November "the presidential contenders start to show signs of emotional wear during their debates, as exemplified by Mitt Romney's decision, following a heated exchange on trade policy, to whip out a Sharpie and write a bad word on Rudy Giuliani's forehead. The mood is equally testy on the Democratic side, where Bill Richardson, in the role of peacekeeper, has to physically restrain Hillary Clinton from repeatedly striking Barack Obama with Dennis Kucinich."

& by December "the race for the presidency becomes even more riveting than it already was, if such a thing is possible. On the Democratic side, a major spate of snippiness erupts when Barack Obama suggests that Hillary Clinton is more ambitious than he is. In response, Clinton's campaign, showing the wacky sense of humor it is famous for, releases documents showing that Obama thought about running for president when he was in kindergarten. Obama's campaign retaliates by releasing a sonogram allegedly showing that Clinton was running for president in the womb. (I am making only some of this up.)"

Things are no less quiet on the Republican side. "Mitt Romney seeks to defuse the religion issue by making a major speech in which -- echoing the words of John F. Kennedy -- he declares that he is a Catholic. But the big story on the GOP side is former senator or governor of some state Mike (or possibly Bob) Huckabee, who surges ahead in the polls because (a) nobody knows anything about him, and (b) it's fun to say ''Huckabee.'' Huckabee Huckabee Huckabee."

But not everything is politics. "In sports, a wildly unpredictable season of college football, marked by a slew of upsets, ends with the Bowl Championship Series computer awarding the final No. 1 ranking to Bryn Mawr. The Owls will play the BCS computer's No. 2 ranked team, Vassar, for the 2007 national championship in the Sugar Bowl, scheduled to be played, because of TV-marketing requirements, next July."

As bad as 2007 was "we have to face the fact that 2008, being a leap year, will have a whole extra day of alarming events."

Taken from: Dave Barry's year in review

From iPhones to Anna Nicole to O.J., 2007 ends with humor

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Dave Barry is definitely 1 of America's funniest living authors. Although sometimes it is a wonder that he isn't locked up in a padded cell somewhere. However I stand by my earlier statement about him being saner than many of the events he looks at, so maybe that explains why he is still on the lose.

In September of 2007 he released another new book, DAVE BARRY'S HISTORY OF THE MILLENNIUM (SO FAR). It is a collection of his annual year in review columns from 2000 to 2006. 2001 is the only year he didn't write a review. That was because of how soon after 9/11 he would have had to write it, so it is understandable why he didn't. He even took it on himself to look back on the recently passed 2nd Millenium to help us see how we got to where we are today.

I recently finished reading it. I enjoy it immensely. It is filled with gems of wit about the foibles that are ours collectively (& individually) as inhabitants of planet Earth. The book is well worth reading, if only to give yourself a chance to take your mind off of 2008's alarming events. Is it Pulitzer Prize material? He thinks so. & he may just be right.