Wednesday, December 30, 2020

Holiday Post 2020: What the heck happened?

Before we go on, let me take a moment to look at what I wrote for this post back in 2019.

From the 2019 post: 

"To be honest, I was not going to do the news roundup/what the heck happened for this past year given the clusterfuck that 2019 was; 2020 is not looking better in the big picture. However, I had some good items in my RSS feed that I had put aside that are on the lighter side of things. I figured it would be a waste not to write the post and share them. Besides, as a good Puerto Rican, the holidays are still on for me, Three Kings Day (January 6) was this past Monday, and the octavitas are still going, so we are good to keep going. Let's see what the heck happened on in the lighter side of things, I will add some comments and thoughts here and there, and say goodbye to 2019 once and for all.'

So I was already a bit iffy and had a not so good feeling about 2020 even before the pandemic hit. Keep in mind the last four years have been a mess capped by the hellscape that was 2020. I think my four readers can agree that we are all more than ready to leave 2020 behind. For me, as I have noted before, the holidays go on well into January, so I am doing my best to be festive. Like last year, I think I will my best to keep this post light, so minimal on "serious" news and more lighter things. We can do without the negative, and besides, we all know how bad 2020 was, and that was even without the pandemic.

 

News and What Happened?

Let's see what happened in 2020, in addition or besides the pandemic.


 

  •  Via The New York Post, here is a reminder of the events of 2020. Highlights include, but are not limited to: 
    • The Australian bush fires that had been going on in December 2019 and continued into January of 2020.
    • January 9 was when the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that COVID-19 emerged in Wuhan, China. From there, it became the pandemic we are all still experiencing as of this writing. 
    • The stock market had a crash on March 9, 2019.
    • The murder hornets arrived in May.
    • Speaking of fires, the U.S. west coast was ablaze with wild fires in September.
    • First Americans got one of the new COVID-19 vaccines second week of December.
  • You can find a more comprehensive list of 2020 events in the Wikipedia entry. List is practically day by day. Overall, 2020 really was a fucked up year.
  • So, how did you do on your bingo card?

Image via Boing Boing by Hugh D'Andrade.

 So, what else happened in 2020?

  • 2020 had so many storms and hurricanes that the list ran out of names. We got down to Greek letters, and we almost ran out of those too. Via NPR. 
  • Just because there was a pandemic and bad economy, that did not stop corporate mergers and acquisitions from happening. Yes, the corporate vultures were as active as ever, and they were not letting something like a virus stop them. Story via Inc.
  • If you are interested in investigative journalism, Type Investigations has their top 10 stories for 2020. Puerto Rico made the list, and not in a good way, as their reporting highlighted an epidemic of domestic violence in the island after Hurricane Maria, a hurricane the island is STILL trying to recuperate from. 


 

 

Film and Television

 
When it comes to film and television, I am not always interested in the newest and latest. In addition, I do not pay extra for specific streaming services (what I got already costs enough). To be honest, much of the newer stuff does not seem that big a deal to me, but hey, you do you. These days I prefer comfort watching and either binging on old things that I may have seen before, so a trip down memory lane, or catching up on older things I may not have seen before, so they are new to me. So for me to stay informed as well as to give readers a reminder, here are some lists highlighting the alleged bests in film and television for 2020. Feel free to comment on things you may have liked or not. By the way, if you are curious about the things I have been watching, you can check the "films and television" tag on this blog and look for the "Media Notes: Roundup" posts. Here is last month's roundup to give you a sample.
 

 

 
Books and reading 
 
A couple of items I found after I posted the books and reading holiday post.
 
 
 
Music
 
Unfinished Symphony- 10 card, from Baron-Reid's Wisdom of the Oracle deck


 

 
 
 
 
 
Adult/risque things
 




Miscellaneous trivia
Stuff I found interesting that did not fit any category above;
 

This turned out to be the most interesting part of this post. Some very unique stories in 2020 despite the overall terrible year combined with some interesting trivia. Let's have a look. 


 

  • Culture and pop culture: 
    •  Rolling Stone has their list of moments that made them smile in 2020.
    • Dallas Observer has a list of their most read culture stories in 2020. Yes, Tiger King made the list, and apparently they had a lot of Karens in Dallas for some reason.
    • GQ presents a cultural survey for the year, which is fancy talk for they asked a bunch of celebrities to identify what they saw as important in pop culture for the year. 
    • There is a David Bowie edition of the Monopoly game. Story via Open Culture. Let's be honest, at this point does anybody buy a Monopoly game to actually play the game? Monopoly pretty much has become a marketing device for licenses, franchises, etc. I get the feel they are making sales more on those collectible versions than the original game. Heck, I have a Star Wars edition (original Star Wars, i.e. before Disney fucked it up) and recently got as a gift a Marvel anniversary edition of Monopoly. Will I play with them? Not sure since not too many around to sit and play, but they are still fun to have. 
  • Liquor and drinking: 
  • Other trivia and miscellaneous: 
    • Once again, the United Nations World Happiness Report has socialist type countries at the top of the list.  Once more, all I got is I can't imagine why. Maybe because they actually take care of their people instead of abandoning them like certain so called world powers do (*cough* United States *cough). Open Culture has some commentary on the report. 
    • JSTOR Daily has their editors' favorite stories of 2020. This year I have found that JSTOR Daily puts out some very nice articles on various interesting topics and trivia. Worth a look if you want to learn new things or just read something other than the usual "news" outlets. 
    • Yes! Magazine has their 10 stories that inspired people in 2020.
    • John Beckett looks at 8 important events and trends in paganism for 2020.
    • To wrap up I figured I needed at least one library/librarian thing, so Librarian Shipwreck offers his end of 2020 reflection in "A Hell of a Year."  He does highlight some key points and lessons from the hellscape of 2020. His point that Americans are notorious for not learning from their own history resonates. It is something that I have said and observed often myself. The sad thing is that the odds are not ever in Americans' favor in terms of learning from the past.
      • I did my own end of year pandemic thoughts, and while not as reflective as the above, for me it gave me a way to remember what we went through here. I get the impression that many people probably wrote in journals and notebooks a bit more this year so they could preserve a bit of the somewhat unique and hellish memories of 2020. If nothing else, when their grandchildren ask about 2020, they can always go look back at their notes. Locally, my college's Special Collections and Archives set up a "Bereans and COVID-19 Initiative" where local people can submit their writings, materials, so on and be a primary source for the future. I am not submitting my blog post on pandemic thoughts mainly because there is a bit of "language," and I am not sure I want that in an official archive someplace. But if you are a Berean (student, faculty, staff, community member) or even from a neighboring town or county, and you have something, do consider contributing.

 

 

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