Let’s tally up the good, the bad and the ugly of the year past and hope for better this year.
Published 1:30 am Monday, January 3, 2022
By Tom Burke / Herald columnist
In TV’s early days Walter Cronkite hosted the documentary series “You Are There,” which sent CBS news reporters back in time to “live cover” history’s biggest events. Cronkite’s well-remembered (by me at least) closing lines (slightly modified) are this column’s introduction:
“What sort of year was it? A year like all years, filled with those events that alter and illuminate our times … and (Cronkite pauses, dramatically intoning) You Were There.”
Well, we were all there. But in today’s tribal, Red/Blue world it’s nigh-on impossible to chronicle anything without someone saying, “Not True!”
Alternate facts and the Big Lie loom large and something as simple as “Joe Biden is president” engenders critical The-Herald-leans-left letters to the editor and some four-letter-word-filled emails to me.
But, regardless of potential controversy, here’s my list of 2021’s big events divided into “The Good” (stuff that made life better), “The Bad” (stuff that made life worse), and “The Ugly” (stuff that takes us down). I began thinking it was an awful year, but on reflection, an awful lot of good has happened. Such as:
The Good: Covid vaccines went into 203 million arms. Boosters and a covid treatments were approved. The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan (and a temporary Child Tax Credit) passed. The $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment Act became law. We rejoined the Paris Climate Accord. The supply chain crisis is less of a crisis now. Juneteenth became a national holiday. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossof were elected as Georgia’s two U.S. senators. Trump was impeached for the second time.
Trump’s coup failed. The World Health Organization approved the first anti-malaria vaccine. The House established the Jan. 6 Committee. We got out of Afghanistan. The economy boomed: unemployment’s down to 4.2 percent; wages rose briskly; real personal income are above prepandemic levels; real gross domestic product growth was 5.7 percent in 2021 and projected at 4 percent in 2022. Bear Ears National Monument was made whole again. Trump’s Medicaid-crippling attack via work rules was reversed.
Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., is a powerhouse on the Jan. 6 Committee. Former officer Derek Chauvin was convicted for the murder of George Floyd. Southern Civil War “monuments” are being resigned to the scrap heap. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s out. NASA’S “Ingenuity” helicopter successfully flew on Mars, demonstrating our amazing technological prowess.
A score of recently-published books helped us understand the past four years, especially “Peril” by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, “I Alone Can Fix It” by Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, and “Betrayal, the Final Act of the Trump Show” by Jonathan Carl. Trump was banned from Facebook (for lie’n ‘n incite’n).
Space travel took another small step for man and giant leap for mankind as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson shot folks to where few have gone before and brought them all home safely. Smartmatic (voting systems) sued Fox News, Rudy Guiliani, and other Big Lie liars. Guiliani had his New York law license suspended for his Big Lie lies (and spurious court cases). Trump lost his tax case in the Supreme Court.
The Bad: Covid killed 800,000. And we’re still counting. Omnicron is now sweeping the country. Fires burned in the West, water shortages plagued the Southwest, heatwaves ripped the Pacific Northwest, Midwest tornadoes killed 92 across five states, Hurricane Ida killed 91; floods ravaged the Northeast; and Texas suffered widespread power outages and 210 deaths due to a freeze and total power-grid incompetence (not windmills).
Airlines canceled thousands of flights over the holiday from wintry weather and omicron-driven crew staffing shortages.
And we lost: Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, Rush Limbaugh, Hank Aaron, Tommy Lasorda, Elgin Baylor, Bobby Unser, Walter Mondale, Olympia Dukakis, Steven Sondheim, Desmond Tutu, Ann Rice, Sheldon Aldeson, Larry King, Chick Corea, Larry Flynt, Roger Mudd, Joan Didion, Bob Dole, Willard Scott, Bernie Madoff, Yaphet Kotto, G. Gordon Liddy, Michael Collins, F. Lee Bailey, Richard Trumka, Charlie Watts, Michael Constantine, Harry Reid and John Madden.
The Ugly: Trump attempted a coup via the Big Lie, b.s. legal “theory,” complicit co-conspirators, and an armed insurrection on Jan. 6
Everything Tucker Carlson and the Fox fabulists, plus Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, et. al. say about covid, the election, and the Democrats.
About a quarter of the adult population remains stubbornly unvaccinated and at great risk of severe illness and death; 90 percent of the unvaccinated say variants won’t spur them to get shots, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Roe v. Wade is under threat after Texas passed a law that turned every Texan into an abortion bounty hunter.
Sen. Joe Manchin, R-W.Va., nearly scrapped Build Back Better.
The “QAnons” are waiting in Dallas for (the dead) John F. Kennedy, Jr. to reappear and be named Donald Trump’s Vice President, after Trump is reinstated.
Short-sellers lost $26 billion following the peak of the Wall Street “Game Stop” short-squeeze frenzy.
The giant container ship “Ever Given” ran aground in the Suez Canal and blocked more than 400 other ships.
An Oregon man, Jared Schmeck, insulted President Biden on a Christmas call saying “Merry Christmas and ‘Let’s Go Brandon;’” then insisted he meant “no disrespect” by the obviously disrespectful phrase, whose meaning no longer requires explanation.
Champlain Towers South, a 12-story condominium in a Miami suburb partially collapsed killing 98 people.
More than 1,800 people have been casualties in mass shootings in 2021 with 370 dead, nearly 50 percent more than this time last year.
The critical Colonial pipeline was shut down by a malware cyberattack affecting more than 12,000 gas stations.
At least five Republican-led states extended unemployment benefits to people who’ve lost jobs over vaccine mandates, incentivizing them to skip the shots offering the best defense against covid.
U.S. intelligence found Russian President Vladimir Putin was preparing for war against Ukraine provoking fears of a renewed conflict on European soil.
And finally, the Seattle Seahawks. Alas, the Seahawks. What can we say but, “Wait ‘till next year.” (Which I’ve been saying ever since I rooted for the New York Mets, the Jets, and the Baltimore Orioles. I’m resigned to my fate.)
Here’s hoping next year’s review will have even more Good, less Bad, and no Ugly.
Stay safe. Mask up (again). Get the shot. Get the booster.
Tom Burke’s email address is t.burke.column@gmail.com.
