No, this will not be a litany of every horrible thing that has taken place everywhere in the world during the past twelve months — I’d never be able to hold your attention that long. And I’m sure you’ll agree that living through it once was quite enough, thank you. Besides, CNN has already done its job, offering links to their 100 top digital stories of the year.

Of course, I couldn’t resist going down their entire list, and the first thing I noticed was that CNN clearly subscribes to my own observation that — with the occasional exception — if it ain’t bad, it ain’t news. In all fairness, though, I don’t believe they have much choice. Seriously . . . aside from the incredible success of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, and the reappearance of Laverna (a.k.a. Otter 841) and her newborn pup off the coast of California, how much good news can you remember from the past year?

That being said, I’ve chosen a few of CNN’s headlines as perfect examples of what I mean (not in chronological order). And what a hell of a year it’s been!

November 6th: Trump wins. — Oh, crap, we may as well stop right here. No? All right, then . . . let’s go on.

July 13th: Trump survives assassination attempt. — I probably should have put that one first, because if he hadn’t survived, then the election would have been a whole different ball game, wouldn’t it? I am glad he wasn’t killed — I don’t wish anyone harm — but couldn’t he have taken that as a wakeup call and quietly withdrawn? No?

September 15th: Second Trump assassination attempt. — The good news was, no one was hurt. The other news: he’s still not taking the hint.

May 30th: Donald Trump found guilty on all 34 charges in hush money trial. Now, wait just a damn minute. — After this one, do the first three items make any sense at all??!!!

Anyway, moving on . . .

May 17th: Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs says he is ‘truly sorry’ for physically assaulting Cassie Ventura in 2016. — Well, isn’t that special! I’m sure she feels a lot better now.

March 26th: Baltimore Key Bridge collapses after ship collision. — That was a bad, bad day.

July 19th: Global tech outage. The entire world goes into mourning.

September 4th: At least 4 killed in Georgia high school shooting. — Are you beginning to get my drift?

August 8th: Zero calorie sweetener linked to blood clots and risk of heart disease, study finds. — First they tell you sugar is bad for you, and now . . .

September 26th: Hurricane Helene makes historic landfall. — She sure did, and right in my back yard this time. We had localized flooding, downed trees and power lines, damaged roads, and three days without power . . . and we were among the lucky ones. North Carolina, for example, still hasn’t recovered:

October 9th: Hurricane Milton hits Florida. — Another one of a string of really bad ones this year — and right on the heels of Helene.

December 4th: Gunman at large after UnitedHealthcare CEO fatally shot in ‘brazen targeted attack,’ police say. — Horrible, tragic, senseless killings continue. The only good news here is that they did get the shooter a couple of days later.

July 5th: Earth’s core has slowed so much it’s moving backward, scientists confirm. — I don’t even know what to say about this one. I think it may be a good place to quit, because I’m afraid I may be getting light-headed from spinning backward.

*. *. *

And that’s less than a quarter of the whole list. I haven’t even touched on Russia’s war against Ukraine, the ongoing chaos in the Middle East, the U.S. presidential debates, other mass shootings and stabbings around the world, or several more natural disasters. I really don’t think I have the strength to go on.

On second thought, maybe just one more, because it’s my very favorite:

November 12th: Don’t sit on the toilet for more than 10 minutes, doctors warn. — Dammit! Now I’ll never finish that book.

Oh, well . . . Happy New Year, everyone, and good riddance to the old one.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
12/31/24