What Caught My Eye Today - 2012 In Review

Fred's Note:  My, my but it has been a busy year.  It's hard to believe we started off the year with more GOP presidential candidates than you could count on both hands and that "Gangnam Style" wasn't even a figment of someone's imagination yet. As we bring 2012 to a close, let's take a short trip down memory lane...


January - Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney wins the New Hampshire primary and becomes the front runner for the GOP nomination for President of the United States. Romney's momentum is short-lived as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich crushes him by 12 points in the South Carolina primary. And so begins a ratings bonanza for late night comedians and a financial windfall for anyone owning a television or radio station in any one of many so-called battleground states. The Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia runs aground near an island off the west coast of Italy and at least 30 passengers drown after a bungled rescue and evacuation of more than 4,200 passengers and crew. Modern technology aside, how hard is it to avoid a freaking island in broad daylight? It's not like these guys were in the middle of the ocean in the dead of night surrounded by hard to see icebergs (more on this in a couple of months).

February - I don't know about you, but for me the biggest headline of this month was that a certain blogger with a wicked smart sense of humor turned 40. Singer Whitney Houston, 48, drowns in a bathtub at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Los Angeles after suffering a "cardiac event" caused by long cocaine abuse. No one ever -- or probably ever will -- sing the Star-Spangled Banner as well as she did at the Super Bowl after 9/11. A 17-year old black teenager, Trayvon Martin, is shot and killed in a gated community in Orlando, Florida by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch coordinator. Zimmerman alleged that he suspected the hoodie-wearing Martin of "being up to no good". The case sparked a national debate over racial profiling and hoodies. Yeah, hoodies are the problem here.

March - In Kandahar, Afghanistan, a U.S. soldier slips out of his base and, in a two-hour rampage, allegedly murders 16 Afghan civilians in their homes, setting fire to some of the bodies. And in that one moment, a  almost destroys the goodwill that the U.S. had been building with the Afghan people for the better part of a decade.  Mitt Romney continues to lead Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum in the GOP primaries but fails to connect with more-conservative voters. Boyfriend is just getting warmed up. Failing to connect with a lot of people will become a pretty familiar theme for the Romney campaign.

April - Rick Santorum suspends his presidential campaign, having run out of money. Don't you just hate when that happens? George Zimmerman is charged with the second-degree murder of Trayvon Martin. North Korea test-fires a long-range missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, but the missile disintegrates shortly after takeoff, dealing a blow to new leader Kim Jong Un's efforts to fill the platform shoes of his father, the late Kim Jong Il. You know what they say--if at first you don't succeed, collaborate with another pariah state (Iran) until you do. During the centenary commemoration of the sinking of the Titanic, young Twitter users express their shock that the film of the same name was based on a real event. You'd think by know, we'd all be used to fact that technology as contributed to the dumbing down of humanity in ways we never thought possible. Nope, not yet.

May - Newt Gingrich suspends his presidential campaign and Mitt Romney official clinches the GOP presidential nomination by winning the Texas primary. Barack Obama becomes the first U.S. president to state his support of same-sex marriage.  Lest you forgot, this announcement came shortly after Joe Biden became the first Vice President to publicly announce his support of same-sex marriage. I'm sure this is just another happy coincidence. In France, voters weary of unemployment and austerity measures brought on by the euro crisis, replace Nicolas Sarkozy with the Socialist Party's Francois Holland, who vows to raise France's top tax rate to 75%. By comparison, letting those tax cuts expire for the wealthiest folks in the United States, doesn't sound so bad, does it?

June - In Britain, Queen Elizabeth II celebrates 60 years on the throne. Atta girl, Lizzie. Three more years and you will be number one all time. In Egypt, Mohammad Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood is elected president in the nation's first democratic elections since the fall of dictator Hosni Mubarak in 2011. Yup, just as the CIA drew it up, I'm sure.  The U.S. Supreme Court upholds the Affordable Care Act in a 5-4 decision. Chief Justice John Roberts cast the deciding votes ruling that the law's "individual mandate" is in effect a simple tax on the uninsured, and thus constitutional under Congress's broad taxing power.  Oh sure, hindsight makes this sound totally understandable, given Roberts desire to keep his legacy intact, but who had this guy casting the swing vote before the decision was released? Anyone?

July - The Summer Olympics are held in London. American swimmer, Michael Phelps wins his 19th career gold medal, becoming the most decorated Olympian in history. Show off. Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland announce the discovery of a new sub-atomic particle that is consistent with the legendary Higgs boson that scientists have been trying to prove for more than 50 years. Okay, it exists. Now what? In Aurora, Colorado a loner with a history of psychiatric problems, goes on a shooting rampage in a movie theater killing 12 and wounding 58. Sadly, this becomes a recurring headline throughout the rest of the year. A South Korean rapper, Psy, releases a video of his latest single "Gangnam Style" highlighted by the artist performing a horse-riding dance at various locations around Seoul. When you take into consideration that the geniuses who didn't know Titanic was an actual ship that actual sank with actual people trapped inside are the same rocket scientists responsible for making this video a viral sensation, this doesn't seem that surprising. Tragic, definitely. Surprising, not so much.

August - In the giant scheme of things, August was sort of a slow news month. If it wasn't for an increasingly bloody civil war in the Middle East, a wicked fast sprinter from the Caribbean, and a guy who ran out of excuses in Texas, we wouldn't have much to talk about. In Syria, where a civil war has been raging all year between government forces and opponents of dictator Bashar al-Assad, the army massacres hundreds of civilians in the Damascus and Hama. Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt wins his second consecutive gold medals in both the 100 and 200 meters at the Summer Olympics, an unprecedented feat in Olympic history. U.S. cyclist and 7-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong announces he will not contest charges by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency that he used banned substances throughout his career. Oh yeah. There is also that upcoming presidential election. Mitt Romney chooses Wisconsin Senator Paul Ryan to be his running mate in the upcoming U.S. presidential election.

September - Violent demonstrations are held throughout the Arab world protesting an anti-Islamic YouTube video posted by a Christian Egyptian immigrant in California. In Benghazi, Libya, a local terrorist group attacks the U.S. Consulate killing U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and 3 others. We'll come to find out in the weeks and months ahead that these two events had nothing to do with the other. The Mitt Romney campaign suffers a setback with the release of a video secretly recorded at a fundraising dinner in which he tells donors no matter how hard he campaigns, "there are 47% of people who will vote for the President no matter what" because they rely on government handouts. Romney added, "My job is not to worry about those people." As it turns out there were 51% of people who ended up voted for the President, but I'm getting ahead of myself here.

October - Entering the first presidential debate, Romney is in desperate need of a game changing performance and delivers one while Barack Obama gave what was widely considered one of the worst debate performances in presidential history. I still say that the television and cable networks paid Obama to tank this, so that they would have something to report on. Up to this point, this election was a snoozefest. A massive superstorm, Hurricane Sandy, makes a direct hit on the New York metropolitan area, killing 110 and devastating coastal areas of New York and New Jersey.

November - Americans re-elect Barack Obama to a second term. Obama won 332 electoral votes and 51% of the popular vote. You would have thought that political scandal would have taken a breather after the election, and you would have not been more wrong if you tried. CIA Director David Petraeus resigns after admitting to an extra-marital affair with his biographer. I'm thinking if the chief spook can't keep his private affairs private, maybe he shouldn't be running the U.S. spy agency. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, who is under consideration to replace Hilary Clinton as Secretary of State, comes under fire by Republicans for initially describing the Benghazi attack as a "spontaneous" response by extremists to an anti-Islam video. Not that it matters now, but why was the Ambassador to the United Nations giving embassy attack briefings (which were prepared by the CIA incidentally, but I guess they had their hands full with other stuff) Sunday news programs in the first place? You'd think someone at the State Department would have been point on something like this.

December - Prince William and Kate Middleton confirm they are expecting their first child. In Oregon, a 22-year old man charges into a shopping mall and opens fire on Christmas shoppers with an AR-15 assault rifle, killing two and gravely injuring another, before killing himself. It gets worse.  "Gangnam Style" hits one billion views. When you read something like this, it sort of makes you wonder if that end of the world thing might have some merit.  President Obama and House Republicans enter tense negotiations on a plan to avoid a series of tax hikes and spending cuts due to take affect on January 1. How fortunate for us lowly citizens that our elected representative have a proven track record of coming together to work for the collective good of the people that put them into office. In Newtown, Connecticut, a troubled loner uses his mother's semiautomatic assault rifle to massacre 20 elementary school students and 6 adults.

No offense, 2012, but here's hoping for a happier, healthier and more peaceful 2013.