Two-thousand twelve was certainly an interesting year.
It’s not every year that the world is predicted to come to an end.
One wonders if Harold Camping is jealous of the ancient Mayans. After all, nobody paid much attention to his two predictions of the Christian end times in May and October of 2011. Everyone waited for the decidedly un-Christian apocalypse that was supposed to come with the end of the Mayan Long Count calendar (depending upon your interpretation).
Two-thousand twelve was certainly an interesting year.
It’s not every year that the world is predicted to come to an end.
One wonders if Harold Camping is jealous of the ancient Mayans. After all, nobody paid much attention to his two predictions of the Christian end times in May and October of 2011. Everyone waited for the decidedly un-Christian apocalypse that was supposed to come with the end of the Mayan Long Count calendar (depending upon your interpretation).
In any case, as I type these words — after the end of the world, but before Christmas — the world has apparently not come to an end and there are no significant end-of-the-world predictions for the immediate future.
So, happy 14th b’ak’tun.
(According to Wikipedia, one b’ak’tun equals 144,000 days, so consider yourself lucky that you got to experience Happy New B’ak’tun.)
Of course, 2012 may have seemed like the end of the world for some Republicans, as they watched President Barack Obama get re-elected.
Election years always seem strange to me. This was the first full-sized, national presidential election since the Citizens United court case opened up the flood gates of unlimited, corporate and “super PAC” campaign spending — and the candidate who received the most still lost.
Don’t think election years are strange? This was the year that Clint Eastwood talked to a chair for several minutes on national television at the Republican National Convention
The year 2012 was to focus on the economy, but ended up focused on social issues as candidates backed by the Tea Party kept making really stupid — as in scientifically inaccurate as well as insensitive — remarks about rape and pregnancy.
In September, the U.S. consulate in Libya was attacked, resulting in the death of four Americans. The investigation into the attack has been ridiculously politicized, with people more interested in playing “gotcha” than in finding out what happened.
2012 was also the year of Sandy. Hurricane/ superstorm Sandy killed 209 people as it traveled from the Caribbean to New York. Then there was Sandy Hook — 26 more people died there, not including the shooter and his mother.
Was it my imagination, or was 2012 a bad year for gun massacres? In his address to the nation following the Sandy Hook shooting, President Obama mentioned several horrific incidents, including the movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colo., and the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin. If 2012 was a year for guns, I’m hoping 2013 will be a year for gun control.
Of course, it wasn’t all elections and disasters.
This was a good year to be a Anglophile. London gave us two big parties celebrating Britain and British culture — Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee and the Summer Olympics.
Since August, NASA’s Curiosity rover has been roaming around Mars, searching for water and evidence of ancient bacterial life. For several years, we have been inching toward discovering proof of life on other planets. If we find life on Mars, who knows what else may be out there?
James Fujita is a former GVN news editor. He works as a copy editor for the Visalia Times-Delta in California’s Central Valley. Fujita can be contacted at jim61773@yahoo.com.
