Wednesday 22 December 2010

annus miribilis or choose your own adventure

The wire services have just released its annual review of most significant news stories for the past year.  Here are the top headlines, as pantomimed, by the classic stick figure samaritans and fabulists--all with quite thoughtful expressions, which one finds in the literature in the waiting rooms of school clinics, infirmaries and counselors' offices.

The Gulf of Mexico oil spill and its terrible environmental legacy with the industry and consumer choices and policy that perpetuate these disasters.

The Health Care Reform initiatives in the US, that showed America's strange sort of envy at odds with the true aims of the effort.

US Mid-Term Elections and reversals of power, that was harrowing for what was sometimes characterised as a weary and disappointed electorate.











The US economy and world-wide economic crisis with the bailout and contributing factors that precipitated the collapse and wherein lies the blame and the lesson.

The devastating earthquake in Haiti and the recovery effort.










The popularity of the so-called "Tea Party" movement and its influences in US politics, part appeal to libertarianism and part to militantism.







The drama, tension, technological wonder and cooperation that led to the rescue of the trapped Chilean miners.

The US government leaking like a sieve in the most sensitive areas, call and response.












The ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and the private toll war-making exacts.