2016 is over, so quit whining about it. It's done, it's finished.
Instead of complaining about another year in this depressing decade, the 2010's, let's recap on how the year went. Going from the absurd number of famous deaths, it's time to bury 2016.
When people die, they go bye-bye!
And we were reminded of this fact in 2016. Sure, there are quite a bit of famous deaths every year, but 2016 was a rare exception in this category.
According to some very bored people, who surf the internet on sites like Reddit.com, many of of these people have found up to 400 famous people(or more) have died(worldwide), compared to the 230 famous people who died in 2015. In the United States of America, 50 famous people died. Instead of going through every one of them, I will highlight(in my opinion) the most iconic star to die in each month of the year(With their day of death in parentheses).
David Bowie (January 10th)- Singer. My favorite song from him is "Ziggy Stardust."
Harper Lee (February 19th)- Author. Had recently released the sequel to her famous novel To Kill a Mockingbird, which is titled Go Set a Watchman.
Nancy Reagan (March 6th)- Former First Lady of the United States of America. She was a woman with a big heart.
Prince (April 21st)- Singer. My favorite song from him is "When Doves Cry."
Alan Young (May 19th)- Actor. I have respect for actors who are the founding stars of Hollywood.
Muhammad Ali (June 3rd)- Boxer. I'm not a fan of the sport, but he was one of the best of all time, and had a great attitude!
Elie Wiesel (July 2nd)- Author. I have tremendous respect for him, especially since he was a Holocaust survivor, but he was also an established author, and his novel Night gives me chills to this day.
Gene Wilder (August 28th)- Actor. He was one of the smartest comedians to ever grace our televisions, and he was also very witty. He was a fantastic actor, best known for his role as Willy Wonka in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
Jose Fernandez (September 25th)- Major League Baseball player. Jose Fernandez was a young star pitcher for the Miami Marlins, and he died in a tragic accident at the age of 24 years old. It's so sad to die so young, and it's a huge blow to the team's organization.
Tom Hayden (October 23rd)- Activist, and Author. October was the month with the least number of celebrity deaths, and for some reason, Hayden's death was completely ignored by the mainstream media. I know he was a controversial figure. For that reason alone, I have to include him on this list.
Florence Henderson (November 24th)- Actress. She is best known for her role as Carol Brady on The Brady Bunch.
John Glenn (December 8th)- Astronaut. Astronauts deserve more respect, whether he was the first man to orbit the moon, or not.
Yes, 2016 was cruel enough to have a celebrity death on Christmas Day(December 25th), and that was the singer George Michael. And on New Year's Eve(December 31st), William Christopher, the famous actor on the hit show M.A.S.H., passed away. Even on the last. freaking. day, someone died.
Sorry, but Harambe really was just a gorilla.
Let me guess, when I was going through the celebrity/famous deaths on that list, you were expecting me to mention Harambe, the gorilla, right? After all, I live in the Cincinnati Metro Area, and I've actually been to the Cincinnati Zoo-I wouldn't doubt if I've seen Harambe in person!
And it was tragic. Besides the fact an innocent animal had to die under unfortunate circumstances, the type of gorilla he was, is endangered, which makes it an environmental tragedy as well.
With this being said, is it necessary that the United States of America is now mourning an animal for seven full months now? It seems that every day I log onto Facebook, I see another Harambe meme, post, or joke. It has gone way too far. In the Summer, I saw more posts about Pokemon Go, and Harambe than I did about the 2016 Presidential Election(Which I'll get to in a moment).
My point being, is we are more focused on a gorilla death than the demise of our own country, and people wonder why the United States is the laughing stock of the world.
Rod Serling couldn't have created a better episode of The Twilight Zone than this year's Presidential Election.
Where do we begin with this mess?
First of all, on the Republican side, there were originally 16 viable candidates running for president. That number right there is unusually high for a political party. This list included two Latinos, a woman, a brother of a former president, a black man, and Donald Trump. Yep, that Donald Trump.
On the Democratic side, there were only five candidates, two of them dropped out before the nomination process began. Mark O' Malley dropped out after the first Caucus, leaving the nomination an interesting race, between Hillary Clinton, a woman who already lost the nomination in 2008, and Bernie Sanders.
Except Bernie Sanders was never a Democrat, until 2015. He was an independent senator from Vermont, and a proud Socialist. He ran for president, with his key voters being less educated Caucasian men. Hillary Clinton won the overwhelming support of minorities, and the highest educated Democrats. Interestingly enough, Bernie Sanders still won several contests, and gave Hillary Clinton a run for her money. The "Anti-establishment" message was big. Who would have thought an independent Socialist would do good enough to last literally the entire nomination?
Except it didn't end there. Despite the fact Bernie Sanders endorsed Hillary Clinton, and told his supporters to vote for Hillary Clinton, many of his supporters coined him as a "sell-out", and ran to other candidates. Many of his delusional supporters saw Donald Trump as another "anti-establishment" figure, and ran to him. Some of them went third-party, and some of them refused to vote at all. Which, leads to me my next point: Donald Trump.
Trump miraculously won the Republican nomination, despite the conspiracy that he would somehow lose during the convention itself. This lead to a Hillary Clinton vs Donald Trump vs Third-Party candidates election.
First of all, third-party candidates were expected to do better this election than they have the entire millennium, due to the dismay for candidates, such as Trump, and Hillary. The debates were a joke, due to the antics from Donald Trump. The whole election was chaos, given the absurd behavior of Trump, and the on-going Federal Bureau of Investigation on Hillary Clinton's email server.
The election came. Almost everyone expected Donald Trump to lose. To everyone's shock, he won the election, despite losing the popular vote by two percent(Three million voters). Even Trump himself acted shocked he won. Interestingly enough, Trump had accused the election of being "rigged"-Until he was elected. He also praised the Electoral College system, despite the fact he criticized it in the 2012 election(Which is odd, since Barack Obama won the popular vote, and Electoral College in 2012).
If this isn't a bizarre election-An election where a Socialist almost became president, where a woman won the popular vote on election day, and an election where the first President Elect of all time had no political, or militant experience, won-I have no idea what could possibly be a bizarre election.
Did I really just see that?
The odd election wasn't the only thing on our minds here in the United States, we also saw some strange things in the world of sports. Very strange, and inexplicable things.
First of all, the Cleveland Cavaliers won their first National Basketball Association Championship in their franchise history. They beat the Golden State Warriors-Whom held the best single-season record of all time in the 2015-16 season, after coming back from a 3-1 series deficit. This completely stunned the nation. As an Ohioan, it was interesting seeing this all over my Facebook news feed. But the madness didn't end there.
Then, the 2016 Summer Olympics came in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. First of all, it's the first time an Olympics has taken place in a South American country, so it's already odd to begin with. Second of all, the notorious Zika virus had plagued the entire country, so many athletes withdrew from competitions altogether. It was also the first time Golf was an Olympic sport since the 1912 Summer Olympics. Unfortunately, the Olympics were a disaster. There were several violent outbreaks in the country(Due to the high crime rate), and many athletes were mugged, robbed, and so on. Due to the controversy in the Olympics, many people didn't even watch the Olympics, or want to compete. This lead to the United States of America winning the most medals in a total washout, and it wasn't even close. On top of all this, some athletes were caught cheating. This is one Summer Olympics we would all like to forget.
Now, it's time for Major League Baseball! The 2016 World Series was between the Cleveland Indians, and Chicago Cubs. These two teams just happened to have the longest World Series droughts in MLB history(68, and 108 years, respectively). It was already going to be chaos, regardless of what happened. The Indians began the series with a 3-1 lead. However, the Cubs clawed their way back to tie the series 3-3. In game seven-Which was an epic game seven, and one of the best games of all time, the Cubs nailed the win! Their first World Series win in over a Century! The "Billy Goat Curse" was broken! How funny is it that the CLEVELAND Indians blew a 3-1 series lead, in the same year the CLEVELAND Cavaliers came back from a 3-1 series deficit? It was also the first time since 1997 there were Ties in back to back weeks in the National Football League, which was also the last time the Indians lost the World Series in seven games...
Which, leads to me to NFL. The NFL was a little odd as well. We saw the Raiders birth their first postseason since 2002, and the Vikings, and Broncos began the season 5-0, and 4-0(respectively) just to miss the postseason. Yikes! More weird events!
To put the icing on the cake, my Alma Mater, Miami University(Ohio), has historically had a terrible football team(American football). However, this year, they became the first college team of all time to begin the season 0-6, and end it 6-6-To qualify for a Bowl Game. I mean, it's 2016, so why not? Go Redhawks!
2016 really was crazy.
What do you all think? Was 2016 the craziest year of all time? Well, probably not. I do think it was an odd year all the way around. I know 1977 was bizarre, as well was 1968. 2001 was a disaster of a year as well.
What Girls & Guys Said
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Broadening the scope on the country as a whole it really was pretty crazy looking at it after the fact. I guess you don't think about it, when you're in the midst of it.
Indeed!
Let's not forget Anton Scalia, whose death could hardly have been more obviously the result of foul play. Or Kate Steinle, who was made (in) famous by being one of the most well-known cases of Obama pardoning the wrong prisoner for racial reasons, only for an innocent woman to end up dead as a result of federal policy. Or that one guy that was killed with a barbell in the gym just one day before he was to testify against Hillary. Or that other guy that Hillary found out was leaking info to Julian Assange, and then conveniently died before he could take the witness stand in his own defense.
I could mention that over a million infants have been murdered in 2016 as well, and not just from abortion. But... that doesn't get anywhere near as much fanfare.
As I mentioned in the MyTake, there was so much bizarre, and chaotic events during 2016, I won't cover it all in the take. The year truly was crazy, and I'm not one of those people who say every single year is crazy (This year really was).
As far as abortion, it's been legal since 1973, so that would be irrelevant to mention in this MyTake.
Wow you're bittter and cynical
Why do you think as such? 2016 was a year full of agony. I'm not the bitter, or cynical one; 2016 is ;)