Darren's Top Ten List of News Events of 2009

Normally, I'd be working on the annual "Year in Brief" edition, but with all of the depressing news and my own occasional ADHD, I decided to give it a break, and just condense it down to what I think are the most important news events of 2009. Much has happened- the health care fight going on in Congress, the first African-American president, and more. Here are my picks for the top stories in 2009:

10. GOP Extramarital Affairs. The Republican Party. The party of morals, where gay marriage is an abomination of the mighty Jehovah, spending on the less fortunate is spending too much on them, and marriage is sacred and extramarital affairs are verboten. Apparently somebody forgot to tell Senator John Ensign (R-Nevada), and South Carolina governor Mark Sanford about the latter. Ensign had an affair with a staffer's wife- all while running for re-election, and Sanford was somewhere in the Appalachians- in Argentina, nonetheless. Yes, Sanford said he was hiking with his boys in the Appalachian mountains (where? West Virginia? Virginia? He never did say, did he?) when he was actually doing the bump-and-grind tango with his Argentine mistress, Maria Belen Chapur, somewhere in Buenos Aires. Of course, Sandford- like Ensign- played the apology card, but Jenny didn't buy it- she filed for divorce this month.

9. Health Care Fight: As if some members of the GOP weren't busy having trysts (wait! That didn't come out right, did it? Hmmm...), they were busy trying to block health care legislation, stating that it'll cost too much in a shitty economy such as the one we're going through now. And to make matters worse- thanks largely to their fellow butt pirates and all-around drama queens Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh- there were town hall meetings likening the health care issue to socialism. Some even managed to compare President Obama to the late German chancellor (and all-around nutcase) Adolf Hitler for even bringing up the topic. The legislation has passed the House of Representatives, and has a good chance of passing in the Senate as well. This could come at a price to some of the Democrats who are up for re-election in 2010. We'll see.

8. Swine Flu/H1N1: (Darren coughs and sneezes). Boy, do I feel like shit.I've been wheezing and hacking for two weeks and...oh, man...I....can't...(Darren lies unconscious).
(Darren's ghost appears): What happened was I came down with that H1N1 flu, you know, the one they call "Swine Flu". This year alone, over 11,500 have died from it worldwide, and most of them were young- under the age of 25. Here in the US, over 35,310 were hospitalized, and 1,567 have died from it (according to the latest figures from the US Centers For Disease Control and Prevention). In October, President Obama declared H1N1 a nation emergency. (Wait a sec...why am I returning to this carcass? You mean I'm not dead?...St. Peter heard of my plans to...why that...)

7. Microsoft Windows 7/Apple Mac OS X Snow Leopard: Remember when Microsoft released Vista about two years ago? Many had wished that the company from Redmond had waited a bit longer, as Vista was not worth the five year wait. Personally, I haven't had too many issues from it, but I had enough of them for me to join the legions of folks who upgraded to Windows 7. 7 was released in October, and it is what Vista was supposed to be, but wasn't- stable, virtually bug-free, and much less stress-inducing (one of my sisters beg to differ, though...well, you can't please everyone). Apple released Mac OS X Snow Leopard a month earlier. Snow Leopard is supposed to give storage and memory space back to the user, which makes for a more pleasant experience. But, from what I've been seeing at Apple's website, where customers give reviews of products, it's not as easygoing as it seems (the argument may be said about the Mac OS itself, since many programs still don't have Mac versions, and if you do run those programs, you'll need Parallels or the included Boot Camp...that's okay, I'll stay with my Windows 7).

6. Tiger Woods Scandal: "Hold that Tiger! Hold that Tiger!..." Okay, bad singing there. But the man born Eldrick Woods is a golf genius, with 14 major championship trophies, including four Masters. The same could probably be said about the number of women he's fucked. And here we all thought Tiger was a squeaky clean kid. Shows how much we know! This fracas all started with a car accident near his home on November 27, when Tiger crashed his Cadillac Escalade into a tree. His wife Elin came to his aid, smashing the window- and likely aiming for Tiger's head. Then the number of women who said Tiger had scored many a hole in one in them started to surface. The first, Rachel Utchitel, denied that she even played bed golf with Eldrick (yeah,  the guy who has a very strong resemblance to Tiger), but the bearer of the second hole- San Diego waitress Jaimee Grubbs-  said that she carried a 2 1/2 year affair. Then a dozen more women surfaced, which means that had Tiger not crashed his SUV, he would've finished an entire round without setting foot on the golf course...unless, of course, he played carnal golf on the golf course itself. Anyway, in the intervening days and weeks, Woods apologized, and didn't show up at his charity golf tournament. He lost endorsements from Tag Heuer (the Swiss watch company), Gillette- now a subsiduary of Procter and Gamble, and Irish-based consulting firm Accenture, among others. And if that's not enough, some Canadian sports doctor, Tony Galea- who treated Woods- is under investigation for admininistering Actovegin and other human growth hormones (no word on whether Woods himself took these). It's no wonder Tiger is in hiding. Perhaps when this story first broke, he should have taken a page from talk show king David Letterman. You see Letterman had his own issues with infidelity this year, but unlike Woods, Letterman manned up and turned this episode into jokes (I think Letterman is still with his wife Regina, for many of his trysts happened before they got married).

5. Balloon Boy: A precocious six year old kid gets into a balloon, built by his dad. The balloon flies off, with the poor kid inside. Said balloon flies 50 miles from the house. A worried nation watches.

Balloon lands in a field. No little boy found. Did he fall? Yes, he fell. Asleep. In the attic. At home.


Little six year old Falcon Keene was never in the balloon, but hid from his parents, and the authorities who frantically searched for him. Daddy Richard is mad, then sorry for yelling at Falcon. So, they're on CNN's "The Situation Room" with Wolf Blitzer, and Falcon opens his mouth.
Uh-oh. Can you say "cover blown"? That's right. It's revealed that the entire thing was all a fucking hoax. Richard Heene and his wife got jail time- and they may have to appear on yet another reality series, like, say, "The Dysfunctional Media Whore Family Heene" to pay off those fines incurred.

4. Miracle On The Hudson: We take a break from the jackassery to bring you the story of a jetliner that landed in the water. On January 15, 2009, US Airways 1549 was en route to Charlotte, North Carolina from LaGuardia Airport when a flock of birds flew into one of the jet's engines. 155- 150 passengers and 5 crew- were on board. The plane was over the Hudson river and too far from any nearby airport. Now this could have ended in tragedy, but a strong and calm captain, Chesley "Sully" Sullenberg skillfully landed the jetline in the cold waters of the Hudson, then made sure everyone was out safely. If anyone fits the true definition of hero, it's Sully- though he would say that he was just doing his job.

3. Sam Adams Scandal: In May 2008, Portland, Oregon voters- including this blogger- elected the first openly gay mayor of a US city over 500,000 (our current city proper population is 570,000), Sam Adams. His opponent was Japanese-born Sho Dozono, who owns Azumano Travel (a locally-owned regional travel agency). January 1, Adams was inaugurated. Nineteen days later, he gave this confession:



Yes, Sammy Boy lied during his mayoral campaign- and while he was still Portland city commissioner. The newly elected state's attorney general (at the time) John Kroger did an investigation to see if Adams had sex with Beau Breedlove, an intern for Republican state representative Kim Thatcher, when Breedlove was 17- having sex with a 17 year old minor in Oregon basically gets you a slap on the wrist. The ensuing investigation found that Adams porked Breedlove when the latter turned 18, but the two did carry on a romance when Breedlove was 17. Hmm-kay. In other words, Adams didn't do anything wrong.
Other scandalous acts of Adams this year were his being in a car crash, and one of his homes being in foreclosure. No wonder there was a recall petition against him. That one failed, but a second one, led by former state senator Avel Gordly, may be coming to Portland streets soon.

(Update 1/2/10: recently, Houston- with a population of about 3.5 times that of Portland's- has recently one-upped the City of Rain and Rose Thorns- by electing its own openly lesbian mayor. So far, Annise Parker doesn't appear to be scandal-ridden. Which is more than I can say for Spammy...er, Sammy...).

2. President Obama: The first ever black president of the United States. How long did that take to happen? About...oh, about 235 years or so? Honestly, I thought I'd never see that happen in my lifetime- 42 years and counting- but here we are, in 2009. Hell has really frozen over. But it hasn't been a bed of roses for the man born of a black Kenyan father and a white mother from Kansas. That aforementioned health care debacle gives him fits, as does a little country called Iran (and its pipsqueak excuse of a president- he's really a fucking puppet for the Ayatollahs). Then there's the issue of his citizenship. He was born in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1961- two years after Hawaii became our 50th state. But that doesn't satisfy those pissed off, cross burning conservatives who would have preferred that Caribou Barbie, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin(who I admittedly have a crush on. Where did that saying "opposites attract" come from again?) and some overtanned fossil from Arizona who wanted us to stay in Iraq for 100 more years. But still, history has been made, and Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. is staying calm through the storm and bickering. He won a Nobel Peace Prize this year- even as he ordered 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. He did get a case of foot-in-mouth disease when he first commented on the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Gates (of course, there's a cure for foot in mouth disease- BEER!) Well, take comfort, Barry. Nelson Mandela didn't have it any easier either when he became president of South Africa almost 20 years ago.

And the number one top story of 2009 is:

1. MICHAEL JACKSON'S DEATH: We loved him for his moonwalks and his falsetto voice- and loathed him because he hung around children a bit longer than many of us would consider normal. Over his 45 year career- and that's counting his days singing in the nightclubs of Gary, Indiana with his brothers- he had countless hits such as "ABC"; "Never Can Say Goodbye"; and of course, one of the top-selling albums of all times, 1982's "Thriller". When Michael Joseph Jackson died on June 25, 2009- just five hours after an "Angel" named Farrah left us, the world came to a screeching halt. I remember, as I did a evening shift selling a street newspaper in northeast Portland, folks were buying up albums of the "King of Pop". I myself stayed on my laptop from the very moment KCBS/KCAL in Los Angeles reported that Jackson was rushed to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. I watched as crowds gathered around the hospital grounds. And within seconds of the pronouncement of death, I reported it right here on NFTHE (who says that breaking news doesn't happen here?). Love him or hate him, Jackson will always be an icon to the billions of fans around the world. At the time of his death, Jackson was preparing for what he had said- in March- was his final tour, called "This Is It". Of course, who would have imagined that on June 25, 2009, at 2:30 PM Pacific Time, that those words would morbidly ring true.

What will 2010 hold? We only need to be ready for that ride.

(C)MMIX, by Darren W. Alexander.
All Rights Reserved.