This has been a powerful year, with ups and downs, laughs and frowns, disillusions and downright anarchies. We started off with our country proud to be Americans, and near the end, had some citizens ready to flee the boundary.
Loss of Great People
This had to be one of the most overwhelming years in history for losing icons. It was the beginning of the year, things were just getting back to normal after the holidays, and then the bomb dropped… David Bowie passed away. January 10, 2016. A date I will never forget; and that seemed like a chain reaction for the rest of the year.
Next came, Glenn Frey, Paul Kantner, Maurice White, and then the Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia! What the hell was happening? Nancy Reagan, Keith Emerson, Frank Sinatra Jr., Garry Shandling, Patty Duke, & Doris Roberts!
Prince, Morley Safer, Muhammad Ali, Pat Summit, Garry Marshall, Kenny Baker (R2D2), Gene Wilder, Arnold Palmer, Tommy Ford, Leonard Cohen, Leon Russell, Florence Henderson (Mrs. Brady!), Ron Glass, John Glenn, Alan Thicke, Zsa Zsa Gabor, George Michael, Carrie Fisher, and now her mom Debbie Reynolds (one day later)!
That was just a handful of the people that died! The list goes on.
The Police, BLM, the Media
Starting in the spring of the year, we had various issues across the United States with law enforcement agencies, and the public. They just didn’t understand each other, and that was the REAL issue. They at NO time were against each other; they both just wanted a voice to be heard.
Now when the media took coverage of this across the U.S., it became ugly. There were a lot of people from both sides acting like jackasses, that didn’t understand the issues, from both parties. It could have remained so civilized, but the media always swells issues into a hurricane (ratings for their networks).
If we as Americans can rise above the networks (CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, etc…) and as an alternative have regular meetings, face to face, calmly, & peacefully; that should begin a healing stage.
Pulse Nightmare
The mass shooting at a nightclub in the central Florida city was the worst in modern U.S. history. The gunman killed 49 people and injured dozens more before dying in a shootout with SWAT team members. During the rampage the gunman reportedly declared allegiance to Islamic State.
President Obama was briefed on the attack the following morning and received updates as the FBI and other federal and local authorities investigated. Florida Governor Rick Scott declared a state of emergency, as did the city of Orlando.
“This is clearly an act of terror,” Scott told reporters at a news conference.
DNC, the RNC, and WikiLeaks
Did you vote in the Primaries earlier this year? Did the person that you voted for win? Well a lot of people in the U.S. felt just like you, Disappointed.
To make it even more scringing, out of the fifteen (or more) candidates, only three actually ended up valid to vote for, and in the ending days, only two. What a freaking distress!
How many of you did your citizen duty, and voted anyway to TRY and make a difference in our country? How many of you changed your mind in the last weeks, due to puzzling news? Were you so ticked off by the candidates, that you skipped the main election?
Well I hope you didn’t skip the election. It was vital that we all went out to vote, no matter who we pressed the buttons for. We have an awesome country, and it can get by, despite WHAT struggling times it goes through.
New Years Approaching
While 2016 had uproar’s all year, we always have to take a look at some of the positive aspects that kept us going.
Remember the Olympics in Rio? It was awesome. Especially for one certain person that I couldn’t stop watching, Simone Biles! With 14 total world championship medals, 19-year-old Simon arrived in Rio already a star.
She netted four gold’s and a bronze — that cemented her legacy as the greatest female gymnast who ever lived.
Also, remember the World Series? Yeah, that super baseball game that nobody expects the Chicago Cubs to ever come close to win (or come close to being in). After 108 long and struggling years, the Chicago Cubs won the World Series; and I have to say (this is hard to say), I was rooting for them! Heck, I think the entire nation was rooting for them. Every single game that they played had a little bit of magic in it… something that we haven’t seen in decades.
But to be fair, I have to enclose this for my team the Chicago White Sox. Better luck next season.
