Goodbye 2014 - and good riddance!

New Year's Eve is just 2 days away.  Time to reminisce about a truly terrible year; 2014.  Were there any good news stories this past year?  I'm sure there were some but they were mostly overshadowed by the following:
  • We lost many great entertainers that I will miss.  The funny Joan Rivers and Robin Williams. Fine actors James Garner, Ruby Dee, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Lauren Bacall.  As a teenager I saw Ruby Dee perform Kate in Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew".  It was unforgettable.  Directors Mike Nichols (The Graduate, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, The Odd Couple, Barefoot in the Park) and Sir Richard Attenborough (The Sand Pebbles, Gandhi) gave us memorably classic plays and movies, but no more  I still recall the movies I watched as a small child that starred Mickey Rooney and Shirley Temple Black.  How sad that their passing was hardly noted by a press so focused on a new generation that does not relate to these great child actors nor value their work.  Also Casey Kasem of music fame.
  • The slaughter of children around the world for political reasons unnerved me.  An entire school of boys in Pakistan were killed for political reasons.  An entire school of girls in Nigeria kidnapped, raped and forced into marriage and pregnancy.  These events and others were at the depraved hands of ISIS and the Taliban and similar Islamic radicals.  It will continue into the new year.  And thousands of desperate children crossed the Mexican-USA border to escape rape, torture, hunger and forced gang membership in Central America.  But they were used for political reasons in the USA by both parties.  Why have politicians forgotten that they are children.
  • Ebola - the reemergence of an old plague gave the world a scare.  Plus a strain of influenza that the flu shots could not contain.
  • Cyber terrorism has become commonplace.  Remember Target, Bergdorf Goodman's, Sony Pictures?  Privacy is dead.
  • Two Malaysian Airline crashes shocked us.  One Boeing 777 is still missing.  The other 777 was intentionally shot down by Russian-backed militants.  And now a 3rd Asian jet has disappeared in Indonesia.  Were they all intentional crashes?
  • Our disappointing POTUS has fallen in popularity not just in America but around the world.  He has lost the confidence of the American people who voted for him and the world who used to think of the POTUS as the most powerful man in the world.  As a result Republicans now control both houses of Congress and nothing will get done for two years.
  • The Denver Broncos lost the Superbowl to the Seattle Seahawks depriving my favorite quarterback, Peyton Manning, of a 2nd championship ring.  And Rex Ryan, a truly dynamic, popular and thoughtful coach has lost his job with the NY Jets after a disastrous season.
  • War continues in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq and will continue to do so for years despite anything the POTUS may state.  We have lost these wars by our abandonment.  And the cancer of terrorism will continue to spread to us.
  • And worse of all - the racial divide in America continues to grow as politicians such as Attorney General Eric Holder, President Barack Obama, Mayor Bill DeBlasio and Al Sharpton publicly support felons such as Michael Brown and Eric Garner - instead of supporting the policemen that are trying their best to protect us. The result is that they have the blood of Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu on their hands.  These politicians are truly despicable and their lack of support for our police is deplorable.
But there were a few bright spots in 2014.
  • Pope Francis continues to inspire, negotiating a truce between USA and Cuba and declaring that pets too can go to Heaven.  I look forward to his USA visit in 2015.
  • A joint USA-China pledge on global warming was signed.
  • Advances in biotechnology and orthopedic technology continue to astound us.
  • The Dow hit 17000 in 2014, then 18000 in late December.
Happy New Year!

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