The best thing we can say about 2022 is: It could have been worse.
For example, we could have had nuclear Armageddon. This briefly appeared to be a possibility, at least according to the president, who broke the news in October at (Why not?) a Democratic Party fundraiser at the home of a wealthy donor in New York City. That must have been an exciting event! One moment everybody’s standing around chewing hors d’oeuvres, and the next moment WHOA WHAT DID HE JUST SAY?
The next day, after the news media ran a bunch of scary headlines, the White House Office of Explaining What the President Actually Meant explained that the president wasn’t suggesting that we were facing Armageddon per se, but was merely, as is his wont, emitting words, one of which happened to be “Armageddon,” and everybody should just calm down.
So we dodged a bullet there.
And there were other positive developments in 2022:
— Millions of Americans on social media realized — it took them a while, but they finally got there — that nobody wants to know how they did on “Wordle.”
— For the 13th consecutive year, the New York Yankees failed to even get into the World Series.
— Best of all, the looming apocalyptic threat of catastrophic global climate change was finally eliminated thanks to the breakthrough discovery that the solution — it has been staring us in the face all this time — was to throw food at art.
So 2022 had some positives. Which is not to say that it was good. In fact it was the opposite of good, specifically, bad. The economy continued to stagger around like the last stoner out of Burning Man. We lost Angela Lansbury, Sidney Poitier, Loretta Lynn, Gilbert Gottfried, Christine McVie and Meat Loaf. Democracy died at least three times.
Maybe Armageddon wouldn’t have been so bad.
Anyway, it’s over. But before we move on to 2023, it’s time to don surgical gloves, reach deep down inside the big bag of stupid that was 2022, and see what we pull out, starting with ...
Vaccines also continue to be a subject of heated disagreement, to the point where — you may vaguely recall this — Neil Young demands that his music be removed from Spotify. This is a sentence we never envisioned writing in connection with vaccines, but here we are.
America faces three major crises: spiking covid-19 cases, soaring inflation and an alarming surge in the number of people who think it’s okay to hold loud FaceTime conversations in public. The national mood is gloomy, and it’s taking a heavy political toll on President Biden, as voters increasingly question whether he is up to the job of leading the nation, or for that matter finishing his sentences.
According to the polls, the two biggest concerns of the public, by far, are the pandemic and the economy. Consequently Congress is focused, laserlike, on: the Senate filibuster rule. This is a legislative tactic that is evil when the other side uses it but good when your side uses it. At the moment the Democrats want to change the rule, so of course the Republicans, led by Sen. Mitch “I am smiling, damn it” McConnell, are opposed to changing it, which means Washington is consumed by a bitter, vicious, nasty, name-calling battle pitting the Democrats against Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who are also Democrats.
In the end, as is so often the case with these burning issues that consume the nation’s capital, nothing happens, which is the whole point of the constitutional system of checks and balances put into place by the Founding Fathers, all of whom — and this is a testament to their wisdom and foresight — are dead.
Meanwhile the national debt, for the first time ever, creeps over $30 trillion, which is more than the entire U.S. economy is worth. Fortunately this is nothing to worry about. Forget we even brought it up.
In other financial news, more and more people are buying “cryptocurrencies,” which appeal to investors because the cryptocurrency market is not controlled by the government. Instead it is controlled by 13-year-old Justin Weeblemonger of Teaneck, N.J., who runs the whole shebang out of his PlayStation 5. (Justin also controls airline fares.)
In sports, Georgia defeats Alabama in the AT&T Ram Trucks Allstate Capital One Disney Bob’s Burgers Dr Pepper Gatorade Siri Taco Bell Bowl to become champions of professional college football.
Speaking of trucks, in …
For example, we could have had nuclear Armageddon. This briefly appeared to be a possibility, at least according to the president, who broke the news in October at (Why not?) a Democratic Party fundraiser at the home of a wealthy donor in New York City. That must have been an exciting event! One moment everybody’s standing around chewing hors d’oeuvres, and the next moment WHOA WHAT DID HE JUST SAY?
The next day, after the news media ran a bunch of scary headlines, the White House Office of Explaining What the President Actually Meant explained that the president wasn’t suggesting that we were facing Armageddon per se, but was merely, as is his wont, emitting words, one of which happened to be “Armageddon,” and everybody should just calm down.
So we dodged a bullet there.
And there were other positive developments in 2022:
— Millions of Americans on social media realized — it took them a while, but they finally got there — that nobody wants to know how they did on “Wordle.”
— For the 13th consecutive year, the New York Yankees failed to even get into the World Series.
— Best of all, the looming apocalyptic threat of catastrophic global climate change was finally eliminated thanks to the breakthrough discovery that the solution — it has been staring us in the face all this time — was to throw food at art.
So 2022 had some positives. Which is not to say that it was good. In fact it was the opposite of good, specifically, bad. The economy continued to stagger around like the last stoner out of Burning Man. We lost Angela Lansbury, Sidney Poitier, Loretta Lynn, Gilbert Gottfried, Christine McVie and Meat Loaf. Democracy died at least three times.
Maybe Armageddon wouldn’t have been so bad.
Anyway, it’s over. But before we move on to 2023, it’s time to don surgical gloves, reach deep down inside the big bag of stupid that was 2022, and see what we pull out, starting with ...
January
… which begins with the world entering the third or possibly eighth year — nobody remembers anymore — of the pandemic. The American public is seriously divided: Everybody who is wearing a mask hates everybody who is not wearing a mask, and vice versa. Both sides are 100 percent supported by The Science.Vaccines also continue to be a subject of heated disagreement, to the point where — you may vaguely recall this — Neil Young demands that his music be removed from Spotify. This is a sentence we never envisioned writing in connection with vaccines, but here we are.
America faces three major crises: spiking covid-19 cases, soaring inflation and an alarming surge in the number of people who think it’s okay to hold loud FaceTime conversations in public. The national mood is gloomy, and it’s taking a heavy political toll on President Biden, as voters increasingly question whether he is up to the job of leading the nation, or for that matter finishing his sentences.
According to the polls, the two biggest concerns of the public, by far, are the pandemic and the economy. Consequently Congress is focused, laserlike, on: the Senate filibuster rule. This is a legislative tactic that is evil when the other side uses it but good when your side uses it. At the moment the Democrats want to change the rule, so of course the Republicans, led by Sen. Mitch “I am smiling, damn it” McConnell, are opposed to changing it, which means Washington is consumed by a bitter, vicious, nasty, name-calling battle pitting the Democrats against Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who are also Democrats.
In the end, as is so often the case with these burning issues that consume the nation’s capital, nothing happens, which is the whole point of the constitutional system of checks and balances put into place by the Founding Fathers, all of whom — and this is a testament to their wisdom and foresight — are dead.
Meanwhile the national debt, for the first time ever, creeps over $30 trillion, which is more than the entire U.S. economy is worth. Fortunately this is nothing to worry about. Forget we even brought it up.
In other financial news, more and more people are buying “cryptocurrencies,” which appeal to investors because the cryptocurrency market is not controlled by the government. Instead it is controlled by 13-year-old Justin Weeblemonger of Teaneck, N.J., who runs the whole shebang out of his PlayStation 5. (Justin also controls airline fares.)
In sports, Georgia defeats Alabama in the AT&T Ram Trucks Allstate Capital One Disney Bob’s Burgers Dr Pepper Gatorade Siri Taco Bell Bowl to become champions of professional college football.
Speaking of trucks, in …