Wednesday, December 31, 2014

2014 Comes To A Close

The year 2014 will reach its conclusion in just a few hours.  I'd say that this year has lived up to the old curse, "may you live in interesting times", which contrary to the popular notion, does not come from China.

The year has certainly been interesting for the people of Crimea, which was taken from Ukraine by Russia, in a conflict that also included the downing of a civilian airliner, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, by pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine.

Another Malaysia Airlines plane, Flight 370, took off from Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing, but made a westward turn towards the Indian Ocean.  The fate of the plane, its passengers, and its crew, and the reason for its deviation from its intended course are still unknown.  More recently, AirAsia Flight 8501, bound from Surabaya, Indonesia to Singapore, went down near the island of Borneo.  Wreckage and bodies from the plane have been found.

In Iraq and Syria, a terrorist organization known variously as ISIS, ISIL or the Islamic State emerged and took parts of Iraq that American forces had previously taken from al Qaeda in Iraq and other terrorist groups.  They also trapped some 40,000 Yazidis, members of a religious minority, on Mount Sinjar in northwestern Iraq.  While they imposed Sharia on the people in the areas they controlled, including using Sharia to justify enslaving women, our president assured us that "ISIL is not Islamic."  Only recently have the Yazidis been freed from ISIS, by the Kurdish militia known as the Peshmerga, with help from American airstrikes.

Back home, Obama gave us some interesting domestic times, enacting a "series of executive immigration actions" that largely amounts to an amnesty.  He continued to be the most golf-addicted president in recent history, managing to force a pair of army captains to relocate their wedding.

After an Ebola outbreak in western Africa, a Liberian man infected with the disease traveled to the United States and died here, resulting in the infection of two American medical workers, who recovered.  After a surge in illegal immigration by children, whom the federal government apparently dumped onto local communities and school districts, some 700 American children became infected with Enterovirus D68, causing some to wonder if the virus was imported with the young illegal aliens.

According to some people, during 2014 a "war on women" broke out, but some have also admitted that this accusation wasn't all that effective.  In one battle of this "war", a business named Hobby Lobby won at the Supreme Court, preserving their right to avoid including abortifacients in their birth control coverage in their employees' health insurance policies.  Interestingly enough, Hobby Lobby's team of lawyers appears to be mostly female.

The Republican Party posted some large gains in the midterm 2014 elections, but the lame duck Congress agreed to keep most of the federal government funded through September 2015 by passing the so-called CRomnibus legislation.

During the last few months, the deaths of two black men at the hands of white police officers has stirred up a protest movement called Ferguson, after the town in Missouri where the first of these two deaths took place.  In that incident, a teenager named Michael Brown was allegedly trying to surrender, but his autopsy seems to indicate otherwise.  Even so, "Hands up, don't shoot" has become a rallying cry.  In the other incident, Eric Garner of New York City was arrested by a group of police officers under the command of Sergeant Kizzy Adoni, who is black.  During the arrest, Garner was heard saying "I can't breathe" while Officer Daniel Pantaleo had him in a headlock.  Since Officer Pantaleo is white, Garner's death has been portrayed as an act of racist white-on-black violence, even though he died of a heart attack after being placed in an ambulance, rather than from being choked.  Garner's words have subsequently appeared on T-shirts.  Meanwhile, many of the Ferguson protesters seemed to have no qualms about blocking roads or shopping malls.  Anger over the death of Garner may have inspired a gunman to kill two New York City policemen.

Closer to home, my Virginia Tech Hokies had an up-and-down football season, including wins over Ohio State and Cincinnati, the latter in the Military Bowl.  I had the chance to travel to Wisconsin, Arizona and Normandy, France.  Back home, I participated in Operation American Spring and the March for Marriage, both of which were rather convenient for us Maryland residents, because they took place in Washington, DC.

I'm sure there other things worth mentioning, but I can only remember so much at one sitting.  Here's to hoping that 2015 will be interesting, but in a positive way.

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