This year I’ll focus on important people who died.
Political Figures
Colin PowellDonald RumsfeldBob DoleBernard MadoffRush LimbaughLarry KingF.W. de Clerk – the South African Apartheid president who made peace with Mandela and allowed the country to move forward.
Religious & Historical figures
Desmond Tutu
Sports Icons
American Sprinter Lee Evans won 2 gold medals (and set 2 world records) in 1968, but quickly used his fame to advocate for equal rights. The Olympic Project for Human Rights protested for blacks to have equal housing and end segregation in sports, and in general. He faced death threats for his stand, and commented that he’d have run faster if that hadn’t been the case. He also was a Fulbright sociologist and won the Nelson Mandela award for his human rights activism. Hank Aaron – He broke Babe Ruth’s home run record in Baseball and faced an onslaught of daily racism and threats of violence. Police and security guards had to accompany him daily in the South, even in 1974. At the time, Babe Ruth was held up as proof of “white superiority” and Hank Aaron’s performance destroyed that myth. He later donated all of his baseball memorabilia to the Hall of Fame and walked away, except for a box of racist hate mail fans sent him, which he kept. He remained a lifelong outspoken activist against racism and segregation.John Madden
Music, Writers, the Arts
Stephen SondheimLarry McMurtry – Author of Lonesome DoveBeverly Cleary – As a child, she struggled as a reader. And she found most books boring and predictable. So she became a librarian and later a writer who elevated our expectations about what children’s books could be. Her sixth grade teacher advised her that should could become a children’s writer, based on essays she’d written. She recalled reading The Dutch Twins, a book by Lucy Fitch Perkins about the adventures of ordinary children, as the moment when she had a vision of how she wanted her books to feel.Norton Juster – The Phantom TollboothEric Carle – The Hungry Hungry Caterpillar
Memes and memorable images of 2021
Dec 2, 2021In 1955 people believed you could seriously prepare for nuclear war, because the alternative idea – that you couldn’t survive it – was too scary. A few activists took this reality as a reason to change the course of history away from war, but most people preferred believing the easy lie over the hard truth, that would require action from them.
Fast forward 63 years and people still act this way around covid-19. A minority put in the work to save the species when the majority look for convenience lies to assuage their fears.
Covid-19
The consequence of refusing to act to curb covid-19 is undeniable. All-cause mortality in 2020 (red) was much higher (~15%) than the previous 4 years. Life Insurance “death-benefits” payout rose 15.4% in 2020 to $90 billion, the sharpest increase since 1918 (the year of the last major global pandemic).On Feb 22 NASA landed a rover on Mars again, this time using a parachute with code that said, “DARE MIGHTY THINGS.” The rover included a flying drone, and everything worked… again.A container ship blocks the Suez Canal for over a week.The Pandora Papers were released — an account of all (a small glimpse of) the secretly stashed wealth from world leaders and influencers become public, and then quickly forgotten about by the news media.About 25-6 years after the Internet became a global phenomenon, here is the backbone of all the connections worldwide. 2021 is largely a year of dialogues and questioning the way that social problems are framed. Elijah McClain was killed by cops in Aurora, CO.Dune is the first blockbuster since the start of the pandemic. 2021 seems to have been the year for fantasy-sci-fi-epics to become movies or TV series. We also had Wheel of Time (Amazon, Robert Jordan) and Foundation (Apple, Isaac Asimov).Trumpism dies goes on hiatus (or merely out of the white house) for the moment.National Lampoons Christmas Vacation Lawn DecorOn New Year’s eve, a huge residential swath of Denver/Boulder burned because of (a) high winds, (b) warm and dry Autum, and (c) an impending snowstorm bringing 100 mph winds. Most devastating (to people) wildfire in Colorado’s history to end the year that was 2021.
ChewyChunks 