Rueben's Ramblings

It’s been a difficult few years because of COVID and its lingering aftermath not to mention all the tragedies that have befallen our country – be it school shootings, racial tensions, horrific weather or everything in the world of politics. But with the bad comes the good, and I know many of us try, as best we can, to focus on the good.

The following are just some of the top stories for this year, broken down by month:

January

* The deadly row house fire in Philadelphia
* The horrible winter storm, which caused a tractor trailer pile-up on I-95 on the East Coast that trapped drivers for 27 hours
* The Founder of Oath Keepers and 10 other members arrested and charged with seditious conspiracy over the January 6 insurrection
* The men who killed Ahmaud Arbery sentenced to life in prison
* Amy Schneider won 40 consecutive victories on Jeopardy, winning over 1.3 million
* The Tsunami warning for the West Coast caused by below water volcanic eruption in the South Pacific and the island of Tonga covered in massive quantities of ash
* The North Texas Synagogue and some of its parishoners who were taken hostage
* The two NYPD officers who were gunned down

February

* Power outages, running 2000 miles
* Russia invades Ukraine
* Freedom Convoy protest in Ottawa
* First black woman on Supreme Court – Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson – nominated by President Biden

March

* Gas prices soaring
* The Emmett Till bill against lynching cleared congress
*The “Don’t Say Gay” bill passed in Florida

April

* President Biden pardoned three people in his first act of clemency
* Twitter’s board pulled “Posion Pill” in an effort to block Elon Musk takeover (he eventually got Twitter anyway)
* The slap heard round the world at the Oscars when Will Smith bitch-slapped Chris Rock
* Growing sanctions by various countries against Russia and their invasion of Ukraine

May

* The baby formula crisis
* The Monkeypox scare
* The departure of White House press secretary Jen Psaki
* School shooting in Uvalde, Texas by 18-year-old shooter
*Boston shooting by a radicalized 18-year-old, who believed in replacement theory where Black people are replacing whites

June

* Massive Jubilee celebration for Queen Elizabeth, 70 years as ruler
* The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade
* The Supreme Court also overtutned gun conceal law in New York that would affect many other states
* Ghislane Maxwell sentenced to 20 years for sex trafficking of underage girls alongside the now deceased Jeffrey Epstein
*R. Kelly sentenced to 30 years in prison for racketeering and violating the Mann Act

July

* The shooting at a 4th of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois
* Boris Johnson resigned as U.K Prime Minister
* Massive flooding in Virginia and Kentucky

August

* WNBA player Brittney Griner sentenced to 9 years in Russian prison for drug smuggling
* Alex Jones, founder of fringe media outlet Infowars, ordered to pay 45 million in punitive damages to Sandy Hook Families.
* The flooding in Death Valley
* Raid on Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home because of classified documents he took
* The Inflation Reduction Act passed
* Serena Williams plants to retire from tennis
* Lake Mead at unprecedented low levels with human remains discovered
* Salman Rashdie brutally attacked
* CDC ordered major overhaul of their organization
* Water crisis in Jackson, Mississippi due to massive flooding disaster
* The Warner Brothers Discovery merger decimating programs and massive cancellations
* The Oregon shooting in a Safeway grocery store

September

* Liz Truss became the new U.K. Prime Minister – only the third female PM in U.K. history (she resigned only a six weeks later)
* Roger Federer retiring from tennis
* Senate Republicans introduced a bill to ban abortion nationwide
* Massive protests over the death of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian woman who died while in the custody of morality police for allegedly wearing a loose headscarf
* The human trafficking scandal by Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott of migrants flown from Texas and Florida to Martha’s Vineyard
* Sir Elton John awarded National Humanities Medal by President Biden

October

* North Korea launching test-fire missiles over Japan
* Hurricane Ian hits Fort Myers, Florida and surrounding area causing massive flooding
* Rishi Sunak to become first non-white Prime Minister in U.K.
* Kevin Spacey found not liable in sexual abuse case
* Yet another school shooting in St. Louis, Missouri
* The deadly Halloween crowd-surge in Seoul, Korea
* The Kayne West antisemitic scandal

November

* The non-existent “Red Wave” that didn’t happen during the mid-term elections
* Alex Jones ordered to pay even more money to Sandy Hook families, now totalling nearly 1.5 billion dollars
* The election win by Senator Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada, ensuring Democratic control over the Senate
* Ukraine getting part of their country back from the Russians who invaded
* Mike Pence breaks his silence on the January 6th insurrections (and much more) and releases a book
* RSV Respiratory Flu cases began rising to dangerous levels
* Roberta Flack has A.L.S. and can no longer sing
* Karen Bass elected first woman mayor of Los Angeles
* Iran’s security forces beating and killing teenagers as they crackdown on protests
* Nancy Pelosi stepping down as party leadership of Democrats in the House
* Elizabeth Holmes sentenced to over 11 years in prison for defrauding investors with her medical start-up Theranos
* The Danny Masterson trial ending in a hung jury
* Reality “stars” Todd and Julie Christley sentenced to multiple years in federal prison for bank fraud and tax evasion
* The Supreme Court permits House Democrats to obtain Donald Trump’s tax returns

December

* Raphael Warnock wins Senate seat in Georgia
* The Trump Organization found guilty in tax fraud scheme
* Germany arrests dozens of suspects planning to overthrow government
* Classified documents found in Donald Trump storage site
* Brittney Griner released from Russian prison in exchange for a Russian arms dealer
* Celine Dion diagnosed with rare neurological disorder
* Harvey Weinstein convicted on 3 Charges of rape and sexual assault
* The January 6 committee members voted to refer their findings to the Justice Department, urging officials there to criminally prosecute Donald Trump and several of his associates

That is quite the list of just some of the top news items throughout the year!

I hope that you will join me through the end of this year, as I focus on the best and the worst of 2022 in the worlds of TV and movies, TV ratings and so much more.

NOTE: I apologize in advance for any omissions, spelling errors or oversights I might have made, but I definitely don’t apologize for any choices I made.

TOMORROW: Top TV Moments

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After everything that took place in 2020 because of the COVID pandemic, everyone was hoping for a better year in 2021. To a certain degree things have gotten a tiny bit better. Vaccines have been rolling out, booster shots are available; people are getting back to work; the entertainment industry is getting back into production; but – sadly – too many people in the United States are balking at getting the vaccines and still creating problems over wearing masks as well as balking at following health mandates that are there for good and valid reasons. And the nation has been rocked by a lot of tragedies, school shootings, unprecedented weather patterns and political quagmires. We are also currently concerned with the latest Omicron variant that has been cropping up across the globe.

It all started on January 6 when the orange-faced baboon incited the riots that took place in Washington, D.C., culminating in the insurrection at the Capitol Building. What a horrible display of human behavior that was; and what’s worse, not enough people have been prosecuted for those vial acts of treason against our country.

Only a few weeks later, the United States marked one year since the first case of COVID-19 was announced in Washington State with a death toll of 650,000 people as of February [sadly, that number continues to grow]. And then the second impeachment of the orange-faced baboon was announced without an indictment being handed down – yet again!

Then there were the Andrew Cuomo and Matt Gaetz scandals; the conviction of Derek Chauvin in the murder of George Floyd, and the Russian hackers – known as Darkside – causing a massive fuel shortage across the East Coast because of their attack on the Colonial Pipeline. There were vaccine protests throughout the country and a criminal investigation lodged against the Trump Organization; and the missile strikes between Israel and Palestine.

By the summer, it was announced that 4 million worldwide deaths were on record due to the COVID pandemic. As summer began to fade, the United States finally withdrew from Afghanistan only to have the Taliban take over that country in about a week’s time, not to mention the devastating bombing that took place at the airport there as people were desperately trying to evacuate.

And then there was the Facebook whistleblower who testified on Capitol Hill; the Navy engineer and his wife who were arrested for espionage; the French Catholic Church scandal; the recent Astroworld Festival tragedy; the extremely disappointing results of the Kyle Rittenhouse case, finding him not guilty on all counts (so very, very wrong!) while the three men in the Ahmaud Arbery case were rightfully found guilty on all counts.

Turning to weather tragedies: there were earthquakes in Indonesia and Haiti; a deadly Nor’easter that hit Texas; countless tornadoes and hurricanes throughout the South and Northeast; massive floods in Germany and Belgium as well as many parts of the U.S. South; volcanic eruptions on the Island of St. Vincent and on the Canary Islands in Spain and countless wildfires in the Pacific West.

Throughout the year it seemed like every state reported shootings at schools or malls; places of business; on military bases; at the Capitol; at a FedEx hub in Indiana and countless more. There was the horrific collapse of that condo building in Surfside, Florida; the train derailment in Montana and the horrible oil spill in Huntington Beach, California.

There were triumphs in 2021, however, including the Perseverance Rover successfully landing on Mars; President Biden signing into law making Juneteenth (June 19) a federal holiday; the medal success of all the athletes at the Summer Olympics in Japan (which were delayed one year because of the pandemic) and Matt Amodio becoming the 3rd highest regular season earner ever on Jeopardy.

Let’s all hold onto the small glimmers of hope and joy that we have been able to find throughout the year; and hold out for more good things to happen in 2022.

I hope that you will join me through the end of this year, as I focus on the best and the worst of 2021 in the worlds of TV and movies, TV ratings and so much more.

NOTE: I apologize in advance for any omissions, spelling errors or oversights I might have made, but I definitely don’t apologize for any choices I made.

TOMORROW: TV Highlights

Read Full Post »