April 9th 2020: Hart Island in New York City. (REUTERS/Lucas Jackson)
In the year 2020 AD the world was swept by a coronavirus pandemic, leaving 1.8 million dead worldwide and at least 300,000 in the US. So far. With winter just now starting in the Northern Hemisphere, the worst is probably yet to come. New vaccines just came out – but so did a new, faster-spreading strain of the virus. Maybe in six months most people will have taken the vaccine and things will be getting back to normal, whatever that means now.
Another nightmare also seems to be ending: Donald Trump as the US president. In the Election of 2020 he suffered the greatest defeat by a sitting US president since Herbert Hoover in 1932. As he should have after mishandling the pandemic, making it way worse than it had to be, than it was in neighbouring Canada. He is still crying voter fraud but has produced no proof that it took place on a scale big enough to lose him the election. He is still in power for at least another 20 days. No telling what he might do.
George Floyd protests: The US saw its greatest wave of social unrest in 52 years – the worst since Martin Luther King Jr was killed – when George Floyd was killed, on camera, by police, gruesomely, knee on neck. Protests swept the nation and the world, sometimes turning to riot. “Defund the Police!” the people cried. Pearls were clutched and fear was mongered – but now Black Lives Matter has unimaginable amounts of money and public support. More statues of racist White men fell – and Mississippi changed its flag!
Brexit is now complete. Britain is no longer part of the European Union (EU). Also complete is Megxit – the exit of Prince Harry and and his wife Meghan Markle from the royal family. It seems that Black royalty was a bridge too far for White Britain.
Hong Kong: China’s crackdown on democrats there proceeds apace with a new “security” law.
Olympics: cancelled due to the pandemic.
Despite all of that, the biggest story of the year is the discovery of water on the Moon, enough to support human life. Plagues and potentates come and go – water on the Moon is something new under the sun.
In memoriam: the pandemic dead, especially those buried on Hart Island (pictured above), George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Rayshard Brooks, Quawan Charles, Chadwick Boseman, John Lewis, Kobe & Gianna Bryant (seems like more than a year ago), Katherine Johnson, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Little Richard, Bonnie Pointer, Vera Lynn, Betty Wright (“Clean Up Woman”, “Dance with Me”), Bill Withers, Helen Reddy, Diana Rigg, Sean Connery, Alex Trebek, Dawn Wells (Mary Ann on “Gilligan’s Island”), Olivia de Havilland (I assumed she was dead already), Kirk Douglas, Terry Jones (Monty Python), Naya Rivera (“Glee”), James Lipton (“Inside the Actor’s Studio”), James Flynn (of the Flynn Effect), Shere Hite, Larry Tesler (inventor of cut-and-paste on computers), Freeman Dyson, Clive Cussler (beach book novelist), John le Carré (spy novelist), Christopher Tolkien (Tolkien‘s son).
– Abagond, 2020.
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Abagond 
“Hong Kong: China’s crackdown on democracy there proceeds apace with a new “security” law.”
Pretty funny, since HK has never been a democracy in its entire history. “https://ilookchina.com/2019/06/19/the-history-of-democracy-in-hong-kong-is-so-short-it-never-existed/”. People like you babble on about democracy when in fact, we are talking about the right of foreign powers to impose their will on China. (https://www.mintpressnews.com/hong-kong-protests/259202/) Direct rule by Britain has never and will never be ‘democracy’. One country two systems was PRC policy, not a ‘right’, it was in the PRC legislature’s power to solely determine how it would be implemented. ‘Democrats’ like you and your good buddy jefe like to invoke “Basic Law” and quote it promiscuously, here it is in its entirety. (https://www.basiclaw.gov.hk/en/basiclawtext/index.html) China is trying to peacefully reunify its nation, the Basic Law was a tool in that process nothing more. Stop spreading ignorant propaganda.
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In any other year, Kenny Rogers dying would have been major news. In 2020 his death was barely a weekend story.
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@ gro jo
I think you knew what I meant, but just to be clear, I replaced “democracy” with “democrats”.
Britain failed to implant a full democracy in Hong Kong, just some of the features, like a freeish press and independent judges. Pathetic as it was, China did promise not to crack down on it for 50 years, not till 2047. They are clearly going back on that promise. I am not surprised – it merely confirms my low opinion of them. Like a husband who promises not to cheat but you know he is going to cheat.
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“Britain failed to implant a full democracy in Hong Kong, just some of the features, like a freeish press and independent judges. Pathetic as it was, China did promise not to crack down on it for 50 years, not till 2047.”
You are very funny. They failed to implant full democracy because they never had such intent. If you can prove they did I’d like to see the evidence. The British established a racist dictatorship in HK that was broken by Japanese arms at the start of WWII, and communist inspired resistance after the war. I don’t recall the “freeish” press or the ‘independent’ judges preventing the HK police killing over 50 HK citizens and putting thousands in concentration camps after the 1967 riots. Hell, Lizzy II made them ‘royal’. Maybe you should learn more history and less propaganda.
What kind of ‘democrats’ oppose the unification of their country and openly seek the backing of foreign powers? Isn’t national unification a basic tenet of democrats?
Where are you getting the nonsense about promising not to crack down until 2047? As I pointed out, the “Basic Law” is the tool of the PRC legislature, it alone, has the power to determine how that law would be implemented. Your low opinion is based on your inability to grasp the facts. Your friends, the democrats, thought they could blackmail the PRC with threats of sanctions by their ‘democratic’ sponsors. How stupid. China and the EU just signed a trade deal after China punished the ‘democrats’, what does that tell you about these ‘democrats’? Seems to me they are pawns to be sacrificed when convenient.
The PRC intends to make HK an integral part of The Pearl River Delta, can you and your ‘democrats’ state how the people of HK will ‘suffer’ from such development?
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I just read this article and decided to share it with the believers in HK ‘democracy’ under British rule. Nothing “freeish” about plans to deal with protesters, just good old imperialist violence. (https://www.vice.com/en/article/dp5ka7/honk-kong-british-army-302?utm_campaign=sharebutton)
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A sober analysis of the PRC-HK relationship: (https://eng.majalla.com/node/77141/how-china-sees-the-hong-kong-crisis)
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