Ten years (or eleven), that's a lot of coffee . . .

I was drinking my coffee this morning listening to the radio. Suddenly I heard the announcer say that it was time for the decade in review. My puzzle loving twisted ADD brain first wondered if NPR realized that this was a review of the first eleven years of the 2000's rather than the first decade. As I wondered I realized I missed the first part, so maybe they didn't cover anything in 2000. Perhaps I started drinking coffee too early.

But that thought only lasted a second.

Then I thought, "that can't be right." It's hard enough to believe that another year has passed, much less another decade, or eleven years, whichever.

But it is right. I checked.

I was reminded that the 2000's have been quite the roller coaster ride. The whole y2k scare which never materialized was about the only thing that deserved to be lessened to lower case letters. So much so that some of you probably had to think a bit to remember what y2k was.

We have suffered and celebrated through rapid fire capital letter events since then.

But 2000 set the tone. The big news events seem long ago. We worried because AOL (to refresh your memory that stands for America On Line, which featured that voice that said "You've Got Mail") was buying out media conglomerate Times Warner. It looked like AOL would forever control the Internet and conventional media and was a great stock to own if you were able to see the bubble before it burst, also in 2000. I don't get too many AOL generated emails anymore.

Foreshadowing horrific events to come, the USS Cole was attacked by suicide bombers while refueling in Aden. Al Queda led by Osama Ben Laden, known by some but not yet household names in the United States, was credited for the bombing which killed seventeen military personnel.

Hillary Clinton, the long-suffering wife of the President for most of the nineties, began to show us how formidable she would become when she was elected U. S. Senator from New York. A young Illinois state Senator, Barack Hussein Obama, was defeated in his first bid for Congress, but made a quietly remarkable showing beginning the race at ten percent and ending at thirty one percent against a popular candidate. And he learned a lot about politics as we would find out an amazingly short eight years later.

2000 was a Presidential election year, probably the most infamous. Election night was a bonanza for political junkies as it came down to Florida, just as Tim Russert had been telling us all evening on his little handheld chalkboard. And Florida just wasn't too sure. After thinking he had won and then lost, Democrat and vice president Al Gore conceded, and then withdrew his concession. The folks in Florida gave us an education about chads, hanging and dangling like fruit from a palm tree. The recount was started and then stopped in an unprecedented (literally, they said so in the opinion) decision by a defiantly anti-activist U. S. Supreme Court. Gore ultimately conceded, and George W. Bush, later to better Elvis, Bono, and Charro by being known simply by one letter, "W", was elected President.

The winner of the 2000 award for irony had to be the United Nations, when it declared 2000 to be "The International Year for the Culture of Peace." Perhaps they should have made that "The International Decade . . ." But the foreshadowing of the warring and mayhem of the decade was obvious in 2000 with the U.S. Cole bombing, Iraq's defiance of the UN's insistence that it disarm, and the dramatic increase in Al Queda and other terrorist group activity. At least it seems obvious now.

"Genomes," a preliminary draft of the report of the Human Genome Project was completed in 2000.

The last original Peanuts comic strip was published after the death of Charles Schultz.

Looking at pop culture of years past is like looking at your old high school yearbooks. Just embarrassing. What were we thinking? Most of my personal embarrassment when looking at yearbooks involves fashion, or lack of it, but I can't remember anything distinctive fashion wise for 2000, nor could I find it in my arduous research for this post. Beer advertisements and an odd song written for Trinidad and Tobago's Carnival season by Anslem Douglas and made popular by Baha Men added much to our vocabulary. In fact, in some groups you heard little else.

Whassup????? Whasssup????

Who let the dogs out . . . Who, who, who, who, who.

And reality TV. Not my favorite genre, but some of my respected readers are avid fans. Survivor debuted, as did Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire, which many thought to be the absolute low for TV of any kind, reality or unreality. That later proved to be a great overestimation of the creative abilities of the American TV industry.

Pop music featured hits by Faith Hill, Matchbox 20, Savage Garden, Destiny's Child, Toni Braxton, Lonestar,N Sync, Backstreet Boys, Creed, Nelly, and a whole bunch more. It's easier to look for yourself if you would like. http://www.musicoutfitters.com/topsongs/2000.htm

Other newsmakers were Napster (remember when we all wondered if we would be arrested or fined for downloading songs?) and Elian Gonzalez, the Cuban boy who was the unfortunate subject of the most publicized child custody case in history (he's 17 now, wonder what he's up to?).

For you Alabama readers, you may remember that Tommy Blanton andBobby Frank Cherry were indicted for the Ku KluxKlan's unthinkable bombing of Birmingham's 16th St. Baptist Church some 37 years earlier.

University of Alabama football fans suffered through one of the most disappointing seasons ever in 2000, ranked number three before they started, but in fact it seemed they never got started, and ended with a losing season, causing the demise of head coach Mike Dubose. Auburn, on the other hand, saw a reversal of fortune and ended the regular season 9-2 and played in the SEC championship game.

And we all remember the ten commandments. Not because we should as good Bible Belt citizens, but because then Etowah County Circuit Judge Roy Moore (not to be confused with Judge Roy Bean, although their view of the law was similar in some ways) refused to take a plaque with the big ten of Mosaic Law off the wall of his courtroom. It was the beginning of a long, entertaining and troubling story, resulting in Judge Moore descending from on high to deposit a large stone inscribed with the commandments in the Alabama Supreme Court foyer. It turned out to be much easier to remove Judge Moore from the building than to remove the huge stone.

A record setting drought and a killer December tornado. Unfortunately that history repeats itself quite often in Alabama.

That's where we were in 2000. Yes I know I left out a lot. You may fill in the blanks by commenting if you so wish.

When I listen to the news each day sometimes I wonder how we got here.

I guess I forgot.

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