Twelve News Stories that Made 2013 Memorable

            And so another year is gone; 2013, like all of its predecessors, is now consigned to the history books.  Did it really go by no faster than all the others?  How can it seem like just yesterday that a re-elected president was taking his oath and starting a new four-year term?  Where did those twelve months go?  Ah, that’s an imponderable for another day.  For now, let’s recount those events that made the most noise and constituted the most significant news of the twelve months just past.

1. Continuing wars in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Egypt – Each of these countries are in turmoil in one form of military conflict or another.  They all feature unstable governments that either are devoid of constitutional authority (Egypt), are run by old-line dictators (Syria), are struggling with new forms of governance while being attacked from within (Iraq), or are a loose confederation of ungovernable tribal regions with a semi-centralized faux government (Afghanistan).  None appear to be anywhere near the kind of stability that can foster a lasting peace for themselves or for the entire region.  If there is good news to be found in that part of the world, I sure don’t see it.
2. The U.S. government shutdown – Some claim that calling the government dysfunctional is hyperbole, but when your government shuts down solely because the legislative bodies cannot agree to keep the machinery of governing in operation, the most honest diagnosis is that your government is dysfunctional.  Of course, it only lasted for 16 days, but that is hardly reassuring.  The resolution only kicked the can down the road for a few months.  Unless the extremists in the GOP back down, more shutdowns (or worse: the debt ceiling comes up for extension this spring) loom.
3. Obamacare rollout problems – Talk about dysfunctional!  How bad was this one?  The hallmark of the president’s tenure got off to a stumbling (that word might be too charitable) start with a botched on-line site that was an absolute disaster from both a public relations and an operational perspective.  And, as might be expected, the once highly popular president suffered his lowest approval ratings as a result, with many wondering if maybe he just isn’t an effective leader, his public speaking skills notwithstanding.
4. The Boston Marathon bombing – It wasn’t as disastrous as the 9/11 attacks, but it was a horrific event nonetheless, recalling and even portending the nature of our collective security in the terrorist-dominated new millennium that makes even an outdoor sporting event a possible target.  The bomb was a simple device, built and detonated by rogue criminals who didn’t appear to have any direct connection to al Qaeda or any other international terrorist organization, but its effect was just as devastating for those who were maimed or killed by the blast.
5. The Moore, Oklahoma tornado and Typhoon Haiyan – Both could be classified as typical “acts of God,” the kind of weather-related disasters that strike communities as small as a little Oklahoma town or as large as a country with regrettable regularity.  But they also provided more evidence that the world’s climate is changing, with bigger storms more frequent and with the resulting devastation more pronounced.
6. The Bangladesh building collapse – Most of the over 1,100 who were killed were garment factory workers who had been ordered to return to work a day after inspectors (who had found cracks in the structure) urged the building to be evacuated.  The incident, in addition to being tragic from a purely human perspective, also provided evidence that the lack of adequate regulation combined with the greed of corporate interests can create even more misery in third world countries than it can in the U.S.
7. The Edward Snowden revelations – Whether he is a traitor to his country, a hero to the citizens of that country, or, perhaps, just a misguided idealistic young man who didn’t appreciate the consequences of his actions, Snowden alerted the world to the extent to which Big Brother is insinuating itself into our lives, all in the name of added security.  George Orwell would not be surprised.
8. The Supreme Court decisions on gay marriage – The big surprise here wasn’t the decision to declare DOMA unconstitutional, as the Court had been moving away from its earlier homophobic positions for a while.  But in allowing states to enact right-to-marry laws, the Court has caught up with the emerging majority of U.S. citizens, who regard personal decisions between consenting adults as outside of the bounds of government restriction and interference.  Happily, to date, no traditional marriage has been reported to have been destroyed by the Court’s ruling.
9. The Soaring Stock Market – Is there a correlation between the record-breaking run the market has had of late and the emergence of something akin to a full economic recovery?  Unemployment is still way too high, but it is lower than the disastrous levels it was at when Obama took office.  The poor are, as always, the last to escape from the worst that the recession brought on, and for them record stock market closings aren’t putting any more food on their tables.  It may be that the cycle is finally turning back towards broader prosperity.  The question then will be whether the plutocrats will allow the wealth to be spread down below the top two percent.
10. New Jersey’s hot politicians – The state may be about to promote two of its own onto the national stage.  Chris Christie is already well on his way to a presidential campaign, with only the far right of his party standing in his way from securing the nomination.  (And if they couldn’t stop Mitt Romney, the bet here would be they don’t have a chance of stopping Christie, who is a much better politician, if not a better governor.)  But the state’s newly elected Senator, Cory Booker, is also a comer, and if he isn’t on the Democrat’s ticket in 2016, he’ll certainly be in the conversation.  Consider that the only real prediction you get out of this review of the year just past.
11. The deal with Iran – It isn’t much in terms of a long-term solution to the threatened destabilization of the region, but the agreement the State Department reached with Iran for that country to halt, temporarily, the acquisition of nuclear-enriched material marks the first time since the release of the embassy hostages in 1981 that any kind of rapprochement has been achieved with the Iranian theocracy.  Whether this achievement indicates that the Iranian leaders are softening (or, perhaps, are starting to feel the effects of the sanctions imposed on their country) is problematic, but if nothing else, it allows for hope where none existed before.
12. The President’s handshake with Raul Castro – The Fox News folks had a field day with this one, but the fact that Obama shook hands with the current leader of Cuba can’t be anything but good news.  If nothing else, it reflects a decision by Obama to acknowledge the existence of a legitimate government, which, in the world of civilized nations, is only appropriate.  And if it also indicates a willingness to reduce the antipathy that the United States has formally had for Cuba for over 50 years, it could lead to a major milestone in U.S. foreign policy.  Cuba is not a threat to the U.S., and the fact that it adheres to a rigid socialist model is hardly reason to cast it in the same light as North Korea and Iran, which, with their attempts to achieve nuclear capability, most definitely are.