What a Change: 2008 In Review

This has been one of the craziest years in recent memory. With so much happening it's been rather difficult to pick out the top five most intriging news stories of the entire year. Somehow I've managed to find the most outrageous stories that has shaped the year of change. 1

Here are my top five stories of the entire year:2

5- Scandals, scandals and more scandals: So many of the headlines throughout the year involved all sorts of scandals from the sex scandal that brought down that Governor Spitzer to the steroid mess in baseball. The prostitute that brought down that disgruntled governor still hasn't shut her mouth and keeps reminding us of what happened. Another mayor in Detroit was brought down on a scandal on malpractice while in office. Even in my home state we've had our problems with a mayor in our capital city of Jackson who was involved in something involving a police raid on a house. 3

In baseball, this was the scandal that started the season with everyone questioning the home run derby in the 1990s with everyone from that era under the question of whether or not he was using steroids. Things went from bad to worse when the Capitol Hill got involved (they had their own thing going as well as I will explain later) and demanded changes. 4

4- Hurricanes Gustav and Ike: The Gulf Coast was used as target practice again as the 2008 Hurricane Season was at its peak in early September. These two storms struck within ten days of each other with Gustav making landfall in southeast Louisiana just southwest of New Orleans and Ike making a direct hit over Galveston, TX. Gustav made a mess of things with all of the power outages especially in Baton Rouge where most of the city was in the dark. Ike really made a mess in Galveston where the coastline became a wasteland and that city has been slow to recover. This has shown us that even though both storms made landfall as a catagory 2, they can still cause widespread devastation.5

3- The Beijing Olympics: The middle of August brought the 29th Olympic games from China, whom were gracious hosts. There were two major headlines that came out of these games. In the first week, the place dubbed "The Water Cube" was center stage as Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year, swimmer Michael Phelps, was on a quest to win eight gold medals and accomplished that feat in many different ways by winning big and by the smallest of margins and in three races, did it with his teammates. 6

In the second week, the scene shifted to track and field and that's when Jamaica's track team showed up. Sprinter Usain Bolt, dubbed "Lightning Bolt" by various analysts, became the world's fastest man in the 100 meter sprint and set a new world record with a time of 9.69 seconds. He also set the world record in the 200 meters and the 4X100 meter relay. 7

There was also action in Gymnastics as our American women's team went head to head against the host country of China with some controversy there. There were unfounded allogations that the Chinese gymnasts were underaged (they had to be 16 in order to compete). The women's team won silver and the men's team, with injuries to both Paul and Michael Hamm, managed to win bronze when they weren't expected to win anything. In basketball, our American teams, both men and women, showed the world that we are back on top as the men's team won gold for the first time since 2000. 8

2- The Economic Crisis and Bailouts: We are ending the year with the worse economic crisis since the depression. This and my number one story go hand and hand. In September, the stock market went downhill in a hurry and concern about the state of the economy and that had an influence of the outcome of the election. As things deepened, talk of a major bailout for the banks and it came to truth as Congress foolishly passed a 700 billion bailout plan for the banks. Can anyone say "cop out". The banks created the mess and so did the lenders in the housing market, the source for this whole mess. What's worse, Congress really got upset when some executives at AIG got their bailout money, they wasted over 400 grand and treated themselves to a taxpayer-paid spa treatment.9

This was a very bad idea and nothing has changed yet. Now there's a bailout planned for the auto industry to keep them afloat before things really gets worse. The auto executives showed up to Capital Hill in their private jets and were told to take a hike. They then showed up last week in hybrid cars and they might get something to help them stay afloat.10

1- Barack Obama: If someone had told me last year that a first term senator from Illinois would not only compete in the primary but win the presidency, I'd say you were completely crazy. This was truly a year for change and he got it right from the very beginning. The polls stayed even throughout the summer and his worldwide appeal was apparent when he made a speech in front of over 200,000 people in Berlin, Germany. When the economic crisis came about, he showed true leadership and not just flying off the handle trying to make something happen. He won a resounding victory on election day with it being called at 11p.m. eastern time that he had won the election. The question became; "Where were you when the election was called?" This was truly a moment in history by him becoming the first African-American President in this country's long and dark history.11

So much has happened in the past year and that is going to make 2009 the year for action. There's much to be done and we've got to start somewhere. As our president-elect once said, "We've all got to take responsibility for ourselves and our future." I'm sure that much more has happened with everything that has happened but these are my top 5. On that said, I can't wait for next year and our next set of challenges.