2017, Begone!

2017 was, in Chinese astrology, the year of the Rooster

Jesus, 2017 was a shitty year. Not only for me personally, but for the nation I call home, the United States of America. We are rightly the laughing stock of the world, because we elected a glorified carnival barker as president.

As for me, I lost two jobs this year, a record, plus quit another (that I had only for a few weeks). Tomorrow I will be without health insurance, because when they mean "affordable health care," that's not so for those who have diabetes, because Healthcare.gov wants over $800 a month, and I ain't got it. I will have to get some sort of job, maybe an Uber driver, until a bounty is supposed to come in that would set me for life. But of course it's been delayed.

As for the country, Donald Trump has been commander-in-chief for almost a year, and I don't think he's done one thing I've agreed with. It's been like a disaster a day with him. You wake up to see what outrage he's said or committed. To list them all would be too much, but the ones that stick with me are banning transgender people from joining the military, 90 days of golf when he said he would have no time for it, saying he never said his famous "Grab them by the pussy" quote, being unable to discern between climate and weather, rolling back regulations on nursing homes, allowing much of Puerto Rico to still be without power (including the only plant in the world that makes bags for IVs), and calling Meryl Streep over-rated.

Finally was the horrible tax reform law, which will benefit rich people at the expense of the poor and middle-class. The most egregious robbery in U.S. history.

Every year there's a plethora of celebrity deaths, but this year the rock music world was particularly hard hit. Chuck Berry and Fats Domino were old, but we were surprised by the deaths of Tom Petty, Malcolm Young, Gregg Allman, Chester Bennington, Lil Peep, David Cassidy, and Chris Cornell. This year also saw the demise of Mary Tyler Moore, Jerry Lewis, Jonathan Demme, Roger Moore, and Rose Marie.

Good things in 2017? I suppose there were, but none come immediately to mind. The Super Bowl was exciting, the first one to go to overtime, but the hated Patriots won. There was a good World Series, and some new stars like Aaron Judge who are very appealing. Doug Jones beat religious crackpot Ray Moore in the Alabama senate race, which gave liberals an early Christmas.

What can be hoped for in 2018? Well, for me, it's getting an inheritance that I hoped to have by now. For the nation it's flipping congress come November, and Robert Mueller releasing damaging findings that could lead to impeachment of both Donald Trump and Mike Pence, which would make Nancy Pelosi president. Sleep on that, conservatives.

May everyone's 2018 be a happy and prosperous one.