Dave Barry

The New Year        1995

It wasn't such a bad year.  Really.  Some good things did happen.  For
example, a whole bunch of Historic Mideast Peace Accords got signed.  I
don't have the exact numbers, but it seemed as though every thing you
turned on the TV news, you saw a group of formerly hostile Mideast
leaders historically signing some accord and hugging each other as though
they'd just won the playoffs.  Granted, the next day there were always
fatal riots, but still.

Another good thing about 1994 was that the Earth was not struck
by a giant comet chunk, which is fortunate because, the way things were
going, it almost certainly would have landed on the White House.

Also I'm pretty sure there were several foreign countries
(Belgium comes to mind) to which the U.S. did NOT send troops in 1994.
This is due in large part to the peacemaking efforts of Jimmy "I Am NOT
Going Away Until I Get A Nobel Peace Prize" Carter, who spent the year
jetting all over the globe with a briefcase containing the only known
copy of the Clinton administration's foreign policy.  (Jimmy, if you're
reading this, the Clinton administration would like to get it back.)

It was also a good year, spiritually, for us aging baby boomers;
after far too many years of being obsessively and selfishly absorbed with
our own lives, we are finally starting to reach the point where we become
selfishly absorbed with our own deaths.  This has led to a number of
inspirational best-selling books about the afterlife--"Embraced by the
Light," "Garfield Sees the Light" and "The Susan Powter Post-Mortem Workout."

And speaking of fitness, 1994 was the year when the Dietary
Police decided that there is a type of restaurant cuisine--broiled fish,
no tartar sauce, no butter, no salt, no dessert, no wine, no coffee, no
sitting in the same ZIP code as a cigarette smoker--that we could enjoy
without suffering instantaneous cardiac arrest.

And these are just a few of the good things that happened in
1994.  The only reason why I'm not listing all the other ones is that I
can't think of any.  Everything else that comes to mind was bad, starting
with...

JANUARY
...when the world was shocked by a story involving, of all
activities, women's figure-skating, which heretofore had been considered
a genteel sport wherein petite women wearing enough makeup to cover a
ranch home sporadically fell on their butts in front of judges from
places with names like "Ubzrzezkzdistan."

But all that changed on that fateful Jan. 6 in Detroit when Nancy
Kerrigan, a leading contender for an Olympic gold medal, was struck on
the knee by a member of a criminal conspiracy that probably would have
succeeded brilliantly except for the fact that everyone involved had the
IQ of a dog biscuit.  Suspicion quickly focused on amateur video-camera
operator Jeff Gillooly and his intermittent wife, skater Tonya Harding,
who immediately became a huge celebrity.

Of course we now know that Tonya Harding was actually a victim.
It was a very big year for victims, notably the alleged Menendez
brothers, Erik and Lyle, who both received mistrials in January, thereby
teaching us all the heartwarming lesson that no matter what we may have
done, there is at least one juror in California who believes it is not
our fault.

In the 1994 Super Bowl, the plucky Buffalo Bills again
represented the American Football Conference, and once again they
performed superbly until they made the tactical error of leaving their
hotel, at which point they were again tromped by the Dallas Cowboys
437-6.  But we should not blame the Bills: They were victims.  Speaking
of sports, in...

FEBRUARY
...the attention of the world turned to the Winter Olympics in
Norway, where the gold medal in the women's figure-skating event--which
had been hyped as a contest between Kerrigan and Harding--was won by
unheralded newcomer Michael Jordan.

Meanwhile, back in the United States, the Central Intelligence
Agency was demonstrating, once again, why it is known far and wide as
"the Central Intelligence Agency."  This was the situation: (a) the CIA
knew somebody was leaking information to the Russians. (b) An unstable
alcoholic CIA employee named Aldrich Ames, who had access to sensitive
information, was in regular contact with Russian intelligence officials.
(c) Ames, who made less that $70,000 a year, was suddenly spending large
amounts of cash.  Top CIA brains pondered these mysterious clues for
several years, until finally, in February, the answer hit them: Ames was
an Amway distributor.

And speaking of the U.S. government, in...

MARCH
...the big news was the Clintons' decision to declassify their
Top Secret National Health Care Plan, which had been doing well in t he
polls until people found out what was in it.  The plan became a hot
political issue, with the battle lines drawn as follows:

MAJOR PLAYERS AGAINST THE CLINTON PLAN--The medical profession,
the legal profession, the insurance companies, the drug companies, big
business, small business, medium business, the Senate and the House of
Representatives.

MAJOR PLAYERS FOR THE CLINTON PLAN--The Clintons.  (Though Bill
had reservations.)

In foreign affairs, world concern focused on the fact that North
Korea might be on the verge of developing nuclear weapons, thereby
joining the exclusive International A-Bomb Club that currently is limited
to the United States, Britain, France, China, India, Israel, Pakistan,
Russia, Zrzkzistan, Urzkzkrstan, Stanstanistan, Burundi, Wales, Vermont,
the Dallas Cowboys and Bill Gates.  President Clinton, determined to deal
with the North Koreans at the highest level, summoned Secretary of State
Warren Christopher to the Oval Office to see if he knew Jimmy Carter's
phone number.

This was followed by another foreign crisis in...

APRIL
...when there was a big uproar over the decision by a Singapore
court--widely supported by a U.S. public fed up with criminals getting
off on technicalities--to take a cane and whack the buttocks of Oliver North.

No, tragically, Singapore decided to cane somebody else, leaving
North free to campaign, on a platform of victimhood, for the Republican
nomination for the U.S. Senate seat from Virginia held by Chuck "Party
Time" Robb, paving the way for a race that would lead to the first
election to feature barf bags in the voting booths.

Meanwhile, an L.A. jury awarded victim Rodney King $3.8 million,
ending a legal saga that involved 29 trials dating back to the Truman
administration.  Los Angelenos at last could put high-profile
media-circus court cases behind them and focus their energies on
fulfilling their primary purpose in life: commuting.  And speaking of the
judicial system, in...

MAY
...a vacancy opened up on the Supreme Court when a janitor
noticed that one of the justices--possibly one of the ones named
"Harlan"--had apparently been retired or dead for several months.  In
selecting a replacement, President Clinton followed his usual decisive
strategy, spending several months accepting and then rejecting every
possible candidate including, at one point, Socks, before deciding--in a
move that continued the trend toward an all-dweeb court--to nominate
Stephen Breyer, who is also David Souter.

Elsewhere in the nation's capital, Congress, after years of
stalling, finally got around to clearing the way for informal discussions
that might lead to possible formal talks that could potentially produce
some kind of tentative agreements on a theoretical course of action that
could initiate the process required to eventually produce a very
preliminary effort to at least get Congress to consider some kind of real
campaign reform, but not before the polar ice cap reaches at least
Atlanta.  In a related development, powerful Illinois congressman Dan
Rostenkowski was indicted on 17 counts of looking like the result of a
runaway genetic experiment involving a beanbag chair and a toad.

Abroad, the big news concerned the long-awaited Channel Tunnel,
which was dedicated by Queen Elizabeth II, who departed from England in a
special train, traveled for less than an hour, and arrived--in a triumph
of British-French engineering--in another part of England.  But for sheer
transportation drama, it would be impossible to top the moment in...

JUNE
...when a white Ford Bronco containing O.J. Simpson fled on the
Los Angeles freeways in a riveting real-life drama that was watched by 75
million TV viewers, making it the highest-ranked sports-celebrity freeway
chase in that time slot, easily beating a maroon Chevrolet Blazer
containing Mickey Mantle, a Mayflower moving van containing George
Foreman and a U-Haul trailer containing the late Knute Rockne.

Simpson was arrested and exercised his constitutional right to
hire about 14 really expensive lawyers, who immediately revealed that he
was a victim and embarked on a strategy of avoiding pre-trial publicity
by appearing at least once per day on every TV show in the nation,
including "Jeopardy."

Elsewhere in sports, in June the World Cup came to the United
States for the first time ever and produced hundreds of exciting games
with scores of 1-1 and sometimes even 2-2, culminating in a gripping
championship game between Italy and Brazil that remained 0-0 for the
better part of July and was finally decided when the Italian team's visas
expired.

Speaking of expiring, June was the month that the epidemic of the
Deadly Flesh-Eating Bacteria swept the nation, claiming three victims,
which works out to one victim for every 17,894,398 times the Deadly
Flesh-Eating Bacteria were featured on the TV news.

In foreign affairs, President Clinton, confounding critics who
claimed that he had no foreign policy, came up with 14 separate policies
regarding Haiti alone.  But nobody was paying much attention to
international events because it was getting to be...

JULY
...and all eyes were focused on the top-rated O.J. Simpson
Hearing Show, where, in what observers believed was a critical blow to
the defense, forensic experts testified that a DNA analysis had proved
conclusively that lead defense weasel Robert Shapiro was putting black
shoe polish on his hair.

There was also intense speculation regarding the contents of a
Mystery Envelope, which was believed to contain evidence that could prove
vital to the outcome of the Simpson murder case; unfortunately the
envelope fell into the hands of the U.S. Postal Service and was never
seen again.  The Postal Service was also having big trouble in Chicago,
where a huge percentage of the mail was being delivered late--in some
cases decades late.  A concerned Postmaster General Marvin Runyon vowed
to go to Chicago with a team of postal officials "just as soon as we
figure out where Chicago is."

In international affairs, the Clinton administration, responding
to escalating crises in Haiti, Cuba, North Korea, Rwanda and Bosnia,
installed a Random foregin Policy Generator, which performed admirably
once technicians ironed out a few glitches that cause it to repeatedly
call for airstrikes against Fort Worth, Texas.

In interplanetary affairs, giant comet chunks smashed into
Jupiter, forcing the administration to temporarily postpone plans to send
troops there.  And speaking of outer space, in...

AUGUST
...Michael Jackson confirmed that he had married Lisa Marie
Presley in a ceremony attended only by members of the immediate family and
hundreds of elves.

But all was not peaches and light in August, for this was also
the month when the baseball players and owners, all of whom were raking
in millions of dollars, after countless hours of racking their brains in
an effort to figure out what would be the stupidest possible thing they
could do, decided to halt the season.  Sports fans, free of the
responsibility of thinking about pitching rotations, began reading books,
going to museums and paying attention to their loved ones.

I'm kidding, of course.  They just started thinking about
football a few weeks early.

Speaking of millions of dollars, in August a jury in Albuquerque,
N.M., awarded $2.9 million to a woman who sued McDonald's after she
spilled a cup of hot coffee in her lap and--get ready for a totally
unforeseeable development--burned herself.  Legal experts were at a loss
to explain why the jury, while it was at it, did not also award at least
SOMETHING to the Menendez brothers.

And speaking of severe medical trauma, in...

SEPTEMBER
...the Clinton Health Care Plan finally keeled over, crushing
hundreds of lobbyists.  This was a very difficult time for the Clintons,
who could not feel safe even in their own residence, as the White
House--in a chilling reminder of the vulnerability of American
presidents--was struck by a small plan piloted by an angry, deranged man
later identified as Newt Gingrich.

In entertainment news, casting began for the part of jury in the
O.J. Simpson Trial Show, featuring Lance Ito as The Stern But Fair Judge
Who Helps Keep Pretrial Publicity To A Minimum By Regularly Making Big
News.  Ito created a nationwide panic in September when he threatened to
ban TV cameras from the courtroom, but fortunately he changed his mind
when lawyers for both the prosecution and defense argued that such an
action could irreparably harm the career of "Kato" Kaelin.  And speaking
of tragedies, in...

OCTOBER
...the opening of the National Hockey League regular season was
delayed when players and owners, after months of intense talks mediated
by Jimmy Carter, realized that the NHL regular season is a complete waste
of time anyway.  This action had virtually no effect on attendance in
Canada, where sellout crowds showed up at rinks to cheer for the
ice-resurfacing machines.

Meanwhile, President Clinton, riding a wave of popularity not
seen since the 1972 McGovern-Eagleton juggernaut, set out on an ambitious
campaign trip to boost the chances of Democratic candidates, who
responded by fleeing into the forest and hiding until the president gave
up and went off in search of somebody else to boost.  (The only
Democratic candidate whom the president actually succeeded in campaigning
with was Ted Kennedy, who was unable to flee into the forest because he
couldn't fit between the trees.)

And things did not improve much for the president when he
returned to Washington, as the White House was struck by bullets fired by
an angry, deranged, semicoherent individual later identified as Sen.
Jesse Helms, R-Hell.  In other military action, the U.S. sent 30,000
troops to Kuwait as a stern reminder to Saddam Hussein that anytime he
wants to, he can yank our chain.  And speaking of hostility, in...

NOVEMBER
...tens of millions of American voters, inspired by the
intellectual give-and-take of the fall campaign, stayed home.  But some
of them went to the polls, where they gave the Republicans an extremely
historic victory that left the GOP in control of the House, the Senate,
the Cabinet and the first two floors of the White House.  The voters were
apparently attracted by the Republicans' "Contract with America" which was
written by Newt Gingrich, and which contains the following provisions:

- Money-wasting government programs will be eliminated, except of
course for those programs that waste money on YOU.
- Everybody has to stop making fun of the way white guys dance.
- Newt gets to change his name to "Thor."

Californians approved a referendum aimed at halting illegal
immigration, although they'll probably change their minds once they
realize that this means they'll have to raise their own children.

Speaking of children, in November Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie
Presley were rumored to be having marital problems, despite the tireless
mediation efforts of Jimmy Carter.  Speaking of Family Values, in...

DECEMBER
...an army of victorious Republican congresspersons-elect, led by
"Thor" Gingrich, gathered in Washington and vowed that their highest
priority would be to enact a constitutional amendment that would permit
voluntary prayer on commuter airplanes.  This proposal received the
definite tentative endorsement of President For Now Clinton, who invited
Thor and Bob Dole to please, if they got a chance, come visit his new
office in a suite of refrigerator cartons on the White House lawn.

In a heart-warming holiday-season story, the Formerly Rev. Jim
Bakker was finally released from prison after serving five years for
being a victim, and we should all get down on our knees and voluntarily
pray that Jim will get back together with his talented former wife Tammy
Faye and get on television again, because they had by far THE most
entertaining show in the history of broadcasting.

On the science front, a group of medical researchers announced
that human obesity is cause by a gene that is transmitted by french
fries.  This was just one more piece of bad news for Bill Clinton,
already stung by reports that a majority of leaders in his own party
would prefer to see the 1996 Democratic nomination go to Vice President
Al Gore.  Or, for that matter, Tipper.

Have yourself a HAPPY NEW YEAR, and if you don't, you should
definitely sue.

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