I need this to help me keep track.
As of the Lord’s Year 2024, the Last Known Good, or, Our Last Happy, Normal Year 2019 is turning five years ago. As we know, it was 11 March 2020 that the lockdowns, mask mandates, and COVID-19 hysteria went full-throttle, and nothing has been the same since. The election that year was stolen before our very eyes while Orwell’s sheep stamped their feet and shouted “Democracy good! Fascism bad!” among other nonsense. That people still think this year’s election four years later will be any more free or fair…well, it’s all about who’s got the eyes to see, the ears to hear, and the heart to accept.
In a flurry of executive orders three years ago this month, our energy independence was signed away, fuel prices went through the roof, supply chains began breaking down, and eggs famously went up to $10 per dozen. What were once inconveniences have since turned into full-on lethal horror. A.D. 2023 was the year of one hazardous material train wreck after another, of livestock and poultry facilities inexplicably catching fire and burning hundreds of thousands of helpless animals alive. This was the year of the utter annihilation of Lahaina on Maui by a weapon that can reduce an entire house to fine white ash, no stray timbers, nothing, while the nearby trees are unscathed.
Anyway, back on topic, in August, the Twitter war/consumer revolt known as GamerGate turns 10 years old. Many, many young people were politicized by what they realized was an entire class of so-called journalists and Narrative supporters who not only disdained them, but most viciously hated them. Some have credited GamerGate with helping establish a large part of the political base which would help “meme Donald Trump into office” in 2016, if only out of spite to the pedophiles who supported Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity in video game design.
Yes, it bears noting that the pedophilia angle emerged among admitted child-creepers in the anti-normal-people camp in GamerGate. Ten years ago. As cultural tempests in an Internet teapot go, it was hugely influential, and it will be interesting to see how it’s commemorated, if at all, this year.
A.D. 2004 was 20 years ago, and kids born in 2003 are now old enough to legally consume alcohol in the Land of the Free. Y2K is going on a quarter century ago. Children born in 1994 turn 30 this year; those born in 1984 turn 40. The last frames of the original Star Trek series were filmed 55 years ago in January 1969. February will be the 60th anniversary of The Beatles’ legendary first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. September commemorates the 55th anniversary of Abbey Road and John Lennon storming out of a business meeting, effectively ending the group. (A.D. 1969 was a year of many endings.)
When I was a member of an amateur press association (apa) back in the day I knew three people on the roster who were born in 1954. All except one turn 70 years old this year. The third died from her obesity in 2010. As she was morbidly obese long before morbid obesity became commonplace, I would like to write of her and her even larger younger sister sometime this year.
The D-Day landing will be 80 this year. Given the bitterness on the right about these military anniversaries, it will be interesting to see if the regime tries to appropriate the event for itself (“the original Antifa!”), if it recognizes it at all.
Again, happy and normal were five years ago. In one more year it will be an even more distant, even more hard to imagine memory. As a Christian, I am not afraid of what’s to come, but I do feel for those who will suffer. There will be a lot more suffering and death before this is all over. It’s hardly a prophecy if it’s been prophesized long before, which it has. Eyes to see, ears to hear, a heart to accept. You’ve got ‘em or you don’t.
Happy New Year. Yeah, I know, we’re halfway through January already. It’s still new enough for me.
