Top 5: Awful Things 2017 Did To Mankind

Well, here we are, at the end of another year. After living through recent history, I have reached a point where it seems nothing can surprise me (although, I’m often wrong). Such is the case, with this past year. I’d like to take this time to congratulate our species on not destroying ourselves. It was a real squeaker for a while, though. So, without further delay (considering you may not live to finish reading this), I give you the last Top 5 of 2017!

1) Holy Fucking Weather, Batman

It has been a wall-to-wall fucking Michael Bay movie this year. Fucking hurricanes, floods, earthquakes...it’s almost as though we’ve been mistreating the Earth. Or, maybe, it’s all the weather modification they’re definitely not doing? I don’t really know what’s causing it, since climate change is clearly imaginary, right? I’m glad we can agree on that. So, until we can sacrifice enough goats to please the gods, I shall continue praying to my toaster in hopes it transforms into a multi-dimensional robot to save us all.

2) It’s Now OK To Kill People You Disagree With

Remember when we used to say "be tolerant" or, "if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything" or things like that? Well, 2017 taught us we were all just a bunch of softass, candy corn babies. The new, American ideal, is to viciously attack people who even slightly disagree with you. I know we got a taste of that, in years previous to this one, but this year dropped the mic on us. Hitting people with cars was the new thing to do. All over the world, terrorists were attacking groups of people by driving torpedoes—I mean, cars—into them. But, nowhere in the world was it done with more style than here in the good ol’ USofA—we even got that shit on WorldStar-style YouTube clips. Protesters blocking the road on your way to work? Go ahead and run over them. Your ex-girlfriend’s simple cousin with a fishhook on his hat says it’s legal (and he said he was a law-yer).

3) I Did Nazi That Coming

Speaking of hitting people with cars, you know who has been doing that a lot here in America? Nazis, that’s who! 2016 may have reminded us that race was an issue, but 2017 showed us that they are coagulating into clubs again, much like ol’ whitey from the segregation era, they have political power. I have actually witnessed a red-blooded American get shot down, for calling out Nazis with the argument of "freedom of speech." DO YOU WANT GENOCIDE?! Because, that’s how you get genocide. It seems odd to me, that we would need to have this conversation, considering Marvel Studios is pimping Captain America at every local WalMart in Hillbillyville. Remember that guy? He was literally created to make the concept of killing Nazis fun for kids.

4) EVERYTHING IS ON FIRE

Every year, we have a wildfire season here on the west coast. But, this year’s was truly horrifying. It was unlike anything I have ever seen, in my thirty-five years of life. California is still on fire, in case you hadn’t heard about that lately. This, if you think about it, is a great example of our desensitization as a culture. We just stop paying attention, even though people in Puerto Rico still don’t have food, water or electricity. And, California is still on fire. The fires were dangerously close to me, here in southern Oregon, and even if I had been in Portland, they would have still been too close for comfort. At least, here in Oregon, no one will notice the lack of forests, until it stops raining next Nevervember.

5) Trumpocalypse Now!

You knew I was going to go there, right? As a matter of fact, while I was thinking of awful things that happened this year (to put on this list), I kept realizing that most of them could all be attributed to one man. I’m not totally convinced that we can’t blame the weather (or, the fires) on him, either. There’s just so much fuckery afoot, that it’s hard to pin down. I don’t know what people expected when they voted for him. I see rich businessmen as young adults of very wealthy parents and the American government is their mommy and daddy. They don’t know where the money comes from, but they know Daddy is the best source (he does just seem to print money, after all). And, let’s just be honest with ourselves, if old, rich, white dudes were to be imagined as riding a schoolbus, Donald Trump would be on the short version... alone. This is our President and he is banging the toy bongos of war...nuclear war. So, this is my goodbye to 2017—may it fuck right off a fucking cliff.