Should auld acquaintance be forgot: The top 5 people/trends of 2008 worth forgetting

As a bookend to my Christmas Eve post, I thought it would be nice to write a little something before the close of December 31st, 2008. Since my television has been on Star! for most of the afternoon and my Special Double Issue of Entertainment Weekly arrived in the mail today (yeah, in Canada we have to wait a bit before it gets here...by which point I've usually already read over half of it online), I have 'best of' thoughts on my mind. As a result, I thought it would be nice to put together, not so much a 'worst of' list, but a list of 5 things I hope we can all forget about 2008. These are not legacies, folks. They are flashes in their respective pans.

5) Lady Gaga

"Just Dance" was a catchy enough club anthem and LG certainly established trends with her glam locks and wardrobe. Then she released "Poker Face" as a single and I quickly realized her career deserves to be about as short as the pants she wears onstage and in her music videos. (You may have noticed, she tends not to wear any at all.)

4) The Hills

I watched this show for a whole five minutes.

That was enough.

2008 saw me (shamelessly...or relatively shamelessly) watch every episode of Rich Kids: Cattle Drive, Pussycat Dolls Present: Girlicious and Gossip Girl, but I could not watch this crap long enough to reach a commercial break. May 2009 bring early cancellations of The City and Bromance.

3) War and violence and hunger and bigotry and racism and sexism...

In truth, I don't want us to forget about these things, but acknowledge and work past them. It just seemed absurd and downright embarrassing to compose such a list and not include at least one "serious" issue (or, in this case, a conglomerate of series issues).

Also, the placement of "war and violence and hunger and bigotry and racism and sexism..." before the subsequent chart toppers stresses my absolute frustration with #1 and #2.

2) Sarah Palin

Allow me to retract my previous comment. This is a serious issue. I hate this woman. Normally I'm fairly careful about throwing around such a potent word, but after months of consideration I have decided its use is warranted. On election night, as my friends and I gathered to hopefully watch Barack Obama take over for Jack Ass as President of the United States (yay for us!), I was met with a fair amount of disapproval regarding my application of the "h" word to Miss Palin. For some, it was too obvious. For others, too unnecessary. We all know she's an idiot (or something to that effect), they all said, but hate is a bit strong for someone so oblivious, someone so harmless.

Harmless my ass. If Sarah Palin was running to be VP of the PTA I think I could live with it; Madame Vice Girl Guide leader or Queen of the fucking hockey rink. And it's not even just the thought of someone so unaware, so unprepared and so ridiculous as backup-leader-of-the-free-world that gets me going, but the fact that a room full of the most powerful, politically minded Republicans figured that a person like me would vote for her just because we both have vaginas.

And I'm not even American!

Anyways, I could go on for days about her but the point of this post is I don't want to, and I don't want anyone else to either. Three cheers to Tina Fey and may the many accolades coming her way reach their recipient in the new year and in years to come, but let's not give Palin one more minute past her reluctantly allotted (at least on my part) fifteen.

It's not because she's a woman.
It's not because of her choice of party, or religion, or anything like that (though these topics certainly divide us).
It's because she's stupid, and as a brilliant professor of mine once told my fourth year undergraduate English class, "Of course you should be worried about stupid people! That's what your degree is. There are stupid people everywhere--how do I cope with this?"

May I add only that stupid people with nuclear codes justify the truth of this statement to perhaps its greatest degree.

(If you would like to get all of your Palin ranting out of your system before the clock hits '09, check out this gem from Matt Damon...if you haven't already...repeatedly:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6urw_PWHYk )

1) Stephenie Meyer and the Twilight series

One day I'll finally get around to my post-length rant on Meyer and the four books that have made her a millionaire (possibly billionaire) and proved that hegemony is real.

Today, however, is not that day.

To be brief: Meyer has created a world where girls have regressed at least 150 years in their ideas and goals, vampires are an uber-race of rich, white, talented, indestructible, godlike creatures while Native Americans are dogs and marriage and baby-making is a cult into which every little American mind should be hungry to be indoctrinated. Shame on you, Stephenie Meyer, for preying on adolescent sexuality and for leading your readers astray with regards to their understandings of just about everything. No, reading for reading's sake is not necessarily always a good thing.

That, for now, is all I have to say.

Of course, upon reflecting on my choices I realize I've come off as something of a fellow female loathing bitch.
Don't blame me, blame the media.

(And stay tuned for a follow-up post that catalogues a list of female antidotes to the poop outlined above.)

May your bubbly bubble and your streamers stream- all the best in 2009!!!