1994

I'm feeling nostalgic, so here are some events that occured in 1994:

Comet Shoemaker-Levy hit Jupiter
OJ Simpson pleads "Absolutely 100% Not Guilty" of murder
Ace of Base rules the pop charts (unfortunately)
gas = 1.17
Forrest Gump won an academy award
The baseball strike
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is built
Truck carrying millions of bees overturns on NY parkway
Billy Idol ODs
so does Kurt Cobain
John Candy dies
Jimi Hendrix's guitar is sold
Pentium computer beats world chess champ Gari Kasparov
US Ice Skating Federation bars Tonya Harding for life
Houston Rockets win NBA Championship
The Lion King in theaters
The 25th anniversary of Woodstock
The "republicans swept congress and began implementing their "Contract On America"

What a year that was.

Now fast forward to 2006. Imagine that you were in a coma for 12 years. Everything is new and you're just taking it all in. Needless to say you'd be in for a hell of a shock. What are the first things that might really shock you to learn about?

1. 9/11
2. Katrina & New Orleans
3. Bush is back in office? wtf?? lol
4. Another war in Iraq???
5. The Columbia disaster.
6. The national savings rate has gone below zero.
7. Republicans control all 3 branches of government and the top 2% has gotten insanely rich while the bottom 90% have seen their real wages decline for years.
8. The price of oil has risen 500%
9. The national debt has exploded under the rule of the so-called conservatives.
10. GM & Ford are imploding.
11. NAFTA, CAFTA, SHAFTA? The mass exportation of jobs and the mass importation of profits to the elite wealthy.


If I were waking from a 12 year coma, I can tell you one thing: I would feel as if I was in the freakin Twighlight Zone.

The debacle in Iraq and the lies that brought us there.
The fraudulent election of 2000.
The hacking of the electronic voting machines.
The anthrax attacks and other acts of domestic political terrorism.
The colossal trade deficit with China. China??
The CEO of Halliburton makes 100 million on war profiteering and is not even charged with a crime.
Thousands of veterans die from a mysterious gulf war illness, linked to depleted uranium. But that link is ignored by the media.
The "patriot" act and the evisceration of the constitution.
And to top it all off, the zogby poll that says that half of New Yorkers believe the government had foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks and consciously failed to intervene.

I'd be saying "Oh my god, this is a nightmare! I want to go back to sleep..."

When you look at the big picture the way someone waking from a 12 year coma would, you can easily see that it goes way beyond some archetypial boogie man like Bin Laden.