Dave Barry’s 2015 Year in Review

Dave Barry’s 2015 Year in Review

The following are excerpts from the Year in Review. There is also a video version of the Gift Guide at the bottom of Dave's page.

Are we saying that 2015 was the worst year ever? Are we saying it was worse than, for example, 1347, the year when the Bubonic Plague killed a large part of humanity?

Yes, we are saying that.

February:

NBC suspends Nightly News anchor Brian Williams after an investigation reveals inaccuracies in his account of being in a military helicopter under fire in Iraq. “Mr. Williams did not actually come under fire,” states the network. “Also technically he wasn’t in a helicopter in Iraq; it was a Volvo station wagon on the New Jersey Turnpike. But there was a lot of traffic.” A contrite Williams blames the lapse on post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from killing Osama bin Laden.

In business news, troubled retailer RadioShack files for bankruptcy, citing the fact that in the past six years, the chain’s 4,000 stores had made a nationwide total of one sale, that being a home email server purchased by Hillary Clinton.

March:

Abroad, tensions mount on the Korean peninsula when North Korea, in an unprecedented cyberattack, posts an estimated 23 million negative Yelp reviews of South Korea, including several million containing the phrase “we ordered the dog, which arrived so undercooked that the tail was still wagging.”

May:

Elsewhere in sports, the Kentucky Derby is won by New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, riding tight end Rob Gronkowski. All the actual horses in the race mysteriously collapse at the starting line from what Coach Bill Belichick speculates could be “allergies.”

June:

On the political front, the big story is Donald Trump, who declares his candidacy for president and lays out a bold, far-reaching vision for America consisting of whatever thought is flitting through his mind at that particular moment. Trump is deemed to have no chance by veteran Washington-based political experts with vast knowledge of what all the other veteran Washington-based political experts think.

September:

On the Republican side, Rick Perry and Scott Walker drop out of the presidential race after polls show them both trailing the late Warren G. Harding. Meanwhile Donald Trump continues to present his vision for America’s future in the form of a steady stream of hastily composed tweets insulting people who have offended him. This strategy has Trump easily leading the GOP field, to the consternation of knowledgeable Washington-based insiders with vast knowledge pertaining to the inside of Washington.

November:

Also deeply offended in November are people who have taken time out of their busy lives to notice that the 2015 Starbucks holiday cup is just plain red and — trigger warning — does not have snowflakes or reindeer on it. This is yet another salvo in the War On Christmas, which has completely eliminated Christmas from our lives except for Christmas carols playing on loudspeakers everywhere and huge Christmas displays in every store and Christmas movies on TV constantly and numerous Christmas-related news stories and an endless stream of Christmas-themed commercials running 24/7 since approximately Labor Day.