10 Things That Would Make C-SPAN More Interesting

Poor C-SPAN! Doomed to televise the dullest of all possible programming, our government in action. Here are some suggestions for livening things up, at least a little ....

1. Add a bouncing ball over the closed captioning so that viewers can join in and testify along with the senators
2. Force the senators to testify in iambic pentameter:  "Senator, I urge the need is great/ to keep the bases open in my state!/ While the Cold War may be history/ Putin's looking good for World War 3!"
3. Fill all the empty chairs in the hearing rooms with virtual Pokemon
4. Add play-by -play announcers and "color guys."  As the representatives speak, the announcers can be adding  via voiceover: "Senator Jones, as you may recall, won reelection by a narrow margin about six months ago; Larry, do you think his may be a play to shore up the Hispanic voters in his district?" and "Whoa! He's calling for a Committee of the Whole!  That's a gutsy move, but no less than we'd expect from a wily veteran like Sen. Thurston! Larry, what do you think the Republicans are going to do here?"
5. Add organ music during the intervals, like baseball games
6. Post a graphic behind the podium that tracks in real-time the truthfulness of each Senator's statements - one frowny face (for little white lies) up to five frowny faces (for whoppers)
7. Add scrolling stats at the bottom of the screen for the convenience of people tracking how their Fantasy Senate Committees are faring
8. Mail out bingo cards that contain, instead of numbers and letters, familiar political terms/phrases/hyperboles; examples might include "fiscally irresponsible," "soccer moms," "liberal media," "climate change conspiracy," and "Nazis". Views can then "play along" by marking off the words on their cards as they're used. The first to get five words in a row wins!
9. Add commercials for erectile dysfunction products
10. Add hourly balloon drops, because everyone loves a good balloon drop.

Book Look: The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern

If ever Ray Bradbury wrote love stories, I imagine this is exactly the sort of tale he would have written, full of magic and mystery and wonder – a little light on plot, but full of enchantment.

Imagine Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet, except that our setting is Victorian England at the turn of the century and our star-crossed lovers are a pair of winsome young magicians who, alas, have been bound at birth (or near enough) by a magical pact that requires one of them to out-survive the other. Their battleground? Le Cirque des Reves, a “circus of dreams,” populated by tents housing wonders that the doomed young lovers create as tributes to their love: animated carousels, gravity-defying cloud mazes, animatronic menageries, wishing trees, gardens comprised entirely of ice, and other such enchanting (and enchanted) curiosities. 

The tale is populated by a cast of richly imagined characters, from our appealing lovers Marco and Celia to Chandresh Christophe Lefevre, the circus’s Willy Wonka-esque proprietor; from the inscrutable contortionist Tsukiko to the preternaturally perceptive architect Ethan Barris; from Prospero, Celia’s irascible, misanthropic magician father, to the uncanny twins Poppet and Widget. 

Rather than detracting from the story, the author’s deliberate decision not to explain of the tale’s metaphysical underpinnings adds to the enchantment of the tale, inviting us readers to cast away the constraints of reality and embrace the possibility of a world in which the magic of love is real. 

In real life, these types of tales never end well; fortunately for us, however, Morgenstern isn’t the sort of author to be bound by narrative convention, so instead we get a wholly lovely and – yes – magical ending, in which the lovers, despite all the obstacles and tragedies scattered in their path, create their own happily ever after and the circus lives on, appearing (one presumes) to those reveurs who continue to believe. 

(And speaking of happily ever after, is it just a happy coincidence that the author of this magically romantic confection shares a surname with S. Morgenstern, the legendary author of that other legendary romantic confection, The Princess Bride?)

35+ Cards that Hallmark Needs to Add to Its Inventory

Try as they might, Hallmark just can't seem to keep up with the real world.  Following is a list of sentiments unaccountably lacking from their current catalog. (Yes, I realize some of these are in poor taste. That's what you get for visiting strangers' sites on the internet.)

1. Celebrating your 1 millionth steps on FitBit!  Because that's a major life milestone, right? Why else would you be wearing one of those ugly things around your wrist 24/7?
2. Condolences on the end of your favorite television show/series.  Seriously, guys - everything's going to be okay! Believe it or not, people used to live full, meaningful lives without Firefly, Arrested Development, Lost, or Parks & Recreation.
3. Condolences on your new career in teaching/education.  In this era of sorry teacher salaries, school privatization, and standardized testing, sending a card is really the least you can do.
4. Condolences on your political party's choice of Presidential candidate.  The genius of this card is that is should market equally well to members of all political persuasions!
5. Congratulations on your status change from "it's complicated" to "in a relationship"!  Because it's safe to assume that if someone's bothering to update their status on Facebook, they're actually vain enough to believe that there are folks out there who care.
6. Congratulations on being born white!  Because, increasingly, belonging to any other race or culture in the United States is becoming politically problematical.
7. Congratulations on buying a hybrid/electric car!  Not saying buying a hybrid isn't laudible ... I just wish they'd SHUT UP about it, so that the rest of us wouldn't be so tempted to send ironic cards.
8. Congratulations on deciding not to vaccinate your child! (sold as a pack of 5: other cards include "Sympathies on your smallpox diagnosis" "So sorry to hear about you have rubella" "May your measles be measly," and "Oh no, it's polio!")
9. Congratulations on not killing your kid (even though they clearly deserved it).  They should sell these in packs of a dozen each.
10. Congratulations on surviving another day!  Because sometimes surviving another day is worthy of congratulations
11. Congratulations on the acquisition of your latest assault weapon!  Hope those squirrels and rabbits appreciate the firepower!
12. Congratulations on the success of your viral video!  Enjoy your 15 minutes of fame; hope to God that this isn't all life has in store for you!
13. Congratulations on winning your fantasy sports league!  You mom must be so proud of you!
14. Congratulations on your awesome video game victory!  All those those hours indoors, missing out on real life; all those cheetoes and Big Gulps - SO worth it!
15. Congratulations on your social media following!  Finally, a little validation and respect for those 100 "likes" you earned for your last duckface selfie on Instagram, or finally reaching 20,000 followers on Pinterest!
16. Congratulations on your baby sleeping through the night!  Ask any parent when their child started sleeping through the night and see can't tell you to the week and hour.  Now tell me, isn't that the defining test of a major life milestone, and therefore deserving of some sort of validation?
17. Congratulations on your i-doption!  A card for all those pathetic souls who wait in line at Apple stores so they can be the first to buy the latest i-toy.
18. Congratulations on your latest weight loss!  Because let's get real here - it's not your first diet, and we all know it's not going to be your last. You think we've all forgotten that gloating before/after thing you posted to Facebook last year after you did the Mediterranean Diet? Or the one you posted two years ago after you did the Paleo Diet? Or the one you posted three years ago after you did the Atkins?
19. Congratulations on your superior child!  For all those parents who just can't stop boasting about their child's GPA, their athletic accomplishments, or their numerous college acceptances.  I guarantee they will not even suspect ironic intentions.
20. Enjoy your new part time job with no benefits!  A greeting for the new economy.
21. Happy Conqueror's Day!   Intended to replace traditional Thanksgiving and Columbus Day greetings.
22. Your black life matters to me!  Forget cards with black Santa Clauses ... here's Hallmark's chance to prove their bi-racial chops!
23. Happy fanzing!  For those fanboys and girls in your life who seem perfectly content existing in their little fan bubbles.
24. Happy foreclosure/bankrupcy!  Turn that frowny face upside-downy-face!  
25. Happy pet anniversary day!  Now that we've tacitly accepted that we're supposed to treat pets like humans, hasn't the time come to start keeping track of anniversaries? 1st year=paper (homework, for destroying); 2nd yr=cotton (a cute/humiliating pet costume); 5th yr=wood (dog chew toy or scratching post); 10th yr=aluminum (collar tag); 15th yr=china (matching engraved food and water bowls)
26. Happy Valentines Day from your pet!  I can picture them now, full of awful puns and signed with paw prints - because everyone knows animals love puns.
27. Hoping you don't get kidnapped on your upcoming international vacation!  It's one of those things everyone THINKS, but no one ever says.
28. So, you're glucose intolerant!  Welcome to the hippest disability since autism!  Come for the soy milkshakes, stay for the whole grain cupcakes! 
29. Sorry about the whole climate change thing.  The perfect card for that family that just lost their home due to rising sea levels, drought, or the latest superstorm. 
30. Sympathies on the death of your cellphone/tablet.  Seriously, people, stop mourning your devices like they're people!  Your contact list is automatically BACKED UP!
31. Sympathies on the death of your favorite Game of Thrones character.  The way the show is going, you may want to buy more than one.
32. Sympathies on the embarassingly bad performance of your sports team this past season.  It's a sensitive subject, but I trust the empathetic folks at Hallmark to strike just the right tone. 
33. Sympathies on the loooong wait between now and the next season of your favorite show/the next volume of your favorite series.  What's the use of living in a world full of instant gratification when television producers and authors still have the gall to make us wait for the next installment of the stories we love?
34. Thank you for putting up with my child! If you're the parent of a middle school student, you should be sending these to EVERY teacher, EVERY year.
35. Wishing you a safe and uneventful prison term!  What do you give the Wall Street executive that has everything - including a jail sentence for illegal trading? 
36. Wishing you well in your career as an internet celebrity!  Good luck with that!
37. Wishing your pet a speedy recovery!  Because Spot and Fluffy are sure to be moved and heartened by your prayers and best wishes.

A Thousand Words - The Brighton Swimming Club, 1863

In honor of summer, I offer this photo of the Brighton Swimming Club, circa 1863.  So many questions! For instance: What's keeping those swimsuits up - drawstrings? Why are these guys so pale - is there no sunlight at Brighton? Is that rocky expanse they're standing on supposed to be a beach? Are British gentlemen naturally born without chest hair, or do they shave it? What's up with the top hats - especially the stovetop that guy in the middle is sporting? What's up with the guy in the front, who appears to be assuming a "praying mantis" yoga pose? And finally, how can I go about arranging a date with that startlingly dashing fellow at the middle top?

Increasing Engagement in the Classroom: A List of Specific Activities and Strategies

For reasons researchers can't quite pinpoint but that may have something to do with video games, instant gratification, food additives, helicopter parents, cell phones, standardized testing, and/or a universal sense of entitlement - teaching methods that used to be effective in the past aren't successfully capturing the attention of 21st century students. Just go to any economically/culturally/sociologically diverse community and visit a random middle school classroom.  Can't guarantee what you'll find, but I can tell you what you won't find: rows of docile, focused, self-directed students enthusiastically filling in worksheets.

As a result, teachers are perpetually seeking new, novels ways to capture the attention of their students and motivate them to become active participants in their learning. We've even gone so far as figuring out a name for our objective: "engagement." Unfortunately, once you get beyond the word, guidance becomes frustratingly vague and murky. Just how are we supposed to implement tips such as "create opportunities for active learning," "create a safe environment," and "instill a growth mindset"?

For my own purposes I've begun maintaining a list of more specific strategies, which I'm sharing below.  Please feel free to offer suggestions for additions or clarifications!

1. Stimulate their curiosity
1. Capture their attention through the use of a interesting questions or puzzling phenomenon (ex: Is it possible for a child to inherit none of their mom's DNA?; Does geography start wars?; Can a book change the course of history?)
2. Shift emphasis from delivering content to forcing students to construct their own knowledge (ex: Create a working circuit and then challenge students to figure out which way the energy is flowing and why; Give kids the ingredients for photosynthesis & make them figure out how it works)
3. Incentivize students to ask questions (ex: Maintain a parking lot for student questions & encourage students to look up the answers; Use warmups where you show a picture - two animals fighting, a political cartoon, etc. - and challenge kids to invent as many questions as they can think about it)
2. Make it authentic.  First ask yourself - why do they need to learn this? Then create experiences that will allow them to master the content through real-world activities
1. Have them read/interact with authentic materials - federal agency websites, newspaper/blog articles, etc. (ex: Students cut/paste articles and add their own reflections; Webquests that require students to visit primary sources)
2. Allow them to experience using the skills/concepts/knowledge (SCKs) in an authentic context (job) (ex: Model U.N., project based learning, problem based learning, graded conversations)
3. Relate the skills/knowledge/concepts to current affairs (ex: In the coming election, which candidates have the most in common with Federalists? What substances does the Olympic committee ban & why - how exactly do they enhance performance?)
4. Involve other content areas through cross-curricular projects (ex: Students create cell organelle pictures in art; Students study adaptation in both science and history; Students turn their favorite stories/novels into plays; Students map their own PE data in math class)
3. Make it relevant/personal. Ask yourself, why should kids care about this? How does this skill/content/knowledge relate to their personal lives
1. Work in references to pop culture (ex: introduce elements of poetry by analyzing the lyrics of popular songs; Teach graphing by comparing the sales of pop artist albums or sports team stats; ID the Latin root words/suffixes used to form the names of people/spells in the Harry Potter series; Have students create a playlist of songs that represent a specific literary character; Have students locate examples of each type of literary conflict in current movies)
2. Incorporate people/materials that validate all ages, genders and cultures (ex: Read literature representing other countries; Include female speakers/mentors; Expose students to teens who are writers/inventors/business owners; Use students who were born in other countries to educate their classmates about different ecosystems)
3. Allow students to choose activities that are a fit for their interests & learning strengths (ex: Offer assessment choices differentiated by individual preferences/intelligences; Build in time for students to engage in STEM or work on passion projects)
4. Involve family (or animals) (ex: Use parents as mentors; Have students read books aloud to shelter animals)
4. Make it meaningful. Appeal to their sense of sympathy/empathy & build engagement by giving them a chance to make a difference in their school, family or community
1. Inspire them. (ex: Expose them to TEDTalks; Expose them to peers who are making a difference in the world)
2. Let them teach others (ex: Encourage them to tutor/mentor other students; Let them help create assignments)
3. Find opportunities for them to engage in meaningful public service (ex: Make their own PSAs; Plant a bee garden; Run for SCA; Spread the word about climate change through flyers written in their native language)
5. Make it social
1. Teach discourse strategies that enable rich, meaningful academic conversations (ex: Sentence starters, turn-taking structures)
2. Create opportunities for students to interact in academically meaningful activities (ex: Kagan strategies)
3. Let them to argue! Give students opportunities to appropriately express their ideas & opinions. (ex: Socratic seminars, philosophical chairs, debates.)
6. Make it safe
1. Foster a sense of competence by differentiating SCKs so that everyone experiences an equal amount of challenge  (ex: Leveled texts, speech-to-text tech/text-to-speech tech, differentiated homework/assignments/products)
2. Create an environment in which students feel safe exploring, expressing themselves, and failing (ex: Teach growth mindset; Teach mindfulness)
3. Provide constant feedback so kids know they're on the right track (ex: Build opportunities for constant feedback into longer projects)
4. Establish & consistently reinforce rules (ex: Restorative justice; Involve students in developing your classroom management strategies)
7. Make it fun!
1. Add games (ex: Board games, sports-based games, on-line games)
2. Add mild competition (ex: Who was the most important president - pick one and create a project that will convince us; Which Chesapeake Bay organism deserves to win "Bay Critter of the Year"?)
3. Add role-playing (ex: Re-enact historical debates; Dress as a literary character and tell the class about yourself)
4. Add humor (ex: Use memes to reinforce class rules & teach key concepts; Have students create their own political cartoons; Don't be afraid to use puns and corny jokes in your instruction!)
8. Make it hands on
1. Incorporate hands-on activities (ex: Experiments, manipulatives, models/simulations)
2. Incorporate music, art, movement, and performance (ex: Use songs to help students memorize key concepts; Have students dramatize important scientific discoveries)
9. Make it flexible/self-directed.  Offer so-called "voice and choice"
1. "Flip" your classroom (ex: Students learn content at home, then work on projects at school)
2. Build in opportunities for students to influence/control what they learn (content), how they learn (process) and how they demonstrate their learning (assessment) (ex: Offer menus)
3. Make differentiation accessible and "invisible" (ex: Allow students easy access to computers with speech-to-text, text-to-speech, etc.)
10. Make it metacognitive
1. Teach students how to reflect on their own learning (ex: Have them analyze their own learning & Force them to draw their own conclusions rather than providing them; Incorporate deliberate, structured reflection after each activity)
11. Make it interactive/multimedia
1. Offer instruction utilizing a rich mix of media (ex: Audio + visual + kinesthetic)
2. Utilize interactive technologies (ex: Clicker systems, smart boards, QR codes that link to resources; phone-based apps and games like Kahoot) 
3. Utilize the mighty power of the internet! (ex: Webquests, online games & simulations)
4. Allow students to demonstrate their knowledge through multimedia apps (ex: Allow them to create Wixie presentations, movies, podcasts, interactive timelines, etc.)

Book Look - God Help the Child, by Toni Morrison

This is a terse read with an even more terse theme: the things we do to children matter. Because children who are raised in pain grow up to be adults in pain, which pain they then pass on to those they love and those who love them.

God help all the children in this book, for all of them have suffered in one way or another. There’s the protagonist, Bride, denied love by her mother because of her black skin. There’s her inamorata Booker, permanently scarred by the death of a beloved brother at the hands of a pedophile. Booker’s aunt Queen has left a trail of abandoned children in her wake, all of whom hate her. And Rain, the only actual child in the book, has fled from a mother who sold her into prostitution. Each of them seeks to mend their wounds in dysfunctional or ineffective ways: through sex, through music, through poetry, through sensory stimulation, through betrayal. Morrison’s message is clear – lest you miss it, Morrison hammers the message home at the end of the first, brutal chapter: “But it’s not my fault. It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault. It’s not.” 

Don’t worry about the plot – it scarcely matters, and Morrison scarcely bothers to justify the story’s many improbabilities or inconsistencies. Besides, who reads Morrison for plot? This novel delivers what Morrison’s novels infallibly deliver: memorable characters, lyrical prose, a little magical realism (for example, Bride’s body literally reverting back to adolescence), a whopping dose of empathy for all the damaged people in the world, and the hope of redemption through love.

A Thousand Words - Great Expectations

Can I be a secretary when I grow up, mommy? Pleeeeeeeeeease?

Book Look: Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov

What an infuriating literary experience. On the one hand, the loathsome premise of the novel was so off-putting, at times it was all I could do to force myself to read on. On the other hand, Nabakov’s dazzling narrative is like the literary equivalent of Cirque de Soliel – simultaneously brilliant, recondite, terrifying, manipulative, and mesmerizing. 

Talk about a book that defies characterization! Is it literature? (Those gorgeous passages of prose, those pretentiously long passages of French!) Philosophy? (Those Sartre references, those reflections on love and fate!) Social commentary? (Those rhapsodic odes to small-town America!) Satire? (Those deliciously spiteful jabs directed at psychology & education; that preposterously pedantic forward!) Farce? (That hilariously absurd denouement in which he finally brings to ground his imagined nemesis!) Tragedy? (Humbert Humbert as Oedipus Redux?) An exploration of deviant psychology? Pornography? An extended Joycianesque jest? In truth, the novel is all those things at once, which – I suppose – is precisely what makes it so infuriating. You want to hate the thing, but it’s just so damned brilliant.

A Thousand Words - Embracing Diversity in the Post-WWII Era

Check out this government nutrition poster from the post WWII era, featuring African-American and Asian children!  While I have to wonder if the artist had actually seen an African-American child (what's with that enormous upper lip? perhaps he was shooting for a young Louis Armstrong?), it bears remarking that our government was actively fostering diversity and linking it to the concept of a "Strong America." This message was also being echoed in government-sponsored radio advertising of the same era, which stressed the importance of embracing not just all races but also all religions, including Catholics and Jews. You wonder how it took 60 more years to get to where we are now.

Book Look: The Circle, by Dave Eggers

I understand why this has attracted so many negative reviews. The writing is pedestrian, the plot predictable, the denoument melodramatic, and the main character, Mae, wholly unappealing - petty, shallow, self-indulgent, and stupid. But none of that detracts from the fact that this is one of the scariest books I've read in a long time. Not in a Steven King way, but in an Orwellian way.

The book is about how a Google-like social media organization named the Circle (think Google + Facebook + Apple) gradually manages to insert itself into every aspect of society, by convincing people to trade their privacy in exchange for the promise of efficient living (search engines that already know what you want save time!), improved security (keep your child safe by tracking their movements! Keep your neighborhood safe by tracking strangers!), greater social engagement (why leave making friends to chance when IT can hook you up with the perfect companion?), enhanced entertainment (let us feed you entertainment we already know you'll like, based on your past preferences!), and greater visibility into our democratic processes (put an end to "backroom deals" by letting us wire your local politicians so you can watch their every move!). 

What makes the book so chilling is how very plausible this scenario is. On the surface, each of these trade-offs sounds almost worth it. Aren’t we, in fact, already embracing some of these tradeoffs – exchanging our privacy for the convenience of car sensors that pay our tolls for us, music search engines that can figure out what music we want to hear, and ebook readers that save us the trouble of carting around paperbacks? (By the way, ebook companies can and do track what you read, how long you spend on every page, even what you highlight; think about that the next time you download 50 Shades of Grey … or Mein Kampf.) What this novel does is project these current trends forward, envisioning a dystopian future in which private companies extend their reach from controlling marketing decisions to wresting control of entire social, cultural, economic and political systems. 

The character of Mae is supposed to represent us at our most gullible and self-indulgent – so maybe the fact that so many readers find her unappealing means there’s hope for us after all? One only hopes that books like this – as Brave New World and 1984 have done before – warn people of where we’re headed while there’s still time to stop ourselves.

A Thousand Words - A Whole New Childhood

SOURCE: http://bailey505.tumblr.com/post/127045973365

Does anyone besides me worry that electronics, especially handheld electronics, may be changing the nature of childhood and that these changes, in turn, may potentially alter the character of our future generations?

Does anyone worry that it may be a bad thing that kids no longer spend their childhoods exploring, riding bikes, making up their own games, finding their own entertainment, patiently waiting for the things they want?  I realize that not all of us had the same childhood, even back in the 60s -  but a lot of us did.

What if a childhood spent exploring is what makes us curious?

What if a childhood spent running around the neighborhood and riding bikes is what teaches us to enjoy exercise and personal fitness?

What if a childhood spent making up our own games is what teaches us creativity and imagination? What if policing those games is what teaches us fairness, justice, and how to compromise?

What if a childhood spent having to find/make our own entertainment is the main thing driving us towards reflective pursuits such as reading or thinking?

What if patiently waiting for the things we wanted (remember, in the days before VCR tapes, waiting a year or more before your favorite movies finally debuted on television?) is how we learn patience and how to postpone gratification?

By way of disclosure, I am actually old enough to grumble about "kids these days" ... but I'm not going to do it. I don't think kids have changed.  They're still born energetic, active, curious, imaginative, spontaneous.  I do think the world in which they are growing in has changed, in ways almost too enormous to fully appreciate.  Is it such a leap to wonder how this may result in generations of future adults who possess characteristics, biases, and priorities like none we've ever encountered before?

Book Look: Pox Americana, by Elizabeth Fenn

The problem with the history they teach you in school is that it’s really just a highlights reel. For instance, there’s how early American history is usually taught: Pilgrims landed at Jamestown --> more people came and settled New England --> King George III demanded taxes --> American Revolution. By shifting the focus from geopolitical issues to social/health issues – specifically the Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-1782 - Fenn gives us an “all the other stuff that was going on” account of North America during this pivotal time in history, give or take a few decades either way - and what an interesting, heretofore largely neglected, tale it is!

Given the number of diseases that plagued North America’s earliest European settlements – to include measles, influenza, mumps, typhus, cholera, plague, malaria, yellow fever, scarlet fever, whooping cough, and diphtheria – why does Fenn choose to focus on smallpox, aka Variola? For one thing, the disease is transmitted only through human contact, thus ensuring that tales of spreading infection are also, de facto, tales of human migration and communication. Also, Variola’s insidiously long incubation period (as long as 14 days might pass between initial infection and the first symptoms) immeasurably increased the odds that it would spread without detection.

Yes, the American Revolution still features large in Fenn’s account. In fact, the author offers a fairly convincing argument that smallpox played a heretofore entirely unappreciated role in determining the fate of many of the war’s most crucial battles. I admit these chapters left me somewhat unnerved, because before reading them I thought I was pretty familiar with the major events of the American Revolution. Not so much now! I gasped at the spectacle of Lord Dunmore’s 1000-strong “Ethiopian Regiment” marching to war in shirts boldly emblazoned “Liberty for Slaves!” only to perish in anguished heaps upon the shore of Gwynn Island; thrilled at the doomed attempt by valiant Daniel Morgan and his Virginia Riflemen to scale the walls of Quebec while there were still enough American troops alive to attempt the feat; and was shocked to learn that John Adams attributed his Congressional appointment to the fact that he was one of the few candidates willing to travel to smallpox-infested Boston to attend the meetings of the Continental Congress. Truly, I never imagined the extent of the devastation that Variola wrought within American cities and encampments during the war years, and I’m inclined to agree with Fenn’s conclusion that had George Washington not had the foresight to require all the men in his army to be innoculated against the disease, the outcome of the war might have been quite different.

But it was the chapters of the tale not specifically related to the American Revolution that I found most fascinating. Fenn chooses to relate the tale not so much chronologically as histiologically, tracking each smallpox outbreak from its probable origin and then tracing – via Native American oral traditions and settler diaries and church death records - the paths it travelled as it spread across the American continent, sometimes via the Canadian trappers and Native American middle-men who travelled to the Hudson Bay Company’s trading posts annually, only to carry back with them the fatal infection; sometimes via Franciscan monks who carried the infection with them into the Indian villages they attempted to convert; up and down the bustling trade road joining Mexico City to European settlements along the along the Rio Grande; in the saddlebags of Indian Raiding parties whose plunder included blankets and clothing teeming with disease; in the company Russian adventurers demanding “fur tributes” from the Inuit and other native tribes unlucky enough to inhabit the northeastern coasts, 10,000 of which were killed by smallpox in a single year. In the end, though, all these paths converge upon one truth: that one European-borne pestilence was probably, in and of itself, responsible for reducing the population of North American by 20-50% during the years of its terrifying reign.

One can quibble with Fenn’s conclusions – that smallpox very nearly altered the outcome of the American Revolution; that smallpox permanently shifted the balance of power among Native American tribes by selectively devastating traditionally peaceful agricultural tribes (such as the Shoshone) while sparing their more nomadic rivals (such as the Sioux); that Variola triggered the decline of Native American civilization by devastating whole tribes and undermining their confidence in traditional gods and healing rituals; that had it not been for Variola, African Americans might have gained their freedom 100 years earlier. But, as Fenn’s meticulously footnoted narrative makes clear, it’s hard to overstate the role that smallpox played in shaping the destiny of North America and the young republic that emerged from the chaos that Variola left in its wake.

Book Look: Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives, edited by Sarah Weinman

As others have said, this collection of 14 stories is meant to shed light on a largely forgotten literary genre, so-called "domestic mysteries" - stories that draw their suspense from the uniquely strained and fraught interactions that occur within families. No gumshoes (a la Hammett), no feisty elderly detectives (a la Christie) - instead, Weinman's female authors gives us mentally disturbed nannies (Patricia Highsmith's "The Heroine"), desperate widows (Nedra Tyre's "A Nice Place to Stay"), and spoiled daughters (Shirley Jackson's "Louisa, Please Come Home"); women tormented by greed (Miriam Allen Deford's "Mortmain"), by jealousy (Vera Caspary's "Sugar and Spice"), and by Terrible Secrets (Barbara Callahan's "Lavendar Lady"); competent women gone wrong (Helen Nielsen's "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree"; Joyce Harrington's "The Purple Shroud"), competent women sacrificing themselves for their families (Elisabeth Sanxay Holding's "The Stranger in the Car"), and competent women forced to sacrifice their families (Charlotte Armstrong's "The Splintered Monday"); lucky women (Dorothy Hughes's "Everybody Needs a Mink"), devious spinsters (Celia Fremlin's "A Case of Maximum Need"), and creepy children (Dorothy Davis's "Lost Generation"; Margaret Millar's "The People Across the Canyon").

As others have noted in their reviews, Weinman's introductions to each story do achieve the dubious distinction of simultaneously adding little useful info about the authors while incorporating spoilers that manage to rob many of the stories of their surprise. I'm inclined to forgive her the former, because - unlike their male colleagues - many of these women lived their lives in domestic rather than public arenas, making it hard to ferret out revealing biographical detail. However, there's really no excuse for the spoilers. If it's not too late, you may wish to give these introductions a miss.

Some of the stories are more imaginative then others, some more suspenseful than others, but all are competently written and diverting in their "domestic" way. While they may not exude melodramatic pulpiness, they are nevertheless chilling, perhaps precisely because the crimes they describe are domestic, and therefore feel a little more "close to home" than most of us would prefer our crime fiction to be.

2015 in Review: Top Stories in News, Sports, and Culture

As I've done for the past 5 years or so, have decided to wrap up the year with a summary of the top events of 2015 in news, sports, and culture. The information below is drawn from 30-40 disparate websites plus my own recollection, so I'm not claiming any ownership of the content. However, the editorial choices (what to include, what to exclude) are entirely mine, and undoubtedly reveal all sorts of inadequately concealed preferences and biases. My primary value-added is in bringing all of it together on one page, which I've started making a practice of sharing in case others find this format useful as well.  

I'm by nature an optimist, but there's really no way to sugar-coat this: 2015 was a terrible year, characterized by war, violence, oppression, discrimination, and climate disaster.  Not an particularly easy year to look back on, but perhaps reflecting on our mistakes of the past year will help us to avoid them in the coming year?  In truth, this almost never works, but I keep hoping.

TOP U.S. NEWS STORIES OF 2015

1.  The Presidential Campaign – Democratic Update. To no one’s surprise, Hillary Clinton is leading the Democratic field by lengths, despite lingering kerfuffles over her role in Benghazi and the revelation that, during her term as Secretary of State, she sent work-related from a home email address. What does seem to have taken the political pundits by surprise is the popularity (especially among millennials) of Bernie Sanders and his socialist message of social justice. After decades of middle-of-the-road candidates, Democrats seem to be enjoying the novelty of an extreme left-wing candidate in the race.  For a while it looked like VP Joe Biden might give Hillary a run for her money, but he eventually declined the opportunity, citing family issues including the recent death of a son. Oh, and there’s a third guy running for the nomination, former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, but mostly he just shows up at debates to complain about how little attention he’s afforded at debates.
2. The Presidential Campaign – Republican Update.  Meanwhile, a field of 13 or so candidates (including, in alphabetical order: Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Ben Cruz, Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee, John Kasich, George Pataki, Rand Paul, Rick Perry, Marco Rubio, Rick Santorum, Donald Trump, and Scott Walker) hasn’t prevented likely Republican voters from choosing the least qualified possible candidate, Donald Trump, as their front-runner.  Trump’s outrageous statements about immigrants (most of them are criminals), women (“All women flirt with me … that’s to be expected”), and Muslims (we should stop letting them into the U.S.) seem to be increasing rather than undermining his popularity. As I write this, the situation has become so desperate that the Republican party elders appear to have begun viewing Ted Cruz as a reasonable alternative.  Meanwhile, political pundits are salivating at the increasingly likely prospect of a brokered Republican convention, a spectacle the country hasn’t experienced in decades.
3. Racial Unrest. Picking up where Ferguson left off, 2015 saw racial tensions increase as more incidents of police violence against black citizens were exposed.  The death of 9 innocent worshippers in an attack on a Charleston church by a white suspect who had hoped to ignite a race war prompted a U.S.-wide reassessment of the role of the Confederate Flag as a symbol of hate.   As a result, many edifices/organizations named after Confederate heroes (including roads & schools) adopted name changes, and South Carolina finally agreed to stop flying the Confederate flag over their state capital building.  However, the most significant racial protests occurred in Baltimore over the death of Freddie Grey, who died in the back of a police van.  These incidents led to the blossoming of a new movement, #BlackLivesMatter, which has lasted long enough to be officially proclaimed a Thing but which is still new enough that the ultimate manner and fashion of the movement is still being shaped.  At least one hopes that street riots and shopping mall sit-ins will eventually give way to something more politically and socially effective.  In total, police killed 1,125 people over the course of the year – this being the first year that such statistics were maintained.
4. Climate Change. Decades after Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, at least some in Congress seem finally to have accepted that climate change is real.  What gave it away, guys – the freakishly frigid weather in the Midwest? The devastating on-going drought in California? The record fire season in the southwest? Data indicating that the summer of 2015 was the hottest ever recorded? Appallingly, however, at least 7 of the 13 Republican presidential candidates either feel that climate change is not a threat or that it’s an elaborate hoax organized by 2 million scientists across the globe.
5. Gun Crimes.  The world witnessed another year of ghastly mass shootings. Incidents included 130 killed in a planned ISIS attack on three sites in Paris; 12 killed in an attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hedbo in retaliation for the magazine printing cartoon images of Mohammed; 27 killed in a mass shooting at a Mali hotel by Al Qaeda assassins; 14 killed in a mass shooting in San Bernardino by a married team of radicalized Muslims living in America; 3 killed in an attack on a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs by a mentally ill gentleman who called himself “a warrior for the babies”; 9 killed in a shootout between various biker gangs and police at a Waco Texas biker bar; 3 killed in a killed in Colorado Springs while engaged in the politically radical process of simply watching a movie.  Statistics suggest that mass shootings actually peaked in 1929, but it’s hard not to feel under assault when every week seemed to bring some new report of gun crime.
6. Gay Marriage.  The Supreme Court required all states to allow gay partners to marry.  Which, alas, didn’t stop a Rowan County Kentucky clerk from snatching 15 minutes of fame by refusing to issue licenses for same sex marriages in spite of the Supreme Court ruling

TOP WORLD NEWS STORIES OF 2014

1.  The War on ISIS/AlQueda/Terror.  ISIS kicked off the year in typically grim fashion by posting online videos of mass beheadings and live burnings. Over the course of the year, however, focus shifted to the ongoing war in Syria. Syrian rebels, supported by the U.S. and other allied countries, battled the remnants of Syria’s government forces, supported by Russia.  In total, Syria has seen 3,123 airstrikes since a US-led campaign began in September 2014. An additional 6,054 airstrikes have been made in Iraq in an attempt to defeat Islamic State militants in the region, the group says.
2. Syrian Refugee Crisis.  Meanwhile, a total of 4.4 million Syrian refugees have been registered by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The vast majority of them are in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq, though 2016 saw floods of immigrants attempting to resettle in Europe by way of beleaguered Greece. Though the U.S. mostly escaped terrorist attacks in 2015, Trump and others have called for closing our doors to Syrian refugees lest terrorists use this as a way to sneak into the country.  Thank goodness the rest of the world hasn’t been so niggardly: Germany, Canada, and Scotland in particular have made a point of welcoming Syrian refugees into their nations
3. European Union Instability. A historic referendum, jointly proposed by the European Commission, IMF and ECB, to decide if Greece would accept bailout conditions was held in July. As a result of the referendum the bailout conditions were rejected by a majority 61 percent of Greek voters, forcing the resignation of a number of high-profile Greek politicians, including finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, and a renegotiation of the conditions. After 17 hours of talks, Eurozone and Greek leaders reached a provisional agreement on a third bailout, saving Greece from bankruptcy, and keeping the country in the EU.  Oh, and speaking of Europe, Scotland voted not to succeed from Great Britain
4. Middle East Update.  Over the summer, the U.S. announced an agreement with Iran to halt that country’s nuclear program.  No one believes the deal will curtail Iran’s nuclear aspirations, but everyone’s hoping the plan will at least delay the inevitable.  Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu …
5. Climate Change. 180+ world leaders gathered in Paris to participate in COP21, negotiations designed to cap climate change at 2^oC by capping emissions, slowing deforestation, and bribing developing countries not to make the problem worse.  Scientists studying the final agreement have ascertained that the identified cuts will come nowhere near to capping climate change at 2^oC, but “it’s a step in the right direction.”

PEOPLE WHO HAD A GOOD 2014

1. Women who wish to serve in the military, thanks to a new Pentagon policy opening up all military positions – including SEAL and special forces jobs – to U.S. citizens of both genders
2. Pope Francis, who continues to garner the respect of non-Catholics by advocating that countries work together towards solving pressing world problems including hatred, poverty, and climate change.
3. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who announced that he will be donating $45B (yes, that billion with a “B”) to charity.
4. Mark Jenner, who boldly renamed himself Caitlyn Jenner and won the Arthur Ashe Courage Award for his role in introducing transgendered people into the mainstream.
5.  Infamous Mexican drug lord “El Chapo” briefly captured headlines by managing to escape, for the second time, from the maximum security prison in which he was held.  Somehow, no one the large, elaborate tunnel leading away from his cell.
6. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, who gave birth to an adorable little girl, named Charlotte.
7. Jimmy Carter, who earlier in the year announced that melanoma had spread to his brain; then, months later, announced that the cancer had completely disappeared. Proving that sometimes good things do happen to good people.
8. Chinese couples who, by law, may now have up to two children, thanks to the Chinese government’s lifting of the long-time ban on having more than one.

PEOPLE WHO HAD A BAD 2014

1. The Minnesota dentist who travelled to Zimbabwe to bag himself a lion but somehow managed to shoot Cecil, the sole beloved member of that species in the whole country.
2. Subscribers to the Ashley Madison website, which promised to confidentially connect spouses interested in cheating, after a security breach revealed their names to the world – including their clueless spouses.
3. Volkeswagon, which “inadvertently” installed devices in new vehicles that allowed the vehicles to cheat on emissions tests.  Whoops – our bad!
4.  Men and women aged 45-54 with less than a college degree, who saw their mortality rate increase markedly. Researchers point to problems with legal and illegal drugs, alcohol, and suicide.  Prior to 2013, death rates for both these groups had been dropping steadily, and at a faster rate than other groups. 
5. Miss Universe Pageant host Steve Harvey, who accidentally named the 1^st runner up as the winner and then had to take the crown away from her to present to the actual winner.
6. Subway spokesman Jared Fogle, the awkward lad who landed the spokesman gig by managing to lose 70lbs eating only Subway subs, who was sentenced to 15yrs in prison for possessing child pornography.
7. Bill Cosby, whose attempts to deny the allegations of some two dozen women that he drugged them in order to obtain sex were seriously undermined by the release of an old Associated Press report in which Cosby admitted to drugging women in order to obtain sex.
8.  That guy who pretended to be offended that the Starbucks holiday cup was just plain red, triggering an internet kerfuffle in which much ado was made about nothing.
9.  SeaWorld, which – faced with non-stop allegations of cruelty and mysterious deaths -  finally gave up attempting to justify their killer whale shows and announced that they would be suspending all such shows by the end of 2015.
10.  John Boehner, who resigned his seat as the Speaker of the House in October, exhausted by the task of trying to unite the Republican party as a political entity. (Or maybe this belongs under “People who had a good 2015?”)
11. 14yr old high schooler, Ahmed Mohamed, who brought a homemade clock to school and was hauled away in handcuffs by police on suspicion of having built a bomb.  This one, at least, has a happy ending: President Obama invited the student to the White House to talk about technology innovation.
12. Martin Shkreli, the pharmaceutical boss who purchased a drug from a dying drug company and then raised the price 50 fold, earning himself the nickname “the most hated man in America” … and was then found guilty of Ponzi-scheme type stock manipulations. Because karma.

NOTABLE DEATHS

1. Ernie Banks, baseball player
2. Sandy Berger, national security advisor to Bill Clinton
3. Yogi Berra, baseball catcher & Yankees coach
4. Julian Bond, civil rights pioneer, NAACP chairman
5. Sarah Kemp Brady, gun control advocate
6. Edward W. Brooke, first black in U.S. history to win popular election to Senate
7. Jackie Collins, author
8. Wes Craven, writer & film director (Nightmare on Elm Street)
9. Mario Cuomo, governor of New York
10. Little Jimmy Dickens, oldest cast member of Grand Ole Opry
11. Anita Ekberg, Swedish actress & sex symbol
12. Frank Gifford, football player & Monday Night Football announcer
13. Leslie Gore, singer (It’s My Party, You Don’t Own Me)
14. Dean Jones, actor (Love Bug)
15. B.B. King, blues musician
16. Ben E. King, lead singer of the Drifters
17. Christopher Lee, actor (Dracula, Lord of the Rings)
18. Anne Meara, actress
19. Tom Moore, cartoonist (Archie)
20. John Forbes Nash Jr., mathematician
21. Jean Nidetch, Weight Watchers founder
22. Leonard Nimoy, actor (Star Trek)
23. Maureen O’Hara, actress (Miracle on 34^th Street)
24. “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, pro wrestler
25. Terry Pratchett, fantasy writer (Discworld)
26. Paul Prudhomme, Cajun chef
27. Amelia Boynton Robinson, civil rights activist
28. Oliver Sacks, neurosurgeon & author
29. Helmut Schmidt, former West Germany chancellor
30. Rev. Robert H. Schuller, televangelist
31. Omar Sharif, actor (Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. Zhivago)
32. Percy Sledge, singer (When a Man Loves a Woman)
33. Ken Stabler, football player
34. Blaze Starr, burlesque icon
35. Fred Thompson, actor (Law & Order, Hunt for Red October), Senator, presidential candidate
36. Allen Toussaint, jazz performer and composer (Lady Marmalade)
37. Dick Van Patten, actor (Eight is Enough)

SPORTS NEWS

1. The New England Patriots triumphed over Seattle Seahaws, 28-24, in the Superbowl, but their victory was tarnished by allegations that the team knowingly used under-inflated footballs in the AFC championship game – aka “deflate-gate”.  And that hugely controversial final play in which the Seahawks, on second and goal with 26 seconds left in the game, rather than trust the ball to their human UPS truck running back, Marshawn Lynch, decided to throw a pass which was (predictably) intercepted. And don’t even get me started about the halftime show featuring Katy Perry flanked by two guys in shark costumes ….
2.  In the baseball world series, the New York Mets were defeated by the Kansas City Royals, a match that pitted a team that last won the World Series in 1985 against a team that last won the World Series in 1986.  The Washington Nationals had been picked to be the team to beat, but injuries, cold bats, and dissent in the dugout resulted in merely a so-so season, which culminated in the official firing of Coach Matt Williams.  (However, none of this interfered with Bryce Harper totting up a brilliant season, which culminated in his being named NBL Player of the Year.)
3. Promoters orchestrated the mega-fight of all mega-fights, in which Floyd Mayweather defeated Manny Pacquiao in a unanimous decision.
4. American Pharoah became the first horse in 37yrs to win horse racing’s Triple Crown
5. The Duke Blue Devils triumphed in the 2015 NCAA Tournament, defeating Wisconsin 68-63.
6. The chairman of FIFA, the world soccer association, was forced to step down due to allegations that he accepted bribes in exchange for choosing Qatar as the site of the 2022 World Cup.  Because there’s nothing fishy about choosing a country with no soccer tradition, no soccer stadiums, and summer temperatures in the 100^oFs.
7. The U.S. team unexpectedly walked away with the Woman’s World Cup in soccer, defeating Japan 5-2.  Many Americans were surprised to discover that the U.S. actually had a woman’s soccer team.
8.  College football debuted its first College Football Playoff National Championship. Still not the 8-team playoff most purists were hoping for, but the matchup between Ohio State (winner of the Sugar Bowl) and Florida State (winner of the Rose Bowl) sure looked like a championship game.
9. Serena Williams won, in the course of one year, the US Open, the Australia Open, the French Open, and Wimbledon – not for nothing was she named Sports Illustrated’s Person of the Year

TELEVISION 2014

1. Television News
1. In the wake of Jon Stewart’s retirement, The Daily Show was turned over to South African social comedian Trevor Noah.
2. Speaking of fake news shows, Daily Show alumnus Larry Wilmore was given his own show, filling the spot vacated by Stephen Colbert, who departed for CBS to take over for retiring David Letterman
3. “Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams was permanently dismissed after an investigation revealed inaccuracies in his account of being in a military helicopter under fire in Iraq. You’d think fact-checking wouldn’t be an onerous task when you’re the one in possession of the facts!
4. Sharknado 3 caused a stir by devastating Washington D.C. and stranding David Hasslehoff on the moon.
2. Best Television shows of 2015, according to critics
1. Fargo (FX). Those kooky Midwesterners, with their funny accents and even quirkier crimes!
2. Transparent
3. The Americans. Little do the neighbors know that the nice family next door are actually deep-cover soviet spies
4. Justified. Goes down smooth, like a really good Kentucky Bourbon
5. Rectify
6. Louis
7. Game of Thrones (HBO). After three seasons, this show still knows how to shock viewers with an unexpected plot twist or death.
8. Master of None (Netflix). Aziz Ansari’s breakout show does a great job of exploring how we treat and unconsciously stereotype others by race, age, gender, and nationality
9. Silicon Valley (HBO), Talented but inexperienced nerds contend with the cutthroat world of high-tech startups
10. Mr. Robot (USA). Through the eyes of its unreliable narrator, hacker-king Mr. Robot, the show explores corporate greed, drug use, social interaction, love, and betrayal.
11. The Knick (Cinemax)
12. The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix). After being locked away from the world for years by her cult-leader husband, Kimmy encounters the real world with a naivity and gusto as humorous as they are endearing
13. Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Now that Jon Stewart has moved on, our new best source for political satire that’s as smart as it is funny.
3. Shows that ended their run in 2014
1. 19 Kids and Counting. One wonders how many more kids the family might have added had reports not emerged of one of the tykes fondling girls, allegations which brought the show to an abrupt end
2. Anger Management. Here’s hoping this will be the last we see of Charlie Sheen on prime-time\
3. Boardwalk Empire. What a great ride it was!
4. The Colbert Report.  At least we have the consolation of watching Steve Colbert hosting CBS’s late night show.
5. Glee. The show never was able to recapture the charm of the first season
6. Justified
7. Mad Men.
8. The Mentalist
9. The Newsroom. Aaron Sorkin’s drama about the CAN News Night team will be missed
10. Parenthood. Even devoted fans couldn’t save this one
11. Parks & Recreation. A perennial hit with critics, this Amy Poehler mockumentary was never a hit in the ratings
12. Sons of Anarchy
13. Two and a Half Me
4. The most-watched shows of 2015
1. NFL Sunday Night Football
2. The Big Bang Theory
3. NCIS and NCIS:New Orleans
4. Empire
5. NFL Thursday Night Football
6. NFL Sunday Pre-Kick
7. Dancing with the Stars
8. Madam Secretary
9. Criminal Minds
10. The Voice
11. Blue Blood
12. The Blacklist
13. Scorpion
14. The Voice
15. OT
16. Scandal
17. 60 Minutes
18. Hawaii 5-0
19. The Good Wife
20. Person of Interest
21. Two and a Half Men
22. Modern Family
23. The Mentalist

MOVIES

1. 86^th annual Academy Awards
1. Best picture: Birdman (other nominees: American Sniper, Boyhood, Grand Budapest Hotel, The Imitation Game, Selma, The Theory of Everything, Whiplash)
2. Actor: Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything
3. Actress: Julianne Moore, Still Alice
4. Supporting actor: J.K. Simmons, Whiplash
5. Supporting actress: Patricia Arquette, Boyhood
2. Best movies of the year, according to critics (SOURCE: WTOP, Washington DC)
1. Bridge of Spies. Terrific spy tale with Tom Hanks reluctantly negotiating a spy swap with Russia during the Cold War
2. Straight Oughta Compton. A docudrama about the controversial rap group N.W.A. – outstandingly timed to coincide with this year’s race riots and the swelling #BlackLivesMatter movement.
3. Steve Jobs. Another docu-drama, this one focusing on the flawed man behind the genius.
4. The Revenant. Leonardo DeCaprio as a frontiersman left for dead, surviving the frosty wilderness of 1820s Montana as he seeks revenge on the man who left him behind. But even the movie’s art house cred wasn’t enough to keep some critics from being appalled by the violence.
5. Victoria. Tells the tale of a woman in Berlin and an innocent night of adventure that turns deadly. The film’s gimmick is that its creator filmed the whole thing to resemble one continuous shot
6. Mad Max: Fury Road. I can’t believe I’m including a Mad Max film among top films of the year, but critics loved the filmmaking and I loved that the badass hero was a woman, Charlize Theron, on a mission to liberate a bunch of women taken as sex slaves.
7. Creed.  Just when you thought the Rocky franchise had to be over, along comes Creed, which follows the career of Apollo Creed’s orphan son Adonis who moves to Philly to train under Rocky Balboa. The faces may have changed, but the fight action sequences and the tear-jerker finale are spot on
8. Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Not sure whether the film truly deserves to be on this list or whether the expectations of critics were so low that this 7^th film in the franchise felt like a cinematic triumph.
9. Ex-Mechina. A tiny arty film about a mad scientist who creates a female I.A.
10. The Hateful Eight.  This Quentin Tarantino Civil War pic doesn’t stray far from the ones that came before, including over-the-top violence, the overuse of overt symbolism, and constant vulgarity. Hey, at least someone’s keeping Samuel Jackson steadily employed.
11. The Martian. Admit I loved this feel-good, God-Bless-America ode to the ingenuity of American scientists – in this case, Matt Damon as an astronaut inadvertently abandoned on Mars. So many marvelous quotes, my favorite of which might be “I’m going to have to science the shit out of this.”  It’s about time botanists got their 15mins of fame!
12. Me & Earl & The Dyign Girl. Another Indie flick, a Juno-esque tale of a high schooler who spends his free time making parodies of classic movies with his best bud Earl until his life is changed forever by a cancer-ridden classmate. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, then you’ll cry some more
13. Inside Out. This Pixar flick was more for adults than kids, taking us inside the head of an 11yr old girl as her parents uproot her from their Midwest home to relocate in San Francisco. Each personified emotion – sadness, fear, joy, disgust, anger – takes its turn narrating the events. Rarely has psychotherapy been so funny
14. Brooklyn. The tale of Irish immigrants in 1950s Brooklyn, with that hoariest of romance tropes at its core: can Irish girl find happiness with Italian boyfriend? Of course they can!
15. Room. Tells the tale of an abducted sex-slave trying to raise her rape-born son while simultaneously hiding from him the truth of his birth and their incarceration. One of those films that, regardless of its merits, leaves you feeling totally icky after you’ve seen it
16. Love & Mercy. Yet another docu-drama, this one about the life of the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, the group’s tragically doomed genius. A sensitive and moving study of what it’s like to struggle with mental illness – in case Russell Crowe’s A Beautiful Mind left you wanting more.
17. Spotlight. Tells the true story of two Boston Globe journalists who won a Pulitzer Prize by uncovering the child sex-abuse scandal within the Catholic Church.  Their patient, fact-checking process reminds of us the days when journalists actually cared about reporting the truth.
3. Best documentaries of the year, according to critics (SOURCE: Washington Post)
1. Steve Jobs: Man in the Machine
2. Red Army
3. Cartel Land
4. Hitchcock/Truffaut
5. Batkid Begins
6. Best of Enemies
7. The Wolfpack
8. He Named Me Malala
9. Amy
10. Listen to Me, Marlon
4. Most popular movies of the year, according to ticket sales
1. Jurassic World
2. Avengers: Age of Ultron
3. Star Wars: The Force Awakens (*predicted to overtake Jurassic World within the next month)
4. Inside Out
5. Furious 7
6. Minions
7. The Hunger Games: Mockinjay – Part 2
8. The Martian
9. Cinderella
10. Spectre
11. Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation\
12. Pitch Perfect 2
13. Antman
14. Home
15. Hotel Transylvania
16. 50 Shades of Grey
17. The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water
18. Straight Outta Compton
19. San Andreas
20. Mad Max: Fury Road
21. The Divergent Series: Insurgent
22. Kingsman: The Secret Service
23. The Peanuts Movie
5. Worst movies of the year
1. Vacation. You wonder who was the idiot who actually imagined they could make National Lampoon’s Vacation even better.
2. Ted 2. Because Seth MacFarlane’s first movie about a profanity spewing bear wasn’t painful enough?
3. Mortdecai. Even Johnny Depp couldn’t save this cringeworthy attempt at a debonair, swinging sixties heist farce.
4. Hot Pursuit. One day Reese Witherspoon is going to quietly buy up all the copies of this painfully bad attempt at a road trip movie and destroy them
5. Get Hard. What could possibly be offensive about a movie in which Will Ferrell plays a privileged white guy asking Kevin Hart, the black guy who happens to work at his carwash, how to survive in prison?
6. Fantastic Four. Proving that it IS possible to make a terrible movie with Marvel superheroes
7. The Cobbler. Sometimes Adam Sandler gets away with preposterous premises; other times, like in this outing about a cobbler who literally becomes other people when he walks in their shoes, the result feels forced and a little icky.
8. American Ultra. A spy film starring stoner teens?
9. Taken 3. Liam Neeson visits the Bruce Willis well once too often
10. The Loft. When a hooker turns up dead in a loft shared by five privileged white guys, friendships and loyalties are questions. By the end of this painfully paced movie, you’ll wish you were the hooker
11. The Last Witch Hunter. So much for trying to make witches a thing
12. The Forger.  Does this awful outing signal that John Travolta’s comeback is officially kaput?
13. Hot Tub Time Machine 2. Really, is any explanation necessary?

ENTERTAINMENT (music, plays, books, etc.)

1. Entertainment news
1. Forget Taylor Swift and Katie Perry – 2015 was the year of Adele, whose smoky voice and jazzy stylings seemed to bring a new sophistication to pop.  Her 3^rd album sold 5M copies in the first month; for reference, the last time a music album sold so quickly was when Adele released her 2^nd album in 2011
2. So many awesomely danceable songs! From Pharrell’s infectious “Happy” to Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off”; from Bruno Mars’s “Uptown Funk” to Walk The Moon’s “Shut Up and Dance”; from Maroon 5’s “Sugar” to Meghan Trainors “Lips are Moving” 
2. Major Grammy winners
1. Record of the year: Sam Smith’s “Stay With Me”
2. Album of the Year – Beck’s “Morning Phase”
3. Song of the Year – Sam Smith’s “Stay With Me”
4. Best New Artist – Sam Smith
3. 89^th annual Tony awards, held in June (so, technically, most of the shows were 2014 hits, but still ….)
1. Best Play – The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (other nominees: Disgraced, Hand to God, Wolf Hall)
2. Best Musical – Fun Home (other nominees: An American in Paris, Something Rotten, The Visit)
4. Top grossing plays/musicals. 
1. According to the Broadway League, the 2014-15 season (May 2014-May 2015 was best attended and highest grossing season in Broadway history. A total of 37 productions premiered during the season, including 15 musicals (10 new, 5 revivals), 20 plays (11 new, 9 revivals) and 2 specials.
2. Highest grossing shows as of December 2015 included Hamilton, An American in Paris, Alladin, On Your Feet, School of Rock, The Book of Mormon, Wicked, and The Lion King, all of which were grossing above $1M per week.
5. Groups nominated for induction into the R&R Hall of Fame: Ringo Star, the 5 Royales, the Paul Butterfied Blues Band, Green Day, Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, Lou Reed, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Bill Withers
6. Top Video Games: Assasins Creed: Victory; Battlefield: Hardline; Batman: Arkham Knight; Below; Bloodborne; Dying Light; Evolve; Game of Thrones; Halo 5: Guardians; Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number; King’s Quest; Legend of Zelda Wii U; Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain; Mortal Kombat; No Man’s Sky; The Order:1886; Overwatch; Persona 5; Pillars of Eternity; Project CARS; Rime; Rise of the Tomb Raider; Scalebound; Silent Hills; Splatoon; Star Fox; Star Wars Battlefront; Tides of Numenera; Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege; Tom Clancy’s The Division; Unchartered 4: A Thief’s End; The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt; Xenoblade Chronicles X
7. Top books of the year
1. Book news
1. The literary community was rocked by the release of “Go Set a Watchman,” Harper Lee’s sequel to “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Never mind that Harper Lee is suffering from dementia, or that she repeatedly refused to release the purported sequel while in her right mind, or that the MS was suddenly and “miraculously” discovered by a greedy relative who instantly raced the MS into print, or that the book reads like a rough first draft of “To Kill a Mockingbird” ….  Not unexpectedly, many folks chose to take a pass on the sequel rather than have their veneration for Atticus Finch spoiled by an alternative version of the beloved tale in which he is revealed to possess racial reservations of his own.
2. Fiction
1. National Book Awards
1. WINNER: Fortune Smiles, Adam Johnson (BBC)
2. Refund, Karen Bender
3. The Turner House, Angela Flournoy
4. Fates & Furies, Lauren Groff (WP, Kirkus, Amazon)
5. A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara (WP, Kirkus Review)
2. Other Lists
1. The Story of the Lost Child, Elena Ferrante (PW, BBC, Amazon)
2. Delicious Foods, James Hannaham (PW)
3. Imperium, Christian Kracht (PW)
4. Crow Fair, Thomas McGuane (PW)
5. Purity, Jonathan Franzen (WP, Amazon)
6. Welcome to Braggsville, Geronimo Johnson (WP)
7. A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories, Lucia Berlin (Kirkus)
8. Incarnations, Susan Barker (Kirkus)
9. The Story of My Teeth, Valeria Luiselli (Kirkus)
10. The Book of Aron, Jim Shepard (WP, Kirkus)
11. The Game of Love and Death, Martha Brockenbrough (Kirkus)
12. The Tsar of Love and Techno (BBC)
13. The Sunken Cathedral, Kate Walbert (BBC)
14. Thirteen Ways of Looking, Colum McCann (BBC)
15. Clarice Lispector, the Complete Stories (BBC)
16. Golden Age, Jane Smiley (BBC)
17. Gold Fame Citrus, Claire Vaye Watkins (BBC)
18. An Ember in the Ashes, Sabaa Tahir (Amazon)
19. The Nightengale (Amazon)
20. The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins (Amazon)
21. Seveneves, Neal Stephenson (Amazon)
22. Mrs. Engels, Gavin McCrea (Amazon)
23. The Sympathizer, Viet Thanh Nguyen (Amazon)Furiously Happy: A Funy Book About Horrible Things, Jenny Lawson (Amazon)
24. Bull Mountain, Brian Panowich (Amazon)
25. Between You and Me, Mary Norris (Amazon)
3. Nonfiction
1. National Book Award
1. WINNER: Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coats (National Book Award Winner, PW, WP, Kirkus, Amazon)
2. Hold Still, Sally Mann (WP, Amazon)
3. The Soul of an Octopus, Sy Montgomery
4. If Oceans Were Ink: An Unlikely Friendship and a Journey to the Heart of the Quran, Carla Power
5. Ordinary Light, Tracy Smith (BBC)
2. Other Lists
1. The Invention of Nature: Alexander Von Humboldt’s New World, Andrea Wulf (PW, Kirkus)
2. Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, William Finnegan (PW, Amazon)
3. The Argonauts, Maggie Nelson (PW)
4. Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning, Timothy Snyder (PW)
5. Beauty is a Wound, Eka Kurniawan (PW)
6. Black Flags: The Rise of Isis, Joby Warrick (WP)
7. Destiny & Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush, Jon Meacham (WP)
8. Future Crimes: Everything is Connected, Everyone is Vulnerable, and What We Can Do About It, Marc Goodman (WP)
9. Negroland, Margo Jefferson (WP)
10. Whirlwind: The American Revolution and the War That Won It, John Ferling (Kirkus)
11. H is for Hawk, Helen MacDonald (Kirkus, Amazon)
12. The Deluge: The Great War, America, and the Remaking of the Global Order, Adam Tooze (Kirkus)
13. Pacific, Simon Winchester (Kirkus)
14. M Train, Patti Smith (BBC)
15. Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of an American Family, Amy Ellis Nutt (Amazon)
16. The Wright Brothers, David McCullough (Amazon)
17. Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America, Jill Leovy (Amazon)
18. The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey, Rinker Buck (Amazon)

CULTURE

1. Selfies became a thing last year, but 2015 added new innovations to the craze, including the much-loathed selfie-stick, which allows for wider shots.
2. Rolling Stone magazine was forced to apologize for a discredited story about an alleged rape at a University of Virginia fraternity house. Obviously proving that reports of sexual assaults on campuses are all fishy.
3. Colleges battled over the necessity of issuing “trigger warnings” in advance of presenting content that students might find upsetting in any conceivable way.
4.  Fashion trends: platinum hair, simple nail designs, frosted lipstick, clip-on man buns, glitter roots, coffin nails, and using shot glasses to “instantly” plump up lips (SOURCE: Huffpost Style)
5. Top Google searches of 2015: Paris Under Attack, Star Wars, Adele, 2015 Election, Caitlyn Jenner, Letterman/Stewart/Late Night TV, Maryweather vs. Pacquiao, Woman’s World Cup, Oscar results, Guns in America, Royals Win World Series, Cecil the Lion, Black Lives Matter, same sex marriage, the dress (see memes), restored relations with Cuba, Syrian migrants, Iran Nuclear deal, notable 2015 deaths, Nepal earthquake, Princess Charlotte, Pope Francis’s trip to America, Volkeswagon, Water on Mars
6. Top hashtags in 2015: #PrayForParis, #LoveWins, #BlackLivesMatter, #CharlieHebdo, #JeSuisCharlie, #jobs, #Quran, #ISIS, #Earthquake, and #SarahBlandCurrent price of postage stamp: $0.49

MEMES OF THE YEAR

1. Sadly, the meme of the year was a picture of a dress, the color of which no one could seem to agree upon. (Black & blue … or gold and white?) Something about light waves and optical illusions.
2. Tribute videos.  It seems like just about everyone filmed their own version of Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off and/or Bruno Mars’s Uptown Funk.  And don’t get me started on all those videos of folks trying to replicate Drake’s Hotline Bling moves.
3. Left Shark.  Katie Perry has given the world many things: crazy-catchy songs, retina-searing outfits, over-the-top concerts. But our favorite gift might be Left Shark, the backup dancer who awkwardly grooved his way into our hearts during Perry’s Superbowl halftime show in February
4. Cheryl’s birthday.  In April, some called this Singapore brainteaser the math equivalent of “the dress”.  The challenge was to figure out Cheryl’s birthday from the enigmatic clues provided.
5. The Kylie Jenner Challenge. We have the youngest of the Kardashians to thank for this one – how to use a shot glass to achieve a pillowy pout.  People posted their own efforts to replicate the effect, with often ghastly results
6. Donald Trump’s Google History. Folks had a great time inventing Trump google searches, from “What country is Latifa queen of?” to “How to president.”
7. Goats in Trees.  Because for some reason it took until 2015 for us to realize that goats climb trees. 
8. Pizza Rat.  It all started with a video of a rat trying to drag a piece of pizza across a subway platform, before morphing into all sorts of parodies.
9. “Netflix and Chill.” According to Know Your Meme, the phrase first popped up online in October 2014 but picked up steam throughout 2015, inspiring tons of parody pictures. My personal favorites – animals snuggling with their favorite stuffed animals.
10. A post of Taylor Swift posing with 10 beautiful friends prompted the meme “squad goals,” the purpose of which was to pose with a group of your own most photogenic friends.  You can imagine the results

BUSINESS NEWS

1. China’s Slowdown. It took five years for people to become really worried over China's slow-motion economic deceleration. The freak-out finally hit global markets in August. Between Aug. 10 and Aug. 25, the Dow Jones industrial average plunged 11 percent on fears that everyone had underestimated China's troubles and their impact on the rest of the world. China's deceleration is part of an official plan to shift from unsustainable growth from exports and wasteful investment to slower but steadier expansion based on consumer spending. Yet its leaders tarnished their reputation for economic stewardship by clumsily intervening to prop up plunging stock prices. Then they shocked and confused markets by devaluing the Chinese currency. Economists began to conclude that China's official story -- that its economy was growing at around a brisk 7 percent a year -- was far too rosy and that growth might be closer to 5 percent or 6 percent and likely to weaken further. (CBS News)
2. Collapsing oil prices.  Oil prices tumbled from $98 a barrel two years ago to under $35. The biggest factor was unrestrained production across the world combined with an increase in domestic supply due to fracking. Bad for climate change but great for the budgets of ordinary Americans, who paid around $2/gallon for gas throughout the year (CBS News)
3. The End of Free Money.  When the Fed cut short-term interest rates to near zero in December 2008, the American economy was losing hundreds of thousands of jobs a month. The financial system had nearly toppled. The rate cut was an emergency response. No one expected it to last. But it did -- for seven years. On Dec. 16, the Fed declared that the economy was finally healthy enough to withstand a modest rate hike: It raised the short-term rate it controls from a range of zero to 0.25 percent to one of 0.25 percent to 0.50 percent. But with Europe and Japan still struggling and China decelerating, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan and the People's Bank of China had gone in the reverse direction: They acted to continue or expand their easy-money policies. (CBS News)
4. Growth of the “gig” economy.  The growth of the ride service Uber ignited a debate about the "gig economy," in which people don't hold regular jobs in traditional workplaces but rather work as some version of a freelancer: Uber drivers tooling around town in their own cars. Homebound app designers laboring to produce a hit for the Apple Store. Carpenters selling their services on the website Thumbtack. Supporters say the gig economy drives innovation and gives workers unparalleled freedom. Critics worry that it lets companies label workers as "independent contractors" to avoid providing overtime, workers' compensation or unemployment insurance. The government issued guidelines meant to clarify when companies can designate workers as contractors. Still, for now, it says barely 10 percent of American workers are self-employed, little changed from a decade ago. (CBS News)
5. Mega Corporate Mergers. Corporate America received an overhaul in 2015: Companies announced a wave of mergers and acquisitions worth nearly $4.8 trillion, busting a record set in 2007, according to Dealogic. The number of mega-mergers worth $10 billion or more also set a record. The list includes some whoppers: Arch-rival brewers Budweiser and Miller Genuine Draft would be joined by a $106 billion deal between Anheuser-Busch InBev and SABMiller. Dow Chemical and DuPont announced a merger worth $60 billion in a desperate bid to counter shrunken commodities prices. Pfizer and Allergan reached a $149 billion deal to bring Pfizer's Viagra and Allergan's Botox under one corporate roof. Dell is buying the data-storage company EMC for $66 billion. Walgreens offered to buy rival drugstore chain Rite Aid for $9.4 billion, a deal that raised questions among regulators at the Federal Trade Commission. (CBS News)
6. Mark Zuckerberg’s Dad Break. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced he will take two months of paternity leave after his daughter's birth, a strong statement from one of the busiest and most powerful U.S. executives on the importance of family time. Silicon Valley technology firms have rushed to extend parental leave allowances and other benefits in an attempt to recruit and retain talent, but many workers do not take advantage for fear of falling behind at work or missing out on promotions. Zuckerberg's decision is unusual among high-level tech executives, especially men. Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer took two weeks off after her first child's birth in 2012, and when she announced she was pregnant with identical twin girls in September, she said she would be taking limited maternity leave and "working throughout." (MSN)
7. The End of Cash. Forty percent of commerce is still done with cash and check, but the percentage is slipping every year. Apple CEO Tim Cook turned heads this November during his keynote at Trinity College, Dublin when he told the assembled that "your kids will not know" what cash is. The remark seemed to substantiate reports that Apple is in discussions with several large banks to develop a P2P banking system that would allow users to seamlessly transact payments between wireless devices. Facebook and Google are also rumored to be developing similar P2P payment systems, setting the stage for a truly competitive market sooner than we may have thought. The success of the November IPO of Square, the mobile payments company co-founded by Jack Dorsey, and the continued growth of PayPal's Venmo, which plans to fully launch in 2017, means that there's a lot money riding on whether your kids will know what cash is. (MSN)
8. Huge Trade Pact Ratified. Covering 40 percent of the world's economy, The Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement was reached in October after 5 years of negotiations. The deal between Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam has faced criticism over its expansive scope, secrecy of negotiations and controversial clauses that have come to light. Though Obama has painted the deal in part as a way of stopping China from writing the rules of the global economy, China's Ministry of Commerce broadly welcomed the agreement in the hope it would "promote and make common contributions to Asia-Pacific trade, investment and economic development". Lawmakers in the United States and other TPP countries must approve the deal. (MSN)
9. America's Economy on the Mend.  America's slow recovery following the 2008 recession had some good news in October as nonfarm payrolls recorded their largest gain since December 2014, bringing the unemployment rate to a 7-1/2-year low of 5.0 percent, the lowest since April 2008. Meanwhile, the number of unemployed persons to job openings also hit its lowest since 2007. The numbers, plus gains in housing and wage growth, paved the way for a Fed rate hike in December, and a move away from the crisis-level interest rate policy that has dominated the last 7 years. (MSN)
10. Minimum Wage Reform.  Throughout the year thousands of protesters took to the streets across the U.S. to demand a $15-an-hour minimum wage and union rights for fast food workers, a campaign intended to attract support from national political candidates ahead of the 2016 elections. The federal minimum wage currently stands at $7.25, but a number of cities nationwide have taken up minimum wage ordinances. (MSN)

TECHNOLOGY NEWS

1. Security Breaches.  Every week seemed to bring news of some corporation’s servers being hacked, compromising the personal information of hundreds/thousands/millions of customers.  Perhaps the most egregious of these was an attack on the OPM (Office of Personnel Management), which compromised the background security check information on 2.5 million government employees with clearances.
2. Microsoft.  Microsoft released Windows 10, whose primary claim to fame was the ability to turn Windows 8 back into Windows 7.  I wish I were joking.
3. Rollout of the Apple Watch. The Apple Watch went on sale in April, threatening to shake up the market for fitness bands and other wearable gadgets. Prices start at $350 and go up to $10,000 for luxury models. The smartwatch received mixed reviews. Some critics questioned whether it was useful enough to justify buying. Apple still won't say how many watches it has sold. But Wall Street analysts believe Apple sold about 4 million smartwatches from June through September, up from the unexpectedly strong 3.6 million that International Data Corp. estimated Apple sold from April to June. (CBS News)
4. Drones. Amazon made headlines by announcing that it would exploring the feasibility of having drones assume delivery duties. Indeed, drones were everywhere this year, including the front yard of the White House, prompting the FAA to decree that all drones now have to be registered with the U.S. government.
5. Net Neutrality. Cable and telecom companies fought it out with regulators over control of the Internet. The Federal Communications Commission issued "net neutrality" rules designed to bar Internet service providers from offering preferential treatment to sites that pay for faster service. Consumer groups and content companies such as Netflix support the new rules. But service providers such as Comcast and Verizon say the rules would limit innovation and discourage investment in broadband infrastructure. In 2014, a federal appeals court had struck down the FCC's previous attempt to mandate net neutrality. But a key federal judge who was part of that 2014 decision signaled in December that the agency's revised plan might pass muster. (CBS News)
6. Driverless Cars. Automakers and tech companies such as Google, Alibaba and Baidu scrambled to develop cars that would drive themselves. Nissan let reporters take a test drive in a self-driving car. Electric carmaker Tesla rolled out technology that allows for automated braking and lane-changes. As more functions are automated, experts say some cars should eventually be capable of driving themselves, perhaps by 2025. Mercedes and Infiniti already offer cars that can perform some functions -- steering themselves, for example, and staying within lanes at highway speeds. Cadillac is expected to offer hands-free driving next year. In 2017, Audi plans to offer low-speed, hands-free driving that works during traffic jams.

SCIENCE/ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS

1. Climate Change. Evidence of climate change continues to flood in, exacerbated by dozens of recently identified feedback loops – for example, the release of methane gas from melting tundra – that threaten to hasten the process.  November saw the formation of the strongest El Nino the planet has ever experienced, a phenomenon that is likely to majorly impact global weather patterns well into the new year.  Still to be determined: whether warming Pacific Ocean waters are responsible for the spawning of October’s Hurricane Patricia, the strongest typhoon ever recorded.
2. New Horizons. The New Horizons interplanetary probe, having travelled over 3 billion miles in 10 years, finally reached Pluto and immediately began sending back scores of gorgeous if perplexing photos of the planetoid.  Meanwhile, the Rosetta spacecraft (somewhat) successfully landed on a comet, and evidence of water on Mars – not just billions of years ago, but flowing on its surface right now – grew stronger than ever.
3. GMOs.  After years of contention, the US Food and Drug Administration approved the sale of genetically modified potatoes and apples, proclaiming them perfectly safe and capable of offering “nutritional benefits.” Coincidentally, 2015 was the year that Bill Nye retracted his reservations about genetically modified crops, proclaiming that their benefits – particularly with respect to providing food for starving peoples – outweighed potential concerns.
4. A link between immune responses and Alzheimers? Scientists have confirmed that depression, autism and Alzheimer’s disease all have something in common; they have been linked to inflammation in the brain.  In other words, the immune response that helps us fight infections appears to sometimes backfire, causing tissue damage that can negatively impact our moods and cognitive abilities.  Along the same lines, scientists also discovered an unexpected line of communicaton between the immune system and the brain – a previously unidentified network of lymphatic vessels in the meninges – suggesting that the brain’s immune system is irrevocably linked with the body’s immune system, which suggests that drugs that repress immune responses may be able to treat a range of psychiatric and developmental conditions.
5. Advances in Concussion Science.  Several high profile lawsuits plus a movie starring Will Smith managed to shine a new spotlight on the dangers of concussion.  The NFL has agreed to a billion-dollar settlement with players who accused the organization of covering up scientific evidence that repeated concussions put athletes at risk of permanent brain damage and death.
6. Human Evolution.  The more human fossils paleoanthropologists discover, the weirder the story of human evolution gets.  This year scientists unveiled 1500+ fossil specimens representing a new species, Homo naledi, who seems to be a cross between australopithecines (a la Lucy) and more modern humans.
7. To CRISPR or not to CRISPR?  Debate erupted over the ethics of employing the latest gene-editing technology, a process dubbed CRISOR-CAS9, which allows the editing of multiple genes at once.  Not since the 1980s, when a new method known as PCR was developed for greatly amplifying small amounts of DNA, has a new technology taken over research labs so quickly.  Finally, in December, an international summit was convened to debate whether use of CRISPR-CAS9 should be permitted, given its potential for making embryonic edits that would be passed down to future generations.  Ultimately it was agreed that the technology could be used so long as use was confined to the lab and “modified cells [are] not … used to establish a pregnancy.” Chilling stuff.
8. Our Weird Universe. 2015 was the year we were reminded of just how much we still don’t understand about the basic mechanics of the universe.  Physicists were stymied by vanishing quasars, mysterious gamma rays from the center of the Milky Way, and tantalizing hints of a mysterious object orbiting a distant star that might be an alien superstructure (but probably isn’t).   Oh, and proof emerged that measuring the property of one quantum particle can instantly determine the state of another quantum particle, a phenomenon Einstein called “spooky action at a distance” and modern scientists have dubbed “quantum entanglement,” which is totally freaking me out.
9. Reproducibility in Psychology.  Scientists once again spent the year testing whether the results of key psychological studies could be replicated.  Concerns that false positive results might be common in psychology, where studies often involve small numbers of subjects and statistically weak effects, first emerged in 2011. The scandal spurred psychologists to clean up their field – both by replicating key studies and creating new models of scholarly publication and peer review to restore confidence in published research.  The first crop of replications, in 2013, was reassuring: 10 of 13 experiments obtained the same results as the original studies. Last year, however, only 33% of 27 experiments could be replicated, a result that was repeated in 2014. The good news? The process of checking results has now become routine, and the new procedures adopted as a result of this process may drastically reduce the number of false positives in psychological research.

FOOD NEWS

1.  Juicing. Juicing may once have been the province of fitness freaks, but now everyone seems to own their own Magic Bullet juicer.  Even more hip: “juice cleansing” – a process that supposedly rids your body of toxins. “Hip” ingredients include kale, Millet, chia seeds and seaweed.
2. Siracha. This year's chipotle.
3. Clean eating.  Refers to following a diet that contains only natural foods and is low in sugar, salt, and fat … basically, a diet that is low in food!
4. Fat is good.  The Journal of the American Medical Association announced this year that reducing total fat doesn’t lower cardiovascular risk – in fat, your body needs good fat to function property. Moreover, fat isn’t necessarily what makes you fat – the consumption of sugars and salts also contributes to overall weight. Bring on the potato chips!
5. Locally produced beer/wine/spirits.  Suddenly every restaurant seemed to be featuring beers from local micro-breweries.
6. Environmental sustainability. Perhaps spawned by climate change-induced environmental disasters, 2015 was the year that foodies started talking about environmentally sustainable fishing and farming. An offshoot of this discussion – more attention being paid to reducing food waste and composting.
7. Ancient grains. Thought the paleo diet lost ground in 2015, the interest in ancient grains that it sparks has lingered. Never has your supermarket’s bread aisle offered such a range of grains, from quinona to millet, from sorghum to amaranth.
8. More and more restaurants seem to be experimenting with tech – for instance, letting guests order food and drink from their tables, play games while they’re waiting, or summon their waiter. Apparently the practice turns tables faster by eliminating downtime.
9. With avocado prices soaring, a New York Times food author suggested supplementing your guac with crushed peas.  Possibly the most mocked bit of food advice in 2015.
10. No more tipping? With local governments passing living wage laws and lifting minimum wages, more and more upscale restaurants are abolishing tipping in favor of higher overall wages.
11. Buzzwords for 2015: Pistachios, Pimm’s Cup #1, iced lattes, spicier ramen noodles, shaved ice desserts, ‘nduja, flavored salts, fermented foods, savory ice creams and yougurts, bitter (bitter greens, bitter chocolate, bitter coffee), food halls, night markets, food truck rodeos, local drinking, insect protein, savory waffle sandwiches, matcha.

WORDS OF THE YEAR. As in previous years, I’ll preface this with an acknowledgment that almost none of these words were actually invented in 2015. It might be more accurate to say that these are words that reached “critical mass” – became generally used and recognized – over the course of the year.  If it seems like this list grows in length every year, that’s because it does: it’s amazing how the advent of digital communications has hastened the pace at which new words are able to adopted into the common lexicon.

1. Adorkable. Cute in a dorky way
2. Affluenza. Suffering from affluence
3. Awesomesauce. Synonym for “awesome”
4. Bestie. Short for “best friend”
5. Butt-dial. That awkward moment when your phone dials a number by mistake because you bent over the wrong way
6. Crowdfunding. The process of reaching out to non-traditional sources to fund one’s cause or objective.
7. Declutter. The process of disposing of unnecessary possessions in order to simplify one’s existence and/or protest against the evils of consumarism
8. Deconfliction. A new bit of military jargon that apparently refers to the need to avoid airspace conflicts over high priority targets
9. Emojis.  Cartoonish pictograms, used in text-based exchanges to indicate feelings/reactions/emotions
10. Facepalm. The gesture of placing the palm of one’s hand over one’s face in order to express embarrassment, frustration, or disbelief
11. Feels. Short for “I’m sorry; I feel for you”
12. Hangry. When you’re angry/grumpy as the result of being hungry
13. Hoverboard. Popularized by the classic movie Back to the Future, the term came back into usage this year when a toy company released a so-called hoverboard – more accurately described as a mini-Segways
14. Humblebragging. A bragging statement about an accomplishment, couched in terms meant to imply humility.
15. Manic pixie dream girl. A female character depicted as vivacious and appealingly quirky
16. Mansplaining. To explain something to someone in a condescending or patronizing manner.
17. Mic drop. A performance or moment so impressive, it can’t be topped
18. Mx. A gender-neutral prefix, to be employed when none of the others quite apply
19. Pwnd. In gaming, the word means to be utterly defeated by an opponent
20. Radicalize. The process whereby otherwise upstanding citizens are brainwashed into becoming terrorists
21. Rage-quit. Quitting an activity because it has become too frustrating
22. Spear phishing. The fraudulent practice of sending emails ostensibly from a known or trusted sender in order to induce them to reveal confidential information
23. Unicorns. Startups that end up valued at a billion dollars or more – so named because of their rarity

QUOTE OF THE YEAR. I couldn’t choose between these two, so am declaring a tie.

1. “Where is the humanity in the world?” – Tima Kurdi, aunt of the 3yr old boy whose body was washed up on a Turkish beach after the boat he was travelling in capsized.
2. “Our thoughts and prayers are not enough.”  - Barack Obama, in the aftermath of the mass killing of nine students at Umpqua Community College, th e18th college shooting of 2015.