Hello, dears! While we could spend our two final columns of the year rehashing the putrid garbage fire of 2017 that included but was not limited to (DEEP BREATH) Muslim bans, Steve Bannon, Hurricanes, MAX murders, terrible proposed GOP health care and tax plans, ICE agents, Tiki-torch racists in Charlottesville, gutted environmental protections, North Korean nuclear threats, idiot teens starting fires in the Gorge, regularly scheduled mass shootings, sexual harassment and assault, and Donald Trump’s constant diarrhea stream of lies and betrayal (DEEP BREATH), instead we’ve challenged ourselves to find the good things that happened this year… or at least things that were not completely fucking awful. Trust us when we say it was not easy! Mwaah!—Ann
SUNDAY, JANUARY 8
“Being your first lady has been the greatest honor of my life,” Michelle Obama said today in her final public address as First Lady. “Our glorious diversity—our diversities of faiths, and colors, and creeds—that is not a threat to who we are,” she said. “It makes us who we are.” Oh, and: “To the young people here and the young people out there: Do not ever let anybody make you feel like you don’t matter or like you don’t have a place in our American story, because you do. And you have a right to be exactly who you are.” Dears, Michelle Obama is just the best, and we are going to miss her very, very much. Her speech just isn’t going to be the same when Melania Trump gives it next week.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 21
Yesterday’s inauguration ceremony may have been terrible, but today was FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC. The worldwide Women’s March drew huge numbers in various cities around the globe, with Washington, DC alone drawing half a million—or roughly three times as many people as Trump’s inauguration. (Insert sad trombone sound here.) The march was a joyous, peaceful festival celebrating people and ideas—feminism, LGBTQ and immigrant rights, Black Lives Matter, science, and the continuing greatness of America (despite all our so-called “carnage”). And it was beautiful. It was a much-needed and stark reminder that we are in charge of our destinies and country, not those who are temporarily holding down the presidency. As activist/actress America Ferrera said prior to the march, “The president is not America. His cabinet is not America. Congress is not America. We are America, and we are here to stay.” MEANWHILE… More good news! While giving an interview on the street in Washington, DC, neo-Nazi Richard Spencer (who endorses “peaceful ethnic cleansing”—which makes him a fucking Nazi in our book), got punched in his stupid Nazi face. And… it… was… GLORIOUS. While the internet debated if it was “okay to punch a Nazi” (Answer: You bet your ass it is), Spencer said that thanks to the attack, he’s now afraid to go out in public. RATS. Guess we’ll just have to punch him in private.