So, what’s the best thing that happened in this decade other than the one Giants’ Super Bowl victory and the two Yankees’ World Series championships? I know those three things top your list but there must be something that’s close behind, right?
About The Author

BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
I thought it might be the birth of my son, but he’s running out of time.
11:59:59, you folks.
Best wishes for all three of you in the new year.
The Patriots and their 18-1 season. Even though we lost at the very end, it was a marvelous ride.
In politics, November 4, 2008. Even though Barack Obama hasn’t been all I’d wanted him to be, that day was very special. I’ll never forget it as long as I live.
Yep, same. I messaged a friend of mine after it happened; both of us lost our disillusion with Obama around January 2008, and he even went on to support Hillary later on–he supporting Kucinich in the beginning.
Anyway, I cried that night, and so did he. We knew what we were getting, we knew Congress would prevent a lot of what we’d have hoped, we knew a lot of our civil liberties would never be returned.
That didn’t matter, because it wasn’t about him, per se, it was about how hard we had worked to make it happen. It was, indeed, a very special night.
So here’s to November 4th, 2008.
cheers..
Watching Dubya get on the helicopter for the last time…
And the crowd chanting as it flew away. Yeah, that was pretty sweet.
“Nah Nah Nah, Hey Goodbye!” And giving him the finger. Priceless.
Yeah, that might have been the only really good thing that happened from a global perspective. Quite a moment.
My memory of the last 10 years is pretty shaky. Some stuff probably happened. I’m sure I was pretty excited about it at the time.
.
Obama replacing Bush
It’s 23:35 PM, I need to join the family. Enjoy crossing old to new and best wishes to all for 2010.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
Happy New Year to you and your family.
Happy New year, Oui!
Happy New Year, Oui. hugs
The introduction of streamed video in markup sessions in the House and Senate. They were excellent during the markup of the Recovery Act; Republicans were caught actually having sensible conversations. Unfortunately, by the time healthcare reform was moving through, both sides were grandstanding again.
Why is it that they think that the public wants to see them grandstanding instead of actually working. The grandstanding is predictable and boring; watching how they actually work is interesting video.
Stlll an unfulfilled promise but the best thing this decade.
Too narrow. I’d say the advent of the Internets, period. It may be hard to remember, but ten years ago the “web” was in its infancy, and blogging didn’t exist, let alone video streaming or music files. Long after politicians and sports championships are forgotten, these developments will have transformed literally billions of lives.
That is, assuming we survive climate change, obstruction on action on it being the worst of the Bush cabal’s many crimes and one that may doom us all – definitely the low point of an often-wretched decade.
Hey, I had my first “web” site in 1993, run off an FTP server. It’s not that new to some of us! π I was written up for one of the 200 best blogs on the Internet back in 1995, I think it was..! I still have the site but haven’t edited it in a long time – it’s nearly a museum piece already.
Best site, not blog! See, the new terminology is ingrained, now…
It ended.
and l’d add to that, l survived it.
Ditto, and just almost didn’t either….:o) hugs
All day long, in various places, I’ve been saying this decade sucked but I’ve been focused on the overall trend of it starting off really good — I was in love and got married in 2000 — to it now being really bad — no income security, no insurance/bad health, living in gawd-forsaken eastern NC… BUT, there have been some amazing up’s in this slow slide downwards.
On the other hand:
Kids, what are you going to do with them?
Thanks for reminding me that this lousy decade also brought a rapprochement with my only child. That was worth all the rest. We are a family again.
Looking back, there’s a couple of cool small personal achievements but I’ve got nothing of any great magnitude to add.
Oh, well if we’re talking personal achievements, I have to mention dancing with Hugh Jackman on New Years Eve during a performance of The Boy From Oz. Long story. Great memory. π
It might be two Red Sox championships :-).
Cubbies, Cubbies, when will lightning strike and the curse be gone?
2010!!!!
for the ‘dood…
–Getting married (#2), and rediscovering how it feels to have a partner who really stands with me in troubled times. This is linked to finally taking the plunge and travelling internationally (wife is Filipina–good, hard-working family–miss them all)
Now that I’m past the ‘awkward, overly-self-conscious’ days of my youth, I’m ready to jump into the 2010’s and piss people off…..here’s to finding my ‘inner asshole’….
Obama winning in 2008. The Dems taking Congress in 2006.
Lakers championships. USC Trojans championships.
iTunes and the iPhone and OSX win out for technology.
That said, I may remember the decade more for the worst moments:
Gore losing in 2000 (this is the big one). Kerry losing in 2004. The Iraq War. 9/11. Letting Bin Laden escape Tora Bora. Cheney’s torture regime and what the Bush folks did to corrupt American values. Texas beating USC in the last seconds of the 2005 Rose Bowl. Lieberman ripping the Medicare buy-in out of health reform. The bailouts, the Bush tax cuts, the inaction on global warming. The list goes on and on.
No, the Phillies Chamionship was better, sorry.
Two Red Wings Stanley Cups and I took a trip to China for some reason in 2005 π
Thanks for reminding me. The Carolina Hurricanes Stanley Cup in 2005-2006.
First the bad:
2000 Tech Wreck, Bush selected.
2001 9-11
2002 Lost my Job and profession
2003 Iraq War started
2004 Bush elected (well maybe he was elected). Dean Scream Bullshit.
2005 Katrina
2006 Democratic Establishment campaigns for Lieberman aginst their own primary winner.
2007 Housing Bubble bursts
2008 $4.00 gasoline, Banks collapse, my IRA implodes
2009 Baucus/Lieberman Health Care “Reform”
The one good thing:
2004 Howard Dean speaks in San Francisco, galvanizing depressed Progressives. Picks us off our backs and sets us marching. I’d follow that man through the gates of Hell. I feel about him like my father felt about FDR. I’d even vote for Obama again if Dean asked me to. Hell, I’d vote for Cheney if Dean asked me to. He took me out of despair and gave me a cause to fight for.
We still need him to represent the democratic wing of the Democratic Party.
Those words got me back into politics, after nearly a decade away.
Going to the inauguration in January.
That was a highpoint of the decade for me too, sans the FRICKEN cold.
Yeah, and it’s been downhill from there.
Made the smartest move in my life. Packed up, short of money and insane and moved to a third world part of a second world nation.
Best decisions that I have ever made bar none. I have Cadillac insurance care in two countries and enough liquid to pay for Cadillac care in at least 30 other countries.
My six specialists all do house calls, five speak excellent English, the most expensive one costs $30 per hour. They ALL listen to me. If I say I’m allergic, they accept it and try something else.
Quality of medicine. I got drunk, fell on a plastic bucket and bruised my insides. I let it rot until they dragged me to a hospital. If I had been in the US it would have killed me. I can not stay in a US hospital, they are pure chemicals, I can’t breathe, all of my skin burns and I am in extreme pain. Here, they finally understood what I was telling them, opened up a wing of a hospital that had not been used in years, scrubbed it with disinfectant and then with boilded water and moved me in. Weekly they would disinfect it and then wash it with boiled water.
If I mention that I feel bad, my interpreter has a general practitioner here within three hours. All followups are done before the sun sets. Wait? In 5 or 6 years, I have waited in total less time to see the doctor than I did in a single day in a VA hospital without an appointment.
Had all but three teeth in my head totally rebuilt for less than $2000 including two oral surgeries to clean out an american dentist’s botched root canal.
I can’t go out by myself, I know it, but being crazy I do it any way. It took three years for me to catch on that since I use the same radio taxi, my interpreter gets a call if they see me wandering around downtown alone and she “just” happens to pop up. When I was picked up by a taxi about 3 miles from home, but with my regular cab company, he called the dispatcher, wrote a note and handed it to me with my correct home address.
I have access to everything mechanical, worse quality I’ll admit, but available. I can eat everything but fish. The farmers are literally dirt poor. The food is in the field in the afternoon, in the mercardo by opening time and in me less than 20 hours of being harvested. All of the “doctors” that had told me my stomach pains were psychosomatic were wrong. I was just allergic to the chemicals. I have the chemical problem when I have to go to the capital. Going to the us is hell.
Yep, my life would have been better if I had bailed 35 years ago.
Got problems with allergies? Got disease that you can’t get insured for? Need medicines that you can’t afford to take? Been in the hospital and owe more than your assets? Sell immediately and move south.
I have over 10 medically recognized major physical problems, I have to have specialists. Insane, I have to look up to see insane. The veterans specialist at the Social Security told me that I had been diagnosed with at least five different mental problems by multiple psychiatrists that the SS recognizes as totally disabling.
Oh, that was an easy question.
Bless you and I’m glad that the bastards didn’t grind you down.
I hope that you sleep well and have sweet dreams.
What two countries did you end up in?
Obama winning on November 4, 2008 was the highlight for me, like others, I cried. I remember being in Baltimore in 2004 when he delivered the keynote address at the democratic national convention, my wife and I both were very impressed and talked about how someday, he’ll be president. We just knew it. I’m one of the few who supports most everything he’s done and have patience for the things he hasn’t gotten to yet.
Personally, I got married, got a very good job, bought my dream home and acreage, and last year had quite a bit of success in my career which is continuing into the new year. I keep waiting for Ashton Kutcher to jump out and tell me I’m being punked.
I think passing the health care bill through the senate was also an awesome cap to the decade, even if it’s only symbolic of a shift towards my country caring about it’s citizens. Coming off 8 years of Bush taking us backwards, I’m thrilled with 2009.
Same here. My wife and I worked on the campaign, and election day started at 4:30 a.m. as we were coordinators at polling places.
By the time the polls closed and I got my final figures turned in at the neighborhood office, PA had been called. I got home about the same time as my wife, and the TV wasn’t on long when Ohio was called.
We were too mentally and physically exhausted to go out and party. We just screamed and shed a few tears.
That was about the only major redeeming thing of the decade.
We were in Philly that night, and people were so excited, cheering in the streets, beeping their horns…it felt more like New Year’s Eve than anything else.
Definitely a high point to be free of BushCo after all those years.
Gosh, yes. It wasn’t just a feeling of relief that Obama won, but that the horrible, evil bastards would soon be gone.
It’s amazing how quickly people forget…
It was more joyous than any New Years Eve party I’ve ever attended. Many of those are unfortunate affairs. But the Obama victory was indeed a special night, sigh. I’m still hoping to see THAT one show up more often.
I became a paid writer!!!! Now if I can only make my sole living from it..!
Speaking of which: A Ripple of Hope from the Past
Best wishes re your new addition, BooMan. Happy New Year to all! Keep the Faith. It’s out most valuable shared possession!
Excellent article. Congrats and may the words flow in 2010.
Thank you very much. That would be my greatest wish as well. It isn’t always easy. So much to say, but then there are dishes and laundry to do, and exercise to be had… or not, increasingly. That’s a trend I must reverse. I worked off 80 pounds in the last couple of years. I don’t want to put them on again!!!
Best wishes to you in the New Year.
I thought the highlight was the formation of this blog.
Happy New year to everyone and may this up coming year be the best we have seen/had in 8 years of a bush…..;o) hugs to all…..
Happy New Year and hugs from both of us!
October 17, 2009.
Addison McKenzie Plath was born.
My daughter and her husband had this precious little girl that day.
And I am a first time grandmother.
The end of the decade went out with a blast of cuteness.
sorry for being so sickening sweet here.
I am not known for that. I am not sentimental but, this little girl is something else.
Congratulations!! That’s a wonderful milestone to have reached, and one I never will, having no children. Feel free to be as sickeningly sweet as you want. As my Dad said, grandchildren are the reward for not killing your own kids when they hit their teens..!
Oh, and I discovered the Booman Tribune. Kudos to you Booman.
An African-American POTUS in my lifetime
The Yankees (go Booman)
I and my loved ones have our health
Who could have believed it possible? I still don’t believe it.
nalbar
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!
My, this has been a rough decade, and ’09 was probably the toughest year. Good moments? Easy, the births of my second and third sons.
Runner up? Election night ’08. Watching the three little guys coloring in blue states on an electoral map at a friend’s party, fighting over which one would get to fill in the state that put Obama over the top.
Happy new decade, everybody. Your comments help keep me centered and sane — all of them.
Politics: The election of Barack Obama, of course. That would likely be near the top of the list if we were discussing the high points of a century, let alone a decade. One of those things you tell your grandkids about watching.
Sports: A tossup. The 2000 Sugar Bowl, in which FSU became the first and only school to go wire-to-wire as #1 (suck it, Tebow). And then the Giants’ victory over the Patriots in the Super Bowl. As a lifelong Dolphins fan, I am forever grateful to Eli Manning, David Tyree and Plaxico Burress.
Music: Okay, so the album was meh, but Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy finally arrived.
All the movies sucked. With the exception of Obama’s election, all of the important stories were awful. Hopefully the next ten years are better.
Happy New Year all!
Overall it was a good decade for me personally, but for most of the rest of the world, especially the third world, and most especially for the Middle East and the Muslim world it has been horrible. I hope the next decade will be better for everyone, but based on Obama’s actions so far I don’t have a lot of optimism for the Middle East or the Muslim world.
Well, the situation in Syria DID improve with the succession of Bashshar Al Asad to the Presidency.It has a long way to go yet, but he is worlds better than his father in almost every way.
other than the one Giants’ Super Bowl victory and the two Yankees’ World Series championships? I know those three things top your list
I can no longer take this thread seriously.
My daughter got married and gifted us all with our one and only grandchild, a wonderful baby boy.
In 2009, when a spoiled and cruel administration relinquished political power to a black man promising change.
In 2001, at lunch at the Hotel Sofitel in Rio de Janeiro, when the great Brazilian healer, Rubens Faria, told me I was special. It was the greatest compliment of my life and it seemed like time stood still.
At Kyoto, Japan, when a buddhist nun thanked me with the deepest bow imaginable for doing shamanic work at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
At Kiev, Ukraine when a woman blessed me for the work I was doing at the holocaust site, Babi Yar.
Hopefully, I can be of service in the next decade as well.
I would tell you what it is but, no one would care.
If no one cared then the question wouldn’t have been asked – do tell.
On balance, this decade was a challenge and the last 13 1/2 months were mostly crap (losing a parent, both cats and a job)…especially when I remembered how the ’90s ended, full of fun and possibility.
The low lights were really LOW:
The Good Stuff…or, Things That Helped Us Keep Our Sanity:
10. Howard Dean.
11. December 31, 2007 to November 4, 2008. This was the best of the decade: I was doing good work; embarked on the Barack Obama East Coast Tour: SC, DE and twice to PA (thank you, thank you, thank you–MWAH!), not to mention all the work for the Potomac Primary; the Centennial; and of course, the election. I never thought I’d see and participate in a campaign so special, and I NEVER thought I’d live to see an African-American elected as president. It just wasn’t a consideration. It really didn’t hit me until the next day. We were driving back home, and I heard the song, “Never Would Have Made It” and I just completely lost it. I didn’t weep…I CRIED. A huge, cathartic cry, right in the car.
12. INAUGURATION, baby!! It was so cold, but it was the BEST, most fun, invigorating, exciting and emotional time of my life. I talked to total strangers as if they were best friends. I participated in my MLK holiday service project with an even bigger smile. I had a great time at the balls. And we had FANTASTIC seats for the main event thanks to a dear friend; the only seats besting ours were those going to Members. And oh yeah…we heard the boos and “Hey, hey, hey…goodbye!” when Shrub&5 Deferments walked in. You best believe they heard it, too. CLEARLY. Unfortunately, we had an interment ceremony later that week, adding to our exhaustion, but I had five amazing days I will never forget!
13. Having the most fantastic husband to share the good and the bad. I’d have never made it without him.
Sorry this is kinda long, but since I don’t get to post as much as I used to, I kinda decided to take liberties…whoops. π Here’s to a fantastic new year and decade! Cheers!!!!
The eight years the Yankees didn’t go to the World Series.