2010: Winners and Losers

What a long strange year it's been. Especially that mess that obsessed everyone for months, and how long it would take to clean up. But enough about Charlie Sheen's hotel room - the BP oil leak in the Gulf was really bad. And with health care reform finally a reality, the White House reaped the rewards of it in the form of a Republican House. Speaking of which, John Boehner took a courageous stand against spending more money on public works, even though half of Cincinnati is about to collapse, much like the infrastructure in the rest of the nation. Somehow, I don't think Boehner's ancestors came here from Germany so that their descendants could drive on crumbling roads and bridges while envying the well-kept highways and railways of . . . the Germans. All this, and Lady Gaga too.

But that's not what I came here to talk about today. I came here to present my annual list for winners and losers of the year, something I like to do in part as remembrance of things past and in part for all acquaintance that should be forgotten and never brought to mind. Like Mel Gibson. As always, this list is subjective and shouldn't be taken as authoritative. But I obviously hope it is taken so.

So let's start with the winners. They are, as follows:

Underdog sports teams. It was a year of big championships for sports teams that hadn't been champions in years, or at all. The New Orleans Saints football team won the Super Bowl and the Spanish national soccer team won the World Cup, both for the first time ever, while the Chicago Blackhawks hockey team won the Stanley Cup for the first time since 1961 and the San Francisco Giants baseball won the World Series for the first time since they moved to San Francisco in 1958. (They last won the Series as the New York Giants in 1954.) The last shall indeed be first.

James Cameron. His science-fiction film Avatar became the highest-grossing film of all time in the U.S. and Canada and threatened to completely overshadow his own Titanic. It also won a Golden Globe award for best motion picture in the drama category.

Kathryn Bigelow. Cameron's ex-wife, ironically, made even more history with The Hurt Locker, a brutal movie about a bomb squad in the Iraq War that became the first movie directed by a woman to win, among other awards, the Best Picture Oscar.

Julie Bowen. I predicted that the former "Ed" star would survive that show's cancellation, and as a star of "Modern Family," which has garnered numerous awards and critics's notices, Julie Bowen hasn't just survived; she's prospered.

Tom Selleck. Earlier on this blog, I told you all not to count out Tom Selleck when it was announced that he'd be in a new TV series about the New York Police Department. "Blue Bloods" is one of the biggest hits of the 2010-11 season, thank you very much. With this success, Selleck has secured his place as one of American television's most durable actors.

Betty White. The most durable actress in American television had one of the best years anyone could ask for at the youthful age of 88, what with guest appearances on "The Middle" and "Community," a guest-hosting stint on "Saturday Night Live," and an anchoring role on the original TV Land series "Hot In Cleveland." Betty never left - she just let everyone know she's very much still here.

Scott Brown. An unknown Republican state senator from Massachusetts entered a race he wasn't supposed to win - the special election for Ted Kennedy's U.S. Senate seat - and turned fifteen minutes of fame into a political career. He also turned the Democrats's once filibuster-proof Senate majority into a frustrated bunch.

Eminem. The rapper's album Recovery was more than that; it spent seven weeks at the top of the charts and produced two number-one singles. He's thanked his fans for his support, and you know he's sincere.

General Motors. Profitable once again, the legendary automaker has a new line of exciting products like the Chevrolet Volt, an electric car so unique it won Motor Trend's 2011 Car Of the Year award, and it offered more exotic products like Buick's new Regal sedan. Yes, an exotic Buick - whod'a thunk?

Richard Burr. I disagree with everything he stands for, but I have to tip my hat to North Carolina's senior senator. He won re-election to a seat no one had been re-elected to since 1968, breaking a 42-year jinx.

Nancy Pelosi. The first female Speaker of the House got health care reform passed . . .

And now, for my favorite part, the losers:

Nancy Pelosi. . . . but she lost her office in the midterm elections!

BP. The U.K.'s signature oil company destroyed a huge swath of the Gulf of Mexico with its oil well leak, and now the government is suing them and a couple of other companies involved in the blown well for damages. BP would be wise to follow the advice of its own lie of an ad campaign and think "beyond petroleum." But whether or not they discover the joys of alternative energy, at least Tony Hayward has his life back. :-p

Toyota. Asia's largest automaker has recalled six million vehicles in the United States alone (and more elsewhere) for fuel pump problems, gas pedal problems, brake problems . . . you know, I've lost track of all these recalls. The company, whose vehicles are featured on "Modern Family," receives a credit on that sitcom; expect a storyline involving Phil and Claire in the purchase of a Honda Odyssey.

Marriage. It was the late singer-songwriter Roger Miller's opinion that pride mainly causes a decline in the number of husbands and wives, but another chief cause of today's decline is that more people just aren't into marriage, as the latest polls suggest. And nowhere is this more apparent than among celebrities, where marriages have fallen apart at a rate uncharacteristically high for even Hollywood. Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds called it quits after two years. Eva Longoria and basketball star Tony Parker are through. Courteney Cox and David Arquette terminated an eleven-year union. And British actress Rachel Weisz and American director Darren Aronofsky called off an engagement that lasted longer than Scarlett Johansson's entire marriage, undoing a knot that was never even tied.

Mel Gibson. The explosively racist and misogynistic audio recording of the once-bankable star lashing out at his now-former girlfriend pretty much killed his career more than appearing in a big-budget turkey could have. Ironically, his new starring vehicle The Beaver, a movie that has gotten good advance notices for Gibson and co-star/director Jodie Foster, keeps getting its release date postponed because of the domestic controversy, and Gibson was fired from a small role in another movie - The Hangover, Part II, of all things.

Jimmy Smits. The eighties are over. The former "LA Law" star just ended his second failed series in four years. Having done a failed show about a family of sugar tycoons - "now there's an idea that can't miss!" - Smits starred in NBC's "Outlaw" as a retired Supreme Court justice who starts a law firm that tries to go against the system. But low viewership proved that Americans are not interested in rogue Supreme Court justices. If they were, the Citizens United decision would have sparked more outrage.

Alyssa Milano. More proof that the eighties are over: The former child TV star tried to act all grown up in the ABC mid-season replacement sitcom "Romantically Challenged," which was yanked from the air after it proved to be ratings-challenged. Who's the boss now?

Sarah Jessica Parker. Coming off the heels of last year's Did You Hear About The Morgans?, a movie no one heard about at all, Ms. Parker treated us to a "Sex and the City" sequel that put Carrie and her cronies in the Arabian desert and put her fans off. Maybe the eighties aren't over, if Hollywood is still giving us fare like Ishtar.

the United States Olympic Committee. After embarrassingly losing the bid for holding the 2016 Summer Olympics in Chicago last year on top of a failed bid for holding the 2012 Games in New York, the USOC conceded supporting a U.S. bid for the 2020 Games this year. Meanwhile, the politically conservative, pro-business ideologues that are running it into the ground have only demonstrated the limits of privatizing anything in the national interest; the American athletes who won medals at the Vancouver Winter Games this year did so in spite of, not because of, USOC support. The USOC spent most of its time this year trying to mend fences with a global Olympic movement that hates American Olympic officials for being the biggest schmucks on the planet. Over what? Uh, follow the money.

New Jersey. The Garden State got itself a well-fed governor who's tried to balance the state budget on the backs of the poor. And, even as "Jersey Shore" solidified the national image of New Jerseyans as arrogant punks, Chris Christie - living out the stereotype - lost federal funding for education by submitting the wrong figures to the federal government, then killed a huge mass transit project and pretended he didn't have to give money back to the feds. And when the state got hit by a massive blizzard at the end of the year, Christie was enjoying himself in Disney World, much to the state's further embarrassment.

the New York Mets. How bad was this past season for the less-than-Amazin' Mets? How embarrassing was it to have closing pitcher Francisco Rodriguez arrested for assaulting his girlfriend's dad? Rumor has it that Citigroup, which earned the enmity of many for the money it got in the bank bailout, wants to sell the naming rights to the Mets's stadium to avoid tarnishing Citigroup's reputation.

Charlie Crist, Alan Grayson, Kendrick Meek and Alex Sink. They're the future of Florida politics . . . and they always will be. :-(

CNN. It's lost Larry King but it's keeping Kathleen Parker and Eliot Spitzer. This is not something that's going to please the Time Warner stockholders. Still smarting from Lou Dobbs's indignities and its handling of the Susan Roesgen flap, CNN marked its thirtieth anniversary as airport wallpaper, Muzak (Newsak?) for departure terminals.

Newsweek. The once proud weekly news magazine was put up for sale, and it then quickly lost two of its most valuable assets, Howard Fineman (to the Huffington Post) and Fareed Zakaria (to Time). Alas, it still has George Will. It finally merged with the Daily Beast Web site, which has been an esteemed tradition in American journalism since Tuesday.

And there you are. Many people are likely to ask why I haven't included Sarah Palin among my winners of the year. I'm inclined only to include on my winners' list people and institutions that have actually accomplished something. And, I don't expect Sarah Palin to do so a year from now, either. Also, you may wonder why Jay Leno or Conan O'Brien isn't on either list. O'Brien may have lost "The Tonight Show," but he gained a new show on TBS. And Leno got his old job back after his prime time show was cancelled. So, as Conan himself suggested, I'll leave it to you, dear reader, to determine who lost and who won in that case.

Another year over and a new one not quite begun yet. I can wait. Happy new year.