Dave Barry’s Year in Review 2022 had its ups (and downs)

2022 had some positives, which is not to say it was good

The best thing we can say about 2022 is: It could have been worse. For example, we could have had nuclear Armageddon. This briefly appeared to be a possibility, at least according to the president, who broke the news in October at (Why not?) a Democratic Party fundraiser at the home of a wealthy donor in New York City. That must have been an exciting event! One moment everybody’s standing around chewing hors d’ oeuvres, and the next moment WHOA WHAT DID HE JUST SAY?

The next day, after the news media ran a bunch of scary headlines, the White House Office of Explaining What the President Actually Meant explained that the president wasn’t suggesting that we were facing Armageddon per se, but was merely, as is his wont, emitting words, one of which happened to be “Armageddon,” and everybody should just calm down.

So we dodged a bullet there.

And there were other positive developments in 2022:

Millions of Americans A on social media realized — it took them a while, but they finally got there — that nobody wants to know how they did on “Wordle.”

For the 13th consecutive A year, the New York Yankees failed to even get into the World Series.

Best of all, the looming A apocalyptic threat of catastrophic global climate change was finally eliminated thanks to the breakthrough discovery that the solution — it has been staring us in the face all this time — was to throw food at art.

So 2022 had some positives. Which is not to say that it was good. In fact it was the opposite of good, specifically, bad. The economy continued to stagger around like the last stoner out of Burning Man. We lost Angela Lansbury, Sidney Poitier, Loretta Lynn, Gilbert

Gottfried, Christine McVie and Meat Loaf. Democracy died at least three times.

Maybe Armageddon wouldn’t have been so bad.

Anyway, it’s over. But before we move on to 2023, it’s time to don surgical gloves, reach deep down inside the big bag of stupid that was 2022, and see what we pull out, starting with ...

C.M. GUERRERO Miami Herald file On New Year’s Eve Miami traditionally raises the Big Orange to the top of the InterContinentel Hotel, where it is relatively safe from gunfire.

IAN WEST AP Thanks to hologram technology, the Rolling Stones, who passed away years ago, keep right on rockin’.