San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
A year that turned world upside down
The scale and intensity of the wildfires that ripped through Shasta County in the summer and leveled the Butte County town of Paradise in the fall were beyond imagination. Suddenly, the rare phenomenon known as a fire tornado, or “firenado,” was added to the risk list of California disasters as flames swirled at 143 mph in the Carr Fire near Redding. Three months later came the apocalyptic Camp Fire, which claimed 86 lives and destroyed nearly 18,000 structures in Butte County.
These devastating wildfires served as one of 2018’s myriad warnings that a changing climate was upon us. This year is on track to being the fourth hottest on record; the other three came in 2015, 2016 and 2017.
Hurricanes such as Florence (Carolinas, September) and Michael (Florida, October) were intensified by the warming ocean. Floods in southern India, drought in India and a typhoon in the Philippines and China were among the significant climate-linked disasters of 2018.
Yet President Trump continued to insist on withdrawing from the Paris accord and rolling back Obama-era environmental regulations, while scoffing at the conclusions of 13 agencies in his own government that time is running out to avoid even more severe consequences that will undermine the habitability of wide swaths of the planet. Trump was upside down with the world in other ways, especially in his treatment of erstwhile allies and adversaries, and his failure to distinguish between democrats and autocrats. This was the year he genuflected in the presence of Russia’s Vladimir Putin, expressed his affection for North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and deferred to Turkey’s Tayyip Erdogan against the judgment of America’s military and diplomatic leaders on the Syria withdrawal. He insulted the leaders of some of our most enduring allies, including Canada, Britain, Germany, France, Japan and South Korea.
It was also the year he gave an unwarranted benefit of the doubt to the crown prince of a dubious ally, Saudi Arabia, after the dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, in that nation’s consulate in Turkey. Again, the president disregarded the findings of his own intelligence agencies that the execution was performed with the knowledge, if not the direction, of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
If it wasn’t disturbing enough that the president of the United States was tolerating tyrants, in many ways he was emulating and even encouraging their suppression of free expression. His refrains about “fake news” and journalists being “enemies of the people” — right out of the authoritarian playbook — were accompanied by his move to shut off White House access to CNN’s Jim Acosta, threaten to revoke others’ press passes, and challenge libel laws and business interests of media companies.
Bay Area people figured prominently in some of the boldest challenges to Trump’s policies and posturing in 2018 — none more than San Francisco’s Nancy Pelosi, now poised to return as speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives after the Democrats’ blue wave in the November elections. California proved pivotal in the Democratic takeover of House control, with the party sweeping all seven targeted races, prevailing even in the once conservative bastion of Orange County.
Once again, Democrats won all state offices, with former San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom handily defeating Republican John Cox, an Illinois transplant and perennial candidate who didn’t seem to grasp that an embrace of Trump was a kiss of death in the Golden State.
Meanwhile, the key witness in the most important Capitol Hill hearing of the year — Christine Blasey Ford, who accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct in his youth — was from Palo Alto. Her testimony was riveting and credible, but ultimately inconsequential to Trump and Republicans who were hell-bent to put the conservative jurist on the high court.
In San Francisco, London Breed was unceremoniously bumped as interim mayor in January by a progressive bloc concerned that it would give her an undue advantage in the June election to fill the rest of the late Mayor Ed Lee’s term. Oddly, the left reached to the center to install Mark Farrell as a stopgap. But the voters reinstalled Breed with a decisive victory over the favorites of the left, Mark Leno and Jane Kim. The progressives then came back in November to secure a majority on the Board of Supervisors — and achieve the passage of Proposition C, a tax on the city’s largest businesses that will generate about $300 million a year for homeless programs if it can clear a legal challenge.
In the sporting world, the Golden State Warriors won their third NBA championship in four years. The year was not so kind to other Bay Area professional teams. The Giants finished fourth in their division, and the A’s were quickly ousted by the Yankees in the AL wild-card playoff game The NFL season was downright depressing for fans of the 49ers, whose dreams of a big season ended early with the injury to quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo; and the Raiders, who piled up the losses in what may be their last year in Oakland.
Change was on the calendar in the Bay Area’s arts and entertainment world as well. The amazing Michael Tilson Thomas, who infused joy and excellence in the San Francisco Symphony for the past quarter century, began his final season as its music director. His presence will be missed, though his successor, Finnish conductor-composer Esa-Pekka Salonen, has world-class credentials of his own.
Oakland’s Ryan Coogler emerged as one of Hollywood’s stories of the year with “Black Panther.” On one level, it was a superhero film based on a Marvel Comics character. But it was much more than that. It embedded an ingenuous, sophisticated and searing commentary about race, culture and nationalism. It also was a huge box office success, earning more than $700 million in the U.S. alone.
At least there were some feel-good stories in 2018.
The year that began with a 69-hour government shutdown in its first month ended in partial-shutdown mode with a partisan standoff in Washington that appeared certain to extend into the new year. The year began and ended with a mesmerized and semi-debilitated political world speculating on and waiting for the next shoe to drop in the investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
It was the type of year that would compel many folks in this crazy world to fantasize about life in Wakanda.