What Did You Say!?!?!?!?!

Looking back on the year of 2002, I was not surprised to see so little positive movement in the world. It seems we're ending where we began, just a little deeper in the rhetoric than we were before. What better way to reflect upon the year that has passed than with remarks said in passing?

Charlton Heston, blaming the country's gun-related violence on our population's ''mixed ethnicity'' in Bowling for Columbine. Miami Herald, 27 Dec 2002

In order for us human beings to commit ourselves personally to the inhumanity of war, we find it necessary first to dehumanize our opponents, which is in itself a violation of the beliefs of all religions. Once we characterize our adversaries as beyond the scope of God's mercy and grace, their lives lose all value. We deny personal responsibility when we plant landmines and, days or years later, a stranger to us -- often a child -- is crippled or killed. From a great distance, we launch bombs or missiles with almost total impunity, and never want to know the number or identity of the victims. - Jimmy Carter, Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech

War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children. - Jimmy Carter, Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech

"I despise him [President George W. Bush]. I despise his administration and everything they stand for.... To my mind the election was stolen by George Bush and we have been suffering ever since under this man's leadership.... And I think this latest thing with Iraq is absolute madness and I'm stunned that there is not opposition on a much more global scale to what he's talking about.... There has to be a movement now to really oppose what he is proposing because it's unconstitutional, it's immoral and basically illegal.... It is an embarrassing time to be an American. It really is. It’s humiliating."
- Actress Jessica Lange at a September 25 press conference at an international film festival in San
Sebastian, Spain

"Rarely is the question asked: is our children learning?" - George W. Bush

"I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family." - George W. Bush

Recalling the moment his life flashed before his eyes whilst choking on a pretzel, Mr. Bush said: "I hit the deck and woke up and there were Barney and Spot showing a lot of concern."

"I thought I was gay. But no, I'm not gay." - Pierce Brosnan.

"So much mud was thrown this year, all the nominees look black." - Whoopi Goldberg, whilst hosting the
Oscars.

"An end is in sight to the severe weather shortage." - Ian Macaskill, BBC weather

But in terms of potential impact on our lives, the Worst of 2002 award goes to TIA, the Total Information Awareness program, spawned by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Information Awareness Office. TIA is exploring the feasibility of developing a national surveillance system intended to identify potential terrorists and criminals through "data mining" of the public and private electronic records of every citizen. Earlier this year Attorney General John Ashcroft, citing the U.S.A.- Patriot Act passed by Congress last year, granted Federal Bureau of Investigation agents the ability to conduct wiretaps and other electronic surveillance of citizens even if they're not suspected of criminal activity. Creepy. - Peter Lewis, FORTUNE MAGAZINE

"I thought I wasn't going to make it up those steps. I just said, 'don't let me embarrass my mother." - Halle Berry, who won Best Actress for Monster's Ball.

"It is cold, mechanical, conceptual bullshit." Culture minister Kim Howells, British Minister in the Department of Culture, Media and Sport and Tourism, denouncing this year's Turner prize for modern art.

"What we need are some real rebels and some real revolutionaries to blow them out of the water." - Dr.
Howells, continued.

"I think that if you're 30 and not thinking about marriage and kids, you're immature." - Ben Affleck.

"I make too much money to buy crack" - Whitney Houston to Diane Sawyer

Responding to news that Ben Affleck, his "Good Will Hunting" co-star and childhood buddy, was engaged to marry Jennifer Lopez, Matt Damon told "Extra": "Ben wasn't this happy even when he lost his virginity."

"I love tarantulas," a crutch-carrying, one-shoe-wearing Michael Jackson, in court to defend himself against charges stemming from the cancellation of two millennium concerts, told the press, "but not the little kind."

"I know who I am. No one else knows who I am. If I was a giraffe, and someone said I was a snake, I'd think, no, actually I'm a giraffe." - Richard Gere offering up the baffling quote, to the U.K. Guardian in June

"They never explained to me what I was eating," Bronx resident Caesar Barber, who's suing four restaurant chains, says he ate fast food several times a week without understanding the dangers.

Two posters, seen in the video feature Thai script that translates to read "Thailand's Sex Tourism" and "Young Underage Girls" - references to Thailand's much-criticized, tourist-driven sex industry. The signs can be seen during Aguilera's boxing-ring sequence "I had absolutely no knowledge that this poster contained such offensive words, and I sincerely regret the insult." - "Dirrty" director David LaChapelle

"Where can you find a morning news anchor who's provocative, super-smart (and) oh, yeah, just a little sexy? CNN. Yeah, CNN." - American Morning, CNN ad voice-over

Those who lost their benefits Saturday "join another million jobless workers who have already exhausted all of their unemployment benefits," according to the AFL-CIO's Web site. In addition, some 95,000 jobless workers will run out of state unemployment benefits each week and be left without jobs or temporary federal unemployment assistance," the Web site said, quoting a nonpartisan research center. AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney called the cut-off of the benefits extension "an economic catastrophe." "The Republican leadership in the House of Representatives and President Bush should feel ashamed," Sweeney said.

''J. Lo's new song 'Jenny From the Block' is all about Lopez's roots, about how she's still a neighborhood gal at heart. But folks from that street in New York, the Bronx section, sound more likely to give her a curb job than a bl-- job -- oh, um, or a block party.... Sorry about that slip-up. I have no idea how that happened, but it won't happen again.'' - Shepard Smith, Fox News anchor

''There are some people in Washington who have been trying to nail me for a long time. When you're from Mississippi and you're a conservative and you're a Christian, there are a lot of people that don't like that. I fell into their trap and so I have only myself to blame.'' - Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., making his first public remarks since resigning as Senate majority leader, in an Associated Press interview.

Banner year for bankruptcies
A record 186 public companies, with $368B in debt, file for bankruptcy protection this year. - CNN Headline, December 30th, 2002

North Korea had one or two nuclear missiles and by producing weapons-grade plutonium at its Yongbyan
facility, could make five or six more. "But we're not going to be any more intimidated," he said. "We believe there are other tools available to us ... short of threatening someone with a weapon." Colin Powell, quoted from ABC News on North Korean arms in the London Times

U.S. Had Key Role in Iraq Buildup "The administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush authorized the sale to Iraq of numerous items that had both military and civilian applications, including poisonous chemicals and deadly biological viruses, such as anthrax and bubonic plague." Washington Post, December 30th, 2002

"This economy cannot afford to stand an attack. And I'm going to protect the American people. The economy's strong. It's resilient. Obviously, so long as somebody's looking for work, we've got to continue to make it strong and resilient." - George Bush, on a possible war with Iraq, 2002

"Despite this potential new expense, the Bush administration continues with its ill-fated economic policy of more tax cuts for the wealthy, bigger deficits for the American people and growing debt for our children and grandchildren." - Sen. Kent Conrad, D-North Dakota

After Neil Diamond saw "Shrek," he heard a group of kids singing "I'm a Believer" in the lobby. "I couldn't resist. I went over and joined in, and we just sang the song together. They had no idea that I had written it, or who I was. I was just some weird guy who wanted to join in on the singing."

A jury on Thursday handed a life prison sentence to a Texas man who shot and killed a longtime friend he accused of drinking the last beer in his refrigerator. "There was only two beers left, so I took one, and I told Willie not to take my last beer,'' Steven Brasher said in a taped statement that was played during the trial. - Reuters, Dec 5, 2002

Maybe we're knee deep in something other than just rhetoric. Either way, we had better all hold our
collective breath soon, or start flinging this stuff right back.

I have hopes, and serious doubts, about what will happen in this new year. If what I've heard all of my life is true, and I spend the whole year doing what I did New Year's Eve, I'll be wide-eyed, sober and ready for anything. And, I'll be laughing my ass off.

Jennifer Jordan