{"id":3508,"date":"2013-02-04T15:03:53","date_gmt":"2013-02-04T20:03:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/?p=3508"},"modified":"2013-02-04T15:22:20","modified_gmt":"2013-02-04T20:22:20","slug":"report-card-january","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/?p=3508","title":{"rendered":"Report Card: January"},"content":{"rendered":"

OK, as promised in my annual state of the year<\/a> address on the 1st, I\u2019m taking a more active role in managing 2013 \u2013 I\u2019ll be giving it ratings and marks on a monthly basis, and we\u2019ll see if we can\u2019t dress it up and take it out by the time December rolls around.\u00a0 After all, the 21st Century is now a teenager.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Without further ado, let\u2019s start with the number one story of the year, which is that Starbucks plans to open a coffee shop in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, finally putting an end to the war in that country.\u00a0 That’s it, folks \u2013 it took a long time, but we’ve won.\u00a0 Jane Fonda owes us all Venti Caramel HoChiFrappaMihnos.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In other news, car sales for the month are up – good – but\u00a0after going 220 days without a tornado fatality in the US, January decided to rock that clock, killing one person and injuring at least 17 others across several states.\u00a0 Gotta take some serious points off for that kind of thing, January.\u00a0 There was another up and down ride this month as well, with first managing to avert\u00a0the Fiscal Cliff\u00a0– a solid plus – and then Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D was released.\u00a0 So, a net minus there.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The month picked up some big points for the inauguration, with the nation\u2019s first Muslim president taking the oath of office for the 4th time \u2013 the most oaths since our most recent Roosevelt.\u00a0 Also scoring some big points for January, Pakistani schoolgirl blogger Malala Yousafzai was discharged from a hospital in the UK, despite having been shot by the Taliban last October for being brave, bold, and bigger than life.\u00a0 That\u2019s a serious A++ right there.\u00a0 On the downside,\u00a0hostage taking is on the rise, from Algeria to Alabama to Aurora, Colorado.\u00a0 On a scale of one to ten, that\u2019s a minus five per hostage.\u00a0 Not a good score there, which lead to the on-again off-again gun control discussions you\u2019ve been hearing.\u00a0 We\u2019ll be tracking that as the semester, er, year, progresses.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A new inquest began this month\u00a0into the death of British singer Amy Winehouse after it was discovered that the original coroner was not qualified to conduct the inquiry because he was, quote “just out of rehab himself.”\u00a0 (His initial report had indicated that he was “pretty sure she was dead.\u00a0 Really, she looks dead.”)\u00a0 A second inquiry into Winehouse’s death concluded that the singer died of alcohol poisoning, noting that her last words were evidently “No,\u00a0no, no.”\u00a0 Speaking of poisoning, an Ilinois man was determined to have died of cyanide poisoning after winning the lottery this month.\u00a0\u00a0His last words were reported as, “Honey, I want a divorce.\u00a0 Hey, what’s in this drink?”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Back to the gun debate:\u00a0 This month,\u00a0a 16-yr-old opened fire inside a classroom in\u00a0California, two people were killed in a community college in\u00a0Kentucky, a gunman opened fire on a college campus\u00a0in Texas, a 14-year-old\u00a0was shot in Atlanta, and writer\u00a0Stephen King issued a 25-page essay<\/a>\u00a0calling for gun control.\u00a0 OK folks – when Stephen effing King<\/strong> tells you that you need to think up new ways of killing one another, because what you’re doing\u00a0encroaches on his realm of “fictional horror,” you might<\/strong> need to consider a new hobby.\u00a0\u00a0 I’m just saying, is all.\u00a0\u00a0 Still scoring a low “D” on that front.<\/p>\n

In other news concerning our ability to kill each other, the United States Armed Forces overturned its ban on women serving in combat, potentially clearing the way for women to serve in front-line units and elite commando forces.\u00a0 This is widely seen as acceptance that woman are just as willing and able to shank a bitch as the next guy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In technology news, Boeing 787 aircraft were grounded worldwide over concerns about the safety of their lithium-ion batteries.\u00a0 Am I the only\u00a0one concerned that the newest and largest jet on\u00a0the\u00a0Boeing lot is powered by the same batteries that I use in my\u00a0Blackberry?\u00a0 I can just see some pilot having to land that monster halfway across\u00a0Nowhere, Indiana, to re-charge the damn plane because he had to take\u00a0one more call.\u00a0 Also\u00a0in early January, NASA scientists beamed a picture of Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece, the Mona Lisa, to\u00a0a spacecraft orbiting the Moon.\u00a0 The moon not only had no comment, but, like the rest of the earth, had no idea if she was smiling or frowning.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Also in space news, NASA’s Kepler space telescope was placed in a precautionary 10-day safe mode after engineers noticed a problem with the instrument’s orientation mechanism – they were worried that it was a problem with the latest Windows 8 updates.\u00a0 It turned out\u00a0that Kepler had been focused pretty much exclusively on the Kardashians.\u00a0 Can’t give January more than a C on that one.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In politics,\u00a0former Mayor of New Orleans Ray Nagin\u00a0was indicted on 21 counts including fraud, embezzlement, money laundering, bribery, and tax evasion.\u00a0 Say it with me – shocked, shocked we\u00a0are. \u00a0 In international news, tens of thousands of people rallied in Paris in support of the legalisation of gay marriage.\u00a0 Since most of us thought France was pretty gay to start with, that’s a push – good job showing the US how civilized countries do it, but no real news there.<\/p>\n

All in all, January gets a “C” from the Big Ugly Man Doll.\u00a0 I want 2013 to try to cut down on hostages and tornados\u00a0in the next 4 weeks.\u00a0 We’ll revisit the grades in the month or so.\u00a0 In the meantime, keep your gum in your mouth and your pants above your hips.\u00a0 I don’t care if your hips don’t lie – January’s\u00a0hips lie like rugs.\u00a0 Run with it, but study your ass off.\u00a0 Come on 2013 – I hope you know that this will go down on your permanent record.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’ll revisit the grades in the month or so. In the meantime, keep your gum in your mouth and your pants above your hips. I don’t care if your hips don’t lie – January’s hips lie like rugs. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[57],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3508"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3508"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3519,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3508\/revisions\/3519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.biguglymandoll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}