The Week: Most Recent 2010-in-review

Dave Barry: 2010 was the 'worst year ever'

The Week — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 16:15:00 -0500

It's all over now, but looking back, it's clear that 2010 was "in fact, the worst year ever," says Dave Barry in The Washington Post. "The perfect symbol for the awfulness of 2010 was the BP oil spill, which oozed up from the depths and spread, totally out of control, like some kind of hideous uncontrollable metaphor. (Or 'Jersey Shore.')" Summing up 12 horrendous months, Barry even manages to find bleak humor in Bristol Palin's stint on "Dancing with the Stars." Here, an excerpt:

The elections turn out to be a bloodbath for the Democrats, who lose the House of Representatives, a bunch of Senate...

TheWeek.com's 5 most popular stories of the year

The Week — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 11:55:00 -0500

A wide variety of stories captivated us in 2010, from the monumental swings in politics to the frustrating state of the economy, from the oil spill in the Gulf to the worldwide fallout of WikiLeaks. But it wasn't only momentous news stories that attracted our attention. We were enthralled by a slew of controversies both large and small — and also by some big-name nuptials, unpredictable weather, and important medical advances. Here, a look at TheWeek.com's five most popular stories of 2010:

1. Beck and Palin's mysterious 9/11 event: 5 theories
Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin made a "mysterious...

The Pelosi and McCain Awards

The Week — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 10:02:00 -0500

The storm of the New Year will soon break, perhaps as fiercely as the blizzard that buried the Northeast and brought the once competent Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York his Katrina moment. But for now, it's time to look back; award season is upon us, replete with Oscars, best and worst lists from the campaigns and New York Times columnist David Brooks' Sidney Awards for the best magazine essays of the past year.

Herewith are my own tributes and anti-tributes. The first annual Pelosi Awards, named for the most effective Speaker of the House in modern memory who rescued health reform from the...

What was healthy (and not so healthy) in 2010

The Week — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 12:45:00 -0500

With the new year just days away, Americans are resolving once again to live healthier lives. Luckily, in 2010, scientists offered up a bevy of new information as to what makes for a (supposedly) healthy and unhealthy existence. Here's what they discovered:

SOME OF THE THINGS THEY SAID WERE GOOD FOR US...

Naps make you smarter. Subjects in a study at the University of California at Berkeley were given a learning task designed to challenge their short-term memory; they took the test at noon and a similar one at 6 p.m. Those who were allowed to take a midafternoon nap fared far better on the...

5 best albums of the year

The Week — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 10:55:00 -0500

This time of year, the arts pages are full of "best of" lists highlighting individual music critics' picks. Helpful, yes, but also overwhelming. In the interests of saving you a little time, here's an aggregated list ranking the year's best-reviewed albums — according to New York, NPR, Paste, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone and Time — using a weighted scoring system:

1. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Kanye West
Influential music website Pitchfork gave Kanye's fifth album the top spot on its best of 2010 list, and the superlatives flowed in from other critics, too. It's the "musical equivalent...

Duh! 7 of 2010's most obvious scientific discoveries

The Week — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 09:40:00 -0500

At its best, scientific research yields new discoveries and innovations, from the double helix to better cancer treatments. But sometimes it simply serves to confirm the obvious. Here are seven studies that did just that in 2010:

1. Bigger breasts make for bigger tips
Last spring, Cornell professor Michael Lynn published "Determinants and Consequences of Female Attractiveness and Sexiness: Realistic Tests with Restaurant Waitresses" in the Archives of Sexual Behavior. The study found that waitresses with bigger breasts got bigger tips, as did those who were slender and blonde. While the study's...

The 7 most memorable columns of 2010

The Week — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 11:35:00 -0500

Thoughout the year, the editors of TheWeek.com regularly highlight how the nation's most respected commentators react to major news events. Here's a roundup of our favorite takes from the past 12 months, including columns on the controversial passage of the health-care reform bill, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the seemingly unstoppable rise of Sarah Palin, and the emergence of the Tea Party as a political force.

1. "The rage is not about health care"
Frank Rich, The New York Times (March 27)

The health-care bill is not the main source of this anger and never has been. It’s merely...

5 best non-fiction books of the year

The Week — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 09:42:00 -0500

The non-fiction books that earned acclaim in 2010 explored a wide range of topics, from Cleopatra to Wall Street. For a shortcut through the forest of year-end critics' recommendations, here is an aggregated list based on the top picks of 14 publications, from The New Yorker to Publisher's Weekly:

1. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
by Rebecca Skloot
(Crown, $26)
Rebecca Skloot's dynamic book begins in 1951, in the moments before Henrietta Lacks, a poor mother of five, dies of cervical cancer, said Christine Wicker in The Dallas Morning News. In the "colored ward" of Johns Hopkins charity...

5 best novels of the year

The Week — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 10:30:00 -0500

In this season of "best of" lists, book reviewers and literature lovers are clashing over which novels deserve to be recognized as the best of 2010. Here — based on year-end recommendations from 14 publications, from The New Yorker to Publisher's Weekly — is an aggregated list of the most memorable novels released this year:

1. Freedom
by Jonathan Franzen
(Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $28)
Jonathan Franzen's fourth novel is "both a compelling biography of a dysfunctional family and an indelible portrait of our times," said Michiko Kakutani in The New York Times. Through the Berglunds...

Top 8 new political stars of 2010

The Week — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 10:00:00 -0500

During the political roller coaster ride of Election 2010, plenty of Democrats and a few Republicans lost their jobs in Congress, and President Obama saw his political fortunes shift ominously with the November shellacking of his party. But it wasn't a bad year for everyone. Here are eight American politicians who rose from obscurity to prominence.

1. Scott Brown
Brown shocked Massachusetts Democrats, and Washington, on Jan. 19 when he won the Senate seat left open by Sen. Ted Kennedy's death. Brown, an obscure state senator and former fashion model, beat the once-prohibitive frontrunner...

The 7 most memorable political quotes of 2010

The Week — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 09:35:00 -0500

Whether it's an unscripted remark or a sentence that sums up an election, politicans can say a lot with just a few words. 2010 supplied a wealth of memorable one-liners, thanks partly to the rise of the Tea Party movement, which supplied a crop of political renegades who often said — or tweeted — whatever came to mind. Here are the 7 most memorable political quotes of the last year:

1. "I'm not a witch" — Christine O'Donnell
After shocking the political world by defeating Republican Mike Castle in a Senate primary in Delaware, O'Donnell came under fire for an old video clip...

The 7 most overplayed media stories of 2010

The Week — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 09:50:00 -0500

Lots of big, newsworthy events either graced or marred 2010 — and then there were the stories that were big in the moment, but probably won't (or shouldn't) stand the test of time. Here's a look at seven of the biggest molehills that were inflated into mountains in 2010, and why:

1. NPR's firing of Juan Williams
NPR stirred up a hornet's nest in October by firing senior news analyst Juan Williams over remarks he made on Fox News, where he led a professional double life as a left-leaning commentator, about being "nervous" around Muslim air travelers. Williams, who is black, hinted that the...

The biggest controversies of 2010

The Week — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 09:31:00 -0500

From a controversial Super Bowl ad to the threatening rise of WikiLeaks, 2010 has been a volatile year. Here's a look back at the political clashes, provocative stances, celebrity scandals, and public outrages that most defined the past 12 months.

January
TIM TEBOW'S ANTI-ABORTION AD
Despite a long-standing refusal to air "political ads" during the Super Bowl, CBS okays an anti-abortion spot starring Heisman Trophy–winning college quarterback Tim Tebow and his mother. In the ad, produced by Focus on the Family, Tebow, an outspoken conservative Christian, says his mother had defied her doctor...

Pollwatch: The way we were in 2010

The Week — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 10:45:00 -0500

Well, it certainly wasn't the best of times. Political division and high unemployment made for a sour state of affairs and an angry, fearful populace in 2010, according to a number of polls. But, while we were increasingly divided politically, we were also increasingly connected by technology, from social networking sites to text messages. And despite our frustration with the federal government and full body scanners, we found comfort in food (of course) and a former "Golden Girl." Here's a data snapshot:

What is our state of mind?
Extremely uneasy.
• In October, only 21% of Americans were satisfied...

Word of the year: 5 contenders

The Week — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 10:00:00 -0500

What was the "Word of the Year" in 2010? That depends on which dictionary you use. Merriam-Webster has declared that "austerity" won top honors in 2010 (it was the most searched word on the dictionary's website). But the Oxford American Dictionary chose "refudiate," which, of course, no one even considered to be a word until Sarah Palin used it on Twitter, combining "refute" and "repudiate" to coin a new term meaning, loosely, "to reject." What word is truly deserving of such noteworthiness? Here are five possibilities:

1. Austerity
Merriam-Webster is right, says Simone Wilson in L.A. Weekly...