Still More Official Steve Burgess Guide to 2024: I to Q

Here’s Part 3 of our 2024 year-end review (Part 1 and Part 2 ran last week). Think of yourself as Alex from A Clockwork Orange, strapped into a chair with your eyelids clamped open. You cannot look away:

Idiocracy

A 2006 film, now reclassified as a documentary. See also: oligarchy, kleptocracy, griftocracy, toadocracy, rapeocracy, creepocracy, stoogeocracy, clownocracy, psychopathocracy, Jabba the Hutocracy, etc. Coin your own descriptor.

India

Russia and China are the usual suspects, but it turns out the rogue state is Narendra Modi's India, allegedly responsible for at least one killing and a number of other targeted attacks on Canadian territory using organized crime proxies. India is also alleged to have meddled in the Conservative leadership race, leading to parliamentary hearings. Don't tell Pierre Poilievre any of this, though. He'll just plug his ears and start singing “Taxman.”

Jail

Like incompetence, time behind bars was once considered a negative. No more. Prison time is now a glittering jewel on any White House resumé. Tats or it didn't happen.

Jasper

Whether viewed as a beloved tourist treasure or a familiar local community, the burning of Jasper, Alberta, was another of those increasingly frequent national traumas that are fast becoming a dreaded summer tradition.

James Earl Jones

Another great one gone. If there is a heaven, he's up there announcing the weather forecast for hell.

Justice

Thing that used to be mentioned in the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance. “And justice for all,” the pledge said, before undergoing its current Supreme Court renovations. Watch this space.

Kamala

We learned to pronounce it. We dared to hope. Fools! Why would we expect an intelligent, empathetic, hyper-competent Black and South Asian woman to prevail over a depraved, racist, felonious sex creep with both the durability and the morals of a cockroach? He had a hit TV show. And a can of chicken noodle soup costs more these days.

Last year

Sea shanties. So last year. Also decency, moral leadership. Get with the times, bro.

Lebanon

A beautiful country that sometimes seems cursed, under the gun once again as Israel and Hezbollah trade blows.

Looper moths

Gone but far from forgotten. Where once the air was full of moth wings, now the sky over Stanley Park is filled with helicopters, cleaning up the looper mess. Worst. Guests. Ever.

Measles

If measles were a sports team, you'd be wise to bet on them. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is going to be in charge of U.S. health-care policy. Over 75 Nobel Prize winners have urged that he be rejected by Congress, but that's just a bunch of scientists.

RFK Jr. was involved in a 2019 publicity campaign in Samoa attacking the safety of the measles vaccine. The island was then ravaged by the disease. Out of a population of 200,874, there were 5,700 measles cases and 83 deaths, most of them infants. RFK Jr. should probably be in jail, but for Team Trump — see above — that's a bonus.

Monkeypox

Pierre Poilievre has a huge lead in the polls. Donald Trump is president-elect. Elon Musk is in charge of U.S. government efficiency. And you're worried about monkeypox?

Alexei Navalny

Harassed, poisoned and finally imprisoned by Vladimir Putin, the Russian opposition leader died in prison Feb. 16. His murderer's poodle was recently re-elected president of the United States. There is no God.

Bob Newhart

Died in Los Angeles July 18, age 94. The ultimate everyman who somehow managed to be his own straight man.

Notre-Dame de Paris

A billion-dollar restoration culminated in a triumphant and reverent reopening of fire-ravaged Notre-Dame Cathedral in early December. Then Trump used the event to peddle his line of colognes and perfumes, like he was president-elect of the Home Shopping Network. After all that work, now they have to try to get his stink out of the building.

Olympics

Canada saw some pretty inspiring performances, some of them unfortunately necessitated by the sketchy behaviour of our women's soccer team coaches, forcing the team to overcome a points penalty and make it out of the group stage.

Summer McIntosh did her Summer thing with three gold and a silver in the pool, Andre De Grasse and the men's 4x100 relay team won a shock gold medal, Camryn Rogers took gold with class to spare in the women's hammer throw. Also, the opening ceremony outraged the right people.

The Onion

Alex Jones, a leading contender for Worst Living American in a highly competitive field, was bankrupted by lawsuits brought by the victims of his vicious and ludicrous lies. His Infowars media outlet went up for auction. The winning bid came from the satirical newspaper The Onion, which would have been the best thing ever. Ever, ever.

So of course it had to be stopped. This month, a Houston judge ruled that the auction was not properly conducted.

That's 2024 for you. Wouldn't let us have anything.

Paradox Hotel

That tower on West Georgia that used to be called something else. Are they going to change the name back now?

Pierre Poilievre

Stephen Colbert called him “Canada's Trump,” but he seems more of a Nixonian figure — a poisonous schemer, a snarly stray who exudes a perpetual, prickly unease. Poilievre seems like a lock to be our next prime minister. Still, you have to think if anybody can blow this, it's our Pierre. The spotlight is not his friend.

Project 2025

Authoritarian blueprint about which Trump knew nothing, absolutely nothing, he said. Well, since its authors make up so much of his new team, they'll have plenty of time to explain it to him. Pro tip: Use lots of pictures and say “Trump” a lot.

Putin

Mixed year for Vlad the Impaler. He is still meeting fierce resistance in Ukraine, his subversion of the Georgia election has brought protesters to the streets, and he lost Syria. On the plus side, he still owns Tulsi Gabbard.

Qualifications

The nomination of Fox News host Pete Hegseth for U.S. secretary of defence is a master class on how qualifications work under a Trump presidency. Hegseth has none whatsoever — not a single line item on his CV that would even hint at his capability to head the Pentagon. Hegseth does, however, have other talking points to focus on, namely his reported history of sexual assault, his chronic drinking problem and his failed tenures at previous positions for, the New Yorker reports, “financial mismanagement, sexist behaviour, and being intoxicated on the job.” That's how it works now — Republicans like Chip Roy can go on TV and dismiss Hegseth's “indiscretions,” claim he's the victim of a witch hunt, etc. And that's all the time we have for this discussion — his utter lack of credentials doesn't really come up at all. Brilliant, really.

Quincy Jones

Talk about versatile. Yes, he produced the biggest-selling album of all time in Thriller. But he also wrote the soundtrack for In the Heat of the Night that included the country song “Bowlegged Polly and Knock-Kneed Paul.”

Quinn Hughes

Norris Trophy winner and arguably the best player in Vancouver Canucks history. Discuss. Please, no fisticuffs.

Our march through 2024’s alphabet of hallucinatory memories wraps tomorrow. In case you missed them, here are Part 1 and Part 2.

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Happy holidays, readers. Our comment threads will be closed until Jan. 2 to give our moderators a much-deserved break. See you in 2025!