COLUMN: The Harry Awards

Harry Caines contributes a weekly column to CacheValleyDaily.com. His column is a work of opinion, and does not reflect the views of Cache Valley Daily, the Cache Valley Media Group, or its employees.

<span id=”internal-source-marker_0.8106460580149913″ style=”font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;”>I love lists. I love arguing about lists. Few things fulfill my anal retentive needs more than looking at the end of year lists. Every December I buy an almanac to look through lists. As a kid, I cleared my schedule to hear Casey Kasem broadcast the “America Top 40” for the whole year.</span>

<span style=”font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;”>One of the best things anyone can do on the last Sunday in December is pick up a New York Times. All the sections have a year in review section. It is thicker than a tire and weighs more than a Mini Cooper.</span>

<span style=”font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;”>And, of course, there is all the movie critic’s lists of best and worst movies. So much fun.</span>

<span style=”font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;”>So, your humble columnist has decided to do his own end of year review. And my awards should be as megalomaniacal and self-aggrandizing as I am. Thus, I humbly name them (drumroll) The Harry Awards.</span>

<span style=”font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: bold; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;”>LOSER OF THE YEAR</span>

<span style=”font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;”>What were the odds my last column of 2012 would ignore W. Mitt Romney? He ran out the clock of the Republican primary field filled with the Island of Misfit Wackadoos. And then, he proceeded to be a comical caricature of a rich, out-of-touch white guy. Being cringe-worthingly awkward was about the only sincere thing Mitt did the whole year. The “47%” comment alone showed him to be an elitist and an opportunist. Regardless if President Obama does a good job or not the next four years, America is a better place for rejecting this shallow, desperate loser. Goodbye, Mitt.</span>

<span style=”font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: bold; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;”>WORST TELEVISION MOMENT OF THE YEAR</span>

<span style=”font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;”>Months after the fact, I still do not know what the heck the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics was supposed to be. It started out OK. James Bond and Queen Elizabeth was weird, but enjoyable. And hearing Kenneth Branagh recite Caliban from Shakespeare’s The Tempest was fully appropriate. What came after was nothing short of embarrassingly bad. Smoke stacks rise from the ground as workers stand in place stomping their feet. A salute to government health care featuring doctors and kids waving from hospital beds. Two teens start texting each other in what was nothing different than one of those annoying Disney Channel teen sitcoms. Whaaaaaa? The only thing that could have salvaged this nightmare was if Tom Servo and Crow from Mystery Science Theatre 3000 came out and ripped it to justifiable shreds.</span>

<span style=”font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: bold; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;”>WORST CELEBRITY BREAKUP OF THE YEAR</span>

<span style=”font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;”>Few things upset me more than when people start applying embedded moral beliefs on to young people who, because of inexperience, are prone to mistakes. Such was my disgust at the vitriol hurled at Kristen Stewart because she cheated on boyfriend Robert Pattinson. Yes, it was slightly creepy that she was caught playing tongue hockey with a man 19 years her senior. But, really, young people cheat on each other now and then. To call a young woman who has always looked uncomfortable with fame such terrible names said more about the accusers than it did Stewart. And, lets be honest, Pattinson has pasty white skin, weighs 95 lbs. and has a head that dwarfs Charlie Brown. Let the girl be.</span>

<span style=”font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: bold; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;”>THE WASTE OF 2.5 BILLION DOLLAR AWARD</span>

<span style=”font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;”>Curiosity, the $2.5 billion project by NASA landed on Mars in 2012. What has it found so far? Rocks. Lots and lots of rocks.</span>

<span style=”font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: bold; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;”>THE “FACEBOOK SUCKS” MOMENT OF THE YEAR AWARD</span>

<span style=”font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;”>While Mark Zuckerberg continues to make money off of people too stupid to realize they are willing slaves to his apparatus of addictive voyeurism, his company’s initial stock offering in 2012 turned out to be an astonishing failure. It opened at $38 a share. As I type this, it’s currently under $28 a share. The lipstick is off the pig. But, Zuckerberg still makes money. And you still feel obligated to accept friend requests from people you hated in high school.</span>

<span style=”font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: bold; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;”>TATTOO OF THE YEAR</span>

<span style=”font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;”>While it was hard not to give this award to the clown who tattooed Mitt Romney’s campaign logo on his face, this award goes to Justin Bieber. JB spent most of 2012 getting inked. Tattoos used to be the vestiges of rebellion and outlaw behavior. Now it is what The Beeb does to maintain relevancy. If you got a tattoo any time in the past 10 years, you are now as ordinary as a pop singer.</span>

<span style=”font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: bold; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;”>SPORTSMAN OF THE YEAR</span>

<span style=”font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;”>Brad Keselowski. The NASCAR driver was fined earlier this year for using Twitter during a race. In a race car. On a track. Driving. Using Twitter. And he complained about it. If you do not see the madness in this you are as much a part of the problem as Keselowski.</span>

<span style=”font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: bold; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;”>THE MAYAN AWARD</span>

<span style=”font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;”>A madman shoots up a movie theater in Colorado. A black void that went by the name of Adam Lanza opens fire at point blank range on 1st grade children in Connecticut. Terrible people of amazing insignificance still demand our attention in the media. And in these final days of 2012 we have signs that while the world will not end the death of kindness and civility may yet prove the Mayans were right.</span>

<span style=”font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;”>I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I sincerely hope 2013 is the best year in all of our lives. It would be hard to be worse than 2012 was.</span>

<span style=”font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;”><span style=”font-size: 15px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;”><em>Harry Caines contributes a weekly column to CacheValleyDaily.com. His column is a work of opinion, and does not reflect the views of Cache Valley Daily, the Cache Valley Media Group, or its employees.</em></span></span>

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