2003: A Recap

December 25, 2003 | Justin

Now that Christmas is over and everyone is preparing to venture out, yet again, into the shopping world — this time to return everything they unwrapped but sent thank you notes for anyway — I thought I’d join just about every other media outlet in the world and recap what 2003 was all about. (Editors note: I bring information to people so I am therefore a media outlet. If you disagree, suck it.)

The first big news story of 2003 was, regrettably, a tragic one. On February 1st, NASA’s shuttle Columbia disintegrated upon reentry killing all seven crew members onboard. This was the first major loss to NASA since the Challenger tragedy in 1986. Debris from the shuttle was found over much of the United States. In August, NASA confirmed that faulty heat-shield tiles were to blame for the disaster and vowed to check every inch of the remaining three shuttles in its fleet. The shuttle program is still grounded and is said to remain so well into 2004.

Arguably the largest story of 2003 is that of the war in Iraq. The problem escalated until March 19th when a coalition of nations — mainly the US and the UK — began Operation Iraqi Freedom. The goal was to finally end Saddam Hussein’s totalitarian rule over the Iraqi people. A swift bombing campaign was followed by a massive swell of ground troops who marched into downtown Baghdad on April 9th. On that day the immense statue of Saddam at the city square was torn down for the world to see. It would be a good eight months later, on December 14th at 7:30am EST when Paul Bremer announced “We got him.” Ironically Saddam’s capture came not in a hale of bullets but with a cowardly surrender.

2003 also saw the first successful recall of a state governor. Gray Davis was effectively thrown out of office with an October 7th vote that in turn installed non other then Arnold Schwarzenegger as the new governor of California. Schwarzenegger vowed, in an extremely impressive inauguration speech, to fix California’s problems and get the power back to the people.

One of the most obnoxious stories of 2003 has to be the constant press that Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez — AKA JLo — received. The press focused constantly on the upcoming wedding and how much in love the two were. That was until July 15th with the release of Gigli. Considerably one of the worst pieces of film ever made, (The Internet Movie Database has Gigli ranked in the top 10 of the bottom 100 movies in history. Also up there is From Justin to Kelly.), Gigli bombed at the box office and reports came out saying that the wedding was now off. Frankly I don’t really give a crap what the new story on them is, so I’m ending this segment here.

It’s hard to call it the fad of 2003, but in a way, it kind of is. Severe Acute Repository Syndrome, or SARS for short, swept the globe seemingly instantly killing 750 people in over 25 countries. SARS was a mystery until it was discovered by a scientist who later died from the very virus. The largest concentration of victims seemed to hit in Japan and Toronto. Shortly before the virtual elimination of SARS from the globe, and thus the news, an Asian design firm unveiled designer SARS masks allowing people to stay safe and be fashionable at the same time.

The sports world saw some very odd occurrences in 2003. Tampa Bay won the Super Bowl. The Florida Marlins won the World Series. FSU lost to Georgia in the Orange Bowl and Ohio Sate beat Miami in the Fiesta Bowl to win the National Championship. The Orlando Magic went 1-19 to open their 2003-2004 season and FSU basketball went 9-0 to open theirs. It just goes to show that when it comes to sports you can’t take anything for granted.

Yes, a lot happened in 2003. So much that I have only briefly skimmed the surface with this trice recap. But here’s to the completion of one year and to a great year to come. All of us here at Lone Palm Creations wish everyone a merry Christmas/happy Hanukkah/merry Kwanza and a happy new year!

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celebrities, election, FSU, movies, NASA, news, politics, SARS, sports