2010: End-of-the-Year Schlock

Sorry, there’s no escape. Everywhere you go, there’s more of the same old end-of-the-year drivel. So here goes:

Here are some photos of the year's top stories.

Or, if you like your news to be raw, unfiltered, un-sugarcoated — you might like these top 25 stories.

Austerity is the Word of the Year for 2010 according to Merriam-Webster. This word received more than 250,000 searches at the dictionary’s website.

There were almost as many searches for the word “socialism,” since the word gets spewed out every day by rightwing demagogues, and dutifully parroted by their gullible followers. It’s probably a good sign that so many people actually looked up the word to see what it means, instead of automatically going “Ugh! Socialism! Bad!”

Hint: When insurance companies are prohibited from canceling a patient’s medical coverage because the patient got sick — this is NOT “socialism.”

Here are some of the year’s most, uh, unconventional celebrity health and fitness tips.

Here is a list of people who left us during 2010. Teena Marie isn’t listed here because she hadn’t yet passed away when this article was written.

My two favorite songs of hers didn’t get much airplay, but fortunately I was able to find them on YouTube: Here and Here.

R.I.P.