December 27, 2017 The Skanner Page 3
A Look Back at 2017
2017 in Review: ‘Disruption,
Despair and Dumpster Fires’
NEW YORK — The
news alerts gushed in:
An attack on a concert, a
church, an ice cream par-
lor; an assailant wielding
a gun or hammer or acid.
There’s an earthquake in
Mexico, a monsoon in In-
dia, a volcanic eruption
in Bali, hurricane after
hurricane after hurri-
cane. Keep up as your
phone vibrates with
word of your favorite
actor accused of miscon-
duct. Make that anchor-
man. Or politician. Or
radio star.
“
It’s almost
like one of
those hor-
ror rides at
the amuse-
ment park
where ev-
ery time it
heads into
the next
segment it
gets worse
The volatile year 2017
shook us so much and
so often it felt like whip-
lash or worse, and that’s
without even consider-
ing Donald Trump, at the
center of so much of the
turmoil.
“It’s almost like one of
those horror rides at the
amusement park where
every time it heads into
the next segment it gets
worse,” said noted trend-
spotter Marian Salzman.
“Every time I turn off a
device, I feel like I have
anxiety because I’m not
tracking the news.”
The year, she said,
boiled down to “disrup-
tion, despair and dump-
ster fires.”
In retrospect, 2017’s
destiny seemed sealed in
its opening moments.
Just after the new year
dawned in Istanbul, a
gunman killed 39 peo-
ple at a nightclub and
wounded scores more.
The joy of the holiday
dissolved into a scene
of heartbreak outside
the city morgue, where
some cried and fell to the
ground as they learned
of a loved one’s fate.
Around the world
this year, vehicles were
made into weapons,
with trucks, cars and
vans plowing down peo-
ple on the Westminster
and London bridges in
Britain; in Times Square
and on a Manhattan bike
path; on a major shop-
ping street in the Swed-
ish capital of Stockholm;
on the historic La Rambla
in Barcelona.
Terrorism and other
violence struck so regu-
larly that many accepted
it as a fact of life.
“It can happen any-
where as long as there is
one man willing to die,”
said Luis Antonio Bone,
66, of Barcelona, who is
retired from a cement
factory job. Bone is at
once realistic and defi-
ant, saying crowded plac-
es may make him think
about his safety but won’t
deter him from outings.
“We have to live with
it,” he said, “but keep liv-
ing as we always have.”
That kind of resilience
was mustered again and
again, even by some of
those marked by some of
the year’s biggest trage-
dies.
In Texas, Pastor Frank
Pomeroy vowed that
good would persevere
over evil. Pomeroy leads
the rural church where
a gunman killed 25 pa-
rishioners, his own
14-year-old
daughter
among them. “Rather
than choose darkness as
that young man did that
day, we choose life,” he
said in an emotional ser-
vice only a week after the
rampage.
In Las Vegas, too, where
58 people were fatally
shot at a music festival,
some searched for opti-
mism in the face of sav-
agery. Jay Pleggenkuhle,
a 52-year-old landscaper,
helped create a memori-
al garden with a tree for
each of the victims. Some
1,000 people volunteered
to help with his project,
putting aside personal
or political differences to
work hand in hand.
“People have really
been bound together fol-
lowing this tragedy,” he
said.
A deadly chemical
attack in Syria stirred
people around the globe.
Missile launches by
North Korea brought
angst that nuclear war
was nearing. Rallies
by white supremacists,
wearing white hoods and
clasping torches, roused
uncomfortable memo-
ries of the United States’
past. All of it broke with
such ferocity, it seemed
impossible to focus on
any one incident too
long.
“Even something like a
mass shooting that killed
50 people, the story
moves on in just a cou-
ple weeks,” said Lauren
Wright, a lecturer on pol-
itics and public affairs at
Princeton University.
In Egypt, twin Palm
Sunday attacks am-
“
People
have re-
ally been
bound
together
following
this trage-
dy
bushed Coptic Christians
and a November assault
on a crowded mosque
killed more than 300. In
Britain, 22 people died
when a suicide bomber
detonated a backpack
full of explosives after an
People are thrown into the air as a car drives into a group of protesters demonstrating against a white
nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., on Aug. 12, 2017. The white nationalists were holding the rally to
protest plans by the city of Charlottesville to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. There
were several hundred counterprotesters marching in a long line when the car drove into a group of them.
Ariana Grande show.
Three major storms —
Harvey, Irma and Maria
— battered Puerto Rico
and much of the Carib-
bean, as well as Texas
and Florida, as 2017 went
down as one of the most
active hurricane seasons
in recorded history. Fires
tore through California
and Portugal; earth-
quakes rocked Mexico,
Iran and Iraq; flooding
and an avalanche cov-
ered parts of Italy; mud-
slides leveled homes in
Sierra Leone; and a dead-
ly monsoon pummeled
India, Nepal, Pakistan,
and Bangladesh.
In hotspots around the
world, people sought
escape. Amnesty In-
ternational
estimated
73,000 refugees took to
the Mediterranean in
the first half of the year
alone, with about 2,000
dying along the way. In
Myanmar, the military
has been conducting
a brutal ethnic cleans-
ing of Rohingya people,
killing untold num-
bers and forcing more
than 626,000 to flee into
neighboring Bangladesh.
Amid the barrage, oth-
er big stories struggled
for a spotlight. A grind-
ing civil war in Yemen
pushed millions in the
impoverished country
to famine. A political cri-
sis in Venezuela brought
intensifying clashes. In
Zimbabwe, Robert Mug-
abe was ousted from con-
trol after a 37-year reign.
In Spain, a push for Cata-
lonian independence de-
generated at times into
ugly scenes of mayhem.
In the U.S., Trump
See 2017 on page 4
PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED
By MATT SEDENSKY
AP National Writer
RYAN M. KELLY/THE DAILY PROGRESS VIA AP
Volatile year marked by violent attacks, natural
disasters and political chaos
Women’s March
An estimated 500,000 people converged on Washington, D.C. Jan. 21 — the day after President Trump’s inauguration — to show their
support for women’s rights, civil rights and the environment. Another 3 to 4 million people are estimated to have attended hundreds
of sister marches around the world. Portland’s sister march drew an estimated crowd of 100,000; the Womxn’s March on Seattle drew
between 125,000 and 175,000.
The march resulted from months of planning and national as well as local marches drew some controversy, especially over racial
inclusion. In mid-January the NAACP Portland Branch, an early sponsor of the Portland event, withdrew its support for the event,
saying the organizers did not sufficiently address or include the concerns of racial and ethnic minorities, as well as transgender people.
At the same time it announced its withdrawal of support, the NAACP announced a March for Safety and Justice Jan. 28. By the time the
march actually took place, the event’s original organizer, Dara Glass, had effectively been ousted and replaced by a group of Portland-
based activists that included racial and gender justice organizer Margaret Jacobsen and Rebekah Katt Brewis of PDX Trans Pride.
In March, the Oregonian reported $22,000 in funds raised for the march by its fiscal sponsor, PDX Trans Pride, was not accounted for.
According to a spokesperson for the Oregon Department of Justice, the investigation is still ongoing.
A second Womxn’s March on Seattle is scheduled in Jan. 20. Portland organizers have not announced any similar plans.