The Year In Review 2009, part 1. News year

For the sixth consecutive year, it is now time for my Year In Review. The last one can be found here on the blog (only in Swedish, though), the other ones are available on Lunarstorm, for those of you who have it. That was where I published it before. They are only in Swedish, though. 

This year, however, I split it into two parts. Here is my short Year In Review about news, entertainment and sports. My pesonal Year In Review about me, and guesses about 2009 and 2010 is coming tomorrow.

I guess this Y.I.R. is leaning more to Swedish events in some cases.

Contents of this Y.I.R.

News year 2009
Entertainment year 2009
2009 in sports

Bonus!
A very brief chronicle of the 00s


NEWS YEAR 2009

Swedish Crown Princess Victoria got engaged to Daniel. Later also Princess Madeleine got engaged with Jonas.

During the year the talk was the lot of the swine flu. Or at least in Sweden. There was war headlines in the papers as soon as someone fell ill. In the U.S., it has not been so. There they understand that it is more rare than when people die in the ordinary flu each year.

Large forest fires raging outside Los Angeles. Large areas were destroyed and many died.

Much has been about Saab in Sweden. General Motors does not want it and first Swedish sports car manufacturer Koenigsegg was to buy them. But then they pulled out and no one wanted them. Dutch Spyker tried, but GM got tired and decided to close down Saab as brand.

In Copenhagen, world leaders tried to come up with a new climate change agreement that would supersede the Kyoto Protocol. But even though they were there for several days, they came not up to anything good. A major failure of the entire world's heads of state and government.

During the summer, it was election in Iran. The oposition were silenced, but protests continued throughout the summer in Tehran. Many were killed, but the world started listening to the people of Iran.

ENTERTAINMENT

In Melodifestivalen (the swedish entry for Eurovision Song Contest) the Grotesco comedy gang made all of Russia angry when they did a song called Tingaliin that contained a lot of Russian stereotypes.

The competition itself was won by Malena Ernman with an opera song. In the European final it went to hell as usual, and Norway won with a violin playing ‘gutt’ and a magical fairytale-song.

Very many celebrities died this year. That Michael Jackson died was the great event which affected the whole world and all the media and entertainment industry wide. Others who died were among others:
Patrick Swayze, Ingemar Johansson, Brittany Murphy, Earl Alfredius, Farrah Fawcett, Walter Cronkite, Ted Kennedy, Uffe Larsson

Some good songs
Lady Gaga - Bad Romance
Flipsyde - When It Was Good
Britney Spears - If U Seek Amy

Good films this year
Avatar, Zombieland, Inglorious Bastards, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

SPORTS

Not a good year when it comes to sports. AIK won the Swedish soccer championship! Such a terrible thing ...

Sweden failed to reach the World Cup. For the first time since 1998 that we are not in a major championship. Big time fail.

Helena Jonsson won the World Cup in biathlon.

Sarah Sjoström took both a few world records and gold in swimming

Zlatan Ibrahmovic has been really awesome this year. He was both top scorer and won the Italian championship with Inter before he was sold to FC Barcelona. There he is best of all the scoring and leading the league too.

Pittsburgh Penguins won the Stanley Cup


BONUS!

Chronicle of 00s

I like this decade. It has been good music, TV shows and movies. A very important and cool thing has been the Internet's definitive distribution and that everyone uses it the way you want. In the 90s the internet was still new and complicated and ugly. Now it's a natural part of life and people would not survive long without Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia, Google, blogs and everything else. All social functions, hotels, traveling agencies, schools, everything would go under without internet. Damn cool, and it is important for ordinary people during the 00s.
Here's a little walk through of the years for both me and the news.

2000
What did I do, it was so long ago! Joined in eight / ninth grade and there it didn’t happened so much.

In the world George W. Bush won over Al Gore in the presidential election, and it has probably been one of the things that most influenced the decade. How would the world be  today with Gore as president 01-09? Newspaper Expressen said it quite well: it would perhaps not necessarily have been better - but it would have been different.

2001
I started high school and a new life took off. I liked high school, it was fun. I also started with judo. I also had my first job. In the summer I worked a couple of weeks at Liljas Bil, a car dealer and repair shop, in Nybro.

But what came to affect the world all the most this year was obviously the 9/11 attacks Tuesday, September 11th. Two planes crashed into the World Trade Center so that the towers collapsed, one crashed in Pennsylvania and one in the Pentagon. Thousands of people died. Since then, the world has never been the same. The war on terror has influenced everything that happened after that. One can not travel as easily, governments are taking more and more liberties and surveillance society has seen a new spring. Then if it is good or not remains to be seen. A direct consequence was that the U.S. started the war in Afghanistan later this year.
In Sweden, demonstrators destroyed half of Gothenburg in riots on the Avenue during the EU summit and the Bush visit.

2002
Our football team went to Italy to train, play football and partying. It was fun. Otherwise, it happened not so much this year for me.

The euro was introduced on currency in many European countries for real, and not just as electronic money.

2003
I turned 18 and got my driving licence. I and Mange went to Cyprus for a week's vacation with sun, sand and partying. First of many trips like that I came to do in the coming years.

U.S. started a war in Iraq that they never seem to finish. This was to find weapons of mass destruction, they say, but a few like that they never found.
In Sweden, Foreign Minister Anna Lindh was stabbed to death, a sad day in our history.
Sweden voted in a few days later wheter or not we were to adopt the Euro here. Unfortunately, the people voted no.

2004
2004 saw many changes for me. I graduated from high school and was leaving the security of  that life. Pulled into the military service immediately after graduation. Very big change. It was tough, especially mentally, but I do not regret that I did. A really good experience.

In Sweden, the media throughout the year almost only focused on a murder in Knutby, who had a lot of intrigue involved. Murder, jealousy, sex, religious sects, lies and much more.
In Madrid terrorist attacks on trains killed over 200.
The year ended with a massive tsunami caused by an earthquake in the Indian Ocean. Several hundred thousand people died. Over 550 Swedes among them.

2005
I left the army and went out to island hopping in Greece with Mange.
In the fall I started at Halmstad University and studied Political Science.

In January Sweden was hit by the hurricane Gudrun, which had major consequences. 17 people died. As a member of the army I helped with the rescue and searching for people.
Some 50 people died in London after the terrorist attacks in the subway and on buses.
The Pope died.


2006
Very many new things to me. I moved out and went to Gothenburg, where I had entered the journalism program at the University of Gothenburg. Got a place of my own for the first time and lived in a studnet apartment in 19 squares meters at Studiegången in Björkekärr.
I also went to the U.S. for the first time. At last I had come to New York on vacation!

There were elections in Sweden and there was change of government. The liberal/conservative alliance won and Fredrik Reinfeldt took over as prime minister.


2007
Nothing special this year. Went to Greece with Padde.


2008
First half, I had a internship at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Had a wonderful time with writing texts, shoot pictures, take care of the state visit and assist the ministers. Had our large Iraq conference in May where I was to shoot photos and see some of the most powerful politicians in the world. Great fun to live in Stockholm (Solna) too.

You can se photos from the Iraq conference here:

http://www.sweden.gov.se/sb/d/10674

Made several trips during the fall. Poland, the United States and Iceland were some of the places I visited.

Most of the year was about U.S. Presidential election. Barack Obama ran his slogans on Change and Yes We Can and won over John McCain and became America's first colored president.
The financial crisis also struck down hard, and have still not completely ended.
Many natural disasters occurred with earthquakes and cyclones in Burma and China.


2009
I moved to Santa Barbara in California! A big change for me, as has been the fun all the time. This the studying, college life, partying, sunbathing, swimming and making friends for life.

People in Sweden was afraid of swine flu, but in the USA people didn’t feel the same fear.
Michael Jackson (and many other celebrities) died, which affected much of the entertainemnt life.