It looks like we’ve all got another big reason to be thankful this year … it’s almost the end of the 00’s decade which, according to Time magazine, has been The Decade from Hell. The new issue of Time chronicles THE worst things that have happened in the last 10 years which, in sum, add up to probably the worst decade our country has ever experienced — and to be honest, I kinda have to agree with Time magazine on this one:

As the first decade of the 21st Century draws to a close, Time has taken a look back and concluded that it is the “worst decade ever”: Bookended by 9/11 at the start and a financial wipeout at the end, the first 10 years of this century will very likely go down as the most dispiriting and disillusioning decade Americans have lived through in the post-World War II era. We’re still weeks away from the end of ‘09, but it’s not too early to pass judgment. Call it the Decade from Hell, or the Reckoning, or the Decade of Broken Dreams, or the Lost Decade. Call it whatever you want — just give thanks that it is nearly over.

If you so desire, you can read the online version of Time’s coverstory HERE. The more I think about the events that occurred in the last 10 years, the more I have to agree that it really was the Decade from Hell … consider, the 00’s started with the stupid Y2K bug (which seemed to be a harbinger of doom) and immediately went into the stolen election of GWB (arguably our worst president ever presiding over, again arguably, the most EVIL administration that our nation ever suffered under) complete with “hanging chads” and all … then came 9/11 and the subsequent TWO wars (one in Afghanistan, one in Iraq). Natural disasters like the Tsunami in 2004 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005 made sure to mar the decade with far too much death and destruction. The end of the decade saw our economic collapse which, in turn, threatened (and still threatens) the collapse of our nation’s automobile industry in Detroit … it just seems like it’s been on hit after another. Yes, there have been some amazing things to happen to our country in the past 10 years but, really, they will be primarily overshadowed by all of the bad stuff. As a student of History, I can assure you that when this decade is studied in hindsight, it really will look like prolly the worst decade of our nation’s history … especially if you consider how varied all of these disasters were (from technological, to political, to natural disasters, wars, terrorism, economic, etc.), well, it’s hard to argue otherwise. I have hope that the next 10 years will be much more prosperous and happy … after all, they couldn’t be any worse … right?

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This week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly will pay tribute to the late Michael Jackson by devoting 28 pages of the new issue to his memory, his impact on the world of pop culture and looking back at the mag’s coverage of his long career. Additionally, author Stephen King contributes an article to the mag on his memories of Michael Jackson. Here is the cover of this week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly:

From the press release: NEW YORK – This week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly devotes 28 pages to Michael Jackson’s mysterious death, his fascinating life, and, most important, his music. With four separate tribute covers available online at www.ew.com/mjcover, fans can collect them all. The covers feature Jackson singing at home in 1972; on the set of the “Thriller” video in 1983; a portrait taken in 1983; and performing in New York City on Sept. 10, 2001. Inside the issue we have an essay that takes a look at his final days and his astounding legacy, his life in pictures via a timeline that goes inside the world of an elusive superstar, an in depth critical guide to his albums, the songs you need for the essential Michael Jackson playlist, the greatest videos – our critic picks the top 10, from “Rock With You” to “Thriller” to “Scream,” and an essay by Stephen King who writes about working with Jackson on the 1997 video Ghosts.

Got to Be There, 1972: B+
Ben, 1972: B
Music & Me, 1973: B
Forever, Michael, 1975: B-
Off the Wall, 1979: A-
Thriller, 1982: A
Bad, 1987: B+
Dangerous, 1991: B+
HIStory, 1995: B
Blood on the Dance Floor/History in the Mix, 1997: B-
Invincible, 2001: C+

As I mentioned above, Stephen King penned a memorial of MJ for this issue which you can read after the jump. Additionally, I mentioned over the weekend that Time published a tribute issue of their magazine in honor of Michael Jackson and the fine folks at ONTD! provide some scans from inside the mag that, IMHO, absolutely sum up MJ’s life perfectly. Check it all out after the jump …

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Time magazine has announced that they are rush producing a special commemorative issue of their magazine in honor of the late Michael Jackson. This special edition of the mag will be available on newsstands on Monday and is the first such mid-week issue of the mag since September 11, 2001. Here is our first look at the commemorative issue of Time magazine honoring Michael Jackson along with the text of the new press release:

TIME will publish a special commemorative issue on Michael Jackson to hit newsstands on Monday, June 29. This special edition of the magazine will be published in addition to TIME’s regular weekly issue and will retail for $5.99. For the special commemorative issue, TIME spoke with Stevie Wonder, Whitney Houston, Tina Turner, Nancy Reagan, Lenny Kravitz, Jesse Jackson, Tommy Mottola, Berry Gordy, Spike Lee, Sheryl Crow, Anjelica Huston, Clive Davis, Al Sharpton, Deepak Chopra, Kobe Bryant, Lance Bass, Oscar De La Hoya, Savion Glover, A.R. Rahman, Peter Gabriel, John Mayer and more. Stories from the commemorative issue will appear on TIME.com Sunday. Read TIME.com’s ongoing coverage of Jackson’s death at http://www.time.com/time/specials/michael-jackson/ TIME last published a special edition in between weekly issues in the days following 9/11. The issue sold more than 3.25 million copies in the United States.

A tribute like this should come as no surprise considering the massive impact that Michael Jackson has had on the world. This will be but the first of many, many tributes to the late King of Pop. This weekend, the BET Awards will pay special tribute to his memory … as I’m sure many other awards shows will in due time. Michael Jackson’s death will resonate with people for a long time to come.

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Yesterday, while David and I were making our way thru Detroit Metro Airport heading for our departure gate, I noticed that Twitter was featured on the cover of the new issue of Time magazine. Seemingly overnight, the micro-blogging site has taken over the world and that fact is fortified by the fact that a publication like Time has taken notice. Here is the cover of the new issue of Time magazine along with a portion of the coverstory article:

The one thing you can say for certain about Twitter is that it makes a terrible first impression. You hear about this new service that lets you send 140-character updates to your “followers,” and you think, Why does the world need this, exactly? It’s not as if we were all sitting around four years ago scratching our heads and saying, “If only there were a technology that would allow me to send a message to my 50 friends, alerting them in real time about my choice of breakfast cereal.” I, too, was skeptical at first. I had met Evan Williams, Twitter’s co-creator, a couple of times in the dotcom ’90s when he was launching Blogger.com. Back then, what people worried about was the threat that blogging posed to our attention span, with telegraphic, two-paragraph blog posts replacing long-format articles and books. With Twitter, Williams was launching a communications platform that limited you to a couple of sentences at most. What was next? Software that let you send a single punctuation mark to describe your mood? And yet as millions of devotees have discovered, Twitter turns out to have unsuspected depth. In part this is because hearing about what your friends had for breakfast is actually more interesting than it sounds. The technology writer Clive Thompson calls this “ambient awareness”: by following these quick, abbreviated status reports from members of your extended social network, you get a strangely satisfying glimpse of their daily routines. We don’t think it at all moronic to start a phone call with a friend by asking how her day is going. Twitter gives you the same information without your even having to ask. The social warmth of all those stray details shouldn’t be taken lightly. But I think there is something even more profound in what has happened to Twitter over the past two years, something that says more about the culture that has embraced and expanded Twitter at such extraordinary speed. Yes, the breakfast-status updates turned out to be more interesting than we thought. But the key development with Twitter is how we’ve jury-rigged the system to do things that its creators never dreamed of. In short, the most fascinating thing about Twitter is not what it’s doing to us. It’s what we’re doing to it.

I realize that once something “cool” reaches the masses in this way it immediately becomes “uncool” and starts its decline into oblivion … but I am such a fan of Twitter that I can’t help but love reading about it, getting other people to use it and use it myself. At first, I had no interest in using the service primarily because I knew less than 5 people who were on Twitter at this time last year (and none of them were my close friends). It seemed pointless to participate when there was no one to play with. Kay Hanley (@kayhanley) of Letters to Cleo blogged the praises of Twitter late last Summer and I thought I’d give it a try. By that point, there was a thriving community of Twitter users and I began to see the appeal. While detractors like to point out the seeming “pointlessness” of the medium, I only see the positives. Yes, it may be boring to hear about what people are having for breakfast … but that’s not all you get. You hear what other folks are tweeting about at concerts you cannot attend or while watching the same TV shows (or sporting events) that you are watching. The conversation is global … and you can be a part of it. You can contribute or you can just follow along. I run into funny or fun stuff all the time that I love sharing with my friends … usually by text message. Twitter allows one to share those fun things with anyone who’s interested anywhere in the world. I’m a big Twitter fan … you can follow me at @trentvanegas if you want … but even if you don’t, I strongly suggest those of you who have yet to check out the service to give it a try and join the conversation. I promise, it’s the most fun you can have in 140 characters or less.

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Time magazine has announced their choice for Person of the Year which, this year, should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone at all. Annually the news magazine profiles a man, woman, couple, group, idea, etc. that “for better or for worse, … has done the most to influence the events of the year” and this year has selected President-elect Barack Obamaamong all of this year’s candidates as THE single person that has had the most influence. Here is the new cover of Time magazine with President-elect Obama on the cover and a portion of the issue coverstory:

It’s unlikely that you were surprised to see Obama’s face on the cover. He has come to dominate the public sphere so completely that it beggars belief to recall that half the people in America had never heard of him two years ago — that even his campaign manager, at the outset, wasn’t sure Obama had what it would take to win the election. He hit the American scene like a thunderclap, upended our politics, shattered decades of conventional wisdom and overcame centuries of the social pecking order. Understandably, you may be thinking Obama is on the cover for these big and flashy reasons: for ushering the country across a momentous symbolic line, for infusing our democracy with a new intensity of participation, for showing the world and ourselves that our most cherished myth — the one about boundless opportunity — has plenty of juice left in it. But crisis has a way of ushering even great events into the past. As Obama has moved with unprecedented speed to build an Administration that would bolster the confidence of a shaken world, his flash and dazzle have faded into the background. In the waning days of his extraordinary year and on the cusp of his presidency, what now seems most salient about Obama is the opposite of flashy, the antithesis of rhetoric: he gets things done. He is a man about his business — a Mr. Fix It going to Washington. That’s why he’s here and why he doesn’t care about the furniture. We’ve heard fine speechmakers before and read compelling personal narratives. We’ve observed candidates who somehow latch on to just the right issue at just the right moment. Obama was all these when he started his campaign: a talented speaker who had opposed the Iraq war and lived a biography that was all things to all people. But while events undermined those pillars of his candidacy, making Iraq seem less urgent and biography less relevant, Obama has kept on rising. He possesses a rare ability to read the imperatives and possibilities of each new moment and organize himself and others to anticipate change and translate it into opportunity. The real story of Obama’s year is the steady march of seemingly impossible accomplishments: beating the Clinton machine, organizing previously marginal voters, harnessing the new technologies of democratic engagement, shattering fundraising records, turning previously red states blue — and then waking up the day after his victory to reinvent the presidential-transition process in the face of a potentially dangerous vacuum of leadership. “We always did our best up on the high wire,” says his campaign manager, David Plouffe. Obama’s competence fills him with a genuine self-confidence. “I’ve got a pretty healthy ego,” he allows. That’s clear when he offers a checklist for voters to use in judging his performance two years from now. It’s quite an agenda. Listen: “Have we helped this economy recover from what is the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression? Have we instituted financial regulations and rules of the road that assure this kind of crisis doesn’t occur again? Have we created jobs that pay well and allow families to support themselves? Have we made significant progress on reducing the cost of health care and expanding coverage? Have we begun what will probably be a decade-long project to shift America to a new energy economy? Have we begun what may be an even longer project of revitalizing our public-school systems?” There’s more: “Have we closed down Guantánamo in a responsible way, put a clear end to torture and restored a balance between the demands of our security and our Constitution? Have we rebuilt alliances around the world effectively? Have I drawn down U.S. troops out of Iraq, and have we strengthened our approach in Afghanistan — not just militarily but also diplomatically and in terms of development? And have we been able to reinvigorate international institutions to deal with transnational threats, like climate change, that we can’t solve on our own?” And: “Outside of specific policy measures, two years from now, I want the American people to be able to say, ‘Government’s not perfect; there are some things Obama does that get on my nerves. But you know what? I feel like the government’s working for me. I feel like it’s accountable. I feel like it’s transparent. I feel that I am well informed about what government actions are being taken. I feel that this is a President and an Administration that admits when it makes mistakes and adapts itself to new information.’” Can he really achieve all that? Plenty of voters will be happy if he aces only Item 1 on his list. But the essence of both Obama’s strength and his promise is that, according to a recent poll, a strong majority of Americans believe he will accomplish most of what he aims to do. For having the confidence to sketch that kind of future in this gloomy hour and for showing the competence that makes Americans hopeful that he will pull it off, Barack Obama is Time’s Person of the Year for 2008.

Clearly, this decision has to be Time magazine’s easiest to make, like, ever. Obama changed the landscape of politics in our nation’s history and has managed to essentially unite the country by using Hope as the glue that he believes can keep us all together while his newly elected administration tries to go about doing the work of righting the wrongs that have been set in place by the current Bush administration and set our country’s path on a new, more positive direction. It’s a tall order, one that may not be even close to 100% successful … but I suppose the same was said when we learned that an African American man was running for the highest office in the land and the most powerful position in the world. Click HERE to read Time magazine’s most excellent interview with Obama and be reminded (as if any of us need reminding so soon after the election) why he has been elected as the 44th President of the United States of America.

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Time magazine sat down with Tim Gunn, style maven guru from Project Runway, for 10 Questions about style, design, etc. sent in by readers from around the country. On behalf of Sharlin Aldao from Miami Lakes, FL, Time asked Tim who he preferred stylistically — Michelle Obama or Cindy McCain. You ain’t gonna believe the LOL-worthy answer he gave:

When asked, “Michelle Obama or Cindy McCain,” Tim Gunn responds, “Oh, no contest, Michelle Obama. From a fashion viewpoint, Michelle Obama looks so comfortable and relaxed in her style and her fashion, and she exudes that. She has a presence that gives you confidence in her. Cindy McCain looks like someone has twisted her pony tail into a knot and tried to give her a face lift.”

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I never knew the man had it in him to be this hilarious. In truth, all of Tim’s answers are great, you have to watch the full interview:

But, honestly, nothing beats his Cindy McCain answer ;)

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Yesterday was the joyous day that the world welcomed the birth of the newest member of the Spears family (born to 17-year old Jamie Lynn Spears) but just one day earlier, Time magazine published a news report on a shocking discovery at a Massachusetts high school in Glouchester. According to the Time report, a group of girls at Gloucester High School entered into a “pregnancy pact” in order to try and become more popular … that is, the girls did everything they could to get pregs in order to be “cool” and “loved”. Some are blaming this mad notion on the popularity of movies like Juno and on the attention that JL Spears has enjoyed since revealing that she got pregnant late last year, but it seems to me more a matter of lax sex education:

As summer vacation begins, 17 girls at Gloucester High School are expecting babies—more than four times the number of pregnancies the 1,200-student school had last year. Some adults dismissed the statistic as a blip. Others blamed hit movies like Juno and Knocked Up for glamorizing young unwed mothers. But principal Joseph Sullivan knows at least part of the reason there’s been such a spike in teen pregnancies in this Massachusetts fishing town. School officials started looking into the matter as early as October after an unusual number of girls began filing into the school clinic to find out if they were pregnant. By May, several students had returned multiple times to get pregnancy tests, and on hearing the results, “some girls seemed more upset when they weren’t pregnant than when they were,” Sullivan says. All it took was a few simple questions before nearly half the expecting students, none older than 16, confessed to making a pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together. Then the story got worse. “We found out one of the fathers is a 24-year-old homeless guy,” the principal says, shaking his head … “Families are broken,” says school superintendent Christopher Farmer. “Many of our young people are growing up directionless.” The girls who made the pregnancy pact—some of whom, according to Sullivan, reacted to the news that they were expecting with high fives and plans for baby showers—declined to be interviewed. So did their parents. But Amanda Ireland, who graduated from Gloucester High on June 8, thinks she knows why these girls wanted to get pregnant. Ireland, 18, gave birth her freshman year and says some of her now pregnant schoolmates regularly approached her in the hall, remarking how lucky she was to have a baby. “They’re so excited to finally have someone to love them unconditionally,” Ireland says. “I try to explain it’s hard to feel loved when an infant is screaming to be fed at 3 a.m.” The high school has done perhaps too good a job of embracing young mothers. Sex-ed classes end freshman year at Gloucester, where teen parents are encouraged to take their children to a free on-site day-care center. Strollers mingle seamlessly in school hallways among cheerleaders and junior ROTC. “We’re proud to help the mothers stay in school,” says Sue Todd, CEO of Pathways for Children, which runs the day-care center.

I have to say, I am totally shocked by this. It’s one thing to see this sort of thing in movies or to see it happen among wealthy celebrities but to consider that there are girls out there … groups of girls … who have been inspired by these sorts of things to get pregnant by any means necessary (a homeless man?!) just so that they can fit in … it is so sad. I mean, who or what is to blame? Can this sort of behavior really be blamed on extraneous influences or is it more a matter of class society? I cannot say that having babies is wrong but for children at such a young age to make this sort of decision on their own with only the support of their like-minded friends to encourage and support them seems entirely wrong … and extremely sad. Who knows if this sort of thing is happening in other parts of the country … and if so, what can be done to help educate these kids that what they are doing is wrong and very dangerous (ie. the unprotected sex with whoever just to get pregs). I’d be very interested to see if this sort of “pregnancy pact” phenomenon is more widespread … or just a localized thing. If anything, this proves that safe-sex education is of dire importance. Man … this is just so crazy.

[Photo credit: INFdaily; Source]