The 2000s: Goodbye and Good Riddance

The decade that no one thought of a catchy name for (although Time Magazine came close with "The Decade From Hell") is finally ending.

It had everything:  terrorist attacks, wars, a disputed presidential election, economic collapses, natural disasters of historic proportions, red and blue states . . . need we go on?

There were more villians than heroes to go around:  Osama bin Laden, George Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Bernie Madoff, Jack Abramoff, Kenneth Lay, Jeffrey Skilling, etc.

It wasn't all gloom and doom, of course.  One of the saving graces of the decade was the election of 2008, where one woman ran for president, another was chosen to be a vice-presidential running mate, and an African-American man won a term in the White House.

New advancements in technology gave us the iPod, smaller cell phones, My Space, You Tube, Facebook, Twitter, Kindle and GPS systems.  Unfortunately, they also gave us hackers who steal your identity, screw up commerce, and endanger national security.

On TV, reality was all over the place, from "Survivor" and "American Idol" to "The Real World" and "Jon and Kate Plus Eight".  Dramas such as "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and its spinoffs, "Gilmore Girls", "Desperate Housewives", "The Sopranos", "Mad Men" and "Rescue Me" distinguished themselves.  Comedy had a hard time getting on track after the 9/11 attacks, and is still struggling today.

The movies became more about franchises and special effects than about stars and character development.  The "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, "Harry Potter", "Spider-Man", "Avatar" and "The Dark Knight" all ruled at the box office.  So did chick flicks, disaster movies, and films about grown men still in a state of adolescense.

Music had no real catalyst of change a la The Beatles and Elvis Presley, except in the way it was distributed.  Thanks to the mp3 player, you no longer have to settle for an $18 CD with only three good songs on it.  Now you go online and pay a buck a song.  Unless, that is, you're a fan of Garth Brooks, Led Zeppelin or Bob Seger, who have kept their music offline.

On the performance side, the decade pretty much began and ended with boy bands, rap and Britney Spears ruling the charts.  Beyond that, Alicia Keys, Beyonce, Carrie Underwood, Kelly Clarkson, Kanye West and Eminem--among others--had their moments in the sun.

In sports, baseball was in crisis as accusations of players using performance enhancing drugs resulted in home run records getting asterisks.  The Boston Red Sox and Chicago White Sox finally win World Series titles.  The NHL canceled a whole season due to a labor dispute.  The NFL split its mini-dynasties between New England and Pittsburgh.  The NBA created new stars in Kobe Bryant and LeBron James after Michael Jordan retired.  Michael Phelps swam his way to glory at the Beijing Olympics, but Marion Jones' drug use cost her the track medals she won in Sydney.  And Tiger Woods dominated the world of golf . . . when he was on the course, that is.

Journalism made news of its own, most of it bad.  As publications either went bankrupt or shut down, those left behind moved on to online ventures and PR work.  Network TV news is no longer a boys' club, now that women are anchoring two of the three evening broadcasts.  Cable news, being the 24/7 operation that it is, trumps up every small time story and injects its own political commentary.

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In Minnesota, the biggest story of the decade was the collapse in 2007 of the 35W bridge in Minneapolis, which killed 13 people.  In politics, the decade could best be explained by following the saga of Norm Coleman.

• At the beginning of the decade, Jesse Ventura was governor.  The former pro wrestler defeated Coleman in 1998.  By 2002, serious times had rendered Ventura's act moot, so he didn't run for another term.  And that's how we got Tim Pawlenty.
• In '02, Coleman ran against incumbent Paul Wellstone for the U.S. Senate.  Wellstone died in a plane crash days before the election, so former Vice-President Walter Mondale was brought in as an emergency replacement.  Coleman defeated Mondale.
• In 2008, Coleman ran for re-election against "Saturday Night Live" satirist Al Franken.  Eight months into 2009 and several recounts later, Franken was declared the winner.

The Twins came back from the brink of contraction, won a couple of division titles, and traded in the Metrodome for a new outdoor ball park.  The Vikings had two different owners, survived the "Love Boat" scandal, and lured Brett Favre out of retirement.  The NHL returned to Minnesota in the form of the Wild, playing to sellout crowds in St. Paul and endearing themselves to the "State of Hockey".  The Timberwolves with Kevin Garnett made it as far as the NBA Western Conference finals.  After Garnett was traded to Boston (where he won a championship), the Wolves sank back to the obscurity from whence they came.

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As we move into the second decade of the 21st century, one hopes that things could only get better.  We've already had worse.