June, 2009.

What a month you turned out to be. As the midway point in an already turbulent year, you did not disappoint.

Let's run down some high (and low) lights of this month, shall we?

Your opening salvo was the disappearance of Air France 447, easily one of the most bizarre plane crashes in history. Not only did the plane literally vanish from the radar, many experts suggest that 447 was was one of the only commercial jets to break apart in mid-air due to lightning and turbulence. Only now are they starting to recover bodies and debris from off the coast of Brazil.

Also on June 1st, Conan O'Brien became the fifth host of the Tonight Show, officially making his transition from New York City to Los Angeles.

ALSO on June 1st, General Motors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. At one point in the 1970s, GM was the largest employer in America. Today, Wal-Mart holds that title.

On June 3rd you delivered easily THE STRANGEST celebrity death that I've ever heard of. There are numerous conflicting reports, but it pretty much stands that David Carradine was found in the closet of his hotel room in Bangkok, naked (but possibly wearing lingerie) with a shoelace tied around his neck (and possibly his penis) and his hands bound behind his back (or maybe not). Some medics suggested accidental suicide from autoerotic asphyxiation, some suggest a deliberate suicide, while others suggest that he was tracked down by a secret sect of ninjas and murdered. I am not kidding. Two of his wives have come out saying that he was into some very kinky business, so him dying of autoerotic asphyxiation isn't very surprising to them. My favorite article about this story came from the New York Post where they had interviewed the owner of a sex shop that Carradine frequented. She said that he had quite a few items on back order and that she was upset that he'd never get to enjoy them.

This one is particularly embarrassing for New Yorkers, but on June 8th, two Democratic state senators switched sides in order to remove the Senate Majority Leader, Malcom Smith. Essentially what happened was that the vote was counted but not officially recognized before a Senator called for adjournment, which was granted. For anyone who knows Robert's Rules (I am looking at your, Russ Zambito), you would know that this move is highly illegal because a) a motion was still on the table and b)the adjournment wasn't voted upon. This put the whole senate into a tizzy which eventually resulted in a deadlock of 31 senators on each side and neither side agreeing to meet in Senate. Meanwhile, this is the time of year when very important bills are supposed to be passed before summer recess, so Governor Patterson urged the Senate to reconvene. They did, except the held separate sessions in the same room. This is still going on.

All throughout May and June, the world kept an eye on the H1N1 virus outbreak, which began in Mexico and made its way to the US and abroad. On June 11th, the World Health Organization officially categorized it as a world pandemic.

June 12th marked an especially important, and perhaps world-changing, event. Iran's presidential elections took place in a sea of optimism that current president and general nut job, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, would be ousted and reformist Mir-Hossein Mousavi would be elected. The West looked on in anticipation as the results came in because there was much riding on this election. Even though the President isn't the top dog in terms of power, many felt that his election would help ease relations between Iran and the rest of the world. However, it turned out that Ahmadinejad won in a landslide that few expected. Immediately, opponents called voter fraud and took to the streets. What resulted was one of the most notable series of protests in history. Islamic Clerics and the Ayatollah, the real leaders of the Iranian theocracy, condemned the hundreds of thousands of protesters saying that if things progressed as they were, bloodshed would be inevitable. The protests eventually became less about the election and more about the general stranglehold that Iran's Islamic regime held on it's citizens, 70% of whom are under the age of 30. What made this whole story even more fascinating was that mainstream media couldn't cover it--Iran had placed so many restrictions on Western media outlets that major networks didn't cover the story because they couldn't. So, young Iranians used the greatest technology our generation has seen, the internet, to get their message out. From 140-character updates via Twitter to ten minute long videos uploaded to YouTube, Iranians reported on themselves and put mainstream media to shame.

Also on June 12th, America shut off all analog television signals in favor of high-powered all-digital signals. The old signals will be used for a number of things including emergency transmissions and possibly nation-wide wi-fi.

The week of June 22nd was a rough week to be a celebrity. On June 23rd, Ed McMahon of Tonight Show Fame died at age 86. On the morning of June 25th, Farrah Fawcet died at age 62, but her passing was overshadowed that afternoon when the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, died at age 50. Regardless of his weird personal life, he was one of the most important people in contemporary music. I believe it is safe to say that we will never see another pop star like Michael Jackson again. Even now, it's hard to imagine 100 million people even downloading an album for free, let alone buy a physical copy of it, at full price, from a store. Although music videos had essentially existed from the earliest days of rock and roll, Jackson teamed up with some of the best people in their varied professions and produced some of the most memorable music videos ever. These videos changed the way we consumed music; try listening to Thriller without envisioning the video and you'll know what I'm talking about.

Another King died as well--Billy Mays, the bearded-larger-than-life Infomerical King, died in his sleep on June 28th at age 50.

One of the last little bits that has been thrown at us this month was the over-throwing of the President of Honduras. It's the first of it's kind in years in Latin America; basically, President Zelaya tried passing this new referendum which the Supreme Court, Congress and every other political body in Honduras decided was completely illegal. The referendum looked to change, among other things, the presidential re-election process. Currently, only one term can be serve. Zelaya has the lowest approval ratings amongst any Latin American president. Zelaya is described as being a center-left Liberal who has the poor and the working class on his side. This makes him an ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a known opponent of the West and Capitalism. At the behest of the middle and upper classes, the army overtook the president's office and removed him. While many viewed this as a military coup, Hondurans look at this as completely legitimate as they do not have an impeachment process written into their constitution.

And then today, another plane crashed in the Indian Ocean. And US troops began their massive pullout of Iraq.

In my life, I started working full time, earning a salary and paying bills. Soon, I will have a car, insurance and rent to pay.