By Stephen Silver

- After Senator Paul Wellstone is killed in a plane crash, his aide Rick Kahn uses his funeral eulogy to demand that the Republicans in attendance “honor Paul’s memory” by electing Democrats.

- A “divest from Israel” movement gains momentum on US college campuses.
- The baseball All-Star Game ends in a tie.

- Christina Aguilera’s “Dirrty,” the least sexy video in the history of MTV.

- “A Beautiful Mind,” a mawkish film dedicated to proving the false premise that severe mental illness can be overcome by romantic love, wins the Academy Award for Best Picture.

- Opponents of US military intervention in Iraq spend over a year decrying the “rush to war.”

- Minnesota Viking Randy Moss takes a Minneapolis traffic cop for a low-speed ride on the hood of his Lexus; is somehow not suspended by the team.

- The World Wrestling Federation, due to pressure from the panda-fronted World Wildlife Fund, changes its name to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE).

- Humorist Garrison Keillor, in successive Salon.com articles, spreads vague unsubstantiated sexual gossip about Norm Coleman, and then insinuates that Coleman had Wellstone murdered.

- The “Star Wars” franchise finally loses its last shred of integrity as the “Attack of the Clones” DVD is advertised with the tagline “Who Da Man? YODA Man!”

- Despite his indictment, conviction, imprisonment and expulsion from Congress, James Traficant receives 18,614 votes in his bid to reclaim his house seat.

- After members of the Cincinnati Jewish community sue to allow a Menorah to be displayed in a downtown park, local activist Kabaka Oba accuses the Jews of working with the KKK to undermine blacks.

- Philadelphia sportscaster and former NFL player Vai Sikahema is caught on camera licking a horse’s ass.

- “The West Wing” regresses from the smartest show on television to a weekly dose of creator Aaron Sorkin’s masturbatory political fantasies.

- Ted Williams dies; his greedy son has him cryogenically frozen.

- The anti-Strokes backlash, and the anti-“Sopranos” backlash.

- Senator Trent Lott states publicly that America would be better off if Strom Thurmond had been elected president.

- New York Post gossip columnist Neal Travis publishes the unsubstantiated rumor that Mets catcher Mike Piazza is gay; smitten by the resulting bad karma, Travis drops dead a month later.

- Michael Jackson makes the goofy assertion that the reason his 2001 album flopped is because he’s black.

- Kirby Puckett is exposed by multiple former mistresses as violent and abusive, is arrested for sexual assault, and divorces his wife Tonya.

- After Jerry Falwell calls the prophet Muhammad a terrorist on “60 Minutes,” a riot breaks out in India in which nine people are killed.

- In what National Review calls an “anti-small market hate crime,” two drunken, shirtless Chicago White Sox fans run out onto the field of Comiskey Park during a game and beat up Kansas City Royals first base coach Tom Gamboa.

- Spurred on by noted hip-hop expert Bill O’Reilly, hundreds of angry callers pressure Pepsi into firing rapper Ludacris from his endorsement deal.

- Eminem taints his otherwise perfect year by picking a fight with a puppet (Triumph the Insult Comic Dog) at the MTV Video Music Awards.

- And at year’s end, Saddam Hussein, Yasser Arafat, and (probably) Osama Bin Laden all remain tragically alive.