Rewind: 2012

Wall of tapes

If you’re reading this, you might have noticed that the world didn’t end on 21-12-2012 as supposedly forecast by the Mayans. Our little blue marble continues to spin and orbit around the sun although, lest we forget, an asteroid named “4179 Toutatis” did make a close fly-by a scant few days ago. All the hype was for nothing, as was the fearmongering about the possible black hole caused by firing up the Large Hadron Collider.

No, as this past year has proven, humans are quite adept at destroying themselves the old-fashioned way; in 2012 there were more shootings and mass-killings than I can remember: US soldier Robert Bales went on a drunken rampage and shot 16 civilians (Kandahar, Afghanistan), another dimwit shot several “The Dark Knight Rises” movie-goers (Aurora, Colorado), some 19 churchgoers at the Deeper Christian Life Ministry got mowed down (Okene, Nigeria), and a maniac killed children and teachers at the Sandy Hook Elementary School (Newtown, Connecticut). Not to be outdone, a man knifed some 22 children (nobody died) in a village named Chenpeng (Henan, China), some 34 striking mine workers got massacred by police at Marikana (near Rustenburg, South Africa), and a right-wing idiot named Wade Michael Page shoots six Sikhs whom he mistakes for Muslims (Oak Creek, Wisconsin).

The latter incident prompted 2012 to be the first year that real censorship took place at Discogs: Wade had played in a few white power rock bands; their albums were soon banned from the marketplace.

Speaking of censorship: Twitter deployed its nation-specific (Germany) blocking tool for the first time. Vladimir Putin is Russia’s dictator president again and promptly had members of punk collective Pussy Riot arrested. François Hollande became French president, and Obama was granted “four more years”. Lizzie celebrated her 60th year on the throne of England before getting flown to the London Olympic Games by James Bond.

2012 summarised in five pictures of faces

The bearded masses got exceedingly violent after a crappy movie called “Innocence of Muslims” appeared on YouTube, and the “Gangnam Style” music video became the first to achieve over a billion views even though it “is not available in Germany because it may contain music for which GEMA has not granted the respective music rights”. The idiocy continues as Greece and Spain collect their financial bailouts from that same country. Elsewhere in Europe, some 600 people died when a cold spell hit the continent early in 2012. Later in the year, Hurricane Sandy paid a visit to the Caribbean and the Eastern Seaboard. We cared only because it flooded New York.

Before 2012 nobody knew who Joseph Kony was but long before the year was over we stopped caring for invisible children and focussed on the Taliban’s assassination attempt on a 15-year old girl, blogger Malala Yousafzai.

Syria and Israel remain at war with themselves while Apple and Samsung battled it out in court. MegaUpload boss Kim Dotcom got into trouble with the law. Ronald Poppo had his face chewed off in a “Zombie Attack” in Miami. Grumpy Cat usurped Nyan Cat in memedom. Cyclist Lance Armstrong fell from grace while Felix Baumgartner jumped from the edge of space. James Cameron tweeted from the bottom of the ocean.

The elusive Higgs Boson may have been discovered, and a cure for HIV may have also been found. IPv6 was officially launched on 06/06. Windows 8 and the iPhone 5 came out.

We bid farewell to Robin Gibb, Andy Griffith, Larry Hagman, Whitney Houston, Donna Summer, and Beastie Boy Adam Yauch. Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, passed away a few days after the Curiosity rover made it safely to Mars.

The Encyclopaedia Britannica went out of print. SoundUnwound closed without notice and anyone noticing while Cecilia Giménez’s restoration attempt of a Spanish fresco went viral. Angelina Jolie’s leg took on a life of its own. Clint Eastwood spoke to an empty chair.

On a personal note, my wife sold her first painting. An old photo of mine got used in a real book, and I added some 400 tapes into the Discogs database. Most visitors to this blog arrived in 2012 by researching 419-scams via the Moroka couple’s fake South African passports and 2011’s article on Freddie Mercury whereas lately, as is common at this time of the year, everyone’s looking for pictures of “Christmas Babes”.

Well, then let’s continue with the tradition.

Xmas / Christmas babes / girls / chicks

Season’s Greetings and everything that goes with it, and we’ll see each other again in 2013, right? Right. Got lots planned. Keep watching the skies. Watch this space for details.

Image credits: Myself + Google image search

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