2014 was a pretty good year. Here’s the roundups of what the year looked like. My personal video will be up in a few days, so be on the lookout for that.
First up, Google Zeitgeist (stay with it until the end, it’s worth it, I promise):
DJ Earworm’s yearly mashup of the biggest pop songs:
The actual Google Year in Search video:
JibJab’s look at the year:
And finally, YouTube Rewind, which although there’s always a heavy emphasis on the dancing videos, impressed me with the depth of talent involved (Chris Hardwick, Conchica Wurst, Pentatonix, Sam Tsui, etc):
More and more details from the Ferguson Grand Jury are coming out, and they’re showing just how much of a fraud the whole thing was. The Governor (Democrat by the way) assigned an inept prosecutor with an agenda, who then had the grand jury work with previously overturned laws and submitted testimony from “witnesses” he knew were lies.
I’ve recommended “I’m From Driftwood” before, and this is one of their latest videos, really good:
The Salvation Army has a long and well-documented hatred of the LGBT community, and I always encourage people to donate to a different charity. That being said, the bellringers are volunteers and often aren’t that involved with the organization itself, so if they ask, just politely decline and donate elsewhere.
The closing musical segment of The Colbert Report was amazing. Check it out.
And sadly, what we’ve known for years, expanding the T to Oakland would be “problematic,” for a number of reasons. Sadly, it’s just not feasible, not right now. BRT isn’t the answer either, but it looks like that’s what we’re going to try.
Alright, pretty big update, let’s see what we have first.
What is seemingly becoming an epidemic of excessive police force against unarmed minority citizen is staggering. The data supporting the fact is staggering. And the amount of hateful, ignorant comments on social media has led me to a binge of unfriending. I’m surprised to see some of them go, but then I just shout in my head, “Bye, Felicia!”
The vast majorities of cops are good at what they do and caring individuals. The vast majority of protesters are peaceful. And each situation is different, but we’re seeing not only a civil rights crisis, but a total lack of empathy and, in the words of Bryan Safi, “A great injustice occurred and people lost hope.”
And no, reverse racism is not a thing. White privilege exists. If you’re a straight, white, Christian, cis-male, you have privilege in this society, end of story, hard stop. Still not convinced. Check out these real quotes from coverage of all that’s been going on. If you follow no other think on this topic, follow that last one, please.
It’s important to talk about these things, and I only break out of my normal blogging routine when it’s really important. Not to make light of what’s going on, obviously, but as a pallet cleanser, you don’t have to understand this, because, I don’t think anybody can:
And in case you haven’t, here’s the Star Wars teaser:
An Arizona pastor found the “biblical” cure for AIDS: kill all the gays. And then he doubles down and says that all gays are rapists, so you know, justifiable.
In other Sci-Fi, news, I never really watched Friends, but this is genius:
So, you can still be put on trial for Crimes Against Humanity, and it’s about to happen.
A member of the House of Lords says that gays lead miserable, short lives filled with 20,000 sex partners. The math is staggering, and I don’t know who would call that miserable.
And FIFA, the wonderfully corrupt and useless organization, is in trouble coming up to the 2022 Qatar World Cup: they want to ‘regulate’ homosexuality like alcohol, so only allowed in certain hotels and visitors must show passports for entry. So many, many things wrong.
Sometimes, I really love Anonymous, like when they take down hate group websites. They’re also doing some great work digging up all the white-supremacy ties that Ferguson PD has, which is really, really scary.
Gov. Corbett photoshopped an African-American woman into his website imagery, so Brian Sims photoshopped himself in. You know, in case the Governor wants to reach out to the LGBT community too.
I used to read Andrew Sullivan a lot (although he kept moving sites and I never kept up). It always bugged me that he was one of the loudest voices beating the war drums for the U.S. to invade Iraq. And now, apparently, he thinks the murder of Matthew Shepherd wasn’t a hate crime. I’m officially done with the horrible man.
South Park takes a look at the Red****s controversy too:
And finally, Media Matters takes a look at the top 5 myths about anti-discrimination laws, and thankfully, we’re finally make some (very small) progress here in Pa:
Pretty big update today, hope you’ll find something you like!
First up, scientists have figured out a way to kill the emerald ash borer, the invasive beetle destroying America’s forests: by designing a special bug zapper they want to have sex with.
Big news from the Catholic Church, they may allow members to use birth control. I mean, besides the cases they already do. And besides the fact that most members already do. But still, progress!
And also in good news from the Catholic Church, the Pope personally presided over a wedding of 20 couples, including one couple already living together and one couple where the wife already had a child. Redefining matrimony!
In case you haven’t heard, there was a horrific gay-bashing in Philadelphia earlier this month. Sleuths on Twitter figured it out, using clues from social media to identify the suspects. It was revealed that they were former classmates from a Catholic school.
Why do I specifically mention that they went to a Catholic school? Because the Catholic church has a demonstrated record of continuously saying that gay men are intrinsically evil, disordered and should be put to death. Now I don’t know about this specific Catholic school, but the overall record of the Church both in the U.S. and around the world isn’t great, and now they have the audacity to be shocked that their church members would beat up gay men!
Now, the Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia did come out with a statement basically saying “don’t beat up gay people, even if you don’t like them.” Which is a great sentiment, although two points. One, I feel as though any person, Catholic or not, should know that. And two, it’s a little bit late for them to try to backtrack now after years of hatred towards the LGBT community.
So back to the crime: a mob of 12 people beat up two men after they asked if they were a couple since they were holding hands. Think about that brutality for a minute.
Since then, one of the suspects, a basketball coach at a Catholic school was fired (well done) and another suspect who is a nurse was also fired (also since she was sharing patient’s x-rays on Twitter, a big violation of privacy).
But here’s the rub: only three people were charged. Yes, this is an on-going investigation, but that still leaves nine people. And no one will be charged with a hate crime, because sexual orientation and gender identity aren’t covered by PA’s hate crime laws. Brian Sims is making a renewed push for HB/SB 300, which would add those classes to the hate crimes laws (in addition to those with disabilities), and he brought some of the victims and their representatives to Harrisburg to lobby.
The phone hacking that resulted in a bunch of celebrity nudes is a crime. But we all need to remember this diagram (in regards to pictures, bank accounts, etc):
Because homosexuality is not a voluntary condition and homosexuals are among the most stigmatized, misunderstood, and discriminated-against minorities in the history of the world, the disparagement of their sexual orientation, implicit in the denial of marriage rights to same-sex couples, is a source of continuing pain to the homosexual community.
