Finding God in a Dog

CHEERS to progress on an Iranian nuclear deal, which could sink, once and for all, the case for war with Iran. Naturally, Bibi is not happy.

Feh to NATO, which can't make up their minds about what to do about the Ukraine Civil War. France and Germany, of course, want peace. The US and UK, of course, want to show NATO's strength, even if it means turning the war into another proxy war between the US and the Russian Federation. You'd think that one such proxy war would be enough.

CHEERS to same-sex marriage in Alabama. If SCOTUS's refusal to grant a stay is any indication, we can expect a 7-2 ruling declaring SSM-bans unconstitutional, with Scalia and Thomas dissenting. (Which would mean that I is right about the margin, my high school classmate is right about Scalia, and we're both wrong about Alito.)

JEERS to Samsung. In 1984 America, you watched television. In 2015 America, television watches you.

JEERS to Brian Williams for making shit up about his close encounter in Afghanistan. Now that that's done, maybe the Tea Party idiots can stop over-reaching about it.

CHEERS to the GOP for finally realizing that Sarah Palin is a fucking moron. CHEERS also to Bill Mahr for calling them out for being so blinded by partisanship that they didn't see it sooner.

CHEERS to the series Carmilla. Yes, I binge-watched the whole first "season" one day. (Quit looking at me like that — it's engaging stuff! And the Night Vale influence is quite obvious.) More on how "lesbian vampires" have become mainstream here.

JEERS to the Grammy Awards. You'd think, among all the autofellatio in the entertainment industry, they'd at least dedicate a few seconds in their "in memory" segment to the undoubtedly influential David Brockie.

And now for the end of the year CHEERS and JEERS.

CHEERS to the Dakota oil boom. Yes, fracking and local inflation have caused a lot of problems, but consider what the oil boom has bought us: jobs, cheap gas ($2.13 a gallon for the cheap stuff!!!), more consumer spending, more jobs, and both Russia and Iran have found themselves between a rock and a hard place. Americans are confident about the economy for the first time since Obama took office. And it's all going to be great as long as the oil doesn't run out...........

JEERS to the Ferguson PD, Special Prosecutor Robert McColloch, Ferguson Mayor James Knowles III ("There's no racial divide" - really?), and Missouri Governor Jay Nixon. Killing Mike Brown was bad enough. The bungled, antagonistic response to the community made things a thousand times worse. Things are going to need to change, and those changes include firing the mayor and the governor in the next elections. Which brings us to....

JEERS to the special prosecutor in the Eric Garner case. Maybe I should cheer him, since he made it crystal clear that even body cameras won't be sufficient to hold people accountable for excessive force; but the simple fact is that he didn't do his job. In case you're wondering, all these marches are basically demanding one thing: that you do your job and hold police accountable when they screw up.

JEERS to the Black Bloc --- the anarchist wing that's hijacked the police brutality protests in order to turn them to a call for revolution. Thanks for making it harder for the rest of the protesters to get their message across, you idiots.

JEERS to the Democratic Party. Bad campaigning and worse messaging doomed them in 2014; and, having abandoned the 50-state strategy in 2008, they are now left with little or no bench to speak of for the upcoming, very critical, 2018 and 2022 elections. Karl Rove envisioned a permanent Republican majority; the Democrats seem determined to do the bulk of the work towards that goal for him.

CHEERS to the European Space Agency for landing a robot on a fucking comet; to NASA for finding methane vents on Mars, which might point to actual microbial life; and to NASA again for finding over seven hundred planets orbiting other stars. We clever monkeys deserve to give ourselves a collective high-five for that.

JEERS to the European Space Agency's PR staff. You could have at least asked Matt Taylor to change shirts.

CHEERS to the end of the war in Afghanistan. Now that that's over, here's hoping we don't get involved in Iraq any time soon......actually, who am I kidding? We're going back to Iraq to clean up our mess one more time. As Jello Biafra said back in 1990....we can never, ever leave. So I hereby rescind my CHEER.

JEERS to John McCain. Last year we had to give weapons to ISIS to beat the Assad regime in Syria. This year we have to give weapons to the Assad regime in Syria to beat ISIS. Maybe the answer was to leave the Middle East alone the whole time? Are we ready to discuss that possibility yet? Maybe?

JEERS to Bill Cosby for decades of drugging young starlets. Ultimately it means that your career, once celebrated, now resembles a teacher's strike --- no class.

JEERS to the mainstream media's handling of the Ebola crisis. Boy, that was sure a hot story when the Republicans were making the case that things were bad under the Obama administration. Then the election happened, the outbreak in Dallas was contained, and the story just...went away. Almost like Ebola disappeared. Except that it hasn't, and now it's worse than ever, with over 20,000 infected and almost 8,000 dead, mostly in West Africa. Maybe the story got boring, but it's going to come back with a vengeance if the international community can't get it under control. You think that story would be worth reporting, but apparently not.

CHEERS to Taylor Swift. I'm not a huge fan of pop music in general, but you kicked ass this year. Congratulations on having the only album of 2014 to be certified platinum; you certainly deserve it.

CHEERS to the Oregon Ducks on their kick ass season. Now let's beat Florida State!

CHEERS to all our friends and colleagues from the World Horror Convention, the Lovecraft Film Festivals, and the Esoteric Book Conference. Thank you for making this a kick-ass year for me and SC. 2015 is going to be even busier and better for us! See you there?

CHEERS to Nate Pedersen and everyone else who participated in The Starry Wisdom Library. To quote contributor Edward Morris, "This is CANON! Mythos CANON!" SC's delight in particpaing in this project is only matched by my giddy, childlike delight at having so many friends and loved ones pitch in.

JEERS to everyone who keeps the Kardashian machine going by talking about them. Shut up. Sweet Jesus, just SHUT UP, so they can go away and never come back.

CHEERS to my long time pal C on her blossoming acting career. Do us proud!

CHEERS to Morbid Angel, Kreator, Arch Enemy, GWAR, Decapitated, Broken Bells, Deicide, Three Leg Torso, The Nowhere Men, The Wanderlust Circus, and everyone else who left it all on stage.

CHEERS to TeXShop and Atom, my favorite technological discoveries of 2014.

CHEERS to Veronica Chaos. Thank you for singing a duet with me at Jeff Burk's Halloween party.

CHEERS to Heather, Laura and D for being my friend these last twenty years. It's been a hard road for me, and I appreciate you helping me through it.

CHEERS to you for reading, and Happy 2015!

And now, ladies and gents, here are the CHEERS and JEERS for 2012.

CHEERS to Nate Silver. Fifty states predicted, fifty states got. In the weeks up to the election, Silver gave Obama a three-to-one shot at winning, which eventually converged on 90%. The Romney campaign, desperate to have some other narrative to keep their voters motivated, came up with this fiction of skewed polls; what's worse, they believed their own press, so that their loss, rather than expected, was actually shocking. Silver became a genius hero for millions of progressives. Statistics - that subject for which I used to be a teaching assistant at Loyola University - became cool. Flawless victory. Needless to say, I gave my mom a copy of his book.

JEERS to Nate Silver's evil counterpart, Karl Rove. Apparently, having "the math" isn't so great when "the math" is founded on bullshit. It led to one of the great meltdowns in political broadcasting history:



Needless to say, Rove has been benched by Fox.

DOUBLE JEERS to every asshat that has decided to validate their existence by shooting up a public place; may their names be forgotten. Now we're having a national batshit crazy primal scream about falsely so-called "assault weapons." We're also, for reasons that are entirely self-serving for the NRA, having a nonetheless long overdue national conversation about mental health care reform. We're talking about an armed response in schools. A long-overdue conversation about how our society accepts violence as a way to affirm one's masculinity? Not so much. Without that conversation, it doesn't really matter what we ban or how many police we add; it's only a matter of time before the next emasculated asshole shoots up - or blows up, or sets on fire - the next mall, school, church, etc.

DOUBLE CHEERS to incoming Senator Elizabeth Warren. In 2011, a Republican House Committee Chair accused her of lying about the hearing schedule. In 2012, she beat GOP darling Scott Brown for Ted Kennedy's old Senate seat. In 2013, she'll be on the Senate Banking Committee. Now the real effort to fix 2008 can begin.

CHEERS to FaceBook stock. Yeah, yeah, I know, at $38/share, the IPO was WAY overvalued. Those of us who don't get to participate in IPOs, on the other hand, got to buy at $20/share. Now it's up to $28/share. So, while you assholes are crying about your losses, some of us are making bank. Thanks! Now, if only FaceBook can find a way to monetize their services without creeping the rest of us the fuck out. Maybe with some tweaks to their gifts service?

JEERS to CNN and Fox News, both, for their inglorious, perverse botch of the Obamacare ruling. On the bright side, we had a good laugh at your expenses. Maybe from now on you'll take your time and read the fucking ruling before trying so hard to get the scoop.

JEERS to Michelle Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain, Rick Santorum, and all the other little idiots that were also-rans to Mitt Romney. Congrats on making Mitt look moderate and sane in comparison.

DOUBLE JEERS to the last remnants of the vaccine conspiracy theorists. Look, Andrew Wakefield's research has been thoroughly debunked. The man's even won a lifetime achievement award for quackery. Can you please admit you're wrong and give your kids their fucking shots already?

DOUBLE JEERS to Keith Olbermann. Look, getting fired from Fox Sports is praiseworthy. Getting let go from MSNBC after single-handedly rebuilding their brand is regrettable. Getting fired in a grand hissy fit from Current TV? That's just pathetic. Good luck searching your soul; your career, if you ever have one again, is going to need it.

TRIPLE JEERS to NBC Sports, Bob Costas, Meredith Viera, and Matt Lauer, for the absolute worst Olympics coverage you could imagine, particularly at the opening and closing ceremonies. Sometimes, the best thing to do is to tell your falsely-so-called talent to Shut The Fuck Up and let us enjoy the show. Thanks for making this once every four years event completely unwatchable, you idiots.

QUADRUPLE JEERS to all the crazy-making anti-woman shit that seemed to fill every nook and cranny of 2012. Whether it's Binders Full Of Women, Legitimate Rape, sexual harassment of gamers, or the death of a rape victim in India, one can only hope that enough horrible shit has happened in the public view for the mainstream to Wake The Fuck Up.

JEERS to Climate Change for making the lives of friends and loved ones in the UK, Pacific Northwest, and New York City that much more stressful.

JEERS to President Obama for making hunter-killer robots roaming the skies above us somehow acceptable. Seriously, what the fuck?

JEERS to KPOJ management for switching formats from Progressive Talk to Sports. Because, you know, we needed another sports station. Screw you guys, and I hope terrestrial radio finally dies out.

JEERS to the entire cast of The Jersey Shore (and good goddamn riddance); The Learning Channel for being anything but; Dianne Feinstein for actively seeking to undermine the Second, Fourth and Fifth Amendments; Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock for raising the bar on incredible batshit craziness; the Kony 2012 movement for giving hipsters something to feel self-righteous about; and the 2012 Mayan Calendar Conspiracy for making the "New Age" hold on just that much longer.

CHEERS to Milagro Theater for their kick-ass production of Oedipus El Rey. True magic. Deserving of every award it received, which was a lot of them.

DOUBLE CHEERS to Sam Adams, outgoing Mayor of Portland, for some damn fine work. Gonna miss you.

CHEERS to Sylosis for the kick-ass album Monolith; Breaking Bad for the best show on television; Dr. George Seig for his collected essays; Jeremy Robert Johnson for We Live Inside You; David Shoemaker for his excellent treatment of Phyllis Seckler's writings; The Oatmeal for this awesome smack-down of a lawsuit troll; The Roots for being able to make even the shittiest music good; and the Chicago Bears for a hell of a run this year.

CHEERS a dozen or so close friends who made this year bearable. Most of them aren't on LJ, but a few of them - including nowgoesquickly and victorine - are. Thank you.

CHEERS to ednoled on his victorious return to Cascadia.

CHEERS to skeletoncrew for continuing to kick ass.

CHEERS to you for reading this. Happy New Year!