RIP Perspective, we hardly knew ye...

Hey, so like Happy New Year. Our planet has now made two thousand, thirteen laps around the sun since a guy who may or may not have been magic was possibly, but by no means certainly, born.

"Happy New Year! Wooo 32 B.C.!
Hey, what the hell are we counting down to?"

-Some Roman

Pictured: Thomas Kinkade
pushing the envelope.

Anyway, New Year's is traditionally a time to reflect on the year, make resolutions for new one and for some reason rattle off a list of dead people. Now I should mention that part of the tradition is that we only bother mentioning famous people. You and me? No one cares. Doomed to obscurity. You know who does make the list? 'Artist' Thomas Kinkade. Yeah. Is that even fair? No, of course not, have you seen his work? There is no justice. Anyway, dead now are Dick Clark, Ernest Borgnine, Whitney Houston, Andy Griffith, Donna Summer, Gore Vidal, Maurice Sendak and George Jefferson.

C'mon, give me one good reason we can't
posthumously declare Ray Bradbury
Emperor of Mars. Just one good reason.

Cultists lost the King of the Moonies, Reverend Sun Myung Moon, Sesame Street lost Jerry Nelson, the voice of the Count, S.H.E.I.L.D. lost agent Phil Coulson and everyone lost Phyllis Diller. Fans of space and the future were especially hard hit loosing Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, Ray Bradbury and Neil Armstrong. That's right, until this year we were all sharing the planet with the first person to ever set foot on the goddamn moon.

Hoping for a raise this year? Send a
couple of these Moloch's way and he'll
see what he can do.

No loss however, will be felt more keenly than that of our species' sense of Perspective. The cognitive ability to place one's own opinion and point of view into the context of the larger human experience succumbed to bullshit related analogies this year. Yup, 2012 saw smoking bans and gun control compared to genocide, the separation of Church and State compared to the crucifixion and gayness compared to the practice of sacrificing babies to the ancient Phoenician deity Moloch. Perspective, you will be missed.

Todd Aiken is still in congress somehow.
You can contact him here. Enjoy!

Perspective's untimely demise also coincided with Republicans using the word rape the way the rest of us use punctuation. For example, disagree with something? Then it's just like rape. Oh and women who become pregnant as a result of rape? They're probably liars and were secretly into it according to Congressman Todd Aiken. Know what else? Sometimes God causes rapes because he loves babies so much. Don't think about it too hard, you'll only burst a blood vessel.

That was way, way too close people.
I mean, holy shit, could you imagine?

Of course 2012 wasn't all death and rape analogies. I mean, the President did win the election (despite the State of Florida), marriage equality referenda passed in three more states, and we narrowly avoided not one but two apocalypses (both the Mayan thing and Michael Bay's TMNT reboot). And in a move I certainly never saw coming, George Lucas has decided to turn Star Wars over to someone else and is now planning to give the billions of dollars he made off the deal to charity thus forcing us to take back every bad thing we ever said about him.

Now when I complain about Episode II sucking, I'm the jerk. Well played Lucas, well played.

Above: Obi-Wan Kenobi getting the low down from a cockroach in a space diner.
Idiotic? You bet. But George Lucas is giving $4 billion to charity, so shut the hell up. 

"Ever hear of the Medieval Warm period?
It proves that global warming is part of
a natural...glub....glub....glub..."

All in all 2012 was ok. In many ways it kind of turned out like The Hobbit: kind of slow in parts, with some moments that were just unnecessary, but otherwise well acted and with no shortage of trolls. Ok, so New York did almost slip under the waves like an overpriced Atlantis with no parking, but on the other hand we can point to the flooding in Queens next time some jackass dismisses climate change as part of a natural cycle, so you know, bright side...